REJUVENATING ILLINOIS HISTORY

Greetings, history lovers. 

As an Author and Illinois Historian, I enjoy learning about our state’s history and presenting the stories and photographs that make Illinois' history come alive. In my opinion, the next evolution of a modern-day historian is to interact with history by allowing others to add to the richness of the article presentations with additional facts, photographs, and personal and family experiences. This is where a Facebook group excels by allowing feedback, comments, videos, photographs, and images to be added to the presentations, enriching the experience of all readers.

The resources below help students with research and preparation for the Chicago Metro History Fair, and the Illinois Regional History Fairs, all leading up to the state final competition on Illinois History Day held in Springfield, Illinois, each May.

In October 2012, I started the Facebook group and named it Living History of Illinois and Chicago®. People from around the world and from all walks of life have joined to participate in this social history venue, forming one of the most interesting educational and entertaining groups on Facebook. The group hosts Junior and Senior High School (6th-12th grades) history and social studies classes with their educators for lesson plans.

I've recruited dozens of Illinois community, township and county Historical Societies, History Museum Directors, Museum Curators, and career Historians to join the group. Many of the members are in public service, including Mayors and former Mayors from towns and cities all over Illinois. In addition, the group is loaded with local media broadcasters, including news anchors and researchers from NBC, ABC, CBS, and other TV and cable networks, plus radio personalities from around the state. The group boasts about having a number of professional photographers on board who share their own photographs of historic places in Illinois.

In 2013, I started the Digital Research Library of Illinois History®. The Library includes a few of my personal research papers, including a series about ‘Lost Town of Illinois’, ‘Chicago’s Forgotten Neighborhoods’, and ‘Defunct Amusement Parks of Illinois’. The Library is sanctioned by and linked to the Chicago Metro History Fair, the Illinois History Fair website and the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency (IHPA) as a prime resource for students, educators and the public.

Because of Facebook’s restrictions on each group's number of posted images stored (approx. 5000 per group) the oldest ones are deleted when new ones are posted. I found it necessary to create a way of -- "Saving Illinois History, One Story at a Time." -- before the posts on Facebook get deleted. On November 6, 2016, I founded the Digital Research Library of Illinois History Journal™. The Journal presents Illinois history in a friendlier format. Being membership-free, anybody online can add their comments to the postings in the Journal.

On July 28, 2020, I was removed and blocked from an Abraham Lincoln Facebook group because I provided proof that the post a member made was not at all truthful. Little did I know the person was the group's Administrator. After sleeping on the issue, I decided to start a new Facebook group the next morning, July 29th, and named it "Abraham Lincoln Forum™." After setting up the new group, I began inviting people to join the next morning. In the first two weeks, we had over 1,200 members.

I offer our members and the general public a free Daily Illinois Newspaper. The Living History of Illinois Gazette™ which has current news from all over the state of Illinois.  

To offset the costs of hosting and management fees for the Digital Research Library of Illinois History®, Digital Research Library of Illinois History Journal™, and the Living History of Illinois Gazette™, I opened an online store with unique Illinois and Chicago logoed items that I personally designed or re-created. The Illinois History Store® profits fund these Illinois history projects.

Respectfully,

Neil Gale, Ph.D.