Lois Graham McDowell was the first woman in United States to earn a Mechanical Engineering Ph.D.

Lois Graham (known early in her career as Lois Graham McDowell or Lois G. McDowell) (1925–2013) was a professor of thermodynamics and cryogenics. She was the first woman to earn a mechanical engineering Ph.D. in the United States.

Graham is remembered for her lifelong work recruiting young women into careers in science and engineering. She taught for nearly 40 years in the Illinois Institute of Technology's Mechanical, Materials and Aerospace Engineering program in Chicago. Graham founded IIT's Women in Science and Engineering program, which recruited female high school students into science and engineering careers.

Graham was born in 1925 and grew up in Troy, NY, one of three siblings. She initially wanted to be a doctor but could not afford medical school. An admirer of Amelia Earhart, Graham also wanted to be a pilot or flight attendant, but those professions at the time had height limitations of 5'3" and weight limitations of 125 pounds. "Well, unfortunately," Graham said in an interview, "I outgrew that career." Interested in aviation, Graham considered aerospace engineering, but as with medical school, she could not afford the tuition.

Lois Graham 1946

By the time she graduated from high school in the spring of 1942, Graham had settled on attending a state college for teachers in nearby Albany, NY. That summer, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), where Graham's father taught, announced that it would admit female students for the first time, and children of employees could attend for free. Graham enrolled, first attending summer classes, and then enrolling full-time, one of the first four women to be admitted. She followed an accelerated schedule that was available during World War II. Graham became one of the first two women to graduate with a degree at RPI (Class of 1946), and the first woman from the university to graduate with a degree in mechanical engineering.

After graduating from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Graham worked as a test engineer at the Carrier Corporation, leaving after 18 months to pursue a master's degree. According to Graham, she was turned away by MIT (who requested "every single textbook I had used when I was in college and every portion of that textbook I had covered"), CalTech (who sent her a postcard stating, "We do not accept women"), and the University of Illinois (who told her, "we cannot accept out-of-state students at this time"), but was offered a teaching assistantship by the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) in Chicago.

In 1949, Graham became the first female faculty member in IIT's engineering department, and the first female graduate student accepted into its Mechanical, Materials and Aerospace Engineering program. IIT had to make an adjustment upon her arrival: converting a small closet into a ladies restroom. Later that year, Graham earned a master's degree in mechanical engineering, the first woman at IIT to do so.[

Even early in her career, Graham received attention for being a woman in a male-dominated field. In September 1953, Graham was featured in Popular Science, which ran a picture of her, identified as "Lois G. McDowell."

A woman engineer, Lois G. McDowell, teaches thermodynamics at Illinois Tech. She is glad that other women, at her school and elsewhere, are studying to become engineers. Popular Science, September 1953.

Graham was a fellow life member of the Society of Women Engineers, which she joined in 1952, two years after it was founded. At SWE, Graham's worked focused on increasing the number of women pursuing careers in engineering, science, and math. She wrote articles published by SWE advocating for improving the career counseling available to young women, and for increasing the recruitment of young women into the engineering field in order to end a shortage of engineers in the country. To bolster her arguments, Graham marshaled allies by citing other influential people from outside academia who had spoken favorably about women in engineering. For example, in one article, Graham employed a quote by Arthur Sherwood Flemming (then the Director of the Office of Defense Mobilization, and later US President Dwight D. Eisenhower's Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare), in which he said, "[W]e haven't got a chance in the world of taking care of that deficit of engineers... unless we get women headed in the direction of engineering schools." Graham argued that young women could not only help themselves, but also help their country, by pursuing careers in engineering.

Graham served as SWE's fourth national president from 1955 until 1956. In 1955, SWE released a 40-page report entitled Women in Engineering, aimed at influencing how female engineers were viewed by the public. Graham has said in an interview that an early title under consideration for the booklet was "Petticoats and Slide Rules." The report listed accredited engineering programs, their curricula and prerequisites. It also included information about scholarships for women, statistics about women in the engineering field, and suggested reading lists. SWE distributed the Women in Engineering booklet to over 400 high schools around the United States, as well as colleges and universities, corporations and government agencies, and engineering societies. Ultimately, the enthusiastic response led to SWE running out of copies of Women in Engineering, and a new edition was issued in 1958.

In 1959, Graham was awarded a Ph.D. by IIT and became the first US woman to earn a mechanical engineering Ph.D. Her doctoral work focused on the field of combustion, and her dissertation thesis was entitled Effect of adding a combustible to atmosphere and surrounding diffusion flame.

In 1974, Graham became assistant director for Engineering and Science. The following year, she was promoted to full professor, a rare rank for a woman to hold at the time. In 1977, she was named Program Director for IIT's Education and Experience in Engineering Program. She also served as the Director of IIT's Minorities in Engineering Program. In 1979, she was listed as a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellow. In 1980, she received the IIT Professional Achievement Award, and in 1991, the IIT Julie Beveridge Award.

In 1981, Graham founded IIT's Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) program. WISE employed women engineers in the private, public, and academic sectors, as well as graduate and undergraduate students, to engage directly with female high school students in order to increase enrollment of women into college engineering programs. WISE had a three-prong approach: encouraging high school girls in a supportive environment to pursue what are today termed STEM careers; engaging them in hands-on activities that expose them to various math-and science-related fields; and preparing them to pursue an undergraduate engineering degree by advising on course selection, college applications, and similar matters. Fall, winter, and summer programs were offered, usually free of charge, in which female high school students attended college lectures, networked with engineering students, faculty, and professionals, and participated in hands-on projects inside and outside of the laboratory, such as building a generator or planning a moon colony. WISE also educated parents, teachers, and counselors about the opportunities available to young women to pursue math and science careers.

After 39 years at IIT, Graham retired in 1985 and moved back to upstate New York. On December 8, 1999, Graham was awarded the Person of the Millennium award by IIT students, an award, Graham said, she "prized above all others."

On June 6, 2003, Graham was interviewed for SWE's Oral History Project. On September 19, 2003, Graham was inducted to the RPI Hall of Fame. Graham died on November 4, 2013, at the age of 88. An obituary in Watertown Daily Times wrote, "To her beloved grandchildren she was simply 'Grandma Lois.' But to thousands of female mechanical engineers in this country, she was a pioneer and role model."

In 2010–2011, Graham was an American Association of University Women named scholarship honoree. She was also nominated to be a National Women's History Project National Women's History Month honoree in 2013. In 2015, Graham was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by IIT.

A 2007 article published in the International Journal of Mechanical Engineering Education entitled Outstanding Women in Mechanical Engineering described Graham as, "Recognized for her contributions as an educator to thermodynamics and cryogenics." RPI has written that Graham's "academic and professional career paved the way for women and minority engineers." IIT has described her as a "pioneer in the field of mechanical engineering."

Graham has also been credited for her work at SWE and ASHRAE (where she was the first woman fellow) to improve career counseling available to young women, and for her recruitment of young women into science and engineering fields.

Earned Degrees:
Bachelor of Science, Mechanical Engineering (B.S.ME), Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 1946.
Master of Science, Mechanical Engineering (M.S.ME), Illinois Institute of Technology, 1949.
Doctor of Philosophy, Mechanical Engineering (Ph.D.ME), Illinois Institute of Technology, 1959.

Awards, Honors, and Memberships:
Fellow Life Member and National President (1955–1956), Society of Women Engineers (SWE)
National Science Foundation Graduate Fellow (1979)
Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) Professional Achievement Award (1980)
IIT Julie Beveridge Award (1991)
IIT Person of the Millenium (1999)
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Hall of Fame (2003)
American Association of University Women Named Scholarship Honoree (2010–2011)
Nominee, National Women's History Project National Women's History Month Honoree (2013)
IIT Lifetime Achievement Award (2015)
First female Fellow, American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE)
Member, American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME)
Member, American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE)
Member, American Association of University Women (AAUW)
Member, Phi Tau Sigma
Member, Tau Beta Pi
Member, Sigma Xi

Compiled by Neil Gale, Ph.D. 

Nineteen year old Alta May Hulett became the first woman admitted to the Illinois bar in 1873.

Miss Alta May Hulett was born in Rockton, Illinois, on June 4, 1854. Hulett learned morse code and telegraphy when she was 10 years old and, for some time, was a successful operator.

Hulett graduated from Rockford High School in 1870 at the age of 16. She started her career as a schoolteacher but quickly decided to follow other prominent lawyers in her family and study law. She engaged in a self-taught course of reading law each evening following a day in the classroom teaching. Within a few months, she clerked in the law office of prominent Rockford attorney William Lathrop to continue her legal studies. When she pursued her legal studies, the Illinois Supreme Court had already denied Myra Bradwell's application for admission to the bar, and the case was on appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Undeterred by the possible obstacles, she continued her legal studies and passed the bar examination in 1871. She applied for admission to the Illinois bar, and the Illinois Supreme Court quickly denied her petition because she was a woman. Opposed to taking an appeal of the decision as Myra Colby Bradwell did. Hulett decided to try to enter the bar by changing the law.

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Bradwell attempted to become the first woman to be admitted to the Illinois bar, but was denied admission by the Illinois Supreme Court in 1870 and the U.S. Supreme Court in 1873 in a ruling upholding a separate women's sphere.

At 18, she began a strenuous campaign lobbying the Illinois legislature and garnering public support for a law making it illegal to discriminate based on sex. The bill read as follows:

Section 1. Be it enacted by the People of the State of Illinois, represented by the general assembly: That no person shall be precluded or debarred from any occupation, profession, or employment (except military) on account of sex; provided that the act shall not be construed to affect the eligibility of any person to an elective office.

In her lobbying efforts, Ms. Hulett used the same two basic arguments she forwarded in her bar application which had been denied by the Illinois Supreme Court. First, she argued that women, as human beings, had the right to be attorneys. Second, and possibly more controversial at the time, she argued that women had the same ability and intellectual capacity as men and, therefore, could practice on an equal level.

Eight months later, Miss Hulett's bill was signed into law. Illinois legislators had slightly amended the bill, inserting military service and road construction as exceptions to women's open access to occupations.

Nineteen-year-old Alta May Hulett became the first woman admitted to the Illinois bar in 1873.

Illinois was the first state to enact a law giving women access to the legal profession. The law also was the first piece of legislation in the country that prohibited sex discrimination in employment.

For Alta May Hulett, the law opened the legal profession to women, allowing each to practice law. In 1873, Ms. Hulett was required to take the bar for a second time and passed the examination with the highest score to date. At 19, Alta May Hulett became the first woman in Illinois admitted to the bar.

Hulett entered practice immediately in Chicago, earning the respect of the male-dominated bar as a strong advocate for her clients. Hulett's career was characterized as exceptional, and it was noted she never lost a jury trial. Hulett also was the first woman in Illinois to hold the office of Notary Public, and one of the first admitted to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

Hulett's legal career was tragically cut short when she was diagnosed with pulmonary consumption (Tuberculosis of the lungs) in November of 1876. The illness forced her early retirement from law, and she moved to California, hoping a warmer climate would improve her health. Friends said that Hulett was heartbroken that she could no longer practice law and feared that men opposed to women lawyers would use her case as proof that women were too weak to practice law. Alta May Hulett died on March 26, 1877, before her 23rd birthday. Alta May Hulett is buried at Mount Hope Cemetery in San Diego, California.

Alta May Hulett opened the legal profession in Illinois, and throughout the United States, for all women. She fought to ensure women's equality during a time of great inequality. Another pioneering woman attorney, Grace Harte, wrote a tribute to Hulett, noting her devotion and dedication to women in the legal profession. Ms. Harte's tribute is as applicable today as it was in the past:

"Even among the latecomers in the law profession, her name and works are not the living force they are entitled to be. What she did for those that followed and are still unconsciously following in her footsteps is not fully appreciated, and the smooth path she has left for them to follow is taken as a matter of course."

The Chicago Bar Association established "The Alta May Hulett Award" in 1994. Named for the first woman lawyer in Illinois, it is presented to a woman who meets the criteria for the Founder's Award but has been qualified to practice law for fifteen years or less.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

Maud Powell, an American Violinist Pioneer (1867-1920)

Minnie "Maud" Powell was born on August 22, 1867 in Peru, Illinois. She was the first American violinist to achieve international rank. Her mother was Wilhelmina "Minnie" Bengelstraeter Powell, and her father was William Bramwell Powell. William wrote numerous books such as "The Normal Course of Reading" and served as superintendent of Peru Elementary School District 124 from 1862 to 1870. 

Around the age of 7, she began violin and piano lessons in Aurora, located in Kane County, Illinois, a western suburb of Chicago. She was soon recognized as a prodigy and at age 9 began four years of being taken to Chicago for piano study with Agnes Ingersoll and violin study with William Lewis. When she was 13, her parents sold the family home to raise funds to continue her musical education.

With her father remaining behind in rented rooms, she traveled with her mother and younger brother William to Europe. There she studied under Henry Schradieck at the Leipzig Conservatoire, Charles Dancla at the Paris Conservatoire (after placing first in the entrance exam), and Joseph Joachim at the Berlin Hochschule, among others. In 1885 she played Bruch's G minor concerto in her debut with the Berlin Philharmonic under Joachim's baton, and again with the New York Philharmonic under Theodore Thomas after she returned to the United States around 1897.

When Maud returned to the United States she knew that "girl violinists were looked upon with suspicion," Powell boldly walked into a rehearsal of the all-male New York Philharmonic in Steinway Hall and demanded a hearing from Theodore Thomas, then America's foremost conductor. Deeply impressed, Thomas acknowledged his "musical grandchild" and hired her on the spot to perform the Bruch G minor violin concerto with the New York Philharmonic on November 14, 1885. New York critic Henry E. Krehbiel acclaimed the 18-year-old's debut performance: "She is a marvelously gifted woman, one who in every feature of her playing discloses the instincts and gifts of a born artist."

At that time, American appreciation for her art was in its infancy with only five professional orchestras, no established concert circuits, and few professional managers. Solo engagements were difficult to obtain; doubly difficult for a female artist and an American since all orchestra players and conductors were male and generally German.

Yet she refused to be lured into a comfortable career in Europe. Her pioneering spirit preferred to face the challenges of the raw, uncultured American continent. From 1885 forward, Theodore Thomas's "musical grandchild" made it her mission to cultivate a higher and more widespread appreciation for her art by bringing the best in classical music to Americans in remote areas as well as the large cultural centers. As one of the most capable and thoroughly artistic violin players of her time, with a nature richly endowed with genius, character, and spirit, Maud Powell was ideally suited to her mission.

The young violinist pioneered the violin recital as she blazed new concert circuits throughout the country, even braving the primitive touring conditions in the Far West to reach people who had never heard a concert before. The direct communicative force of Powell's playing, evident in her recordings, stemmed partly from her experience of taking music to people on and off the beaten track. Facing unsophisticated audiences, she began with her uncle John Wesley Powell's premise that "no one can love a symphony who does not first love song." She explained: "I do not play to them as an artist to the public, but as one human being to another." Carefully programming simple melodies with complex sonatas and concertos, she built a bridge of understanding between song and symphony.

The art of violin playing was about to be revolutionized when Maud Powell stepped into the Victor recording studio for the first time in 1904. The unparalleled standard for violin performance that Powell engraved on the spinning wax ushered in the modern age of violin playing and marked the historic marriage of recording technology to the highest achievement in violin playing.

Maud Powell - Sarasate: Zigeunerweisen
Recorded on 10-in disk: November 8, 1904

The Victor Company's choice of Maud Powell to be the first solo instrumentalist to record for its newly inaugurated celebrity artist series (Red Seal label) was no surprise. Maud Powell was internationally recognized as America's greatest violinist who easily ranked among the supreme violinists of the time -- Joseph Joachim, Eugène Ysaÿe, and later, Fritz Kreisler. A popular favorite as well, she won the affection of the American public with her unabashed enthusiasm for the violin.

In November 1904, Maud Powell was ushered into a small, acoustically "dead" room and strategically placed before a large funnel that appeared like the gaping mouth of a dragon. The nearer one could stand to this mechanical monster, the better the recording. The music's vibrations agitated a needle in an adjoining room that scratched impressions of sound waves on the soft, spinning wax from which a record could then be molded.

"I am never as frightened as I am when I stand in front of that horn to play," Maud Powell once explained. There's a ghastly feeling that you're playing for all the world and an awful sense that what is done is done."

Acoustic recording was a wholly mechanical process; electrical recording (with microphone) began in 1925, five years after Powell's death. Yet allied with the impeccable art of Maud Powell, the primitive technology revolutionized the way we hear music.

At a time when music was heard live or not at all, the pioneering Powell welcomed the new technology, knowing that classical music would become popular as it became more familiar through repeated hearings. By January 8, 1917, Powell could give a recital in Carnegie Hall based solely on her recorded repertoire, dramatically demonstrating how her alliance with the talking machine had transformed musical taste.

Never "playing down" to an audience, she performed concertos and sonatas in recital and complex chamber music with the Maud Powell Trio (1908-09) and the Maud Powell Quartet (1894-98). With her innovative recital programming, her own program notes and music journal articles, she steadily elevated her audiences' appreciation for music.

Theodore Thomas chose Maud Powell to represent America's achievement in violin performance at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago -- the only woman violin soloist. During the 1893 Exposition, Powell presented a paper to the Women's Musical Congress, "Women and the Violin," in which she encouraged young women to take up the violin seriously. At a time when women could not vote and were precluded from playing in professional orchestras, she argued that there was no reason why a woman should not play the violin with the best of the men.

Powell herself had proved to the world that a woman could play the violin as well as a man, fulfilling the shared hopes of her mother and woman suffrage leaders Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. As a soloist and one of the first women to lead her own professional string quartet, her example inspired young girls to take up the violin and women to form music clubs and orchestras throughout the land.

America's acknowledged "educator of a nation" played special programs for children and advised young musicians aspiring to a career, including the violinist Louis Kaufman and Juilliard violin teacher Christine Dethier. She performed for the benefit of hospitals and schools and for the soldiers during World War I.

Powell became one of America's most revered and beloved musicians while her 1907 recording of Drdla's Souvenir became the most popular violin record of its day.

Maud Powell toured Europe, North America and South Africa to wide acclaim, appearing with the great orchestras of her time under such conductors as Mahler, Nikisch, Thomas, Safonov, Damrosch, Seidl, Richter, Wood, Herbert, Stock and Stokowski.

She dared to play the most demanding music and to uphold her art before dubious conductors and critics as well as skeptical managers and audiences. Perhaps Powell's greatest artistic triumph was her American premiere (November 30, 1906) of the Sibelius Violin Concerto, which she glowingly described as "a gigantic rugged thing, an epic really....It is on new lines and has a new technique. O, it is wonderful." In his review, New York critic W.J. Henderson asked: "...why did she put all that magnificent art into this sour and crabbed concerto?" Yet in the late twentieth century, the Sibelius Violin Concerto is one of the most recorded of all violin concertos. It was Maud Powell who played it into this honored position in the violin repertoire.

Powell introduced fifteen violin concertos to the American public -- by Tchaikovsky, Dvorák, Saint-Saëns, Lalo, Sibelius, Coleridge-Taylor, Arensky, Aulin, Huss, Shelley, Conus, Bruch and Rimsky-Korsakov. She also revived neglected works of the 18th century, including Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante for violin and viola, and even edited a Locatelli violin sonata for publication.

The native American boldly championed works by American composers Amy Beach, Marion Bauer, Victor Herbert, Cecil Burleigh, Edwin Grasse, John Alden Carpenter, Henry Holden Huss, Henry Rowe Shelley, Arthur Foote, Charles Wakefield Cadman, Grace White.

Composer-pianist Amy Beach dedicated her Romance for Violin and Piano, Op. 23, to Powell which they premiered together at the 1893 Women's Musical Congress. Powell even transcribed music for violin and piano and composed her own cadenza for the Brahms Violin Concerto.

Powell's art -- a synthesis of the major European schools transfused with the American spirit - set an enduring standard for virtuosity and musicianship. With an immense repertoire, she was one of the first to play works from Corelli to Sibelius with masterly breadth of style, absolute technical command and deep interpretive insight. With her American premieres of the Tchaikovsky, Dvo Í ák and Sibelius violin concertos, she advanced violin technique into the modern age.

Powell's records are a fitting testimony to one whose dedication to the violin, music and humanity inspired generations of Americans to cultivate music on their own. Despite their primitive sound, we can still be thrilled by the dash and style of her playing and moved by the power and conviction with which she conveyed her musical message. This rich recorded legacy confirms why the name of Maud Powell stood alongside those of Caruso, Melba, Kreisler and Paderewski as one of the "Victor Immortals."

On November 27, 1919 in St. Louis, Missouri, she collapsed on stage of a heart attack. On January 8, 1920 she died, aged 52, after another heart attack in Uniontown, Pennsylvania while on tour. Ironically, Maud Powell's life of achievement ended the same year that the Nineteenth Amendment granting national suffrage to women was ratified. 

Upon her death the New York Symphony paid tribute to this "supreme and unforgettable artist": "She was not only America's great master of the violin, but a woman of lofty purpose and noble achievement, whose life and art brought to countless thousands inspiration for the good and the beautiful."

By Karen A. Shaffer
Edited by Neil Gale, Ph.D.

Exploring Seventeenth Century "Païs des Illinois," the Illinois Country.

In the late seventeenth century, Pere (Father) Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet explored what would become, a century and a half later, the state of Illinois. Entering the Mississippi River at the mouth of the Wisconsin River, they traveled downstream by canoe along the entire length of Illinois. At the mouth of the Des Moines River, they found a village of the Peoria, one of the tribes that spoke the Illinois language.

Map of western New France, including the Illinois Country, by Vincenzo Coronelli, 1688.

Continuing downstream, they reached the mouth of the Arkansas River. Then, they retraced their route to the confluence of the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers, where they decided to return to Lake Michigan via the Illinois River. Near Starved Rock, on the river's upper reach, Marquette and Jolliet encountered the Kaskaskia, another tribe that spoke the Illinois language. After a visit, the French pushed on to Lake Michigan.

Jolliet lost his journal of the trip when his canoe overturned in the Rapids of La Chine above Montreal, and Marquette's accounts were vague and incomplete. The records of Marquette, Jolliet, and other French explorers provide much of what we know about seventeenth-century Illinois. Still, we can draw upon other evidence about this time and place to create a more detailed picture of the past.

There are many paths to the past—anthropology and archaeology, folklore, history, and natural history—each with a distinctive perspective, but they provide the most complete picture used together. A multidisciplinary approach to the past is beneficial when our destination lies at the frontier of history, where written accounts are sketchy and incomplete.

French Map of North America 1700 (Covens and Mortier ed. 1708)
"PAÏS DE ILINOIS," near the center.

History is the most frequently traveled path to seventeenth-century Illinois. Journals, maps, and other written documents provide firsthand accounts of places, people, and events. Historical accounts are often rich with information and details unavailable from different sources. In this context, folklore is part of history.

Archaeology is a less-traveled path to seventeenth-century Illinois, which is the best means to explore the past without documents or to supplement written records. Such records frequently guide archaeologists to seventeenth-century sites, but it is clear that objects often bear witness to events not otherwise recorded. An archaeologist "reads" objects to create an incomplete record of the past—and usually the only one.

The least-traveled path to seventeenth-century Illinois is natural history, studying past environments. Nature influences Life, and the work of geologists, biologists, and climatologists, among others, provides information about the environment at a particular time and place that allows us to study environmental change over time.

To arrive at the best vista of seventeenth-century Illinois, we must follow each path so our journey begins. The year is A.D. 1600, more than seven decades before Pere Marquette and Louis Jolliet recorded their exploration of the Illinois Country.

The Place: Païs de Illinois, the Illinois Country
Seventeenth-century Illinois would be familiar to us from a distance, but look more closely, and you will see some significant differences. Using historical records such as European crop production reports, botanical studies of pollen deposited in lake-bottom sediment, and other sources of information, Climatologists have identified a period of colder weather worldwide called the "Little Ice Age." Between 550 and 150 years ago, annual average temperatures dropped one to two degrees centigrade, enough to shorten the growing season and cause more severe winters.

Païs de Ilinois (Illinois Country) in 1717 French map.

Based on plant and animal remains discovered during archaeological excavations, the characteristics and distribution of certain soils, and later historical accounts, prairie— mostly wet prairie—dominated the flat lands of seventeenth-century Illinois. Forests persisted in areas of more topographic relief and, spurred by cooler weather, probably expanded their distribution, though enormous fires that periodically raced across the landscape impeded this expansion.

Walking across the state three centuries ago, a traveler would have seen bison, elk, bear, wolf, white-tailed deer, and many other species of animals. However, by the beginning of the nineteenth century, the large mammals were forced to find refuge elsewhere as increasing numbers of Europeans and then Americans settled here and eventually cultivated vast tracts of land.

The People: Indians in the Illinois Country
Historians and archaeologists are often asked, which tribes lived in Illinois before the arrival of the French? This is a simple question but difficult to answer. Without historical documents, archaeologists depend on their ability to recognize artifacts typical of a particular group or culture. For example, Marquette and Jolliet report finding the Kaskaskia tribe near Starved Rock in 1673.

In the late 1940s, based on French documents and maps, archaeologists from the University of Chicago and the Illinois State Museum located the Grand Village of the Kaskaskia, where Marquette and Jolliet had stopped in 1673. While excavating the site, archaeologists found examples of pre-contact artifacts, especially pottery, that they hoped would enable them to locate other Illinois villages that existed before the arrival of the French. They have yet to find late-sixteenth and early-seventeenth-century villages, which generally do not have artifacts comparable to those discovered at the Grand Village. Thus, it is unclear if artifacts found at older sites can be attributed to the Illinois' or another tribe. In short, archaeologists have been unable to link particular artifacts to specific tribes. Thus, we do not clearly understand which tribes lived in Illinois in the early seventeenth century, let alone earlier. In fact, growing evidence suggests that the Illinois tribes had not long been residents of the Illinois Country.

We recognize Marquette and Jolliet as the first Europeans in Illinois, but artifacts provide evidence of direct or indirect European contact before their arrival. Marquette noticed some French trade goods at the Peoria Village on the Mississippi River in 1673. Archaeologists found French trade goods at the Grand Village of Kaskaskia but are still determining whether they predate Marquette and Jolliet. Farther south, near the mouth of the Wabash River, European artifacts have been found on sites occupied during the late 1500s and early 1600s.

In the Chicago suburb of LaGrange, Illinois, the discovery of a 1669 French jeton may be evidence of earlier exploration or trade. Still, it is also possible that the coin was carried for many years before being lost. Nevertheless, these are among the few tantalizing bits of evidence that suggest Indian contacts with Europeans in Illinois are not recorded in historical documents.

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Jetons are tokens or coin-like medals produced across Europe from the 13th through the 17th centuries. They were produced as counters for use in calculation on a counting board or a lined board similar to an abacus.

The Event: French Exploration of the Illinois Country
Archaeological evidence suggests that nearly 150 years before they saw a European, native inhabitants of Illinois were affected by spreading European technology and culture. From the 1490s to the mid-1600s, diseases, changing economic relationships, and a few traded tools and ornaments began an inexorable change in the lives of the Indians. The first recorded contact between French traders and Indians in the Great Lakes region occurred in the 1630s. The first Frenchman who passed over the old trails of southern Illinois in 1673 was a poacher. The Illinois Country, more insular, would soon be recognized as the crossroad of the continent.

Trade is the best context in which to understand early Illinois history. In addition to French documents about trade with Indians, trade goods—glass beads, metal tools, containers, and textiles, among others—are readily identifiable in artifact assemblages from Indian sites.

As trade expanded, Indian tribes in Illinois soon became more important. Based on archaeological research, Indians in Illinois sustained themselves through hunting, gathering, and farming before the arrival of French explorers. Their importance increased because they controlled a part of the continent where all the largest inland waterways converged, thus trade routes. The French called the land "Païs de Illinois," meaning "Country of Illinois." Farming, waterways, and trade routes defined the Illinois Country and its people, then and now.

Exploration offered trading opportunities. Although several European nations established trade colonies on the coasts of North America, only the French built trading posts and, later, more permanent settlements in the middle of the continent.

In the 1500s, the French explored the St. Lawrence River, the northeastern entrance to North America, while the Spanish approached the interior from the south. The search for trade routes to the Far East and Treasure motivated exploration. By the early 1600s, the French had organized Indian trading partners; they built settlements along the St. Lawrence River and called this place New France.

Although New France's trade radiated in all directions, it concentrated in the Great Lakes region. The Great Lakes appeared particularly attractive, with cold lands to the north and English and Dutch colonies to the south. Before the 1650s, Indians carried French trade goods far to the west and returned furs. Some tribes, such as the Iroquois, maintained their importance by preventing French traders from independently exploring the Great Lakes. The poorly known western lands became known as the "Upper Country," from whence flotillas of Indian canoes traveled "down" to New France to obtain goods.

Eventually, the reach of French trade extended to the land of the Illinois tribes. Soon, French traders were aware of a warmer land with large rivers and avenues of trade. These rivers promised the possibility of extending trade even further west, perhaps to the western sea and beyond to Asia.

French policy on expanding its settlements further inland swayed back and forth. The lure of fur trade fortunes and land was at odds with the government's desire to establish a strong colony before expansion. But what if other nations gained control of the interior? Although forbidden to trade in the interior, Canadians found resisting the opportunity for extraordinary profit difficult. In the end, profits won, and by the 1660s, the French had taken up residence in the western Great Lakes. The Illinois Country would be the next frontier.

Illegal French traders may have traversed the Illinois Country in the 1650s, but the expedition of Marquette and Jolliet in 1673 marked a commitment to colonize the area. Jolliet requested permission to establish a settlement, but politics favored René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle (Sieur de La Salle being a title only). La Salle obtained permission to build trading posts, make land grants to followers, and explore the mouth of the Mississippi River. Arriving late in 1679 following setbacks and near disasters, La Salle's party soon established trade on the upper reach of the Illinois River. European artifacts found at Indian villages at Starved Rock and the Grand Village of the Kaskaskia, on the river's opposite bank, mark the beginning of this period of more intensive trade.

French trade expanded in the Great Lakes and Illinois Country during the next two decades. The French built military posts and Catholic missions at Starved Rock, present-day Peoria (where archaeologists continue to search for evidence of French occupation), and elsewhere as more traders arrived. Marriages and subsequent offspring resulted in a Metis society that mixed French and Indian heritage and culture.

The rapid expansion of the fur trade overwhelmed the marketplace and undermined fledgling French settlements in Illinois. Key settlements to the north, including Detroit and Green Bay, continued to grow, but the French maintained only a token presence in Illinois.

Marquette and Jolliet, La Salle, and others explored the Illinois Country, and it remained a little-known area on the frontier in the late seventeenth century. But this would soon change.

Map of settlements in the Illinois Country.
Thomas Hutchins map of 1778.

We must draw upon various resources to explore seventeenth-century Illinois to assemble the most complete picture. Written documents and maps generally provide the most detailed record, but artifacts and "ecofacts" often provide evidence not available elsewhere. Each source of evidence is biased, but a multidisciplinary approach to the past balances bias or at least points out inconsistencies in the evidence. 

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“Ecofacts” are biological objects found at archaeological sites, such as remains of plant and animal foods.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D. 

The Biography of Jane Byrne, Chicago's First Female Mayor.

Jane Margaret Byrne served as the 40th Mayor of Chicago from April 16, 1979, until April 29, 1983, becoming the first female Mayor of Chicago. She was also the first woman to be elected Mayor of a major city in the United States. Before her tenure as Mayor, Byrne served as Chicago's commissioner of consumer sales from 1969 until 1977, the only woman in Mayor Richard J. Daley's cabinet.

Jane Byrne, Chicago's 40th Mayor.

Byrne was born Jane Margaret Burke on May 24, 1933, at John B. Murphy Hospital in the Lake View neighborhood on the north side of Chicago, Illinois. Raised on the city's north side, Byrne graduated from Saint Scholastica High School and attended St. Mary of the Woods College in Indiana for her freshman year of college. Byrne later transferred to Barat College of the Sacred Heart in Lake Forest, Illinois, where she graduated with a bachelor's degree in chemistry and biology in 1965.

Byrne entered politics to volunteer in John F. Kennedy's presidential campaign in 1960. During that campaign, she first met then-Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley. After meeting Daley, he appointed her to several positions beginning in 1964 in a city anti-poverty program.

In June 1965, she was promoted and worked with the Chicago Committee of Urban Opportunity. In 1968, Byrne was appointed head of the City of Chicago's consumer affairs department. In 1972, Byrne was a delegate to the 1968 Democratic National Convention (DNC) and the DNC resolutions committee chairperson in 1973. Byrne was appointed co-chairperson of the Cook County Democratic Central Committee by Daley, despite her rejection by the majority of Democratic leaders, in 1975. The committee ousted Byrne shortly after Daley died in late 1976. Soon after, Byrne accused the newly appointed Mayor, Michael Bilandic, of being unfair to city citizens by placing a 12% increase on cab fare, which Byrne felt resulted from a "backroom deal." Byrne was fired from her post as head of consumer affairs by Bilandic shortly after being made aware of her charges against him in April 1977.

Months after her firing as head of the consumer affairs department, Byrne challenged Bilandic in the 1979 Democratic mayoral primary, the real contest in this heavily Democratic city. Officially announcing her mayoral campaign in August 1977, Byrne partnered with Chicago journalist and political consultant Don Rose, who served as her campaign manager. At first, political observers believed her to have little chance of winning. A memorandum inside the Bilandic campaign said it should portray her as "a shrill, charging, vindictive person—and nothing makes a woman look worse."

However, in January, the Chicago Blizzard of 1979 paralyzed the city and caused Bilandic to be seen as an ineffective leader. Jesse Jackson endorsed Byrne. Many Republican voters voted in the Democratic primary to beat Bilandic. Infuriated voters in the North Side and Northwest Side retaliated against Bilandic for the Democratic Party's slating of only South Side candidates for the Mayor, clerk, and treasurer (the outgoing city clerk, John C. Marcin, was from the Northwest Side).

Mayoral candidate Jane Byrne gives a "V" for victory as she emerges after voting in the February 27, 1979, primary election.

These four factors combined gave Byrne a 51% to 49% victory over Bilandic in the primary. Positioning herself as a reformer, Byrne won the main election with 82% of the vote, still the largest margin in a Chicago mayoral election.

Jane Byrne savors her victory over Mayor Michael Bilandic in 1979. She was Chicago's first and only female Mayor.

Byrne made inclusive moves as Mayor, such as hiring the first African-American and female school superintendent Ruth B. Love. She was the first mayor to recognize the gay community. In her first three months in office, she faced strikes by labor unions as the city's transit workers, public school teachers, and firefighters all went on strike. She effectively banned handgun possession for guns unregistered or purchased after enacting an ordinance instituting a two-year re-registration program.

From left to right: Mayor Jane Byrne, John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, and Kathy Byrne strike a "Blues Brothers" pose at ChicagoFest in August 1979.

Byrne used special events like ChicagoFest to revitalize Navy Pier and the downtown Chicago Theatre. Byrne and the Cook County Democratic Party endorsed Senator Edward Kennedy for president in 1980. Still, incumbent President Jimmy Carter won the Illinois Democratic Primary and even carried Cook County and the city of Chicago. Simultaneously, Byrne and the Cook County Democratic Party's candidate for Cook County States' Attorney (chief local prosecutor), 14th Ward Alderman Edward M. Burke, lost in the Democratic Primary to Richard M. Daley, the son of her late mentor, Daley, then unseated GOP incumbent Bernard Carey in the general election. Other events in her mayoralty include Pope John Paul II's debut papal visit that October and, the finding of Soviet Ukrainian escapee Walter Polovchak the following year-1980-and, his announcement of his desire to stay in America permanently and not go back to the USSR with his parents.

On March 26, 1981, Byrne decided to move into the crime-ridden Cabrini-Green housing project on the near-north side of Chicago after 37 shootings resulting in 11 murders occurring during three months from January to March 1981.

Mayor Jane Byrne greeted President Ronald Reagan (born & raised in Illinois) at Meigs Field in 1981.

In her 2004 memoir, Byrne reflected on the decision to move into Cabrini-Green: "How could I put Cabrini on a bigger map? ... Suddenly I knew — I could move in there." Before her move to Cabrini, Byrne closed down several liquor stores in the area, citing the stores as hangouts for gangs and murderers. Byrne also ordered the Chicago Housing Authority to evict tenants suspected of harboring gang members in their apartments, which totaled approximately 800 tenants.

Byrne moved into a 4th-floor apartment in a Cabrini extension building on North Sedgwick Avenue with her husband on March 31 at around 8:30 pm after attending a dinner at the Conrad Hilton hotel. Hours after Byrne moved into the housing project, police raided the building. They arrested eleven street gang members who they learned through informants were planning to have a shootout in the Mayor's building later that evening. Byrne described her first night there as "lovely" and "very quiet." Byrne stayed at the housing project for three weeks to bring attention to the housing project's crime and infrastructure problems. Byrne's stay at Cabrini ended on April 18, 1981, following an Easter celebration at the project, which drew protests and demonstrators who claimed Byrne's move to the project was just a publicity stunt.

On November 11, 1981, Dan Goodwin (nicknamed "Spiderman"), who had successfully climbed the Sears Tower the previous spring, battled for his life on the side of the John Hancock Center.

William Blair, Chicago's fire commissioner, ordered the Chicago Fire Department to stop Goodwin by directing a full-power fire hose at him and using fire axes to break window glass in Goodwin's path. Mayor Byrne rushed to the scene and ordered the fire department to stand down.

Then, through a smashed-out 38th-floor window, she told Goodwin, who was hanging from the building's side a floor below, that though she disagreed with his climbing of the John Hancock Center, she opposed the fire department knocking him to the ground below. Byrne then allowed Goodwin to continue to the top.

In January 1982, Byrne proposed an ordinance banning new handgun registration, which was considered controversial. The ordinance was created to freeze the number of legally owned handguns in Chicago and require owners of handguns to re-register annually. The law was approved by a 6-1 vote in February 1982.

Also, in 1982, she supported the Cook County Democratic Party's replacement of its chairman, County Board President George Dunne, with her city-council ally, Alderman Edward Vrdolyak. The Chicago Sun-Times reported that her enemies publicly mocked her as "that crazy broad" and "that skinny bitch" and worse.

In August 1982, Byrne decided to seek a second term as Mayor. At the beginning of her re-election campaign, she was trailing behind Richard M. Daley, then Cook County State's Attorney, by 3% in a poll by the Chicago Tribune in July 1982.

Mayor Jane Byrne, Mayor-elect Harold Washington, and State's Attorney Richard M. Daley gather at a symbolic day-after-the-election "unity luncheon" in 1983 to ease political tensions that had divided Chicago.

Unlike the 1979 mayoral, where Byrne received 59.3% of the African-American vote, Byrne had lost half of that vote. Byrne was defeated in the 1983 Democratic primary for Mayor by Harold Washington; the younger Daley ran a close third. Washington won the Democratic primary with just 36% of the vote; Byrne had 33%. Washington went on to win the general election.

Jane Byrne, seated, disk jockey Jonathon Brandmeier, and Kathy Byrne sing while taping a rock video of "We're All Crazy in Chicago" in 1985. "It's good for everybody to poke fun at themselves once in a while," said the former Mayor.

Byrne ran against Washington again in the 1987 Democratic primary but was narrowly defeated. She endorsed Washington for the general election, in which he defeated two Democrats running under other parties' banners (Edward Vrdolyak and Thomas Hynes) and a Republican. Byrne next ran in the 1988 Democratic primary for Cook County Circuit Court Clerk. She faced the Democratic Party's slated candidate, Aurelia Pucinski (endorsed by Mayor Washington and is the daughter of then-Alderman Roman Pucinski). Pucinski defeated Byrne in the primary and Vrdolyak, by then a Republican, in the general election. Byrne's fourth run for Mayor involved a rematch against Daley in 1991, and Byrne received only 5.9 percent of the vote, a distant third behind Daley and Alderman Danny K. Davis.

Byrne had entered hospice care and died on November 14, 2014, in Chicago, aged 81, from complications of a stroke she suffered in January 2013. Her funeral was held at St. Vincent de Paul on Monday, November 17, 2014. She was buried at Calvary Catholic Cemetery in Evanston, Illinois.

Gov. Pat Quinn hands a sign to former Chicago Mayor Jane Byrne during a dedication ceremony to officially name the Circle Interchange in her honor, Friday, August 29, 2014.

In July 2014, the Chicago City Council voted to rename the plaza surrounding the historical Chicago Water Tower on North Michigan Avenue the Jane M. Byrne Plaza, in her honor.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.