Selected Bibliography

Description

A Bibliography of Illinois, Chicago and Environs is part of the inheritance of treasures left to us by the WPA in the late 1930's and early 1940's. The rest of that national trove includes over 1,000 books, pamphlets and radio scripts. The best known part of this cache of research, scholarship and good writing is the collection of state guides the WPA issues. In recent years, a number of publishers have reprinted the state guide volumes and several of the city guides. The bibliography at hands was compiled as part of the research and work on the Illinois Guide by the Federal Writers Project of Illinois. The Illinois writers did their work well. This work is a solid, broad-scoped and thoughtfully-selected bibliography of Illinois, Chicago and environs. It provides a list of classics as well as less-known books about this city and state in their first 100-plus years. In the quality of WPA research and writing, few states equaled or surpassed Illinois, which could boast such writers as Jack Conroy, Richard Wright, Willard Motley, Saul Bellow, Studs Terkel, Curtis MacDougall and Nelson Algren. This bibliography offers a good resource for all who want to look at Illinois and Chicago in broad aspects which are often ignored in a history, a handbook or a guide to the state. The references here tell about history and people, but also about geography, minerals, animals, plants, art, architecture, schools, culture, religion and literature. This book wards off a superficial approach, helps protects from the shallow and the narrow and opens newer and broader horizons in understanding Chicago and Illinois. It's dated, by more than 50 years, but it is a handy shovel to help researchers, librarians, scholars and collectors dig into what this state and this city had and still have to offer.

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