The Conference on Illinois History—now in its eighth year—is the state’s largest meeting devoted to the history of the Prairie State. More than two hundred fifty attended the 2005 conference, which featured traditional academic papers, local history studies, teacher workshops, and roundtable discussions.

Featured Speakers will discuss the subjects of their recent books:
ROBERT BRAY is R. Forrest Colwell Professor of American Literature at Illinois Wesleyan University. He has written widely on midwestern and Illinois literature, including Rediscoveries (1982) and A Reader’s Guide to Illinois Literature (1985). He is the author of Peter Cartwright, Legendary Frontier Preacher (2005).

JAMES GREEN was born in Oak Park, Illinois, raised in a small factory town outside of Chicago and educated at Northwestern University. He received his Ph.D. in history from Yale University in 1972 and five years later joined the faculty at the University of Massachusetts-Boston where he teaches history. Green is the author of six books on labor and social movements, including Death in the Haymarket: A Story of Chicago, the First Labor Movement and the Bombing that Divided Gilded Age America (2006).

KERRY A. TRASK is a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Manitowoc. He is the author of Fire Within: A Civil War Narrative from Wisconsin (which was awarded the Leslie Cross Nonfiction Award in 1996) and In the Pursuit of Shadows: Massachusetts Millennialism and the Seven Years War. His Black Hawk: The Battle for the Heart of America (2005) delves into the conflict between the prosperous Sauk Nation and envious white American settlers that led to the Black Hawk War in 1832.

To ensure that you receive a registration form and program for the conference, contact Donna Lawrence, IHPA, 1 Old State Capitol Plaza, Springfield, IL 62701, by email at donna.lawrence@illinois.gov, or phone 217/785-7933. Details will be posted as they become available at www.Illinois-History.gov/conference.htm