Volume 4:1

Triumph and tragedy—success and failure—can be observed in people, states, nations, and the world. In the passage of time, events can turn favorably or unfavorably. Most often, how we deal with challenges will determine whether the result is triumphant or tragic. There are circumstances, however, where the outcome is beyond our control, but even then we may have the opportunity to face fate with grace and to respond as fully and creatively as possible.

State and local history gives us the opportunity to see this at work and where we live. Whether state and local events mirror national or global developments or whether they impart meaning to our immediate environment, state and local history is instructive.

Triumph and tragedy take many forms in the following essays and curriculum materials on Illinois history. Vandalia, the city best known as the seat of Illinois' government for nineteen years (1820-1839), was also the scene of a nearly forgotten social experiment, the Ernst Colony, named for its founder, German nobleman, Ferdinand Ernst. Illinois beckoned to Ernst in the early nineteenth century as a place where people might come for personal opportunity. Ernst's experiment exemplified both fortunes and misfortunes.

In the second section, the political fortunes of Adlai Stevenson I, twice the Democratic party's candidate for vice-president of the United States, is a personal example of public fortune and misfortune. The third essay shares the biographies of three brave, yet little-known, Illinois women reformers. We have all benefited from their work, but how many recognize the names of Ida Craddock, Adelaide Johnson, and Laura Dainty Pelham? Their biographies will reveal both triumph and tragedy. Lastly, we close this issue with an intriguing proposition, that the unquestionable tragedy of the Chicago Fire in 1871 resulted in a good turn of events because the indominable spirit of many Chicagoans would not rest with defeat in capitalizing on Chicago's significant location. Who were some of these determined Chicagoans? How did Chicago give rise to a new school of urban architecture from the ashes of the fire?

Triumph and tragedy's many forms in the long history of Illinois could not possibly be captured in four essays and their curriculum materials, although our authors have given us fascinating and meaningful variations to study. And that is, after all, the best use of the ILLINOIS HISTORY TEACHER, that we enjoy the study of the state's past and determine how our collective future can be brighter.