Illinois History Teacher, Volume 16:2

CONTRIBUTORS' BIOGRAPHIES

Kay J. Carr teaches American and world history at Southern Illinois University in Carbondate. She earned her Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1987. She is the co-editor (with Michael P. Conzen) of The Illinois & Michigan Canal National Heritage Corridor: A Guide to Its History and Sources (1988) and the author of Belleville, Ottawa, and Galesburg: Community and Democracy on the Illinois Frontier (1996). She is also the author of a new introduction to Christiana Holmes Tillson's A Woman's Story of Pioneer Illinois. She received her B.A. in history from Knox College in Galesburg.

Perry R. Duis is professor of American history at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He is the author of four books, including The Saloon: Public Drinking in Chicago and Boston, 1880-1920 and Challenging Chicago: Coping with Everyday Life, 1837-1920. He is finishing a book about the role of strangers in the city's development.

Kathie Kleckner taught in the Ottawa Elementary District for thirty-four years before retiring. She received her bachelor's degree in education from Northern Illinois University. She has been a member of the Illinois Geographic Alliance since 1990.

Janet Burke Mark teaches U.S. history and advanced placement U.S. history at Hinsdale Central High School where she uses local history to connect with national and global trends. Her interest in the I and M Canal Corridor grew from a series of early personal connections to the major industries of northeastern Illinois. Later, in 2004, she participated in The Last Great American Canal, at Lewis University— a seminar funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities—where she acquired a more detailed history of the I and M Canal and joined the Canal Corridor Association. She has a B.A. in history and English from the University of Washington in Seattle, an M.A. in history from De Paul University, and an M.Ed, in curriculum and instruction from the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Vincent L. Michael is the John H. Bryan Chair in Historic Preservation at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he has been director of the Historic Preservation Program since 1996. A preservationist since 1983, Vince is a trustee of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, chair emeritus of the National Council for Preservation Education, and president of the Site Council for the Gaylord Building, a National Trust property and National Historic Landmark. He is secretary and Issues Committee Chair for Landmarks Illinois and has served on the Illinois Historic Sites Advisory Council and the Oak Park Historic Preservation Commission. He has traveled worldwide in the cause of preservation and authored numerous articles as well as maintaining the blog, Time Tells.

Ronald S. Vasile, guest editor of this volume, teaches U. S. history, anthropology, and advanced placement U.S. history at Lockport Township High School. He previously worked as historian for the Canal Corridor Association where he wrote text for signs along the I and M Canal, and also served as project director for two National Endowment for the Humanities teacher-training workshops. He has written on ten I and M Canal corridor towns for the Encyclopedia of Chicago History and has also published on the history of natural history in Illinois.

Marianne Whitacre served as her building's social studies leader from 1998 to 2006. She is an active participant in the Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, American History Teachers Collaborative, attending seminars, writing lesson plans, units, and curriculum for grades K-8. She currently serves as student services coordinator at Robeson Elementary where she has continued sharing her love of social studies through a lesson study approach. Marianne has presented these lessons and units at local, state, and national conferences.

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