Chronicling the “Life of the People”: The Work of Clarence W. Alvord

For the month of May, we’re celebrating Illinois innovations in honor of the bicentennial. From cellphones to MRIs to black holes to carbon dating, Illinois has a long history of ingenuity. Follow along on our social media for weekly snapshots of #IllinoisInnovation.


In early 1905, an instructor teaching European history at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign was called on for a new task by University President Edmund James. The Renaissance historian was to make his way to Randolph and St. Clair Counties in search of a reported stash of unpublished colonial French documents. In those local archives, Clarence Walworth Alvord found not only those French sources – which themselves provided “significant windows into the earliest colonial history of the Midwest” – but a host of other documents on pre-statehood Illinois history called the Cahokia Manuscripts, Kaskaskia Manuscripts, and the Menard Papers.… Read More

Motorola: An Illinois Company

For the month of May, we’re celebrating Illinois innovations in honor of the bicentennial. From cellphones to MRIs to black holes to carbon dating, Illinois has a long history of ingenuity. Follow along on our social media for weekly snapshots of #IllinoisInnovation.


In 1928, brothers Paul V. and Joseph E. Galvin purchased Stewart Storage Battery Company, a bankrupt battery eliminator business in Chicago. Starting with just five employees, the fledgling Galvin Manufacturing Corporation was very much a small fish in Chicago’s pond. In time though, it would become one of the largest and most influential companies of its kind.

Though Galvin first tried its hand at producing battery eliminators like its predecessor, the market for that product was quickly vanishing as battery-operated radios became obsolete.… Read More