Unhistoric Acts

The end of March means the close of Women's History Month. Like many people, I’m cautious about dedicating a single month to recognizing a group or community, because their contributions should be woven into our everyday history and collective memory. But I'm also grateful for the excuse these titular months provide for reflecting.

Undeniably, Illinois is home to a rich panoply of women whose leadership, imagination and influence have made the lives of people better here in Illinois and beyond: Jane Addams, who championed public playgrounds and kindergarten, as well as the United Nations; Ida B. Wells-Barnett, a journalist and civic data pioneer who helped found the The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and used her mighty pen to record the devastation of racism, lynching, and segregation; Mother Mary Jones, the incisive orator and labor organizer buried, fittingly, in the Union Miners Cemetery in Mt. Olive, Illinois. More recent women making and known by history include Carmen Velasquez, founder of the Alivio Medical Center in Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood in 1989, a major community health institution for the Latino community; Juliana Richardson, visionary founder of History Makers, and of course, writers galore from Gwendolyn Brooks to Ling Ma and Erika Sanchez.

This month though, I've been thinking a lot less about "famous in history" women and a lot more about what it means to be "unknown" by history. I've been coming back to a quote I always keep nearby, clipped from a magazine more than 20 years ago, pinned on a cork board at my desk at home, from George Eliot's Middlemarch:

"But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts, and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs."

Across the Illinois landscape it is these women, and people in general, living a "hidden life" and resting in "unvisited tombs" who lead, feed, and sustain our public humanities organizations. These are the people at the heart of county genealogical and archiving efforts; they volunteer to give historic house tours; they create and curate museum exhibitions and community performance events; they champion their public libraries, and they edit (and proofread) community newsletters.

Illinois has a much more complex, diverse, interracial, multi-economic history than we're often given credit for. Labor, justice, social and agricultural movements, prison reform, artistic innovations, public history, immigrant oral history efforts, publishing poetry collections, organizing preservation efforts are the so many unknown acts that give way for history to form. 

The most important might be, in actuality, least remarkable and most profound:

..that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been

This is what I think about when I see a Road Scholar like Connie Martin in action, and why this very special program is so transformative for both the presenters AND the hosting community.

Connie uses oral history, family research, and quilt‑based storytelling to bring to life how enslaved people pursued freedom through the Underground Railroad, educating and inspiring communities through engaging historical presentations.

Or Cynthia Clampitt, who uses the history of familiar foods and crops, especially corn and pork, to reveal how agriculture shaped the settlement, economy, and identity of Illinois and the American Midwest for over 10,000 years. 

There's also Chef Lori Parrett, who is building the first comprehensive oral history archive of Illinois cake decorating practitioners, with the aim of preserving the knowledge and stories of the women who taught America how to celebrate through cake.

All of this work touches on one of Illinois Humanities' core principles, centering people’s experiences, histories, and cultures. It's people's day to day lives that make the humanities, human. 

If you read or watch the news, or talk about national and international events with friends, coworkers or family, it can feel that our own lives have little effect on the nation or the world. That famous actors in history are more than human and somehow much more extraordinary than any one of us. When in fact -especially right now - it may be that we are our most historic selves when we are engaged in the unknown acts where we live, with people we know and make an effort to engage with people we don't.

Why?

Because the people who make the humanities ensure - through thousands of "unhistoric acts" - that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been. And that is no small thing at all.