The first settler in Chicago was Jean Baptiste Point Du Sable. He was born in 1745 in Santa Domingo, Haiti, to a French mariner and a mother who was a slave from Congo. His father provided him with education, and he worked as a seaman for his father’s ships.

Before settling in Chicago, records show that Du Sable was in the Louisiana Territory in the 1760s, then moved to St. Louis. Ten years later he established an exchange post along the river in what today is Chicago.

Du Sable was an explorer in the Northwest Territory of United States and spoke fluent French, Spanish and English. When English colonists came to Chicago, Du Sable was the main supply station for them. He was known to be handsome, have exquisite taste and even built his home from French imported wood. Fellow explorers said he had a feather bed, couch and mirrors.

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On this week in 1847, Dorothea Dix, a crusader for the rights of America’s mentally ill, submitted a proposal to the Illinois General Assembly to build the state’s first mental hospital.

Dix arrived in Illinois as a radical reformer who wanted to overhaul the way in which America treated its mentally ill citizens.

At the time, people with mental disorders were treated more like prisoners than patients, considered incurable and fit only to be locked away.

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Our January artist of the month is Tony Abboreno, from Oak Park, IL. Abboreno is a retired Chicago Public Art teacher and his favorite medium to work in is acrylic paint.

How long have you been an Artist?  I have been artistic since preschool. My mother tolerated my experiments with color, melting crayons on the space heater in the dining room. The rich artistic exposure I had as a student in the Chicago Public Schools in the ’50’s and ’60’s sparked the desire to create art. When I went to Kindergarten at Hitch Elementary School, the room had floor-to-ceiling windows and easels set up for children to draw and paint. I remember painting pictures of bucking broncos, cowboys and cattle and seeing my paintings displayed on the walls of the school. From Kindergarten through my high school experience at Taft I saw the WPA murals and prints of famous artworks on the walls of classrooms and the hallways. I particularly remember “Blue Horses” by Franz Marc.  

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Scientists at the University of Illinois have found a way to enhance yields by engineering a more efficient way for crops to convert sunlight into energy.

Researchers participating in an international study called Realizing Increased Photosynthetic Efficiency – or RIPE – have discovered that most crops on the planet experience suppressed yield potential as a result of a glitch in photosynthesis, the process by which plants convert sunlight into energy.

To combat the problem, scientists have developed a shortcut in the photosynthetic process that can make crops about 40 percent more productive. The study estimates that up to 200 million additional people could be fed with the production lost during photosynthesis in the Midwest.

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