For more than 70 years, scientists at Argonne National Laboratory in Lemont have carried out groundbreaking research into nuclear power. On April 19, 1946, the University of Chicago accepted a contract to run the laboratory on a plot of wooded land in southwestern Cook County that was previously used for atomic experiments as part of the Manhattan Project. The laboratory was initially part of a program devised by President Harry S. Truman after World War II that moved atomic research from military control into civilian hands.
The goal of Argonne and other laboratories established under the Atomic Energy Act was to develop peaceful uses for nuclear power, specifically in generating electricity and medical research. One civilian application of atomic research is the medical use for ultrasound technology, which was pioneered at Argonne. Currently, the laboratory is focusing on nanotechnology research, specifically the electric polarization of materials as small as three atoms thick. While finding peaceful uses for nuclear energy has always been the focus at Argonne, the lab performed some military research during the Cold War. The USS Nautilus, the world’s first nuclear submarine, was developed at Argonne in 1954.
The intellectual energy and strong academic institutions of Illinois are always on display at Argonne National Laboratory. The laboratory’s scientists have earned hundreds of awards during thepast 70 years, and all signs point toward continued innovation in peaceful nuclear technology for the 21st century.
UPS announced plans to move air shipping operations to Rockford from Des Moines. This change is expected to bring more than 200 new jobs to Rockford. The jobs will include both full- and part-time positions, such as package handlers.
Along with adding jobs in Illinois, UPS will move 13 flights each week to the Rockford airport from Des Moines starting in July. The decision to make the move is in part due to the availability of a larger sorting facility in Rockford but also because Rockford is closer to major markets.
Over the past few years, the Chicago-Rockford International Airport has invested in a new terminal and equipment.
"Recent investment in the airport has served as a catalyst for other development that's in the works, that's already happened, and I'm really excited about it," Winnebago County Board Chairman Frank Haney told WREX.
Sarah Kaiser is an Evanston based artist and teacher who received her MA in Art History and MFA from the University of Chicago. Her work focuses on the juxtaposition of figures, animals and patterns unified by a nature-inspired color palette.
She mainly works in oils, using gestural brushstrokes to convey universal themes such as the transience of life, the persistence of time, and the relationship between humans and nature.
ILI: How long have you been an artist or when did you start? Was there a single incident or moment when you realized this was your passion and if so, tell us about it?
Kaiser: My earliest recollection of making art comes from a photograph my mother took of me when I was three or four years old. I was painting with watercolors, and I remember that there was a picture of Donald Duck on the tin paint box. At the moment in which the photo was taken, I told her that I wanted to be an artist when I grew up. I’m glad she encouraged me. Since I was an only child until age 13, I also needed to fill the time, so I turned to drawing and painting. Mom and I moved often because of her job. I went to 7 different schools between kindergarten and the 12th grade. As a result, I was often the new kid at school, and had to make new friends. This meant that I often had to play alone. When I was bored, I would make art.
April is National Poetry Month and in Illinois, a state with a rich literary history, it is the perfect time to celebrate the life and cultural achievements of Illinois Poet Laureate Gwendolyn Brooks. Brooks was the first black author to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1950 for her book of poetry Annie Allen. Because of her long and decorated career as a writer and professor of poetry, Gwendolyn Brooks has earned her place among the literary titans of Illinois and the United States.
Born in Kansas in 1917 to parents who encouraged her creativity and intellectual curiosity, Brooks and her family moved to Chicago when she was very young. Brooks was an avid reader and writer as a child and her talent was evident at a young age. She was first published at 13 when American Childhood published her poem “Eventide.” By the age of 17, her poems were frequently published in the Chicago Defender, a newspaper serving Chicago’s black population.
Brooks’s community and upbringing are important threads that run through all of her work. Her first collection is titled A Street in Bronzeville, a nod to her neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago. Her poems celebrated, examined and portrayed urban black culture in the mid-20th century, a time when such representations were extremely rare. Literary critic Richard K. Barksdale described the poems in Brooks’s Pulitzer Prize-winning collection Annie Allen as “devoted to small, carefully cerebrated, terse portraits of the Black urban poor.” The author herself once described her style as “folksy narrative.”
Annie Allen tells the story of a black girl growing into adulthood. The work addresses social issues of the time, including the role of women in society. Starr Nelson of Saturday Review of Literature calls the book “a work of art and a poignant social document.” The book was published in 1949 and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1950 at a time when the American literary community had not yet awarded the Prize to an African-American and had honored very few women with the Prize.
Brooks had a long writing career during which she also taught at Illinois institutions of higher learning including Columbia College, Northeastern Illinois University and Elmhurst College. Because of her contributions to the American literary and cultural landscape, Brooks succeeded the great Carl Sandburg as poet laureate of Illinois in 1968. She served in that position until her death in 2000 after a long and prolific career. She left behind a substantial body of work and a long list of contributions to American culture.