Springfield, Ill. (WREX) — Six historic and influential Illinoisans were inducted into Illinois Hall of Fame by the Lincoln Academy.
Judge David Davis, Enrico Fermi, William Le Baron Jenney, Mother Mary Jones, Major General John A Logan and Emmett Till are this year's inductees.
"These six people helped to shape the world as we know it today," Lincoln Academy Chancellor Frank Clark said.
Previous inductees from the area include: Jane Addams of Cedarville, John Deere who opened his first factory in Moline, Ill., and Chief Black Hawk who was born along the Rock River.
The Lincoln Academy in Springfield created the hall of fame in 1992 to recognize achievements by Illinoisans before the Lincoln Academy opened in 1964.
More information on the six inductees:
Emmett Till was one of the youngest and most widely-covered victims of racial lynching. After finishing the seventh grade in Chicago, Till visited relatives in northern Mississippi in 1955. Till was accused of whistling at a white woman in a local grocery store. The woman's husband and his brother abducted Till from his uncle’s house and brutally murdered him. Several days later, Till's body was recovered from a nearby river. His open-casket funeral and the following trial received national attention. The brutality of the case and Till's age helped launch the Civil Rights Movement.
William Le Baron Jenney was an architect and engineer who invented the skyscraper. After working in Europe, Jenney became a civil engineer and served under Generals Ulysses S. Grant and William T. Sherman during the Civil War. Jenney's Chicago architectural practice opened in 1866. He designed homes throughout Illinois but is best known for his development of tall buildings in Chicago. Jenney’s concepts and systems led to the creation of the skyscraper.
Mary "Mother" Jones was one of the most prominent labor leaders of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Born in Ireland, she immigrated to Canada and later moved to Chicago in the 1860s. The Great Chicago Fire destroyed her seamstress business in 1871. Jones moved into labor activism and participated in several major labor protests, including the 1877 Pittsburgh Railroad Strike and the 1886 Haymarket Riot in Chicago. She founded the Social Democratic Party with Eugene Debs, and started writing for workers’ rights newspapers, where she adopted the name Mother Jones. Jones organized the 1898 United Miners’ Strike in Virden, Ill. which led to seven killed and 30 wounded miners. She is buried among the victims in Mount Olive, Ill.
Enrico Fermi, a Nobel-Prize-winning physicist, created the first nuclear reactor in Chicago. Fermi discovered the element plutonium in Italy before he fled to the U.S. to escape fascism. In the U.S., he became interested in the U.S. government's nuclear research program. He later founded the Manhattan Project. Fermi died in 1954 in Chicago. The nuclear element Fermium is named for him.
David Davis was U.S. Supreme Court Justice and long-time resident of Bloomington, Ill. He was a close friend and ally of Abraham Lincoln. Eventually, he served as an administrator of the president's estate after his assassination. Davis followed his friend into the Republican Party and helped to secure Lincoln's presidential nomination in 1860. He relocated to Washington D.C. where Lincoln appointed him to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1862 where Davis served for 14 years. Davis won election to the U.S. Senate in 1876 and served a single term. He retired to Bloomington where he died in 1886.
Major General John A. Logan was a Union general in the Civil War and a politician. He served as a politician in southern Illinois before he was elected to Congress in 1858. Once the Civil War began, he organized the 31st Illinois regiment and served under Ulysses S. Grant. He returned to military service as a major. After a brief stay in southern Illinois to campaign for Lincoln in 1864, Logan returned to the Carolinas under Sherman for the remain of the Civil War. Logan advocated for veteran Civil War soldiers and announced the first formal Memorial Day in 1868.
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Six New Illinoisans inducted into Illinois Hall of Fame - WREX-TV
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