Illinois ‘200 for 200’: Every nomination from our panel of experts

Eight Illinois historians, authors, professors, writers and business leaders submitted picks to help the Chicago Sun-Times compile its list of the 200 most-prominent Illinoisans in state history. Some gave us 200 names; others only a couple dozen. Here’s every name they submitted, and, in some cases, their reasons for picking the individual. Illinois history buffs will be especially impressed with Richard Lindberg’s detailed recommendations.

Lee Bey

Lee Bey is vice president of the DuSable Museum of African American History. He’s a also a writer, photographer and former architecture critic for the Sun-Times. His suggestions:

Jean Baptiste Point DuSable

Ida B. Wells

Dr. Margaret Burroughs, our founder, but also a cornerstone in the creation of the black museum movement that culminates in the new National African American Smithsonian Museum

USAF Major Robert Lawrence, first black person selected to the astronaut program, but tragically died in a jet crash

Curtis Mayfield

Kelan Phil Corhan, legendary musician whose African stylings influenced the work of Earth, Wind and Fire; Ramsey Lewis, and others.

Mahalia Jackson

Dinah Washington

Rhymefest

DJ Rashad, pioneered footworking

Frankie Knuckles, pioneering house DJ

Ron Hardy, very influential DJ and House Music pioneer

Oscar DePriest, first black congressman elected in a northern state; civil rights leader

Timuel Black

Timuel Black is a teacher, historian, civil rights and political activist. Two volumes of Black’s three-volume work, “Bridges of Memory,” about the black migration to Chicago, have been published, and the third volume is in the works. A fourth book by Black, ‘‘Sacred Ground,’’ is expected to be published soon. He submitted 200 names. Here they are:

Robert S. Abbot

Carol Adams

Jane Addams

Muhammad Ali

Saul Alinsky

Gene Ammonds

Louie Armstrong

J.C. Austin Sr.

Ernie Banks

Etta Moten Barnett

Brenetta Howell Barrett

Rev. Willie Taplin Barrow

Chancelor Bennett “Chance the Rapper”

Lerone Bennett, Jr.

Al Benson

Willam “Bill” Berry

Jesse Binga

Walter Black

Michelle Boone

Arnita Boswell

Alvin Boutte

Barbara Bowman

James Bowman

Carol Moseley Braun

Arthur Brazier

Howard Brookins

Gwendolyn Brooks

“Sweet Charlie” Brown

Maggie Brown

Oscar Brown Jr.

Oscar Brown Sr.

Roland Burris

Margaret Burroughs

Clark Burrus

Jerry Butler

Jane Byrne

Cab Calloway

Blanche Callowy

Archibold Carey

Iva Carruthers

Jacob Carruthers

Michelle Clark

Nate “Sweetwater” Clifton

Rev. Clarence Cobb

Milton Cohen

Nat “King” Cole

Rev. Johnnie Colemon

Common

Sam Cooke

Ertharin Cousins

William Cousins

Allison Davis Sr.

Charles Davis. Sr.

Corneal Davis

Danny K. Davis

Miles Davis

William “Bill” Dawson

Daddyo Daylie

Milton Deas

Geraldine Dehass

Leon Depres

Oscar DePriest

Lauren Deutsch

Jacoby Dickens

Earl B. Dickeson

Dorothy Doneegan

Sammie Dortch

Paul Douglas

Clarice Durham

Richard Durham

Jean Baptist DuSable

Walter Dyett

Billy Eckstine

Edwin Eisendrath

Morris and Jimmy Ellis

Louis Farrakhan

Leon Finney

Sunny Fischer

Rube Foster

Redd Foxx

John Hope Franklin

Brenda Gaines

Jesus “Chuy” Garcia

Ed Gardner

Theaster Gates

Dorothy Geautreux

Marla Gibbs

Joan Gray

William Green

Dick Gregory

Luis V. Gutierrez

Chuck Hamilton

Herbie Hancock

Carl Hansberry

Lorraine Hansberry

Bob Harness

Vivian Harsh

Hermene Hartman

Erskine Hawkins

Charlie Hayes

Fletcher Henderson

Mary Herrick

Elzie Higginbottom

Terry Hillard

Mellody Hobson

Richard Hunt

Perri Irmer

Jackson Patterson

Jesse Jackson Sr.

Luster Jackson

Valerie Jarrett

Vernon Jarrett

Bennett Johnson

George Johnson

Jack Johnson

John H. Johnson

Emil Jones

Quincy Jones

Michael Jordan

Chaka Kahn

Lawrence Kennon

Herb Kent

Jewel Lafonte

Anna Langford

A.R. Leak

Carol Lee

John Levy

Karen Lewis

Abraham Lincoln

Bob Lucas

Moms Mabley

Betty Magness

Haki Mahibutu

Madam Malone

Leroy Martin

Walter Massey

Fleetwood McCoy

Lester McKeever

Cirilo McSween

Ralph Metcalf

Robert Ming

James Montgomery

Archibald Motley

Susan Motley

Rudy Nimocks

Jimmy Noone

Barack Obama

Michelle Obama

Ted Oppenheimer

Anthony Overton

Cecil Partee

Eugene Perkins

Walter Payton

Toni Preckwinkle

Al Raby

Jane Ramsey

Everett Rand

Sammie A.A. Rayner

Christopher Reed

Jackie Reynolds

Julianna Richardson

Minnie Ripperston

Renault Robinson

Harold Rogers

John Rogers Jr.

Bobby Rush

Abe Saperstein

Gus Savage

Hazel Scott

Robert Sengstacke

Dick Simpson

Noble Sissle

Robert Starks

Adlai Stevenson

Monica Faith Stuart

Earl Strayhorn

John Stroger

Sterling Stuckey

Erskine Tate

James Taylor

Robert Taylor

Studs Terkel

Dempsey Travis

Donne Trotter

Jacqueline Vaughn

James Wagner

Harold Washington

Ida B. Wells

Charles White

Jesse White

Daniel Hale Williams

Oprah Winfrey

Conrad Worrill

Jeremiah Wright

Richard Wright

Addie Wyatt

Gloria Castillo

Gloria Castillo is president and CEO of Chicago United, a not-for-profit organization that advocates for multiracial leadership in business. She aims to promote workplace diversity, inclusion, and social and economic justice through the lens of business strategy. Her suggestions:

Dr. Juan Andrade, founder of USHLI

Dr. Jorge Prieto, founding chairman of family practice department at Cook County Hospital and later as president of the Chicago Board of Health in the mid-1980s, Dr. Prieto made medical services available to immigrants, both legal and undocumented.

John Rowe, Former CEO of ComEd and Champion of education and immigration reform

James Tyree, Chicago financier who was chairman and chief executive officer of Mesirow Financial since 1994. In 2009, he led a team of investors that took control of the Chicago Sun-Times newspaper, which he owned until his death. Chariman of City Colleges of Chicago and philanthropist who served as the international board chair of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation

John Johnson, founder Johnson Publishing

Mona Castillo, Chicago business leader and Interim President of the Chicago Park District

Judge David Cerda, first Hispanic to be named to the Illinois Appellate Court.

Maria Mangual, founder: Mujeres Latinas en Accion

Alfred P. Galvan, WWII veteran and a founding member of American GI Forum

John W. Rogers Jr., founder Ariel Capital Investments and Minority Business Champion

Hedy Ratner, co-founder and co-president of the Women’s Business Development Center

Anne Ladky, founding member of Women Employed

G.D. Crain, founder Crain Communications

William Henry Merrill, Jr., founder Underwriters Laboratories

Ralph G. Moore, international supplier diversity expert

John Callaway, journalist

Sandra Cisneros, author

Tom Ayers, ComEd CEO; founding member Chicago United

Bill Berry, Johnson Products/Chicago Urban League

Jim Compton, Chicago Urban League CEO for 35 years

Daryl Grisham, Parker House Sausage

Pervis Spann, WVON

Carlos Tortolero, founder National Museum of Mexican Art

Guadalupe Reyes, founder El Valor

George E. Johnson, founder Johnson Products

Paul Freeman, founder of Chicago Sinfonietta

Margaret Burroughs, founder DuSable Museum

Richard Wright, author

Teresa Fraga, community organizer

Art Velasquez, Azteca Foods founder

Ann Keating

Ann Keating is the Toenniges Professor of History at North Central College in Naperville. She is co-editor of the “Encyclopedia of Chicago” and several books, including “Rising Up From Indian Country: The Battle of Fort Dearborn and the Birth of Chicago.” Here are her 200 nominations:

Pontiac

George Rogers Clark

Jean Baptiste Point du Sable

Ninian Edwards

August Chouteau

Edward Coles

Black Hawk

Stephen A. Douglas

Abraham Lincoln

Elijah P. Lovejoy

John and Mary Jones

William B. Ogden

Judge David Davis

George Pullman

Mary Livermore

Mary Ann Bickerdyke

Cyrus McCormick

U.S. Grant

Gustavus Swift

Philip Armour

Eugene Debs

Carl Sandburg

Mike Royko

Gwendolyn Brooks

Nelson Algren

Richard Wright

Edgar Lee Masters

Daniel Burnham

Louis Sullivan

Bishop Bernard James Sheil

Father Arnold Damen

Mies Van der Rohe

John Wellborn Root

Louise Dekoven Bowen

Jane Addams

Ellen Gates Starr

Bertha Palmer

Mary Dreier Robbins

Sophonisba Breckinridge

Martin Roche

Martin Ryerson

Charles Hutchinson

August Spies

Billy Sunday

Lorado Taft

Lyman Trumbull

Charles Wacker

Charles Tyson Yerkes

Ella Flagg Young

Philip Klutznick

Mother Agatha O’Brien

Jane Byrne

Ida B. Wells-Barnett

Theodore Thomas

Ardis Joan Krainik

Bill Veeck

William Wrigley

Saul Alinsky

Archibald John Motley, Jr.

Robert Sengstacke Abbott

Paul V. Galvin

Rabbi Emil G. Hirsch

Grace Abbott

Max Adler

Abner Mikva

Augustus Eugene Staley

Margaret Haley

Joseph Medill

William Hale Thompson

Robert Merriam

Harriet Monroe

Dwight Moody

A. Montgomery Ward

Cardinal Joseph Louis Bernardin

Cardinal George William Mundelein

Studs Terkel

Richard J. Daley

Ralph Metcalfe

Harold Washington

Eugene Sawyer

Anton Cermak

Edward J. Kelly

Carter Harrison I

Carter Harrison II

Frances E. Willard

Albert Parsons

Fred Hampton

George Halas

William Rainey Harper

Robert M. Hutchins

William LeBaron Jenney

Florence Kelley

Otto Kerner

Pierre Menard

Vachel Lindsay

Shadrach Bond

Richard Yates

Frank O. Lowden

Jane Byrne

Everett Dirksen

Paul Simon

Paul H. Douglas

Muddy Waters

Charles Comiskey

Governor John Peter Altgeld

Adlai Stevenson II

Charles Dawes

Richard B. Ogilvie

Phyllis Schlafly

Al Raby

Florence Kelley

John Fitzpatrick

John Kikulski

Dr. Daniel Hale Williams

Leon Lederman

Julius Rosenwald

George Johnson

Julia Lathrop

Ernie Banks

Raymond A. Kroc

Jens Jensen

Frank Lloyd Wright

Buddy Guy

Koko Taylor

Benny Goodman

Rabbi Jacob Weinstein

Arthur Rubloff

Henry Horner

William Stratton

Jacob Arvey

Thomas Dorsey

John A. Logan

Saul Bellow

James T. Farrell

Peter Finley Dunne

Ben Hecht

Milton Friedman

Edward F. Dunne

Henry Crowne

Ernest Hemingway

Red Grange

Gurdon Saltonstall Hubbard

Walter Newberry

Samuel Insull

Al Capone

Rudy Lozano

Jay Pritzger

Daniel Pope Cook

David Davis

Clarence Darrow

John Deere

John Dewey

Edward F. Dunne

Marshall Field

Marshall Field III

Harold L. Ickes

Philip Cavarretta

Walt Disney

Ronald Reagan

Bessie Coleman

Robert Hunter

Joseph Smith

Louise Wirth

Joy Morton

Charles Rudolph Walgreen

Wallace C. Abbott

Agnes Nestor

Dankmar Adler

Ben Hecht

John Root

Bessie Louise Pierce

Juliette Kinzie

Jesse Thomas

Myra Bradwell

William Holabird

Mother Jones

Richard Ogelsby

Fred Busse

Alice Hamilton

Mary McDowell

Vivian Maier

Sister Mary Justitia Coffey BVM

Richard Lindberg

Richard Lindberg is a lifelong Chicagoan, author, journalist and research historian who has written and published 17 books dealing with aspects of Chicago history, politics, criminal justice, sports and ethnicity. Read all about him at richardlindberg.net. His picks:

Daniel Hale Williams (1856-1931), physician, surgeon, civil rights leader. Willliams was the founder of Provident Hospital (opened May 4, 1891), the first non-segregated hospital in the U.S. In the late 19th century he was one of only three African-American physicians in Chicago. In 1889 he was appointed to the Illinois State Board of Health (now the Illinois Department of Public Health). From 1894-1898, he served at the Freedmen’s Hospital in Washington D.C. He co-founded the National Medical Association for Doctors, and on July 10, 1893, he performed successful heart surgery on one James Cornish, who suffered a knife wound to the heart. He performed this surgery on the patient, without the benefit of penicillin or blood transfusion, at Provident Hospital, Chicago. His actions greatly advanced the success rate of cardiac surgery in America.

Ella Flagg Young (1845-1918), educator, administrator, reformer and the first woman Superintendent of Chicago Public Schools. Although women dominated the teaching profession, few had risen much higher than classroom teaching. Young was a notable exception. Her experience spanned 47 years beginning in the Foster School in Chicago in 1862, weeks after her high school graduation. Three years after attaining her certificate, Young took charge of the “normal” (teacher training) program’s first practice school, established in 1865 in the Scammon School. She oversaw teacher training there until 1877 when she moved over to the West Side Skinner School in the 1880s. Dr. Young, a childless widow whose husband passed when she was only 27, climbed high in educational circles before being named superintendent of schools in Chicago in 1909. Highly regarded as an innovator in the Francis Parker mold, Young resigned from the service of the public schools in 1899 over a long-standing disagreement with Dr. Benjamin Andrews. She accepted the professorship of education at the University of Chicago. In 1900, Young earned a PhD at age 55 under the mentorship of renowned University of Chicago educator John Dewey. In 1905, she accepted appointment to serve as principal of the Cook County Normal School in Englewood. (Antecedent of Chicago Teacher’s College / Chicago State University / Northeastern Illinois University). Dr. Young advocated for the extension of industrial education into the public schools and the training of both young men and women to help students meet the challenge of an increasingly technical world. Vocationalism as an educational current in the public schools emphasized social efficiency through career preparedness for the specific trades demanded by the business community in large and mid-sized industrial cities. Young was visible and high-profile — a personable educational theorist thrust into the national stage upon assuming the presidency of the National Education Association during the 1910–1911 school year. Young’s administration inaugurated an unprecedented period of new school construction in Chicago. From 1911 to 1920, the board of education opened 61 new buildings. Dr. Young’s elevation to the post of superintendent of schools in 1909 (serving until 1915), the city’s highest educational posting, advanced the public visibility of women in educational roles outside of the classroom. It marked the first time a woman headed a major urban school system in the United States.

General James J. Shields (1806-1879), soldier, statesman, politician. James Shields is the only U.S. senator to represent three different states in Congress: Illinois, Minnesota and Missouri. He arrived on these shores in 1826, a penniless 25-year-old Irish immigrant from County Tyrone. He taught school, commenced a law practice in Kaskaskia in 1832 and was elected to the State Legislature in 1836. General James Shields became a hero in two wars. Commissioned a Major-General in command of the Illinois Regiment during the Mexican War, Shields served under Zachary Taylor and was wounded at Cerro Gordo. Mustered out in 1848, President James K. Polk appointed Shields Territorial Governor of Oregon. For some men, this might be the capstone of a long and exemplary career in public service. While traveling in Mexico that fateful April day in 1861, when the South fired on Fort Sumter to commence the Civil War, Shields hurried back to Washington D.C. to answer President Lincoln’s call. Shields and Lincoln were close friends from their early years in Illinois. He received a Brigadier General’s commission. Amid a succession of spectacular combat failures by Union generals early in the war, Shields delivered a stunning victory at Winchester, Virginia on March 23, 1862 during the Shenandoah campaign. Although gravely wounded at the battle of Kernstown a day earlier, General Shields, leading the 2nd Division of the V Corps in the Army of the Potomac returned to the field to inflict a tactical defeat upon the legendary Confederate General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson. Shields’ victory marked the only time in the bloody four-year ordeal of Civil War that a Union Army bested Jackson in combat. Defeated in his 1855 re-election bid, Shields moved to Minnesota. He served one term as junior senator in 1858-1859; then later represented the State of Missouri in 1879. Shields was the editor of the 1854 volume “A History of Illinois, from its Commencement as a State in 1818 to 1847.” Shields Avenue on the South Side is named in his honor.

Lyman Trumbull (1813-1896), American statesman, justice of the Illinois Supreme Court (1848-1853), U.S. Senator from Illinois (1855-1873). Born in Connecticut, Lyman Trumbull moved to Alton, Illinois in 1837, where he launched his career in public life, beginning as Illinois Secretary of State in the years 1841-1843. As Chairman of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee during the Civil War he co-authored the 13th Amendment, abolishing slavery. During the impeachment proceedings against President Andrew Johnson in 1868, Trumbull voted to acquit – a controversial stance that cost him political support within the Republican Party. In 1872, he was an unsuccessful candidate for the presidential nomination.

Edward “Butch” O’Hare (1914-1943), Naval aviator, first naval recipient of the Medal of Honor. Lieutenant Commander Edward O’Hare, the son of Selma and Edward “E.J.” O’Hare, Butch graduated from the Naval Academy in 1937 as an Ensign and moved on to the flight training school in Pensacola where, in 1940, he fully qualified as a Naval aviator. During the Java Sea campaign, on February 20, 1942, 28-year-old Lieutenant Commander Butch O’Hare answered that call in his Grumann F-4-F fighter plane by single-handedly repelling the attack of nine Japanese twin-engine bombers targeting the aircraft carrier Lexington and its endangered crew. Within four minutes Lieutenant Commander O’Hare single-handedly shot down five Japanese G-4-M-1 Betty bombers, saving the Lexington. It didn’t end there. Butch went on to earn the Distinguished Flying Cross for gallantry near Marcus Island on August 31, 1943, and a Navy Cross for actions taken over Wake Island on 26 November, 1943. In December 1943, O’Hare was shot down by friendly fire while testing experimental radar equipment. On September 18, 1949, Butch’s widowed mother flew into the Glenview Naval Station from her home in St. Louis to dedicate a new civilian aviation airfield (formerly known as Orchard Field) located northwest of Chicago. Selma O’Hare unveiled a bronze plaque presented to the City by the Naval Airmen of America depicting Butch in the cockpit of his Grumann fighter, and the modern O’Hare Field was born.

Charles Albert Comiskey (1859-1931), co-founded the American League of baseball teams; founded the Chicago White Sox; he is a charter member of the Baseball Hall of Fame as a player and manager; and civic leader. Raised on the West Side of Chicago in the old 7th Ward, Comiskey’s father was the renowned Alderman John Comiskey, who organized a volunteer regiment in 1861 known as the “Irish Brigade.” The younger Comiskey began his professional baseball playing career in Dubuque, Iowa in 1879. At the close of a long and distinguished career as both player and manager, Charles purchased the struggling Sioux City Cornhuskers, an Iowa team in the Western League. He was granted approval to move the club to St. Paul, Minnesota on November 21, 1894 where they were re-christened the St. Paul Saints. In October 1899, he relocated the Saints to the South Side of Chicago to become the Chicago White Stockings of the re-named American League (formerly the Western League). Historians fail to properly credit the significant role Comiskey played in establishing the American League with Byron Bancroft Johnson (league president) in 1900 and elevating it to equal footing with the established National League following a three-year trade war, 1900-1903. Under his ownership, the White Sox won league championships in 1900, 1901, 1906, 1917 and 1919. With his own money, Charles built and opened Comiskey Park on July 1, 1910. It was the nation’s first symmetrical ball field and the third concrete and steel stadium built in America and would serve the team and the city until its demolition in 1991. For his contributions as a baseball pioneer who introduced the sport to Japan, Charles Comiskey was enshrined in the first class of the Hall of Fame in 1939. A beloved public figure in Chicago throughout his lifetime, his reputation as a penurious baseball magnate only emerged after 1963. This exaggerated and questionable portrayal of Comiskey is largely the invention of Eliot Asinof in his 1963 revisionist history of the Black Sox Scandal titled “Eight Men Out” that has unjustly tarred Comiskey’s reputation.

Arthur J. Goldberg (1908-1990), diplomat, politician, U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice. Born into poverty in the Jewish quarter of the old Maxwell Street ghetto, Goldberg was one of 11 children of Russian-Jewish émigrés. As a boy he worked a shoe shine stand to earn money and assist his parents. After completing high school at age 15, he went to college and attained a law degree from Northwestern in 1930. During World War II he was a member of the O.S.S. Goldberg practiced labor law throughout his career and in 1955 he oversaw the merger of the Af of L and the CIO. He was appointed the 9th Secretary of Labor by President John F. Kennedy, and served on the U.S. Supreme Court from 1962-1965, but resigned to become U.N. Ambassador succeeding Adlai Stevenson II. He stepped down from that post in 1968 to express his opposition to the Vietnam War and differences with President Johnson.

Paul Howard Douglas (1892-1976), academic, economist, author, Chicago alderman, U.S. senator. Although he attained his academic credentials in the East at Bowdoin College, Columbia University and Harvard; Paul Douglas emerged as son of Illinois beginning as a professor of economics at University of Illinois in 1916-1917. Between 1930 and 1939 Douglas served on many state and national commissions and represented the 5th Ward of Chicago as alderman in 1939-1942. Regarded as a political independent, he authored the 1932 book “The Coming of a New Party.” During World War II he served in the Marines Corps as a private and rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel. Douglas won election to the U.S. Senate and served continuously until January 3, 1967, serving on many committees.

Frances Xavier (Mother) Cabrini (1850-1917), beatified on November 13, 1938, by Pope Pius XI, and canonized on July 7, 1946. In 1889, Pope Leo XIII sent Mother Cabrini to New York City to serve the needs of the increasing number of Italian immigrants and orphans arriving in Manhattan. Mother Cabrini’s success working with the poor and indigent brought her to Chicago where she founded and taught at Assumption School, the first Italian school in the city. She founded Columbus Hospital, dedicated and opened on February 26, 1905 in a former North Shore hotel at Deming Place and Lakeview Avenue in the Lincoln Park community, and later founded the Columbus Extension Hospital (later changed to St. Cabrini Hospital) on Polk Street in a low-income neighborhood on Chicago’s West Side using surplus funds from the original hospital. Employing her strong business acumen, Mother Francesca Cabrini purchased a 32-acre farm in what is now Park Ridge, Illinois, for the benefit of her patients so they could access to fresh food. By the time of her death on December 22, 1917, Mother Francesca Cabrini had founded 67 institutions while helping to shape America’s social and healthcare systems. In 1950, Pope Pius XII proclaimed Mother Francesca Cabrini as “Universal Patroness of Immigrants,” honoring her devotion to helping immigrant populations around the world.

Harry Blackmun (1908-1999), U.S. Supreme Court justice, 1970-1994. Appointed by President Richard Nixon. Born in Nashville, Illinois, but grew up in Dayton’s Bluff, MN. Appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1970 by President Richard Nixon, Blackmun authored the majority opinion in the 1973 decision Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion in the United States.

Jeanne Kirkpatrick (1926-2006), diplomat and the first woman to serve as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. Resident of Mount Vernon, Illinois beginning at age 12. A 1944 graduate of Mount Vernon Township High School, she was appointed to serve as U.N. Ambassador by President Reagan. She served from 1981-1985, and remained a top foreign policy advisor to the president through both terms of office. She considered a run against George W. Bush in 1988, but endorsed Robert Dole instead.

Paul Simon (1928-2003), newspaper editor, reformer, politician. Member of the U.S. Senate 1985-1997. As a 25-year-old journalist he took over the Troy Call newspaper in Troy, Illinois as publisher and editor. Simon was elected to the Illinois General Assembly. He served two terms in the State Senate before being elected lieutenant governor in 1968. He served five terms in the U.S. House of Representatives before defeating Republican Charles Percy for the U.S. Senate seat in 1984. Simon retired from the Senate in 1996. He became the first person to hold the Paul Simon Chair in Public Policy at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. He also was the executive director of the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute. He died in December 2003.

Hugh M. Hefner (1926-2017), publisher and bon vivant. Steinmetz High School graduate Hugh Hefner was a product of the Northwest Side Bungalow Belt. His imagination and drive forged a publishing empire and changed the social and sexual mores of American society in profound ways during the 1950s and 1960s. Whatever else one may think of him, he was one of the most influential people of the mid-to-late-20th Century.

Dwight Lyman Moody (1837-1899), American Christian evangelist, author, publisher and founder of the Moody Bible Institute. Born in Massachusetts, but influential in Minnesota and Illinois. Moody converted to Evangelical Christianity as a 17-year-old in April 1855. During the Civil War, President Lincoln visited and spoke at a Sunday School meeting he sponsored on November 25, 1860. Moody preached on many battlefronts including Shiloh, Stones River and Richmond. After the Civil war he moved to Chicago begin a congregation in the Illinois Street Church. Wiped out by the Chicago Fire, Moody began anew and over the next 20 years he became internationally known, holding many religious revivals in Great Britain and Sweden. Moody led the Chicago Bible Institute, and after his death the Chicago Avenue Church was renamed the Moody Church and the Chicago Bible Church became the Moody Bible Institute we know today.

Thomas Hawley Miner (1927 – ). International businessman and founder of the Mid-America Committee for International Business and Government Cooperation, an organization that launched Chicago into the era of globalization in 1966. Overtly and covertly the Committee opened up the rest of the world to business and trade with the West at a time in our history when “globalization” was nothing more than an abstract, drawing board concept. Miner gained early influence as a member of the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations. He is the past chairman or co-chairman of 50 different respected organizations. Miner led the first delegation of American business leaders to China in 1974 after President Nixon’s historic visit. In all, Miner led 30 trade missions to foreign capitols across the world including 15 visits to China. He journeyed to Russia multiple times, and on one memorable visit he escorted the entire Chicago Symphony Orchestra and conductor Sir Georg Solti to St. Petersburg for a series of concerts. It was Solti’s last request before retiring in 1991. Miner traveled to Japan, Vietnam (Tom spent three years there formulating peace plans in an effort to stimulate future trade opportunity) and Cuba, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Iran (post revolution).

William S. Paley (1901-1990), broadcast executive who built CBS from a network of local stations into the nation’s most dominant television network. A product of Maxwell Street, Paley owned the New York Yankees for a time and, during World War II, expanded the coverage of news in Great Britain by bringing to the fore Edward R. Murrow and the “Murrow Boys.”

Gurdon Saltonstall Hubbard (1802-1886), fur trader and land speculator, and one of the “early settler” grouping (as they were known by historians) of Chicago citizens who elevated the city from a swampy frontier outpost to a thriving town, then later “Metropolis of the Mid-Continent.” Hubbard, also known as the “Swiftwalker” (after allegedly walking 75 miles in one night to warn the people of Danville of an impending raid by Native tribes), arrived in Chicago in October 1818. He was prominent in the fur trading business, served as a Town Trustee, became Chicago’s first insurance underwriter, opened the first meat packing business in an industry that would define the essence of Chicago manufacturing prowess, and owned the Lady Elgin, the ill-fated ship that went down in a Lake Michigan gale in 1860.

Stephen A. Douglas, Ulysses S. Grant, Barack Obama, Abraham Lincoln, Jane Addams, Oprah Winfrey, Richard J. Daley, Jesse Jackson, Ida B. Wells, Marshall Field I, Potter Palmer and Michael Jordan, are all obvious choices. Less obvious are Benny Goodman, Jack Benny, Robert R. McCormick, George Cardinal Mundelein, Enrico Fermi, Ray Kroc, Bill Veeck, Myra Bradwell (first female lawyer in Illinois), Ellen Gates Starr, John Dewey (University of Chicago philosopher and education reformer), Robert S. Abbott (Chicago defender founder) and Ring Lardner.

Dominic Pacyga

Dominic Pacyga is the author of “Chicago: A Biography” and “Slaughterhouse: Chicago’s Union Stock Yard and the World it Made.” He retired last June from teaching history at Columbia College. He divided his suggestions into categories:

Politics

Stephen Douglas

Abraham Lincoln

Carter Harrison

Carter Harrison II

Anton Cermak

Edward Kelly

Richard J. Daley

Richard M. Daley

Harold Washington

Everett Dirksen

Ulysses S. Grant

Hilary Rodham Clinton

Paul Douglas

Barack Obama

Adlai Stevenson

Adlai Stevenson II

Adlai Stevenson III

Dan Rostenkowski

Peter Kiolbassa

Michael Madigan

William H. Thompson

Rahm Emanuel

Toni Preckwinkle

David Axelrod

Paul Simon

Religion

Joseph Cardinal Bernadin

Bishop Paul Rhode

George Cardinal Mundelein

Samuel Cardinal Stritch

Dwight L. Moody

Louis Farrakhan

Elijah Muhammad

Rev. Michael Pfleger

Rev. Vincent Barzynski

Reformers/Neighborhood Organizers

Jane Addams

Florence Kelly

Mary McDowell

Graham Taylor

Ida B. Wells

Saul Alinsky

Joseph Megan

Patrick Salmon

Craig Chico

Steve Bubacz

Jim Capraro

Timuel Black

Academics

William Rainey Harper

John Dewey

Lisa Oppenheim

Carl Condit

Neal Harris

Judge Richard Posner

Scientists

Enrico Fermi

Frank Wilczek

Economists

Milton Friedman

Paul Samuelson

Writers/Journalists/Public Intellectuals

Saul Bellow

Richard Wright

Lorraine Hansberry

Gwendolyn Brooks

James T. Farrell

Joseph Meno

Ernest Hemingway

Margaret T. Burroughs

Harriet Monroe

Studs Terkel

Willard Motley

Carl Sandburg

Theodore Dreiser

Sarah Paretsky

Mike Royko

Andrew Greeley

Garry Wills

Roger Ebert

Bill Kurtis

Gene Siskel

Artists

Archibald Motley

Ethnic Leaders

Charles Rozmarek

Wanda Rozmarek

Aloysius Mazewski

Stanley Balzekas

Carlos Tortolero

Helen Martinez

Jesse Jackson

Lucyna Migala

Show Business/Sports

Oprah Winfrey

Don Maclean

Muhammad Ali

Michael Jordan

Ernie Banks

Nellie Fox

Louis Aparicio

Gale Sayers

Mike Ditka

Dick Butkus

Charles Comiskey

P.K. Wrigley

Hack Wilson

Business

Marshal Field

George Pullman

Montgomery Ward

Gustavus Swift

Phillip Armour

Thomas Wilson

Nelson Morris

John Sherman

Julius Rosenwald

William Wrigley

John Edel

Labor Leaders

W.E.B. Dubois

John L. Lewis

Ed Sadlowski

Charles Hayes

John Fitzpatrick

Larry Spivack

John Rosenthal

Les Orear

John Gorman

Jorge Ramirez

William J. Adelman

Rev. Addie Wyatt

Architecture

William LeBaron Jenney

John Root

Daniel Burnham

Louis Sullivan

Dankmar Adler

William Holabird

Martin Roche

Frank Lloyd Wright

Jeanne Gang

Helmut Jahn

Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe

Stanley Tigerman

Harry Weese

Civic and Philanthropic

Maggie Daley

Eleanor “Sis” Daley

Jay Pritzker

Penny Pritzker

Margot Pritzker

J.B. and M.K. Pritzker

Joseph and Rika Mansueto

Joan And Irving Harris

Mellody Hobson

Ellen Alberding

Carol Lavin Bernick

Sunny Fischer

James Simeone

James Simeone is a professor of political science at Illinois Wesleyan University. He is the author of “Democracy and Slavery in Frontier Illinois: The Bottomland Republic.” Simeone’s picks:

I took the liberty to define “prominent” in my own way. Prominent people are ones who make significant contributions in their communities, however small; or who, because they existed or perhaps because of their misdeeds, changed the course of the state’s history. Significant contributions come in many stripes and colors in my book — they make society freer, fairer, and nobler. Or because of them Illinois became more equal, more beautiful, more knowledgeable, more joyful, and more inclusive. In other cases, I am afraid, we simply became more powerful, colder, greedier.

George Churchill of Madison County

Daniel P. Cook of Madison County

Hooper Warren of Madison County

William Kinney of St Clair County

Daniel Parker of Crawford County

Mary Davis of Peoria

Chris Koos of McLean County

Henry Brockman of Woodford County

Terra Brockman of Woodford County

Marty Travis of Livingston County

Minor Myers of McLean County

Jessie Fell of McLean County

Isaac Funk of McLean County

Jean Baptiste Point du Sable

Billy Caldwell

Black Hawk

Ninian Edwards

Thomas Ford

William Gooding

John Deere

John D. Lee

Joseph Smith

Free Frank McWorter

Abraham Lincoln

Ulysses S. Grant

Barack Obama

Lyman Trumbull

Jonathan Baldwin Turner

John A. Logan

Stephen A. Douglas

William Jennings Bryan

John Peter Altgeld

Carter Harrison II

Joseph Cannon

Jane Addams

Anton Cermak

Richard J. Daley

Richard M. Daley

Harold Washington

Danny Davis

Saul Alinsky

Rahm Emanuel

William L. Dawson

Adlai Stevenson I

Adlai Stevenson II

Jessie Jackson

John Johnson

Jessie White

Dick Simpson

Dick Gregory

Abner Mikva

David Orr

Richard Posner

Vashti McCollum

Elmer Getz

Everett Dirksen

Paul Simon

Judy Barr Topinka

John Paul Stevens

Phyllis Schlafly

Paul Douglas

Robert Michel

Dan Rostenkowski

Tammy Duckworth

Elijah Lovejoy

Owen Lovejoy

Carl Sandberg

Studs Terkel

Mother Jones

Myra Bradwell

Frances Cabrini

Ida B. Wells

Lucy Parsons

Albert Parsons

Sigmund Livingston

Florence Fifer Bohrer

Frances Willard

Clarence Darrow

Emmitt Till

Jamie Kalven

Shannon Spaulding

Juan Salgado

Miguel Del Valle

Luis Gutierrez

Gale Cincotta

Tom Ping

Slim Bundage

Rudy Lozano

Elizabeth Wood

Michale Callahan

Cindy Canary

John McDerrmott

Salim Muwakkil

Rami Nashashibi

Father Michael Pfleger

Findley Peter Dunn

Mike Royko

Jean Gump

Louis Armstrong

Lil Hardin

Miles Davis

Big Bill Broonzy

McKinley Morganfield

Willie Dixon

Little Walter Jacobs

Buddy Guy

Junior Wells

Thomas Dorsey

Mavis Staples

Lou Rawls

Mahalia Jackson

Sam Cooke

Tyrone Davis

Burl Ives

Steve Goodman

John Prine

Chris Ware

Ed Pashke

Roger Brown

Scott Simon

Ira Glass

John Dewey

Enrico Fermi

Wayne Booth

Leo Stauss

David Grene

Richard MeKeon

Richard Thayer

Milton Friedman

Wendy Doniger

Susan Rudolph

Jane Mansbridge

Robert Maynard Hutchins

Alexander Bradley

Ernie Banks

Michael Jordan

Dick Butkus

Amos Alonzo Stagg

George Halas

Red Grange

Oscar DePriest

Bobby Hull

Phil Wrigley

Bill Veeck

Joe Maddon

Louis Sullivan

William Le Baron Jenney

Frank Lloyd Wright

Mies Van Der Rohe

Montgomery Ward

Daniel Burham

Richard Warren Sears

Marshall Field

Philip Armour

Samuel Insull

George Pullman

Robert Sengstacke Abbott

Edgar Lee Masters

Ernest Hemingway

James T. Farrell

Nelsen Algren

Richard Wright

Aleksander Hemon

Gwendolyn Brooks

Saul Bellow

John Bardeen

John Wesley Powell

Robert Ridgeway

Steven A. Forbes

Lorado Taft

George Spoor

Lorraine Hansberry

Harriet Monroe

Theaster Gates

David Foster Wallace

Viola Spolin

Bernard Sahlins

John Malcovitch

David Mamet

John Belushi

Bill Murray

Roger Ebert

Gene Siskel

Cyrus McCormick

Robert R. McCormick

Frances Peabody

Charlie Birger

Al Capone

George Lincoln Rockwell

Dwayne Andreas

Ray Kroc

Common

Andrew Greeley

Fulton John Sheen

Henry Darger

Jackie Joyner-Kersee

Richard Pryor

Chester Gould

James Pankow

John McFarland — a place holder for so many others. In 1841 when the Driscoll gang was taken by a lynch mob in Oogle County, he argued that they should be taken across the Mississippi River and released with the warning that if they returned, they would be shot on sight. His idea was ignored and the mob executed the accused — likely guilty, but untried — on the spot.

Dick Simpson

Dick Simpson, a former Chicago alderman, is a political science professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago and the author or co-author of more than 20 books. His most recent books are “Corrupt Illinois: Patronage, Cronyism, and Criminality” and “The Good Fight: Life Lessons from a Chicago Progressive.” Simpson’s recommendations:

Gov. Peter Altgeld

State Sen. Russell Arrington

Author Saul Bellow

Robert Maynard Hutchins, U. of C.

Mortimer Adler, U. of C.

Cyrus McCormick

Jens Jensen

Dankmar Adler

Louis Sullivan

Abraham Lincoln

Carl Sandburg

Gwendolyn Brooks

Finley Peter Dunne

Theodore Dreiser

Mike Royko

Mayor and Gov. Edward Dunne

Ronald Reagan

Harold Washington

Dawn Clark Netsch

Ald. Charles Merriam

Gov. Adlai Stevenson II

Jane Addams

Clarence Darrow

Sen. Paul Douglas

Sen. Stephen Douglas

Ray Nordstrand

Win Stracke

Studs Terkel

Montgomery Ward

Jesse Jackson Sr.

Robert Abbott

Marshall Field

Frank Lloyd Wright

Harry Mark Petrakis

Potter and Bertha Palmer

Ida B. Wells

Timuel Black

Ed Paschke

Ald. Leon Despres

State Sen. Miguel del Valle

U.S. Sen. Paul Simon

Scott Turow

Stuart Dybek

Bessie Colman

Daniel Burnham

Enrico Fermi

Paul Sills

Margaret Burroughs

Ald. and Mayor William Dever

Benny Goodman

Jesse Owens

Ralph Metcalfe

Saul Alinsky

Nelson Algren

Al Raby

Georg Solti