Digitized Book of the Week

http://www.archive.org/details/sothisthenisprea00hubb
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Born in Bloomington, Illinois, in 1856, Elbert Hubbard was a major figure in the American Arts and Crafts movement. In 1895 he founded Roycroft, a reformist community of craft workers and artists in East Aurora, New York. "Participants were known as Roycrofters. The work and philosophy of the group, often referred to as the Roycroft movement, had a strong influence on the development of American architecture and design in the early 20th century." (Wikipedia) The Roycroft creed was a quotation from John Ruskin: "A belief in working with the head, hand and heart and mixing enough play with the work so that every task is pleasurable and makes for health and happiness." An admirer of William Morris, founder of the Kelmscott Press in England, Hubbard started his own fine press, the Roycroft Press, which published numerous small books and pamphlets, such as today's book So This Then is the Preachment Entitled Chicago Tongue. The "Chicago tongue" of the title refers to a habit of speaking unkindly about others. Elbert Hubbard and his second wife Alice Hubbard were on the Lusitania when it was torpedoed and sunk by a German submarine in 1915. The Hubbard's did not survive, but the Roycroft legacy did, as did many wonderful quotations from the man known as Fra Elbertus. Among them, "To avoid criticism do nothing, say nothing, be nothing" and "Never explain--your friends do not need it and your enemies will not believe you anyway."

http://www.archive.org/details/berichtrapportre45wome
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Jane Addams (1860-1935), co-founder with Ellen Gates Starr, of Hull House, a social settlement serving the immigrants on Chicago's north side, became involved in the peace movement during the First World War. Motivated by a strong conviction that women's suffrage was inextricably linked to the cause of international peace, she travelled to the Hague in 1915 where she served as the president of the first congress of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. While many were critical of her pacifism, she continued to call on women to use their influence to oppose militarism throughout the world. The quotation below comes from her book Peace and Bread in Times of War (MacMillan, 1922), which UIUC Library has also just digitized. Jane Addams was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931.

http://www.archive.org/details/illinoiswayofbea00mill

A treasure not to be missed! Circular 170 of the Agricultural Experiment Station, published by the Horticulture Department at UIUC in 1914. Copies were distributed "free to anyone in Illinois who will sign a promise to do some permanent ornamental planting within a year." Learn all about the "gaudy way" vs. the "Illinois way;" why the Illinois farmer's wife was discouraged from having a separate flower garden; and why growing gladiolas builds character in Illinois farm children! The text is as charming as the photos!