The Social Order of a Frontier Community,

Jacksonville, Illinois, 1825-70

by Don Harrison Doyle

Doyle's study of a midwestern community examines the social and cultural history of Jacksonville, Illinois. Moving from the early attempts of a group of Easterners from Yale University (who hoped to establish the town as "the Athens of the West") to the contributions of a succession of immigrant groups (Portuguese from Madeira, refugees from the Irish potato famine, Germans, and free blacks and their sympathizers), he sketches the contours of a frontier community's singleminded struggle for success. [Pages 124 to 132 related to the Portuguese immigration are reproduced here.]

The above description and all page images from: The Social Order of a Frontier Community, Jacksonville, Illinois, 1825-70. Copyright 1978 by the Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. Used with the permission of the University of Illinois Press.

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edited on 09/24/00