Bogart, Ernest Ludlow. The Centennial History of Illinois: Industrial State, 1971-1893. Springfield: Illinois Centennial Commission, 1920.
Bordin, Ruth B. A. Frances Willard: A Biography. Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press, 1986.
Cole, Arthur Charles. The Centennial History of Illinois: The Era of the Civil War, 1848-1870. Springfield: Illinois Centennial Commission, 1919.
Cronon, William. Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West. New York: W.W. Norton, 1991.
Elshtain, Jean B. Jane Addams and the Dream of American Democracy: A Life. New York: Basic Books, 2002.
German Workers in Industrial Chicago, 1850-1910: A Comparative Perspective. Hartmut Keil and John B. Jentz, editors. DeKalb, Ill.: Northern Illinois University Press, 1983.
Handlin, Oscar. The Uprooted. Boston: Little, Brown, 1973.
Howard, Robert P. Illinois: A History of the Prairie State. Grand Rapids: W. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1972.
Jensen, Richard J. Illinois: A History. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2001.