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The League of Women Voters of Evanston formed a special committee in 2021 to start making plans for the 100th anniversary in 2022 of the group, which has played an important role in the city’s governance over the years.
“We were meeting weekly, kept meeting and meeting,” recalled member Cate Whitcomb,” and finally in one of those meetings it became very obvious to redo ‘This Is Evanston’ was our duty for our 100th anniversary. That that was going to be our gift to the city.”
League members worked on the publication through much 2022. The “gift,” the 10th edition of the League’s “This is Evanston: A Guide to History, Government, Education and Community Services,” was released publicly for the first time as part of the organizations’s fundraiser dinner at the Unitarian Church this past February.
League members are now going out to the community, rolling out the book for wider use.
The 82-page, soft-cover book includes updated chapters on Evanston history, government and education, a new chapter on Evanston issues and challenges, and an annotated directory of community resources. Furthermore, it’s the first edition to feature full-color photographs of Evanston buildings, outdoor areas, public art and people.
First printed in 1949, the book has served as the guide to how the city works and where residents can go for community resources.
Whitcomb, Betty Hayford and Joan Linsenmeier were the principal authors. Kathelyn Hayes and Mary Gavin, former editor of the RoundTable, were other members of the committee that worked on the project.
The cover sets the tone – a picture of the sculpture Inclusiva, which stands outside Evanston’s new Robert Crown Community Center.
Designed by Blessing Hancock, the large metal structure has words cut into its surface that many community members have used to describe their hometown, the guide explains.
The group decided to feature the artwork because “it felt like it was really talking about the city, and so, to begin with, that just seemed like a no-brainer,” said Whitcomb. “And then, with each of the chapter headings, we decided we would use one of the banners somewhere, some mural from someplace in town that sort of spoke to that chapter.”
‘Know your town’ an early League theme
Evanston’s League was established in 1922. The nationwide League of Women had been founded in Chicago in 1920, just six months before the 19th Amendment was ratified, giving women the right to vote.
From its founding, the League established as a main goal “to not only have women vote, but to have all voters and especially with a focus on women, be educated voters,” Linsenmeier said in an interview.
“And so early on, the league had a push. To be an educated voter in local elections, you needed to know about your hometown. And so this was something that was talked about in national publications and state publications, and a variety of approaches to doing education about your hometown were done in different communities.”
The April 1923 Bulletin of the Illinois League of Women Voters presented an initial set of 20 “Know Your Town” questions prepared by the National League of Women Voters, wrote Linsenmeier in an essay on the origin of the guide that ran in the League’s Nov. 2022 newsletter.
“An article in the League’s Nov. 1923 Bulletin suggested Know Your Town activities, including neighborhood walks with friends and a trivia played until one participant remains standing and wins a prize,” Linsenmeier wrote.
The “Know Your Town” movement seemed to be the impetus for the guide, she said. Minutes from a June 6, 1946, board meeting reported that Margery Blair Perkins, editor of the first edition, “presented plans for a program on local affairs and after discussion a motion was made that a revision of the ‘Know Your Town Survey,’ be made with Mrs. Perkins as chairman,” Linsenmeier reported.
The first “This Is Evanston,” she reported, “was a huge undertaking. It is 213 pages long, and the foreword lists 56 authors. Others are thanked for their hand-drawn charts, maps, typing, editing and proofreading.”
By comparison, the League’s glossy 10th edition of ”This Is Evanston” is 82 pages long. But the guide in printed form continues to play an essential role, said Hayford.
“When I was working, I was busy and I didn’t know much about the city,” she recalled, “and when I retired, I joined the League of Women Voters and wanted to learn more about Evanston. And there’s a lot of information available online and then there’s local publications, but a lot of people don’t have much time for it.”
One of the important elements of the guide “is a sort of overall look at the city today and a look at the history,” Hayford said, giving readers a context for some of the issues that the League has advocated for from the beginning, such as affordable housing.
A new section, “Current Evanston Issues,” describes the impact of COVID-19 on the city. But it also seeks to bring “a greater awareness of public health issues to the whole community,” she said. “And I think that greater awareness is continuing and [there’s] more collaboration among health organizations and certainly more awareness of mental health issues that have come out of that collaboration.”
Adding to that, Linsenmeier said it’s noticeable how the structure of that collaboration changed over the guide’s 10 editions, “so it’s not a subset of government or a subset of education or whatever. It’s Evanston issues with lots of entities involved and how we are addressing in laudable ways or not so good ways, but the city is more collaborative.”
History as clues to Evanston’s special character
The book’s history section includes vignettes of community leaders, such as John Evans, for whom Evanston is named, and social reformer Frances Willard, one of the founders of Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, including controversial parts of their historical records.
The accounts included Evans’ involvement in the Sand Creek Massacre after he left Evanston to become governor of the territory of Colorado, and the feud between Willard and journalist and civil rights activist Ida B. Wells, who faced resistance trying to get the temperance union to join the campaign against lynching.
Mary Gavin, one of the members of the committee, deserves some credit in that regard, said Hayford. Gavin, along with her husband, Larry Gavin, who is also a journalist, published a larger-format history of Evanston, “Encountering Evanston History,” late last year, delving into those and other issues.
In the League guide, there’s also a section in the current history portion of the guide about Evanston’s adoption of what is believed to be the country’s first local reparations housing program. It also includes a mini-portrait of former 5th Ward Council Member Robin Rue Simmons, who helped lead the way on the issue.
Hayford pointed out, “Putting that section in, we also had to look at the history section and make sure that we were giving maybe a better rounded and more accurate portion of the African-American community in Evanston.”
The book winds up with an extensive community services section, which includes phone numbers and information where readers might go online to learn more about available resources.
Almost from the beginning, the guide aligned with issues the group supported for passage, including the city’s first zoning ordinance, adoption of the council-manager form of government, development of a comprehensive general plan and adoption of an open-housing ordinance.
In a deeper sense, the guide, with its emphasis on knowing the workings of government, aligned with the national organization’s history.
“Coming out of suffrage, knowing the history of suffrage,” said Whitcomb, “there were a lot of people who opposed suffrage because they said, ‘Oh, women don’t know enough about me,’ and women themselves saying, ‘Oh, I don’t know anything about the government, I can’t vote, I’ll let my husband do that. [The League] said, well, our first job is to educate people because we cannot have people saying, ‘Oh, women don’t know enough to vote.’ So it was absolutely out of the suffrage movement into ‘OK, let’s make something called the League of Women Voters, all of us together are going to make a difference. We’re going to vote.’ That’s the strand that we’re honoring here.”
To order a copy of “This Is Evanston,” visit https://www.lwve.org/this-is-evanston.html. The book is also available at Bookends and Beginnings, 1620 Orrington Ave., and other local bookstores for $10.
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