By the end of the 1960s both were extinct in the city. The agricultural implement industry was in decline by the First World War, and the furniture industry was severely damaged by the Great Depression and the Second World War. Many of the furniture companies were cooperatives, reflecting a different business approach from that of the old Yankee entrepreneur, with laborers and craftsmen holding significant power. Manny reaper and other agricultural machinery.īy the 1880s a furniture industry was begun, using the talents of Swedish craftsmen and capitalists, and in the first half of the 20th century Rockford was the second largest furniture-manufacturing center in the United States. By 1860 Rockford had become a significant, growing industrial center, noted for production of the John H. But in 1851 the Rockford Water Power Company was organized and in 1852 the Galena & Chicago Union Railroad reached the city. Rockford is the county seat of Winnebago County, and until the 1850s was a sleepy country village. Rockford Public Library, the second such institution in Illinois, opened to the public in August 1872. Best known of the college's graduates is Jane Addams (1881), founder of Chicago's Hull House and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (1930). On Jthe college became Rockford University. Rockford Female Seminary was chartered in 1847, became Rockford College in 1892, and became fully coeducational in 1958. One of the founders of the city, Lewis Lemon, was an African American, but the black population of the city was very small until the First World War, after which people from the south, particularly Arkansas and Mississippi, arrived. Other significant ethnic groups that had a presence in Rockford were the Italians (after 1880), Poles and Lithuanians (after 1900), Laotians, Vietnamese, and Hispanics (after 1970). They settled chiefly on the east side, and in areas along 7th Street or Kishwaukee Avenue the Swedish language was as common as English as late as the 1920s. After the Civil War, the Swedes began to come in large numbers and quickly became the largest ethnic group in the city.
Large numbers of Irish-born immigrants arrived in the 1850s, and a few Swedish immigrants in 1852. The earliest settlers were chiefly from New York state and New England, but the city early acquired a modest cosmopolitan character. Between 18 the city had three daily papers. The first weekly newspaper was published in 1840 and the first successful daily newspaper appeared in 1877.
The settlement was incorporated as a village in 1839, and chartered as a city in 1852. (Lemon, a slave, later bought his freedom, but stayed in the area as a truck farmer.) Halfway between Chicago and Galena, the community was briefly known as "Midway", but quickly became known as "Rockford", because of the excellent ford across Rock River. Rockford, Illinois, was first settled in 1834-1835 by Germanicus Kent, Thatcher Blake, and Lewis Lemon, who came from Galena and established themselves on the west bank of Rock River and Daniel Shaw Haight, who founded a settlement on the east bank. Take a look at Rockford's rich history! Click on the links in the list to go to each section on the page:
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