"Some historians say that to focus on the personality of a famous figure is to neglect the context in which he/she lived. My argument is that personality provides a way to attract students to history because it allows them to make a personal connection to the past." - Joe Illick
About Me
Background
I grew up in rural Pennsylvania, attended Princeton University (Class of ’56) and the University of Pennsylvania (where I took my Ph. D. in American history), and began teaching in the history department at San Francisco State University in 1963. I have also taught at Kalamazoo [MI] Collge, Lafayette College, Lehigh University, New York University, Haverford College, University of Vermont, University of Caliifornia in Berkeley, the San Francisco Psychoanalytic Institute, and -- as the Fulbright Professor of American Studies -- at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England. I am the author of five books and numerous articles and book reviews in American history, the most recent being AMERICAN CHILDHOODS (2002). I retired as a classroom historian in 2002.
Art
I began studying studio art at San Francisco State University in 1980, and two of my sculptures were featured in the student show in the spring of 1981. I continued to study art at San Francisco State University. I am currently a student in painting and relief printing at the City College of San Francisco.
Teaching
In addition to having taught American history in a number of colleges and universities, I conducted an institute from 1991 to 1993 for K-12 history teachers, from whom I learned lots about the California public schools. (I already knew pretty much from watching my own three children traverse that territory.) Children suffer through these history courses, only to face them again at the baccalaureate level. I would like to show them that they learned something -- and that they can be amused by it, as well.
Woodcuts
No person symbolizes the national experience more obviously than the President of the United States. I have created images of these men (we still await a woman), and I have written verse that speaks to their policies in addition to their personalities.
Because of the pervasiveness and insistence of American history instruction, all persons -- children as well as adults -- should recognize something in these portraits and rhymes. I hope my work will lead to serious reflection as well as amusement; why should the sober and the comic not travel together? And since presidential politics seem to be with us more than ever, our citizens can benefit from the perspective lent by this visual/literary experience.
A book displaying these images and verses is appropriate to every American household. The message is accurate but not reverential, sometimes light but never frivolous.
About the Woodcuts
During October 2007 the 43 presidents, as well as other woodcuts, were on view in San Francisco Open Studios. In the winter of 2007/2008 the presidential woodcuts were displayed at the Institute for Governmental Studies, UC, Berkeley. In November 2008 these same woodcuts will appear in the library shared by San Jose State University and the city of San Jose.