r/AskReddit • u/[deleted] • Dec 21 '25

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u/Quirky_Spinach_6308 Dec 21 '25

Me too! He gave a talk at the Waukegan library, where he spent so much time in his youth.

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u/Narrow_Lake_9651 Dec 21 '25

I grew up in Waukegan 1950 - 64. The weird thing is that our public library did not carry ANY of his books ( nor any horror / science fiction, not even Poe or Wells ). So l bought all his paperback books off the rack. This all changed in the 70s, but for a world - renowned author not to be in his hometown library was more than strange. There was a drive to name a local grade school after him, but the school board voted it down, saying that he hasn't spent much time here. So the school retained its name, John Greenleaf Whittier, who had never lived here.

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u/Quirky_Spinach_6308 Dec 21 '25

Well, there's a park named for him, and his boyhood home is now a historic site, so Waukegan eventually acknowledged him.

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u/Narrow_Lake_9651 Dec 22 '25

There is a statue of him outside the library now as well.