List of Famous people born in Illinois, United States of America

Max Adler was born in Elgin, Illinois, to a German Jewish family who emigrated to America in about 1850. He was raised in Elgin and graduated from Elgin High School. As an adult he was a concert violinist in Chicago before he gave up music to become a vice president at Sears Roebuck & Co. after marrying into the family that controlled the company. His wife was Sophie Rosenwald, sister of Julius Rosenwald, who founded Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry. He retired in 1928 to become a philanthropist and was key to the creation of the first planetarium in the Western Hemisphere, the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, which bears his name.

Floyd James Dell was an American newspaper and magazine editor, literary critic, novelist, playwright, and poet. Dell has been called "one of the most flamboyant, versatile and influential American Men of Letters of the first third of the 20th Century." In Chicago, he was editor of the nationally syndicated Friday Literary Review. As editor and critic, Dell's influence is seen in the work of many major American writers from the first half of the 20th century. A lifelong poet, he was also a best-selling author, as well as a playwright whose hit Broadway comedy, Little Accident (1928), was made into a Hollywood movie.

Frank White was the eighth Governor of North Dakota from 1901 to 1905. He was a Republican who also served as Treasurer of the United States from 1921 to 1928.

Johnston McCulley was an American writer, the author of hundreds of stories, fifty novels, numerous screenplays for film and television, and the creator of the character Zorro.

René Plaissetty (1889–1955) was an American film director.

Michael Delaney Dowd Jr., known as Mike Douglas, was an American "Big Band" era singer, entertainer, television talk show host of The Mike Douglas Show, and actor.

William Stedman Greene was a United States Representative from Massachusetts. Born in Tremont, Illinois, Greene moved with his parents to Fall River, Massachusetts in 1844.

Kenneth Leon "Tug" Wilson was an American track and field athlete and amateur athletics administrator. He competed in the 1920 Summer Olympics, finishing tenth in the discus throw competition. Wilson served as the second commissioner of the Big Ten Conference, from 1945 to 1961, and as the president of the United States Olympic Committee from 1953 to 1965.

James Harvey Robinson was an American historian, who co-founded New History, which greatly broadened the scope of historical scholarship in relation to the social sciences. Jay Green concludes:

From his innovations in historical methodology and research to his revisions of secondary and undergraduate pedagogy, Robinson endeavored to reform the modern study of history, making it relevant and useful to contemporary peoples. A quintessential Progressive, he combined astute in erudite thinking with a penchant for activism in order to challenge his professional colleagues' "obsolete" conception of history and to demonstrate written history's potential for inspiring social improvement.