Salem: Birthplace of the Great Commoner

Salem, the seat of Marion County, was settled in eighteen twenty-three and grew slowly along old pioneer trails crossing central Illinois. Its most famous son was born here on March nineteenth, eighteen sixty: William Jennings Bryan, known as the Great Commoner. Bryan ran for president three times as a Democrat, served as Secretary of State under Woodrow Wilson, and was the most celebrated orator of his age.

He donated the house where he was born to the city of Salem in the early nineteen hundreds, and it operates today as a museum. The Bryan-Bennett Library, which he helped fund, still carries his name. Salem remembers him as a champion of ordinary people in an era when railroads and banks held most of the power.