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Past and Prologue: Politics and Memory in the American Revolution
By Michael D. Hattem. 2020
How American colonists reinterpreted their British and colonial histories to help establish political and cultural independence from Britain In Past…
and Prologue, Michael Hattem shows how colonists’ changing understandings of their British and colonial histories shaped the politics of the American Revolution and the origins of American national identity. Between the 1760s and 1800s, Americans stopped thinking of the British past as their own history and created a new historical tradition that would form the foundation for what subsequent generations would think of as “American history.” This change was a crucial part of the cultural transformation at the heart of the Revolution by which colonists went from thinking of themselves as British subjects to thinking of themselves as American citizens. Rather than liberating Americans from the past—as many historians have argued—the Revolution actually made the past matter more than ever. Past and Prologue shows how the process of reinterpreting the past played a critical role in the founding of the nation.The Last Slave Ships: New York and the End of the Middle Passage
By John Harris. 2020
A stunning behind-the-curtain look into the last years of the illegal transatlantic slave trade in the United States"Engrossing. . .…
. Astonishingly well-documented. . . . A signal contribution to U.S. antebellum historiography. Highly recommended for U.S. Middle Period, African American, and Civil War historians, and for all general readers."--Library Journal, Starred Review Long after the transatlantic slave trade was officially outlawed in the early nineteenth century by every major slave trading nation, merchants based in the United States were still sending hundreds of illegal slave ships from American ports to the African coast. The key instigators were slave traders who moved to New York City after the shuttering of the massive illegal slave trade to Brazil in 1850. These traffickers were determined to make Lower Manhattan a key hub in the illegal slave trade to Cuba. In conjunction with allies in Africa and Cuba, they ensnared around two hundred thousand African men, women, and children during the 1850s and 1860s. John Harris explores how the U.S. government went from ignoring, and even abetting, this illegal trade to helping to shut it down completely in 1867.Stand, Columbia: A History of Columbia University (Columbiana)
By Robert McCaughey. 2003
Stand, Columbia! Alma MaterThrough the storms of Time abideStand, Columbia! Alma MaterThrough the storms of Time abide."Stand, Columbia!" by Gilbert…
Oakley Ward, Columbia College 1902 (1904)Marking the 250th anniversary of one of America's oldest and most formidable educational institutions, this comprehensive history of Columbia University extends from the earliest discussions in 1704 about New York City being "a fit Place for a colledge" to the recent inauguration of president Lee Bollinger, the nineteenth, on Morningside Heights. One of the original "Colonial Nine" schools, Columbia's distinctive history has been intertwined with the history of New York City. Located first in lower Manhattan, then in midtown, and now in Morningside Heights, Columbia's national and international stature have been inextricably identified with its urban setting.Columbia was the first of America's "multiversities," moving beyond its original character as a college dedicated to undergraduate instruction to offer a comprehensive program in professional and graduate studies. Medicine, law, architecture, and journalism have all looked to the graduates and faculty of Columbia's schools to provide for their ongoing leadership and vitality. In 2003, a sampling of Columbia alumni include one member of the United States Supreme Court, three United States senators, three congressmen, three governors (New York, New Jersey, and California), a chief justice of the New York Court of Appeals, and a president of the New York City Board of Education. But it is perhaps as a contributor of ideas and voices to the broad discourse of American intellectual life that Columbia has most distinguished itself. From The Federalist Papers, written by Columbians John Jay and Alexander Hamilton, to Charles Beard's An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution and Jack Kerouac's On the Road to Edward Said's Orientalism, Columbia and its graduates have greatly influenced American intellectual and public life. Stand, Columbia also examines the experiences of immigrants, women, Jews, African Americans, and other groups as it takes critical measure of the University's efforts to become more inclusive and more reflective of the diverse city that it calls home.Show Trial: Hollywood, HUAC, and the Birth of the Blacklist (Film and Culture Series)
By Thomas Doherty. 2018
In 1947, the Cold War came to Hollywood. Over nine tumultuous days in October, the House Un-American Activities Committee held…
a notorious round of hearings into alleged Communist subversion in the movie industry. The blowback was profound: the major studios pledged to never again employ a known Communist or unrepentant fellow traveler. The declaration marked the onset of the blacklist era, a time when political allegiances, real or suspected, determined employment opportunities in the entertainment industry. Hundreds of artists were shown the door—or had it shut in their faces.In Show Trial, Thomas Doherty takes us behind the scenes at the first full-on media-political spectacle of the postwar era. He details the theatrical elements of a proceeding that bridged the realms of entertainment and politics, a courtroom drama starring glamorous actors, colorful moguls, on-the-make congressmen, high-priced lawyers, single-minded investigators, and recalcitrant screenwriters, all recorded by newsreel cameras and broadcast over radio. Doherty tells the story of the Hollywood Ten and the other witnesses, friendly and unfriendly, who testified, and chronicles the implementation of the postwar blacklist. Show Trial is a rich, character-driven inquiry into how the HUAC hearings ignited the anti-Communist crackdown in Hollywood, providing a gripping cultural history of one of the most transformative events of the postwar era.Many Latino and Chinese women who immigrated to New York City over the past several decades found work in the…
garment industry-an industry well known for both hiring immigrants and its harsh working conditions. In the 1990s, the garment industry was one of the largest immigrant employers in New York City and workers in Chinese- and Korean-owned factories produced 70 percent of all manufactured clothing in New York City. Based on extensive interviews with workers and employers, Margaret M. Chin offers a detailed and complex portrait of the work lives of Chinese and Latino garment workers. Chin, whose mother and aunts worked in Chinatown's garment industry, also explores how immigration status, family circumstances, ethnic relations, and gender affect the garment industry workplace. In turn, she analyzes how these factors affect whom employers hire and what wages and benefits are given to the employees.Chin's study contrasts the working conditions and hiring practices of Korean- and Chinese-owned factories. Her comparison of the two practices illuminates how ethnic ties both improve and hinder opportunities for immigrants. While both sectors take advantage of workers and are characterized by low wages and lax enforcement of safety regulations-there are crucial differences. In the Chinese sector, owners encourage employees, almost entirely female, to recruit new workers, especially friends and family. Though Chinese workers tend to be documented and unionized, this work arrangement allows owners to maintain a more paternalistic relationship with their employees. Gender also plays a major role in channeling women into the garment industry, as Chinese immigrants, particularly those with children, tend to maintain traditional gender roles in the workplace. Korean-owned shops, however, hire mostly undocumented Mexican and Ecuadorian workers, both male and female. These workers tend not to have children and are thus less tied to traditional gender roles. Unlike their Chinese counterparts, Korean employers hire workers on their own terms and would rather not allow current employees to influence their decisions. Chin's work also provides an overview of the history of the garment industry, examines immigration strategies, and concludes with a discussion of changes in the industry in the aftermath of 9/11.The Self-Help Compulsion: Searching for Advice in Modern Literature
By Beth Blum. 2020
Samuel Beckett as a guru for business executives? James Joyce as a guide to living a good life? The notion…
of notoriously experimental authors sharing a shelf with self-help books might seem far-fetched, yet a hidden history of rivalry, influence, and imitation links these two worlds. In The Self-Help Compulsion, Beth Blum reveals the profound entanglement of modern literature and commercial advice from the late nineteenth century to the present day.Blum explores popular reading practices in which people turn to literature in search of practical advice alongside modern writers’ rebukes of such instrumental purposes. As literary authors positioned themselves in opposition to people like Samuel Smiles and Dale Carnegie, readers turned to self-help for the promises of mobility, agency, and practical use that serious literature was reluctant to supply. Blum unearths a series of unlikely cases of the love-hate relationship between serious fiction and commercial advice, from Gustave Flaubert’s mockery of early DIY culture to Dear Abby’s cutting diagnoses of Nathanael West and from Virginia Woolf’s ambivalent polemics against self-improvement to the ways that contemporary global authors such as Mohsin Hamid and Tash Aw explicitly draw on the self-help genre. She also traces the self-help industry’s tendency to popularize, quote, and adapt literary wisdom and considers what it might have to teach today’s university. Offering a new history of self-help’s origins, appeal, and cultural and literary import around the world, this book reveals that self-help’s most valuable secrets are not about getting rich or winning friends but about how and why people read.This book presents a revolutionary new reading of manuscript records left by puritan minister Thomas Shepard in Cambridge, Massachusetts that…
have been studied for decades as his on-the-spot recording of oral relations of faith delivered by candidates for church membership. This book proves that these records are not relations, but Shepard’s personal record of sessions of trial—meetings with candidates still working out their spiritual seeking. New transcriptions of the original manuscript records, and corresponding never-before-published writing by Shepard, dispel much of the confusion produced by the published transcriptions. Close-readings of the manuscripts, contrasted with the published transcriptions, set the stage for a new understanding of puritan spiritual preparation in Shepard’s Cambridge church. The book concludes with a challenge to the negative reading of the women’s records that is central to established scholarship, revealing their powerful, confident spiritual identities and voices.The Americans: Reconstruction to the 21st Century
By Louis E. Wilson, J. Jorge Klor de Alva, Larry S. Krieger, Gerald A. Danzer, Nancy Woloch. 2003
The Americans focuses on nine themes, described on these pages. As you study U.S. history, you will encounter these and…
other themes again and again. The Thematic Review on pages 192-197 and the Tracing Themes features organize major events in United States history around these themes.Reds at the Blackboard: Communism, Civil Rights, and the New York City Teachers Union
By Clarence Taylor. 2011
The New York City Teachers Union shares a deep history with the American left, having participated in some of its…
most explosive battles. Established in 1916, the union maintained an early, unofficial partnership with the American Communist Party, winning key union positions and advocating a number of Party goals. Clarence Taylor recounts this pivotal relationship and the backlash it created, as the union threw its support behind controversial policies and rights movements. Taylor's research reaffirms the party's close ties with the union-yet it also makes clear that the organization was anything but a puppet of Communist power.Reds at the Blackboard showcases the rise of a unique type of unionism that would later dominate the organizational efforts behind civil rights, academic freedom, and the empowerment of blacks and Latinos. Through its affiliation with the Communist Party, the union pioneered what would later become social movement unionism, solidifying ties with labor groups, black and Latino parents, and civil rights organizations to acquire greater school and community resources. It also militantly fought to improve working conditions for teachers while championing broader social concerns. For the first time, Taylor reveals the union's early growth and the somewhat illegal attempts by the Board of Education to eradicate the group. He describes how the infamous Red Squad and other undercover agents worked with the board to bring down the union and how the union and its opponents wrestled with charges of anti-Semitism.The first comprehensive biography of Elihu Palmer tells the life story of a freethinker who was at the heart of…
the early United States' protracted contest over religious freedom and free speech.When the United States was new, a lapsed minister named Elihu Palmer shared with his fellow Americans the radical idea that virtue required no religious foundation. A better source for morality, he said, could be found in the natural world: the interconnected web of life that inspired compassion for all living things. Religions that deny these universal connections should be discarded, he insisted. For this, his Christian critics denounced him as a heretic whose ideas endangered the country.Although his publications and speaking tours made him one of the most infamous American freethinkers in his day, Elihu Palmer has been largely forgotten. No cache of his personal papers exists and his book has been long out of print. Yet his story merits telling, Kirsten Fischer argues, and not only for the dramatic account of a man who lost his eyesight before the age of thirty and still became a book author, newspaper editor, and itinerant public speaker. Even more intriguing is his encounter with a cosmology that envisioned the universe as interconnected, alive with sensation, and everywhere infused with a divine life force.Palmer's "heresy" tested the nation's recently proclaimed commitment to freedom of religion and of speech. In this he was not alone. Fischer reveals that Palmer engaged in person and in print with an array of freethinkers—some famous, others now obscure. The flourishing of diverse religious opinion struck some of his contemporaries as foundational to a healthy democracy while others believed that only a strong Christian faith could support democratic self-governance. This first comprehensive biography of Palmer draws on extensive archival research to tell the life story of a freethinker who was at the heart of the new nation's protracted contest over religious freedom and free speech—a debate that continues to resonate today.The Power of One
By Judith Bloom Fradin, Dennis Brindell Fradin. 2004
As a child growing up in Arkansas, Daisy Bates experienced segregation in restaurants, parks, and stores. At school, she and…
her classmates were crowded into poorly equipped rooms and deprived of the quality of education their white neighbors enjoyed. The practice of forcing African Americans to use separate, often inferior, facilities was an accepted way of life in many parts of the United States.General of the Army: George C. Marshall, Soldier and Statesman
By Ed Cray. 1990
As the U.S. Army's Chief of Staff through World War II, George Catlett Marshall (1880-1959) organized the military mobilization of…
unprecedented numbers of Americans and decisively shaped the Allied strategy that defeated first Nazi Germany, then Imperial Japan. As President Truman's Secretary of State, and later as his Secretary of Defense during the Korean War, Marshall the statesman created the European Recovery Act (known as the Marshall Plan), made possible the Berlin Airlift, and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. This masterful biography brings the reader face to face with a genuine American hero.The League of Outsider Baseball
By Gary Cieradkowski. 2015
p From an award-winning graphic artist and baseball historian comes a strikingly original illustrated history of baseball s forgotten heroes…
including stars of the Negro Leagues barnstorming teams semi-pro leagues foreign leagues and famous players like Shoeless Joe Jackson Jackie Robinson Willie Mays and Joe DiMaggio before they achieved notoriety p From a young age Gary Cieradkowski had a passion for baseball s unheralded heroes Inspired by his father and their shared love of the sport Cieradkowski began creating outsider baseball cards as a way to tell the little-known stories of baseball s many unsung heroes--alongside some of baseball s greatest players before they were famous i The League of Outsider Baseball i is a tribute to all of those who ve played the game known and unknown p Shining a light into the dark corners of baseball history--from Mickey Mantle s minor league days to Negro League greats like Josh Gibson and Leon Day to people that most never knew played the game such as Frank Sinatra who had his own ball club in 1940s Hollywood bank robber John Dillinger who was a promising shortstop and took time out between robberies to attend Cubs games and even a few US presidents--this book is a rich visual tribute to America s pastime p Meticulously researched beautifully illustrated using a unique vintage baseball-card-style and filled with a colorful and rich cast of characters this book is a prized collector s item and will be cherished by fans of all agesWhether admired or reviled, Lyndon B. Johnson and his tumultuous administration embodied the principles and contradictions of his era. Taking…
advantage of newly released evidence, this second edition incorporates a selection of fresh documents, including transcripts of Johnson's phone conversations and conservative reactions to his leadership, to examine the issues and controversies that grew out of Johnson's presidency and have renewed importance today. The voices of Johnson, his aides, his opponents, and his interpreters address the topics of affirmative action, the United States' role in world affairs, civil rights, Vietnam, the Great Society, and the fate of liberal reform. Additional photographs of Johnson in action complement Bruce J. Schulman's rich biographical narrative, and a chronology, an updated bibliographical essay, and new questions for consideration provide pedagogical support.Cold War Wisconsin
By Christopher Sturdevant. 2018
As the Cold War gripped the world with fear of espionage and nuclear winter, everyday Wisconsinites found themselves embroiled in…
the struggle. For decades, the state's nuclear missiles pointed to the skies, awaiting Soviet bombers. Joseph Stalin's daughter sought refuge in the small town of Richland Center. With violence in Vietnam about to peak, a cargo ship from Kewaunee sparked a new international incident with North Korea. Manitowoc was ground zero for a Sputnik satellite crash, and four ordinary Madison youths landed on the FBI's most wanted list after the Sterling Hall Bombing. Local author and chairman of the Midwest Chapter of the Cold War Museum Chris Sturdevant shares the tales of the Badger State's role in this titanic showdown between East and West.Yorktown, Virginia: A Brief History (Brief History)
By Wilford Kale. 2018
Yorktown's history is often overshadowed by its pivotal role in the Revolutionary War. The site of the British surrender has…
held several victory commemorations over the past two hundred years. Yorktown also was a thriving colonial port and the site of one of the biggest Union blunders in the Civil War. During Reconstruction, former slaves created a vibrant community called Slabtown on the edge of the hamlet. In the 1930s, the National Park Service began preserving the battlefield; what was for decades a sleepy village is now dominated by tourism, and nearby modern military installations have helped to give it new life. Join author Wilford Kale as he reveals the many facets of Yorktown.March Forward, Girl: From Young Warrior to Little Rock Nine
By Melba Pattillo Beals, Frank Morrison. 2018
From the legendary civil rights activist and author of the million-copy selling Warriors Don't Cry comes an ardent and profound…
childhood memoir of growing up while facing adversity in the Jim Crow South. Long before she was one of the Little Rock Nine, Melba Pattillo Beals was a warrior. Frustrated by the laws that kept African-Americans separate but very much unequal to whites, she had questions. Why couldn’t she drink from a "whites only" fountain? Why couldn’t she feel safe beyond home—or even within the walls of church? Adults all told her: Hold your tongue. Be patient. Know your place. But Beals had the heart of a fighter—and the knowledge that her true place was a free one. Combined with emotive drawings and photos, this memoir paints a vivid picture of Beals’ powerful early journey on the road to becoming a champion for equal rights, an acclaimed journalist, a best-selling author, and the recipient of this country’s highest recognition, the Congressional Gold Medal.A History of Burley Tobacco in East Tennessee & Western North Carolina
By Billy Yeargin, Christopher Bickers. 2015
Burley tobacco revolutionized the industry in east Tennessee and western North Carolina. What started from two farmers planting white burley…
in Greeneville ignited an agricultural revolution and significantly changed crops, production and quality. Burley transformed the tobacco industry with new cultivation techniques and a shift from dark and flue-cured tobacco. By the 1990s, burley tobacco production in the region had drastically declined, and it is a tradition that few local farmers still practice. Agricultural experts Billy Yeargin and Christopher Bickers take a nostalgic look at the historic rise of burley tobacco and its gradual decline.Northeast Philadelphia: A Brief History (Brief History)
By Dr Harry Silcox, Frank W. Hollingsworth. 2009
Before the Consolidation Act of 1854 more than tripled the former capital's population, Northeast Philadelphia was a scattered group of…
pastoral communities just beyond the city limits. Holmesburg, Somerton and other small villages initially struggled but ultimately triumphed in their transition from rural townships to a bustling urban center. Dr. Harry C. Silcox has collaborated with Frank W. Hollingsworth to chart this fascinating evolution, from the demise of the family farm to neighbors uniting on the homefront during World War II. With such lively characters as Mary Disston, the founding mother of Tacony, and tales of the local effort for suffrage, Silcox and Hollingsworth create a brilliant and affectionate portrait of Northeast Philadelphia.Bennington and the Civil War (Civil War Series)
By William Morgan. 2013
The people of Bennington often refer to the American Revolution as "our war," as it was the site of the…
decisive Battle of Bennington. Yet more than one thousand Bennington boys fought in the Civil War, and residents on the homefront played their parts to support the United States, too. All the machinery used to produce gunpowder and nearly all the horseshoes for the United States Army were manufactured in Bennington, and a Bennington native was instrumental in the building of the USS "Monitor. "Mrs. Jefferson Davis visited friends in Bennington shortly after the war, and two Medal of Honor winners lived here as well. In this book, historian Bill Morgan unveils the important ways that Bennington helped preserve the United States during the Civil War.