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Pittsfield (Images of America)
By The Berkshire County Historical Society. 2016
Pittsfield is truly the heart of the Berkshires.The Berkshire Hills of western Massachusetts have long been a cultural hub and…
an area of exceptional natural beauty, and Pittsfield, the area's largest community, has always been at the center of attention. The town center, now known as Park Square, was the site of the first agricultural fair ever held in the United States, and Pittsfield became well-known as the adopted home of such literary luminaries as Oliver Wendell Holmes and Herman Melville, who wrote his classic novel Moby-Dick at his home, Arrowhead. In addition to Pittsfield's rich cultural heritage, the town's commerce and industry have fueled the region from the early days when Arthur Scholfield operated the only wool-carding machine in America, to the city's more recent role as an innovator in the electrical industry. Pittsfield celebrates the scenic beauty, the cultural heritage, and the ingenuity of the people and places of the town using nearly 200 vintage images. Inside find Pittsfield's famous sons and daughters, scenic novelties like Balance Rock, the diving horses that performed at Pontoosuc Lake, and even the famous trolley wreck that almost killed Theodore Roosevelt.South Bronx (Images of America)
By Bill Twomey. 2002
Once a part of Westchester County, the Bronx was annexed to New York City in the nineteenth century. The South…
Bronx came to be defined as the area in the southwest part of the borough between the Harlem River and the Bronx River, with Fordham Road generally considered as the northern boundary. Less urban than nearby neighborhoods in Manhattan, the South Bronx attracted countless numbers of immigrants arriving in New York City in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Choosing to raise their families in what was then a country setting, they helped to make the South Bronx one of the most culturally diverse sections of New York. Churches, schools, ballparks, and streets of the old neighborhoods come back to life on the pages of South Bronx. This book revisits the Third Avenue trolley, Old West Farms, the Third Avenue El, tar beach, and the cobblestone roadways of a bygone era. The breweries and old-time taverns that were once such a vital part of the culture of the South Bronx are found anew in these pages. The Schnorer Club, the Elks Club on the Concourse, the Concourse Plaza Hotel, and Yankee Stadium come to life in this stunning collection of more than two hundred images.The American Pageant: A History of the American People
By Lizabeth Cohen, David Kennedy. 2020
You may not think that a history book could make you laugh, but THE AMERICAN PAGEANT just might. It's known…
for being one of the most popular, effective and entertaining texts on American history. Colorful anecdotes, first-person quotations and the authors' trademark wit bring history to life. Learning aids make the book as accessible as it is enjoyable: part openers and chapter-ending chronologies provide a context for the major periods in American history, while primary sources and introductions to key historical figures give you a front row seat to the nation's past.Ellis Island: Official Ellis Island Souvenir Guide (Images of America)
By Barry Moreno. 2016
The United States is considered the world's foremost refuge for foreigners, and no place in the nation symbolizes this better…
than Ellis Island.Through Ellis Island's halls and corridors more than twelve million immigrants-of nearly every nationality and race-entered the country on their way to new experiences in North America. With an astonishing array of nineteenth- and twentieth-century photographs, Ellis Island leads the reader through the fascinating history of this small island in New York harbor from its pre-immigration days as one of the harbor's oyster islands to its spectacular years as the flagship station of the U.S. Bureau of Immigration to its current incarnation as the National Park Service's largest museum.Stones River and Tullahoma Campaigns, The: This Army Does Not Retreat (Civil War Series)
By Christopher L. Kolakowski. 2011
After the Battle of Perryville in October 1862, the focus of the Civil War in the West shifted back to…
Tennessee. The Union Army of the Cumberland regrouped in Nashville, while the Confederate Army of Tennessee camped 30 miles away in Murfreesboro. On December 26 the Federals marched southward and fought a three-day brawl at Stones River with their Confederate counterparts. The Confederates withdrew, and both armies spent the winter and spring harassing each other and regrouping for the next round. In the Confederate camp, dissention corroded the army's high command. The book will use letters, reports, memoirs, and other primary sources to tell the story of the battles for Middle Tennessee in late 1862 and 1863. The critical engagement at Stones River (by percentage of loss the Civil War's bloodiest battle) and the masterful Tullahoma operation will receive detailed attentionCher Ami and the Lost Battalion: A True Story of the First World War
By Patricia Baeh. 2020
As countries in Europe grew their military power in 1914, so did their fear of being attacked. Alliances were made…
and tested! Europe was split into two central powers—this was the birth of World War I. When America entered the Great War, they used carrier pigeons to send messages to their allies. Discover how one pigeon, Cher Ami, became famous for his mission to headquarters.For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War
By James M. Mcpherson. 1997
Why did the soldiers of the Civil War--Confederate and Union--risk their lives, through countless bloody battles and four long, awful…
years? Drawing on more than 25,000 uncensored letters and nearly 250 private diaries from men on both sides, James McPherson shows that the soldiers of the Civil War remained powerfully convinced of the ideals for which they fought throughout the conflict. Motivated by duty and honor, and often by religious faith, these men wrote frequently of their firm belief in the cause for which they went to war: the principles of liberty, freedom, justice, and patriotism. For Cause and Comrades lets these soldiers tell their stories in their own word to create an account that is both deeply moving and far truer than most books of war. McPherson's masterful prose and the soldiers' words combine to create both an important book on an often overlooked aspect of our bloody Civil War, and a powerfully moving account of the men who fought it. "In a prose that is both sensitive and remarkably lucid, [McPherson] helps us re-enter an American society in which ideals were not merely pat phrases but principles that inspired conduct--however hateful some of those principles were." --New York Review of Hook James McPherson is the George Henry Davis '86 Professor of American history at Princeton University where he has taught since 1962. The author of eleven books on the Civil War era, he won the Pulitzer Prize in History in 1989 for Battle Cry of Freedom.From Chris Wallace, the veteran journalist and anchor of Fox News Sunday, comes an electrifying behind-the-scenes account of the 116…
days leading up to the American attack on Hiroshima. April 12, 1945: After years of bloody conflict in Europe and the Pacific, America is stunned by news of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s death. In an instant, Vice President Harry Truman, who has been kept out of war planning and knows nothing of the top-secret Manhattan Project to develop the world’s first atomic bomb, must assume command of a nation at war on multiple continents—and confront one of the most consequential decisions in history. Countdown 1945 tells the gripping true story of the turbulent days, weeks, and months to follow, leading up to August 6, 1945, when Truman gives the order to drop the bomb on Hiroshima. In Countdown 1945, Chris Wallace, the veteran journalist and anchor of Fox News Sunday, takes readers inside the minds of the iconic and elusive figures who join the quest for the bomb, each for different reasons: the legendary Albert Einstein, who eventually calls his vocal support for the atomic bomb “the one great mistake in my life”; lead researcher J. Robert “Oppie” Oppenheimer and the Soviet spies who secretly infiltrate his team; the fiercely competitive pilots of the plane selected to drop the bomb; and many more. Perhaps most of all, Countdown 1945 is the story of an untested new president confronting a decision that he knows will change the world forever. Truman’s journey during these 116 days is a story of high drama: from the shock of learning of the bomb’s existence, to the conflicting advice he receives from generals like Dwight D. Eisenhower and George Marshall, to wrestling with the devastating carnage that will result if he gives the order to use America’s first weapon of mass destruction. But Countdown 1945 is more than a book about the atomic bomb. It’s also an unforgettable account of the lives of ordinary American and Japanese civilians in wartime—from “Calutron Girls” like Ruth Sisson in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, to ten-year-old Hiroshima resident Hideko Tamura, who survives the blast at ground zero but loses her mother and later immigrates to the United States, where she lives to this day—as well as American soldiers fighting in the Pacific, waiting in fear for the order to launch a possible invasion of Japan. Told with vigor, intelligence, and humanity, Countdown 1945 is the definitive account of one of the most significant moments in history. A New York Times BestsellerThe Mysterious Life and Faked Death of Jesse James: Based on Family Records, Forensic Evidence, and His Personal Journals
By Daniel J. Duke, Teresa F. Duke. 2020
A deep investigation into historical documents that prove the notorious outlaw Jesse James faked his own death • Presents the…
legend of Jesse James and counters it with the real story, based on family records • Provides photographic evidence, a journal of Jesse James&’s, and historical records that prove James faked his death, verified by experts and civic authorities • Debunks the 1995 DNA test results of James&’s supposed remains The story of the notorious outlaw Jesse James&’s assassination at the hands of Robert Ford has been clouded with mystery ever since its inception. Now, James&’s great-great-grandchildren Daniel and Teresa Duke present the results of more than 20 years of exhaustive research into state and federal records, photographs, newspaper reports, diaries, and a 1995 DNA test in search of the truth behind Jesse James&’s demise. Explaining how the accepted version of the history of Jesse James is wrong, the authors confirm their family&’s oral tradition that James faked his own death in 1882 and lived out his remaining days in Texas. They methodically unravel the legend surrounding his death, with evidence vetted by qualified experts and civic authorities. They share the journal of their great-great-grandfather, kept from 1871 to 1876 and verified to be written in James&’s handwriting. They reveal forensically confirmed photographs of James before and after his supposed killing, including one of James attending his own funeral. Examining James&’s life both before and after his faked death, they provide an account of where he lived and who he associated with, including his interactions with secret societies. They compare the contradictory newspaper reports of James&’s death with accounts by his family and associates, which support that the man buried as James was actually his cousin, and reveal how James tricked authorities into believing he had been killed. Further supporting their claim, the authors debunk the DNA test results of the exhumation of James&’s body in 1995. The Dukes detail the ways in which the test was fraudulent, an assertion supported by the deputy counselor for Clay County at the time of the testing. Backed by a wealth of evidence, the descendants of Jesse James conclusively prove what really happened to America&’s Robin Hood.THE DRAMATIC HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN BUFFALO—BY MICHAEL PUNKE, THE AUTHOR OF THE REVENANT, NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE STARRING LEONARDO DICAPRIOMichael…
Punke's The Last Stand tells the epic story of the American West through the lens of the American bison and the man who saved these icons of the Western landscape.Over the last three decades of the nineteenth century, an American buffalo herd once numbering 30 million animals was reduced to twelve. It was the era of Manifest Destiny, a Gilded Age that treated the West as nothing more than a treasure chest of resources to be dug up or shot down. The buffalo in this world was a commodity, hounded by legions of swashbucklers and unemployed veterans seeking to make their fortunes. Supporting these hide hunters, even buying their ammunition, was the U.S. Army, which considered the eradication of the buffalo essential to victory in its ongoing war on Native Americans.Into that maelstrom rode young George Bird Grinnell. A scientist and a journalist, a hunter and a conservationist, Grinnell would lead the battle to save the buffalo from extinction. Fighting in the pages of magazines, in Washington's halls of power, and in the frozen valleys of Yellowstone, Grinnell and his allies sought to preserve an icon from the grinding appetite of Robber Baron America.Grinnell shared his adventures with some of the greatest and most infamous characters of the American West—from John James Audubon and Buffalo Bill to George Armstrong Custer and Theodore Roosevelt (Grinnell's friend and ally). A strikingly contemporary story, the saga of Grinnell and the buffalo was the first national battle over the environment. Last Stand is the story of the death of the old West and the birth of the new as well as an examination of how the West was really won—through the birth of the conservation movement. It is also the definitive history of the American buffalo, written by a master storyteller of the West.Cult of Glory: The Bold and Brutal History of the Texas Rangers
By Doug J. Swanson. 2020
A twenty-first century reckoning with the legendary Texas Rangers that does justice to their heroic moments while also documenting atrocities,…
brutality, oppression, and corruptionThe Texas Rangers came to life in 1823, when Texas was still part of Mexico. Nearly 200 years later, the Rangers are still going--one of the most famous of all law enforcement agencies. In Cult of Glory, Doug J. Swanson has written a sweeping account of the Rangers that chronicles their epic, daring escapades while showing how the white and propertied power structures of Texas used them as enforcers, protectors and officially sanctioned killers.Cult of Glory begins with the Rangers' emergence as conquerors of the wild and violent Texas frontier. They fought the fierce Comanches, chased outlaws, and served in the U.S. Army during the Mexican War. As Texas developed, the Rangers were called upon to catch rustlers, tame oil boomtowns, and patrol the perilous Texas-Mexico border. In the 1930s they began their transformation into a professionally trained police force. Countless movies, television shows, and pulp novels have celebrated the Rangers as Wild West supermen. In many cases, they deserve their plaudits. But often the truth has been obliterated. Swanson demonstrates how the Rangers and their supporters have operated a propaganda machine that turned agency disasters and misdeeds into fables of triumph, transformed murderous rampages--including the killing of scores of Mexican civilians--into valorous feats, and elevated scoundrels to sainthood. Cult of Glory sets the record straight.Beginning with the Texas Indian wars, Cult of Glory embraces the great, majestic arc of Lone Star history. It tells of border battles, range disputes, gunslingers, massacres, slavery, political intrigue, race riots, labor strife, and the dangerous lure of celebrity. And it reveals how legends of the American West--the real and the false--are truly made.Minnesota's Geologist: The Life of Newton Horace Winchell
By Sue Leaf. 2020
The story of the scientist who first mapped Minnesota&’s geology, set against the backdrop of early scientific inquiry in the…
state At twenty, Newton Horace Winchell declared, &“I know nothing about rocks.&” At twenty-five, he decided to make them his life&’s work. As a young geologist tasked with heading the Minnesota Geological and Natural History Survey, Winchell (1839–1914) charted the prehistory of the region, its era of inland seas, its volcanic activity, and its several ice ages—laying the foundation for the monumental five-volume Geology of Minnesota. Tracing Winchell&’s remarkable path from impoverished fifteen-year-old schoolteacher to a leading light of an emerging scientific field, Minnesota&’s Geologist also recreates the heady early days of scientific inquiry in Minnesota, a time when one man&’s determination and passion for learning could unlock the secrets of the state&’s distant past and present landscape.Traveling by horse and cart, by sailboat and birchbark canoe, Winchell and his group surveyed rock outcrops, river valleys, basalt formations on Lake Superior, and the vast Red River Valley. He studied petrology at the Sorbonne in Paris, bringing cutting-edge knowledge to bear on the volcanic rocks of the Arrowhead region. As a founder of the American Geological Society and founding editor of American Geologist, the first journal for professional geologists, Winchell was the driving force behind scientific endeavor in early state history, serving as mentor to many young scientists and presiding over a household—the Winchell House, located on the University of Minnesota&’s present-day mall—that was a nexus of intellectual ferment. His life story, told here for the first time, draws an intimate picture of this influential scientist, set against a backdrop of Minnesota&’s geological complexity and splendor.Christian Globalism at Home: Child Sponsorship in the United States
By Christian Global Hillary Kaell. 2020
An exploration of how ordinary U.S. Christians create global connections through the multibillion-dollar child sponsorship industryChild sponsorship emerged from nineteenth-century…
Protestant missions to become one of today’s most profitable private fund-raising tools in organizations including World Vision, Compassion International, and ChildFund. Investigating two centuries of sponsorship and its related practices in American living rooms, churches, and shopping malls, Christian Globalism at Home reveals the myriad ways that Christians who don’t travel outside of the United States cultivate global sensibilities.Kaell traces the movement of money, letters, and images, along with a wide array of sponsorship’s lesser-known embodied and aesthetic techniques, such as playacting, hymn singing, eating, and fasting. She shows how, through this process, U.S. Christians attempt to hone globalism of a particular sort by oscillating between the sensory experiences of a God’s eye view and the intimacy of human relatedness. These global aspirations are buoyed by grand hopes and subject to intractable limitations, since they so often rely on the inequities they claim to redress.Based on extensive interviews, archival research, and fieldwork, Christian Globalism at Home explores how U.S. Christians imagine and experience the world without ever leaving home.Shields of the Republic: The Triumph and Peril of America’s Alliances
By Mira Rapp-Hooper. 2020
Is America’s alliance system so quietly effective that politicians and voters fail to appreciate its importance in delivering the security…
they take for granted? For the first century and a half of its existence, the United States had just one alliance—a valuable but highly controversial military arrangement with France. Largely out of deference to George Washington’s warnings against the dangers of “entangling alliances,” subsequent American presidents did not consider entering another until the Second World War. Then everything suddenly changed. Between 1948 and 1955, US leaders extended defensive security guarantees to twenty-three countries in Europe and Asia. Seventy years later, the United States had allied with thirty-seven. In Shields of the Republic, Mira Rapp-Hooper reveals the remarkable success of America’s unprecedented system of alliances. During the Cold War, a grand strategy focused on allied defense, deterrence, and assurance helped to keep the peace at far lower material and political costs than its critics allege. When the Soviet Union collapsed, however, the United States lost the adversary the system was designed to combat. Its alliances remained without a core strategic logic, leaving them newly vulnerable. Today the alliance system is threatened from without and within. China and Russia seek to break America’s alliances through conflict and non-military erosion. Meanwhile, US politicians and voters are increasingly skeptical of alliances’ costs and benefits and believe we may be better off without them. But what if the alliance system is a victim of its own quiet success? Rapp-Hooper argues that America’s national security requires alliances that deter and defend against military and non-military conflict alike. The alliance system is past due for a post–Cold War overhaul, but it remains critical to the country’s safety and prosperity in the 21st century.The Transatlantic Indian, 1776-1930
By Kate Flint. 2009
This book takes a fascinating look at the iconic figure of the Native American in the British cultural imagination from…
the Revolutionary War to the early twentieth century, and examining how Native Americans regarded the British, as well as how they challenged their own cultural image in Britain during this period. Kate Flint shows how the image of the Indian was used in English literature and culture for a host of ideological purposes, and she reveals its crucial role as symbol, cultural myth, and stereotype that helped to define British identity and its attitude toward the colonial world.Through close readings of writers such as Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Gaskell, and D. H. Lawrence, Flint traces how the figure of the Indian was received, represented, and transformed in British fiction and poetry, travelogues, sketches, and journalism, as well as theater, paintings, and cinema. She describes the experiences of the Ojibwa and Ioway who toured Britain with George Catlin in the 1840s; the testimonies of the Indians in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show; and the performances and polemics of the Iroquois poet Pauline Johnson in London. Flint explores transatlantic conceptions of race, the role of gender in writings by and about Indians, and the complex political and economic relationships between Britain and America.The Transatlantic Indian, 1776-1930 argues that native perspectives are essential to our understanding of transatlantic relations in this period and the development of transnational modernity.This is the graphic history of the 2001 Cincinnati riots, told for the first time from the perspective of the…
participants. When Timothy Thomas, a 19 year old black man, was fatally shot by police, the city broke out into nonviolent civil disobedience that was met with further police violence. This was the first major uprising of the 21st Century, matched only the LA riots a decade before and the protests in Ferguson over a decade later. Author and illustrator Dan Mendez Moore was 17 at the time and participated in the six days of protests that shook the city between Thomas's death and his funeral. Mendez Moore's comics journalism account sensitively captures a fiery moment in U.S. history through interviews with protestors, community leaders, bystanders, and a frustrated looter. He portrays the tension of a city boiling over, political leaders taking advantage, and an inner-city community coming together. Six Days in Cincinnati is an all-American story of systemic racism and the power of popular movements, more relevant today than ever before.The American Spirit: Volume Two
By David M. Kennedy, Thomas Bailey. 1998
Grunts: The American Combat Soldier in Vietnam
By Kyle Longley, Jacqueline Whitt. 2020
Now in its second edition, Grunts: The American Combat Soldier in Vietnam provides a fresh approach to understanding the American…
combat soldier’s experience in Vietnam by focusing on the day-to-day experiences of front-line troops. The book delves into the Vietnam combat soldier’s experience, from the decision to join the army, life in training and combat, and readjusting to civilian life with memories of war. By utilizing letters, oral histories, and memoirs of actual veterans, Kyle Longley and Jacqueline Whitt offer a powerful insight into the minds and lives of the 870,000 "grunts" who endured the controversial war. Important topics such as class, race, and gender are examined, enabling students to better analyze the social dynamics during this divisive period of American history. In addition to an updated introduction and epilogue, the new edition includes expanded sections on military chaplains, medics, and the moral injury of war. A new timeline provides details of major events leading up to, during, and after the war. A truly comprehensive picture of the Vietnam experience for soldiers, this volume is a valuable and unique addition to military history courses and classes on the Vietnam War and 1960s America.Baltimore: A Political History
By Matthew A. Crenson. 2017
How politics and race shaped Baltimore's distinctive disarray of cultures and subcultures. Charm City or Mobtown? People from Baltimore glory…
in its eccentric charm, small-town character, and North-cum-South culture. But for much of the nineteenth century, violence and disorder plagued the city. More recently, the 2015 death of Freddie Gray in police custody has prompted Baltimoreans--and the entire nation--to focus critically on the rich and tangled narrative of black–white relations in Baltimore, where slavery once existed alongside the largest community of free blacks in the United States. Matthew A. Crenson, a distinguished political scientist and Baltimore native, examines the role of politics and race throughout Baltimore's history. From its founding in 1729 up through the recent past, Crenson follows Baltimore's political evolution from an empty expanse of marsh and hills to a complicated city with distinct ways of doing business. Revealing how residents at large engage (and disengage) with one another across an expansive agenda of issues and conflicts, Crenson shows how politics helped form this complex city's personality. Crenson provocatively argues that Baltimore's many quirks are likely symptoms of urban underdevelopment. The city's longtime domination by the general assembly--and the corresponding weakness of its municipal authority--forced residents to adopt the private and extra-governmental institutions that shaped early Baltimore. On the one hand, Baltimore was resolutely parochial, split by curious political quarrels over issues as minor as loose pigs. On the other, it was keenly attuned to national politics: during the Revolution, for instance, Baltimoreans were known for their comparative radicalism. Crenson describes how, as Baltimore and the nation grew, whites competed with blacks, slave and free, for menial and low-skill work. He also explores how the urban elite thrived by avoiding, wherever possible, questions of slavery versus freedom--just as wealthier Baltimoreans, long after the Civil War and emancipation, preferred to sidestep racial controversy. Peering into the city's 300-odd neighborhoods, this fascinating account holds up a mirror to Baltimore, asking whites in particular to reexamine the past and accept due responsibility for future racial progress.