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Books > Humanities > History > American history
The Key Peninsula is a scenic finger of land that stretches south between Case and Carr Inlets in Washington State. Few people lived there before 1850, although Native Americans fished and hunted from temporary villages. Several communities, each with a unique history, took root near the various bays and inlets of the peninsula, and by the 1890s, many areas bustled with schools, post offices, mills, churches, and stores. Logging, orchards, and chicken farms supported these early pioneers. Cut off from the mainland, the waters of Puget Sound provided transportation. The famous Mosquito Fleet carried products such as fruit, seafood, chickens, eggs, and butter to Olympia, Tacoma, and Seattle until the advent of the ferries and, later, the bridges. Many of today's "oldtimers" are just two or three generations distant from the original hardy settlers, but the area's residents are proud of the heritage of this unique place they call home.
Ferryboats have been a way of life on Puget Sound since settlers first arrived there. From the wooden Mosquito Fleet to the sleek art deco Kalakala, the ferries of Puget Sound serve as a cultural icon to visitors and locals alike. Running from Point Defiance to Sidney, British Columbia, the Washington State ferry system is the single largest tourist attraction in the state, with 28 routes and 23 million riders annually. Names like Vashon, Kalakala, and Chetzemoka still resonate with fondness and nostalgia long after they have gone, while ships built the year Lindberg flew solo across the Atlantic will soon be pensioned off and pass into the "Ghost Fleet." In this volume, travelers are invited to look back to the past and bid Puget Sound's "ancient mariners" a fond farewell.
In the mountains of northern New Mexico above Taos Pueblo lies a deep, turquoise lake which was taken away from the Taos Indians, for whom it is a sacred life source and the final resting place of their souls. The story of their struggle to regain the lake is at the same time a story about the effort to retain the spiritual life of this ancient community. Marcia Keegan's text and historic photographs document the celebration in 1971, when the sacred lake was returned to Taos Pueblo after a sixty year struggle with the Federal government. This revised and expanded edition celebrates the 40th anniversary of this historic event, and includes forwards from the 1971 edition by Frank Waters, and from the 1991 20th anniversary edition by Stewart L. Udall. Also contained here is new material: statements from past and current tribal leaders, reflections from Pueblo members, historic tribal statements made at the 1970 Congressional hearings and a 1971 photograph o
Connecticut's capital has served as home to some of the most influential women in the state's history, but few know the stories of their lives and accomplishments. Nineteenth-century abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel Uncle Tom's Cabin became a catalyst for the Civil War. Ella Grasso was the first woman elected governor in the United States. Hannah Bunce Watson, publisher of the Hartford Courant, never skipped a single edition during the Revolutionary War. Through these and many more inspiring profiles, author and journalist Cynthia Wolfe Boynton chronicles the struggles and triumphs of some of Hartford's most remarkable women.
From one of America's most respected journalists and modern historians comes the highly acclaimed, "splendid" (The Washington Post) biography of Jimmy Carter, the thirty-ninth president of the United States and Nobel Prize-winning humanitarian. Jonathan Alter tells the epic story of an enigmatic man of faith and his improbable journey from barefoot boy to global icon. Alter paints an intimate and surprising portrait of the only president since Thomas Jefferson who can fairly be called a Renaissance Man, a complex figure-ridiculed and later revered-with a piercing intelligence, prickly intensity, and biting wit beneath the patented smile. Here is a moral exemplar for our times, a flawed but underrated president of decency and vision who was committed to telling the truth to the American people. Growing up in one of the meanest counties in the Jim Crow South, Carter is the only American president who essentially lived in three centuries: his early life on the farm in the 1920s without electricity or running water might as well have been in the nineteenth; his presidency put him at the center of major events in the twentieth; and his efforts on conflict resolution and global health set him on the cutting edge of the challenges of the twenty-first. "One of the best in a celebrated genre of presidential biography," (The Washington Post), His Very Best traces how Carter evolved from a timid, bookish child-raised mostly by a Black woman farmhand-into an ambitious naval nuclear engineer writing passionate, never-before-published love letters from sea to his wife and full partner, Rosalynn; a peanut farmer and civic leader whose guilt over staying silent during the civil rights movement and not confronting the white terrorism around him helped power his quest for racial justice at home and abroad; an obscure, born-again governor whose brilliant 1976 campaign demolished the racist wing of the Democratic Party and took him from zero percent to the presidency; a stubborn outsider who failed politically amid the bad economy of the 1970s and the seizure of American hostages in Iran but succeeded in engineering peace between Israel and Egypt, amassing a historic environmental record, moving the government from tokenism to diversity, setting a new global standard for human rights and normalizing relations with China among other unheralded and far-sighted achievements. After leaving office, Carter eradicated diseases, built houses for the poor, and taught Sunday school into his mid-nineties. This "important, fair-minded, highly readable contribution" (The New York Times Book Review) will change our understanding of perhaps the most misunderstood president in American history.
Caribbean Americans have been immigrating to the United States as freed persons since the end of the Civil War. However, it was not until the beginning of the twentieth century that they began to arrive en masse, settling mostly in the large cities along the Atlantic seaboard. With its reputation for racial tolerance and its reservoir of employment opportunities, New York City became a principal beneficiary of this immigrant influx. Caribbean Americans in New York City: 1895-1975 begins with the immigrants' arrival in the Big Apple and continues to record the story of how they designed their new lives. As is usually the case with any large-scale immigrant settlement, there inevitably developed prejudices and discriminatory practices against Caribbean Americans. This brought to the forefront some of the most gifted and articulate orators, such as Richard B. Moore and Hubert Harrison, and journalists, such as W.A. Domingo and J.A. Rogers. In general, however, the city provided prosperity, a sense of community, and a better way of life, and the stunning images contained in this book also include those of success stories Bob Marley, Colin Powell, Hugh Mulzac-the first black captain of an American ship-and Geoffrey Holder, who appeared on television for years in popular 7-Up commercials.
From the time it was founded in 1825, Akron was a town on the move. Once known as the "Rubber Capitol of the World," it brought droves of new workers to downtown and the suburban areas. With expansion came a need for entertainment, and wrestling was there for the multitudes. From the contrast of high school amateurs on mats to snarling villains and heroes in the professional ring, the sport thrived. There were the early days of traveling carnivals, with circuit-riding wrestlers who would take on all comers from the audience, to secretive fights set by shifty promoters in railroad yards with onlookers placing bets. There were the glory days of the Akron Armory--offering the crowd a chance to see such luminaries as the cigar-chewing Killer Tim Brooks, the smiling Johnny Powers, or the devious Don Kent--and beyond after the famed arena closed.
What was once described as an undesirable swampland has been transformed into one of the most beautiful and wealthiest neighborhoods in America. Chicago's Gold Coast neighborhood, developed in the late 1800s, was first called the Astor Street District. It was named after one of the first multimillionaires in the United States, John Jacob Astor--even though Astor never lived in Chicago. In 1885, Astor Street District's first mansion was built. Potter Palmer, a dry goods merchant and owner of the Palmer House Hotel, built his palatial, castle-like residence on the corner of Lake Shore Drive and Banks Street; inside the Palmer mansion were 42 lavishly furnished rooms, which required 26 servants to maintain. Many wealthy Chicagoans followed Palmer's lead and built mansions in the neighborhood. Several homes took up an entire city block and, as time progressed, the name Gold Coast was adopted. On January 30, 1978, the entire Gold Coast district was listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
Over the course of 100 years, the prestigious Hotel du Pont has welcomed future and former presidents, first ladies, world leaders, Nobel Prize recipients, royalty, music maestros, sports legends, and stars of stage and screen--earning its reputation as the premier hotel in the state of Delaware. The Green Room, one of the most elegant hotel dining rooms in the country, features traditional French cuisine. The Gold Ballroom and other ornate European-inspired rooms provide luxurious venues for public and private events. A nationally recognized art collection showcasing original paintings by Andrew Wyeth adorns the Christina Room's walls. A state-of-the-art conference center and a 1,250-seat theater add to amenities that make the Hotel du Pont a first-choice destination for business and social events. Often labeled the front door of DuPont, the hotel is strategically located in the company's world headquarters.
Captive of the Labyrinth is reissued here to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the death of rifle heiress Sarah L. Winchester in 1922. After inheriting a vast fortune upon the death of her husband in 1881, Winchester purchased a simple farmhouse in San JosE, California. She built additions to the house and continued construction for the next twenty years. When neighbors and the local press could not imagine her motivations, they invented fanciful ones of their own. She was accused of being a ghost-obsessed spiritualist, and to this day it is largely believed that the extensive construction she executed on her San JosE house was done to thwart death and appease the spirits of those killed by the Winchester rifle. Author and historian Mary Jo Ignoffo's definitive biography unearths the truth about this reclusive eccentric, revealing that she was not a maddened spiritualist driven by remorse but an intelligent, articulate woman who sought to protect her private life amidst the chaos of her public existence and the social mores of the time. The author takes readers through Winchester's several homes, explores her private life, and, by excerpting from personal correspondence, one learns the widow's true priority was not dissipating her fortune on the mansion in San JosE but endowing a hospital to eradicate a dread disease. Sarah Winchester has been exploited for profit for over a century, but Captive of the Labyrinth finally puts to rest the myths about this American heiress, and, in the process, uncovers her true legacies.
From 1870 to 1920, McIntosh County, Georgia, was one of the most
energetic communities on the southern coast. Its county seat,
Darien, never had a population of more than 2,000 residents; yet,
little Darien was, for a considerable time, the leading exporter of
yellow pitch pine timber on the
The complexity of the American economy and polity has grown at an
explosive rate in our era of globalization. Yet as the 2008
financial crisis revealed, the evolution of the American state has
not proceeded apace. The crisis exposed the system's manifold
political and economic dysfunctionalities.
While Manhattan was the site of many important Civil War events, Brooklyn also played an important part in the war. Henry Ward Beecher "auctioned off" slaves at the Plymouth Church, raising the money to free them. Walt Whitman reported news of the war in a Brooklyn paper and wrote some of his most famous works. At the same time, Brooklyn both grappled with and embraced unique challenges, from the arrival of new immigrants to the formation of one of the nation's first baseball teams. Local historian Bud Livingston crafts the portrait of Brooklyn in transition--shaped by the Civil War while also leaving its own mark on the course of the terrible conflict.
Oklahoma is where East and West collide on Route 66, where
Fort DuPont is named in honor of Rear Adm. Samuel Francis Du Pont and located on the Reeden Point tract, land initially granted to Henry Ward in 1675. Fort DuPont originated during the Civil War as a heavily armed earthwork fortification. In 1864, Sgt. Bishop Crumrine wrote, "these guns command the channel and could blow to atoms any vessel rash enough to attempt to pass." In the decades to follow, the battery at Delaware City was gradually modernized into a formidable military post that remained active through World War II. Declared surplus, the site reopened in 1948 as the Governor Bacon Health Center. By 1996, over 300 acres were reestablished as Fort DuPont State Park.
Going Down the Ocean, A Brief History of Ocean City, Maryland will chronicle the long and colorful history of Maryland's premier ocean resort. Beginning with the visit of the explorer Giovanni da Verrazano, this book will examine the arrival of Asssateague's famous ponies, visits by Blackbeard and other pirates, the birth of Steven Decatur, and brave soldiers who fought in the Civil War. After Ocean City was founded in the late 19th century, the resort became a mecca for vacationers, who enjoyed the surf and sand along side the pound fishermen who worked their nets a short distance off shore. During the 20th century, Ocean City witnessed the arrival of the automobile, bootleggers, and German submarines. Following the Second World War, Bobby Baker, confidant to Lyndon Johnson, built a motel on the barren dunes to the north and helped ignite the condominium boom that saw Ocean City grow all the way to the Delaware line.
Jamie and Todd are horrified to learn that the grand plan, which they thought had been defeated, might be about to be implemented in 1775, America. Hector and Catherine have to go back in time and thwart Travis - an agent of the grand plan - who is hell bent on world domination. Jamie and Todd go with Hector and Catherine on a mission to 1775, to prevent a super gun from being used in the battle of bunker hill, during the American war of independence, but they have only days to stop history from being altered. |
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