A certain mystique has always surrounded the watermen of the Chesapeake Bay. This book goes far toward defining it by taking the reader on a journey with the watermen as they harvest oysters, clams, fish, and crabs. The author was on board with the watermen, so he describes their work firsthand, including not only the practical details, but also the humorous and serious sides of a typical day. In documenting the work of the watermen, Blackistone tries to preserve what remains of their way of life. As fewer sons and daughters follow in the footsteps of their parents by working the water, the number of people who can convey the traditions of the watermen by oral history is gradually diminishing. Blackistone's concern for the potential loss of an entire subculture inspired his research for this book. As a sequel to an earlier work that Blackistone published in 1989, Dancing with the Tide chronicles what has changed for the watermen over the last decade: how the changing conditions of the bay and new regulations have impacted their work life, what declining harvests have meant to them, and what the new millennium might hold for them and their families. Blackistone also interviewed government officials, conservationists, and watermen's association officers to incorporate other facets of this fascinating occupation which so captivates the public. Engaging photographs of the watermen at work highlight this documentary of a year in the life of these harvesters of the Chesapeake Bay.

Built by the Romans, looted by the Danes and conquered by King William I (who devastated the town to build a castle and a cathedral), the city of Lincoln has had a long and most dreadful history. Containing medieval child murder, vile sieges of (and escapes from) the castle, the savage repression of the Lincolnshire rising by King Henry VIII (who had the ringleaders hanged, drawn and quartered) and plagues, lepers, prisons, riots, typhoid, tanks and terrible hangings by the ton, you'll never see the city in the same way again.

Between 1816 and 1823 Stephen Harriman Long headed five expeditions that traveled 26,000 miles from the Atlantic coast to the Rocky Mountains and from the headwaters of the Canadian River in New Mexico to Lake Winnipeg in Canada. This book deals with two of his northern journeys--the only two for which the explorer's personal journals are known to have survived. The 1817 journal describes Long's trip up the Mississippi River to the Falls of St. Anthony at present-day Minneapolis and back down the river to Fort Belle Fontaine on the Missouri. The 1823 journal covers Long's last major exploration, from Philadelphia west across present-day Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, and back along fur trade routes in Manitoba and Ontario, through the Great Lakes and newly opened parts of the Erie Canal. The journals reveal the writer's classical education and scientific knowledge. They also reflect the man himself--efficient, logical, concise, meticulous, persevering--a man cheerful in the face of physical discomfort but intolerant of incompetence or irresponsibility on the part of his men.

Between 1862 and 1867, eight wagon trains carrying at least 1,400 people set out from Minnesota for the gold fields of Montana. These carefully edited letters and diaries trace their progress, revealing their day-to-day experiences, their success--or lack of it--in finding gold, and their lives in bustling mining settlements. "Private dreams of quick fortunes in El Dorado and public dreams of commercial empire and national greatness" moved the emigrants, writes Helen McCann White in her introduction, which places the three-month expeditions in their broader historical context and interprets their significance for the development of Minnesota, North and South Dakota, and Montana. An appendix identifies more than 850 members of the trains.

Catbirds and pocket gophers, bur oaks and bull snakes, bluestem grass and leopard frogs have populated the gently rolling prairies around Sue Leaf's midwestern farming community for centuries. A hundred years ago her town, located forty-five miles from the nearest city, shipped thousands of tons of potato starch across the country, stiffening the collars of working men. Today it has become one of America's fast-growing suburbs. As naturalist and biologist Sue Leaf watched her rural surroundings become a magnet for developers, she became curious about the history of the land. Before the freeway and the housing developments, before the farmers cultivated the fertile soil, what plants and animals called this place home? To her delight, Leaf discovered the oak savanna, a park-like ecosystem that supports abundant wildlife and soothes the human psyche with its quiet, open spaces. As she looked more closely, she found remnants of the savanna in her own yard, in the trees lining her quiet street, and in nearby preserved patches of prairie. In lyrical essays, Leaf traces the natural history of her community, offering rich details about the people who built this area, about its once prosperous farms, and about the oak trees and wildflowers and prairie animals native to this part of the country. By examining remnants of the past still visible in a place deeply affected by sprawl, Leaf reveals how to slow down, look carefully, and untangle the jumble of unnoticed clues that can enrich our daily lives. "Leaf advises us all to discover our own communities' natural treasures before, through ignorance, we lose them." --Boston Sunday Globe "Leaf writes about the pace of sprawl, the loss of farmland and a way of life that seems like a dream or a place buried somewhere in our collective memory." --Los Angeles Times

This is a fascinating portrait of royal life at Sandringham, from the early life of Albert Edward to the modern day. Drawing on letters, diaries and contemporary reports, it is a rich exploration of the private lives of Britain's royal family. From family life at the estate to the first visit of Queen Victoria, the glittering parties of the early twentieth century and all the way up to the death of King George V, the reigns of his sons and the Sandringham of today, it will delight anyone with an interest in the lives of the British royal family.

David A. Walker tells the story of the opening of the last iron- ore frontier in the United States on the Vermilion, Mesabi, and Cuyuna ranges of Minnesota--the nation's largest ore deposits. Walker explores the formative years from the 1880s to the early 1900s in the development of the state's mining industry, the "iron men" it produced, the new towns it spawned, and the railroads it built to transport the new-found wealth to growing ports on Lake Superior. Drawing on manuscripts, newspaper accounts, and business and financial records, Walker's study provides an economic history of an industry whose dimensions reached far beyond the borders of Minnesota.

Progressivism, one of the most important political and social trends of the early twentieth century, focused the nation's attention on attempts to reform its political and economic systems. Against this backdrop of national and international events, historian Carl H Chrislock records the rise and decline of the movement in Minnesota, where Progressivism had many links with earlier Granger, Farm-ers Alliance, and Populist traditions. Clearly written and thought provoking, this book also tells the stories of the Bull Moose campaign of 1912, strikes on the Mesabi Range, and the painful divisions of loyalty before and during World War I.

J. Fletcher Williams' "History of St. Paul," first published in 1876, is a thoroughly charming, intimate chronicle of the city's earliest years. The author spins tales of villains, heroes, dark deeds, and progress with wit, irony, and relish. Sprinkled among the careful descriptions of pioneers, city fathers, and important events is a healthy dose of trivia, oddities, and "firsts." Lucile M. Kane's introduction to this edition suggests that the book "to an unusual degree mirrors the man--with all his learning, passion for patient investigation, interest in people, exuberance, dramatic sense, humor, and affection for his adopted city." Minnesota residents, visitors, and students of history will enjoy this insider's view of small-town St. Paul in the 19th century.

Well written and entertaining, A Canoe Voyage up the Minnay Sotor, describes the extensive travels of George William Featherstonhaugh in Wisconsin, Minnesota and various southern states in 1835 and 1837. Featherstonhaugh, an Englishman by birth, was a geologist by profession and well qualified to comment on the American scene. By the time of his travels in the 1830s, he had lived in the United States for nearly thirty years. He was also a linguist with an attentive ear for speech. In performing his duties as a geologist for the United States, he visited remote sections of the frontier that few other trained observers had yet an opportunity to see. In these two volumes Featherstonhaugh chronicles two separate expeditions--a geological expedition in 1835 of the area from Lake Michigan west to the Coteau des Prairies at the headwaters of the Minnesota River, and a tour in 1837 of the mineral lands of Wisconsin, Missouri, Georgia, and the western Carolinas.

The fame of French scientist and geographer Joseph N. Nicollet rests upon his monumental map and report of the Upper Mississippi Valley. The map, published by the United States government in 1843, remained the foundation of Upper Mississippi cartography until the era of modern surveys. Nicollet's journals illuminate the 1836 trip to the source of the Mississippi and a journey up the St. Croix River in 1837. His day-by-day accounts include careful notes on geographical features, flora and fauna, and the aurora borealis. But above all, his keen observations on the customs and culture of the Ojibwe Indians provide the first systematic recording and a remarkably sympathetic depiction of the people of the area. Martha Bray's introduction and annotation to this translation by Andre Fertey provide a brief biography of one of the fathers of American science.

With humor and insight, E. W. Davis tells the story that begins with the discovery of then-valueless taconite on Minnesota's Mesabi Iron Range in 1870 and several decades of attempts to process taconite commercially. Davis details the ups and downs of the exciting, decades-long research effort that resulted in a workable extraction method, followed by frustrating attempts to form the concentrate into small pellets. Finally, Davis describes building the first successful commercial processing plant at Silver Bay in the 1950s and the contributions by various companies to the birth of the industry. Along the way insider Davis recounts the founding of the three new northern Minnesota taconite towns, Babbitt, Silver Bay, and Hoyt Lakes.

Jonathan Carver's Travels through the Interior Parts of North America, in the Years 1766, 1767, and 1768 became a bestseller in London in the 1780s, and arguments over its author's accuracy and honesty have raged ever since. This book published for the first time the well-known explorer's original account of his expedition. Editor John Parker compares and interweaves the four manuscript versions of Carver's journals discovered in the twentieth century in the British Museum to form the text of this book. Also included are the hitherto unpublished journal of veteran fur trader James Stanley Goddard, who accompanied Carver; related correspondence; a Dakota dictionary; commissions and other records; and a bibliography of major editions of the Travels. In this volume John Parker explains the alleged plagiarism, examines Carver's early life, and offers new information on the land swindle in the Midwest known as the "Carver grant." Editor John Parker was curator of the James Ford Bell Library at the University of Minnesota, a collection specializing in early travel and exploration.

For decades the high walls of Manchester's Strangeways Prison have contained some of England's most infamous criminals. Until hanging was abolished in the 1960s it was also the main centre of execution for convicted murderers from all parts of the north west. The history of execution at Manchester began with the hanging of a young Salford man, convicted of murdering a barman on Boxing Day 1868: he was the first of 100 murderers to pay the ultimate penalty here. Over the next ninety-five years many infamous criminals took the short walk to the gallows. They included Dr Buck Ruxton, who butchered his wife and maid; John Jackson, who escaped from Strangeways after murdering a prison warder; Walter Rowland, hanged for the murder of a prostitute and the only man to occupy the condemned cell at Strangeways twice; Chung Yi Miao, who strangled his wife on their honeymoon; and Oldham teenager Ernie Kelly, whose execution almost caused a riot outside the prison. Also included are the stories behind scores of lesser-known criminals: poisoners, spurned lovers, cut-throat killers, and many more. Steve Fielding has fully researched all these cases, and they are collected together here in one volume for the first time. Infamous executioners also played their part in the gaol's history: Calcraft, Marwood, Binns and Berry all officiated here, as did many local men: Bolton hangman James Billington and his sons, Rochdale barber John Ellis, and Manchester publicans Albert Pierrepoint and Harry Allen. Fully illustrated with rare photographs, documents and news-cuttings, Hanged at Manchester is bound to appeal to anyone interested in the darker side of the north west of England's history.

After the end of hostilities in 1945, the fishing industry was quick to establish some semblance of recovery and a surge of new builds and restoration of Admiralty motor fishing vessels soon followed. In Fraserburgh, on Scotland's east coast, several established yards satiated this desire amongst the fishing-boat owners for new craft. Thus it wasn't surprising that a new yard sprung up at the end of the 1940s when three local apprentices from one of the yards decided to set up their own boatbuilding yard on the breakwater, in what was a very exposed position. And so the yard of Thomas Summers & Co. was born, a yard that became synonymous with fine seaworthy fishing boats suited to various methods of fishing. In the space of just thirteen years they produced eighty-eight fishing vessels and their output was more prolific than most of the other Scottish boatyards. Many of these boats survive to this day, some still working as fishing vessels, and others converted to pleasure, a testament to their superb design and solid construction. Here, Mike Smylie recounts the story of Thomas Summers & Co. through historic records and personal memories of both fishermen and family members, with many striking photographs of the boats they built.

The Little Book of the Cotswolds is a veritable smorgasbord of Cotswold miscellany, packed with fascinating titbits and all manner of factual frippery - from Cotswold lions to puppy dog pies. The region's strangest traditions, its most eccentric inhabitants, blood-curdling murders and right royal connections combine with humorous illustrations to make this quirky little book difficult to put down.

When Francois de la Rochefoucauld and his brother Alexandre visited Suffolk in 1784, the events which were to lead to the French Revolution in 1789 were already in train. Francois' father, the duc de Liancourt, Grand Master of the Wardrobe at Louis XVI's court, was well placed to appreciate the dangers of the situation in France, and it must have been with anxious hopefulness that he sent his sons (Francois was then 18) to England for a year to appreciate the ordering of these things in a country which had experienced a revolution over a century earlier. Such reflections are never far below the surface of this otherwise cheerful journal of a year abroad, which gives a vivid picture of English provincial life; Francois' observations range over such diverse subjects as English customs and manners and methods of agriculture and stockbreeding, and include a lively account of a general election. Norman Scarfe, the well-known historian of Suffolk and beyond, provides a spirited translation of Francois' journal; it is complemented by numerous illustrations.

In this slim, attractive collection of short stories, Harry Crosbie colourfully describes life in Dublin in the 1960s. These funny and poignant pieces are told from the perspective of a teenage boy working in Dublin's docklands and illuminate an older Dublin that will be familiar to many readers. Written during the lockdown of 2020, writes from the heart and will charm and delight with tales of docklands life.