This scrupulously revised edition offers a comprehensive introduction to the beauty and wonder of the Catskill mountain region. Combining a wealth of information with abundant illustrations, the book falls into four main sections. The first section deals principally with the geography of the area. Part Two focuses on the region's history, with subsections on Railroad Fever, The Romantic Era, War and Revolution, and Famous Hotels. Part Three- devoted to the Catskill's legends, literature, and art-features descriptive passages from the work of such famous writers as James Fenimore Cooper and Washington Irving. The final section is an extensive gazetteer that provides succint descriptions of the mountains, ranges, rivers, brooks, kills, creeks, and other geographical features of the region.

The importance of the attractive town of Hexham began when St Wifrid built his great monastery there in the 7th Century, of which only the unique crypt remains beneath the Priory church. It was bounded by a wall that separated it from the Market Place and the civil administration, which includes the Moothall and Old Gaol. These areas still form the nucleus of the town, which lay in the turbulent Border country between England and Scotland. The vital industry of tanning and glove-making has now gone, but there are smaller industries in its place. The town is a focus of music, the arts and sport. The Queen's Hall houses library, cafe, galleries and theatre. It is linked by roads and by the early Carlisle-Newcastle railway which bring in tourists and local people for many activities such as the Hexham Gathering and the Abbey Arts Festival. Much has changed, but the historic centre remains intact. The author has lived here for over 30 years and is an Honorary Steward and Bailiff of the town.

The USS "Monitor" famously battled the CSS "Virginia" (the armored and refitted USS Merrimack) at Hampton Roads in March 1862. This updated edition of David A. Mindell's classic account of the ironclad warships and the human dimension of modern warfare commemorates the 150th anniversary of this historic encounter.

Mindell explores how mariners--fighting "blindly," below the waterline--lived in and coped with the metal monster they called the "iron coffin." He investigates how the ironclad technology, new to war in the nineteenth century, changed not only the tools but also the experience of combat and anticipated today's world of mechanized, pushbutton warfare.

The writings of William Frederick Keeler, the ship's paymaster, inform much of this book, as do the experiences of everyman sailor George Geer, who held Keeler in some contempt. Mindell uses their compelling stories, and those of other shipmates, to recreate the thrills and dangers of living and fighting aboard this superweapon.

Recently, pieces of the "Monitor" wreck have been raised from their watery grave, and with them, information about the ship continues to be discovered. A new epilogue describes the recovery of the "Monitor" turret and its display at the USS "Monitor" Museum in Newport News, Virginia.

This sensitive and enthralling history of the USS "Monitor" ensures that this fateful ship, and the men who served on it, will be remembered for generations to come.

In the Victorian era, sensational ghost stories were headline news. Spine-chilling reports of two-headed phantoms, murdered knights and spectral locomotives filled the pages of the press. Spirits communicated with the living at dark seances, forced terrified families to flee their homes and caused superstitious workers to down their tools at the haunted mines. This book contains more than fifty hair-raising - and in some cases, comical - real life accounts from Wales, dating from 1837 to 1901. Unearthed from newspaper archives, they include chilling prophecies from beyond the grave, poltergeists terrorising the industrial communities, and more than a few ingenious hoaxes along the way.

Mary Dodge Woodward, a fifty-six-year-old widow, moved from Wisconsin with her two grown sons and a daughter to a 1,500-acre bonanza wheat farm in Dakota Territory's Red River valley in 1882. For five years she recorded the yearly farm cycle of plowing and harvesting as well as the frustrations of gardening and raising chickens, the phenomenon of mirages on the plains, the awesome blizzard of 1888, her reliance on her family, and her close relationship with her daughter. She noted "blots, mistakes, joys, and sorrows" in her "olf friend." This Borealis edition brings back to print a valuable record of a frontier woman's life.

A prolific writer of prose, poetry, and regional history, Carl Carmer first gained national attention with Stars Fell n Alabama, a book about Alabama folkways. But it is his writings about upstate New York, where he was born and lived for much of his life, that firmly established him as a folk historian and master storyteller. The Hudson, originally published in 1939, is the most popular of these writings. Best of the Rivers of America series, The Hudson is less a formal historical account of the discovery and development of the river that a personal, anecdotal view of it. Included are tales of white-sailed sloops and steamboats racing from Albany to New York; of old whalers and trader sea dogs of the Catskill shore; of showboats playing anti-rent meoldramas to incite farmers against their landlords; of great disasters and heroic deeds; of the efforts of the Hudson River School to capture "sublimity" on canvas; of the quarrelsome, rough-and-tumble life of the Dutch along the river's banks, and many more. This commemorative fiftieth anniversary edition features 16 new drawings by Hudson River artist Edward J. McLaughlin, a foreward by New York historian Louis C. Jones, and an afterword by Roger Panetta, professor of history at the College of New Rochelle.

A prolific writer of prose, poetry, and regional history, Carl Carmer first gained national attention with Stars Fell n Alabama, a book about Alabama folkways. But it is his writings about upstate New York, where he was born and lived for much of his life, that firmly established him as a folk historian and master storyteller. The Hudson, originally published in 1939, is the most popular of these writings. Best of the Rivers of America series, The Hudson is less a formal historical account of the discovery and development of the river that a personal, anecdotal view of it. Included are tales of white-sailed sloops and steamboats racing from Albany to New York; of old whalers and trader sea dogs of the Catskill shore; of showboats playing anti-rent meoldramas to inctie farmers against their landlords; of great disasters and heroic deeds; of the efforts of the Hudson River School to capture "sublimity" on canvas; of the quarrelsome, rough-and-tumble life of the Dutch along the river's banks, and many more. This commemorative fiftieth anniversary edition features 16 new drawings by Hudson River artist Edward J. McLaughlin, a foreward by New York historian Louis C. Jones, and an afterword by Roger Panetta, professor of history at the College of New Rochelle.

This volume on the Isle of Wight is packed with historical photographs, maps, ephemera, and modern-day images. It describes the people and events that shaped the island and its long history.

In 1851 Frank Blackwell Mayer, a talented young artist from Baltimore, traveled to Minnesota Territory to attend the signing of the Treaty of Traverse des Sioux between the Dakota Indians and the United States government. "He went," notes Bertha Heilbron in the introduction, "not to participate in the negotiations, but to observe Indian life at first hand and to find subjects for his brush and pencil... With a sure stroke he pictured the scenes and the inhabitants--red and white--of the frontier; with a fluent pen he described all that he saw through the sensitive eye of the artist."
Mayer's diary is a travel narrative, an eyewitness account of a critical treaty signing, and a candid personal view of the development of the artist in mid-nineteenth century America. His words and drawings offer a lively and important resource for historians of art and the frontier, as well as readers of regional history.
This edition includes an additional section of Mayer's diary that was discovered after the book was first published in 1932. Bertha Heilbron's helpful introductions and annotation provide important historical information for both parts oif this valuable document.

The Black Country is epitomised by beautiful towns and strong industry, and this collection of intricate illustrations is a celebration of the area's unique appeal. Featuring a range of views, from historical buildings and markets to canals and countryside, each stunning scene is full of intriguing detail sure to fire the imagination and make you reach for your colouring pencils. There are absolutely no rules - you can choose any combination of colours you like to bring these images to life. Suitable for children. If you love the Black Country, then you will love colouring it in!

In the sweltering summer of 1858 the stink of sewage from the polluted Thames was so offensive that it drove Members of Parliament from the chamber of the House of Commons. Sewage generated by a population of over 2 million Londoners was pouring into the river, carried to and fro by the tides. The Times called the crisis "The Great Stink". Parliament had to act - drastic measures were required to clean the Thames and improve London's primitive system of sanitation. The great engineer entrusted with this enormous task was Sir Joseph Bazalgette, and this book is a fascinating account of his life and work. Bazalgette's response to the challenge was to conceive and build the system of intercepting sewers, pumping stations and treatment works that serves London to this day. In the process he cleansed the River Thames and helped to banish cholera, but this was only one of the achievements of his career. This enthralling history gives a vivid insight into Bazalgette's achievements and the era in which he worked and lived, including his heroic battle with politicians, bureaucrats and huge engineering problems to transform the face and health of the world's largest city.

One of Chicago's landmark attractions, Graceland Cemetery chronicles the city's sprawling history through the stories of its people. Local historian and Graceland tour guide Adam Selzer presents ten walking tours covering almost the entirety of the cemetery grounds. While nodding to famous Graceland figures from Marshall Field to Ernie Banks to Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Selzer also leads readers past the vaults, obelisks, and other markers that call attention to less recognized Chicagoans like: Jessie Williams de Priest, the Black wife of a congressman whose 1929 invitation to a White House tea party set off a storm of controversy; Engineer and architect Fazlur Khan, the Bangladeshi American who revived the city's skyscraper culture; The still-mysterious Kate Warn (listed as Warn on her tombstone), the United States' first female private detective. Filled with photographs and including detailed maps of each tour route, Graceland Cemetery is an insider's guide to one of Chicago's great outdoor destinations for city lore and history.

Saved at the Seawall is the definitive history of the largest ever waterborne evacuation. Jessica DuLong reveals the dramatic story of how the New York Harbor maritime community heroically delivered stranded commuters, residents, and visitors out of harm's way. Even before the US Coast Guard called for "all available boats," tugs, ferries, dinner boats, and other vessels had sped to the rescue from points all across New York Harbor. In less than nine hours, captains and crews transported nearly half a million people from Manhattan. Anchored in eyewitness accounts and written by a mariner who served at Ground Zero, Saved at the Seawall weaves together the personal stories of people rescued that day with those of the mariners who saved them. DuLong describes the inner workings of New York Harbor and reveals the collaborative power of its close-knit community. Her chronicle of those crucial hours, when hundreds of thousands of lives were at risk, highlights how resourcefulness and basic human goodness triumphed over turmoil on one of America's darkest days. Initially published as Dust to Deliverance, this edition, released in time for the twentieth anniversary, contains new updates: a preface by DuLong and a foreword by Mitchell Zuckoff.

California is an infamously tough place to be poor: home to about half of the entire nation's homeless population, burdened by staggering home prices and unsustainable rental rates, California is a state in crisis. But it wasn't always that way, as prize-winning historian Josh Sides reveals in Backcountry Ghosts. In 1862 President Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act, the most ambitious and sweeping social policy in the history of the United States. In the Golden State more than a hundred thousand people filed homesteading claims between 1863 and the late 1930s. More than sixty thousand Californians succeeded, claiming about ten million acres. In Backcountry Ghosts Josh Sides tells the histories of these Californian homesteaders, their toil and enormous patience, successes and failures, doggedness in the face of natural elements and disasters, and resolve to defend hard-earned land for themselves and their children. While some of these homesteaders were fulfilling the American Dream-that all Americans should have the opportunity to own land regardless of their background or station-others used the Homestead Act to add to already vast landholdings or control water or mineral rights. Sides recovers the fascinating stories of individual homesteaders in California, both those who succeeded and those who did not, and the ways they shaped the future of California and the American West. Backcountry Ghosts reveals the dangers of American dreaming in a state still reeling from the ambitions that led to the Great Recession.

Covering the villages and landscapes of West Yorkshire, this guide suggests 30 walks of varying lengths and difficulty but all offering unrestricted access to the West Yorkshire countryside.

Los Angeles is home to the largest population of people of Middle Eastern origin and descent in the United States. Since the late nineteenth century, Syrian and Lebanese migration, in particular, to Southern California has been intimately connected to and through Latin America. Arab Routes uncovers the stories of this Syrian American community, one both Arabized and Latinized, to reveal important cross-border and multiethnic solidarities in Syrian California. Sarah M. A. Gualtieri reconstructs the early Syrian connections through California, Texas, Mexico, and Lebanon. She reveals the Syrian interests in the defense of the Mexican American teens charged in the 1942 Sleepy Lagoon murder, in actor Danny Thomas's rise to prominence in LA's Syrian cultural festivals, and in more recent activities of the grandchildren of immigrants to reclaim a sense of Arabness. Gualtieri reinscribes Syrians into Southern California history through her examination of powerful images and texts, augmented with interviews with descendants of immigrants. Telling the story of how Syrians helped forge a global Los Angeles, Arab Routes counters a long-held stereotype of Arabs as outsiders and underscores their longstanding place in American culture and in interethnic coalitions, past and present.

Stamford has a reputation for being one of England's finest stone towns. It is a happy mix of medieval and Georgian architecture that was untouched by the Industrial Revolution or later large scale developments, so its central core has survived remarkably intact. Its architecture is outstanding and for this reason, in 1967, it became the country's first conservation area. In recent years the town has become a popular tourist destination for both home and overseas visitors. It has also attracted the attention of film makers who have been quick to see its potential as a back-drop for such TV productions as Middlemarch and Pride and Prejudice. Using contrasting photographs, this book sets out to show something of both the continuity and change in the town during the last 100 years.