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Books > Humanities > History > History of specific subjects > Local history
An original history of six generations of an African American
family living in Washington, DC Between Freedom and Equality begins
with the life of Capt. George Pointer, an enslaved African who
purchased his freedom in 1793 while working for George Washington's
Potomac Company. It follows the lives of six generations of his
descendants as they lived and worked on the banks of the Potomac,
in the port of Georgetown, and in a rural corner of the nation's
capital. By tracing the story of one family and their experiences,
Between Freedom and Equality offers a moving and inspiring look at
the challenges that free African Americans have faced in
Washington, DC, since the district's founding. The story begins
with an 1829 letter from Pointer that is preserved today in the
National Archives. Inspired by Pointer's letter, authors Barbara
Boyle Torrey and Clara Myrick Green began researching this
remarkable man who was a boat captain and supervisory engineer for
the Potomac canal system. What they discovered about the lives of
Pointer and his family provides unique insight across two centuries
of Washington, DC, history. The Pointer family faced many
challenges-the fragility of freedom in a slaveholding society,
racism, wars, floods, and epidemics-but their refuge was the small
farm they purchased in what is now Chevy Chase. However, in the
early twentieth century, the DC government used eminent domain to
force the sale of their farm and replaced it with an all-white
school. Between Freedom and Equality grants Pointer and his
descendants their long-overdue place in American history. This book
includes a foreword by historian Maurice Jackson exploring the
significance of the Pointer family's unique history in the capital.
In another very personal foreword, James Fisher, an
eighth-generation descendant of George Pointer, shares his complex
emotions when he learned about his ancestors. Also featured in this
important history is a facsimile and transcription of George
Pointer's original letter and a family tree. Royalties from the
sale of the book will go to Historic Chevy Chase DC (HCCDC), which
has established a fund for promoting the legacy of George Pointer
and his descendants.
In Land of Milk and Money, Alan I Marcus examines the establishment
of the dairy industry in the United States South during the 1920s.
Looking specifically at the internal history of the Borden
Company-the world's largest dairy firm-as well as small-town
efforts to lure industry and manufacturing south, Marcus suggests
that the rise of the modern dairy business resulted from debates
and redefinitions that occurred in both the northern industrial
sector and southern towns. Condensed milk production in Starkville,
Mississippi, the location of Borden's and the South's first
condensery, so exceeded expectations that it emerged as a
touchstone for success. Starkville's vigorous self-promotion acted
as a public relations campaign that inspired towns in Tennessee,
Alabama, Louisiana, and Texas to entice northern milk concerns
looking to relocate. Local officials throughout the South urged
farmers, including Black sharecroppers and tenants, to add dairying
to their operations to make their locales more attractive to
northern interests. Many did so only after small-town commercial
elites convinced them of dairying's potential profitability. Land
of Milk and Money focuses on small-town businessmen rather than
scientists and the federal government, two groups that pushed for
agricultural diversification in the South for nearly four decades
with little to no success. As many towns in rural America faced
extinction due to migration, northern manufacturers' creation of
regional facilities proved a potent means to boost profits and
remain relevant during uncertain economic times. While scholars
have long emphasized northern efforts to decentralize production
during this period, Marcus's study examines the ramifications of
those efforts for the South through the singular success of the
southern dairy business. The presence of local dairying operations
afforded small towns a measure of independence and stability,
allowing them to diversify their economies and better weather the
economic turmoil of the Great Depression.
`Victorian Cornwall' is a tour around the county from the north
coast on the Devon border right around to Land's End, out to the
Scillies and back up the south coast with a few inland villages
interspersed. The book is illustrated by photographs taken from the
1850s right through to 1901-a large span of Queen Victoria's reign.
The photographs used where practicable are as early as possible in
an effort to save these rare and treasured images for generations
to come. The photographs all come from the author's personal
collection and will take the reader back to Cornwall of 150 years
ago; included in the book are photographs of characters, customs,
villages, harbours, mines and buildings of note. This fascinating
book is well researched using the knowledge of many local people.
Slavery in the United States is once again a topic of contention as
politicians and interest groups argue about and explore the
possibility of reparations. The subject is clearly not exhausted,
and a state-by-state approach fills a critical reference niche.
This book is the first comparative summary of the southern slave
states from Colonial times to Reconstruction. The history of
slavery in each state is a story based on the unique events in that
jurisdiction, and is a chronicle of the relationships and
interactions between its blacks and whites. Each state chapter
explores: The genesis and growth of slavery The economics of
slavery The life of free and enslaved blacks The legal codes that
defined the institution and affected both whites and blacks The
black experience during the Civil War The freedmen's struggle
during Emancipation and Reconstruction The commonalities and
differences can be seen from state to state, and students and other
interested readers will find fascinating accounts from ex-slaves
that flesh out the fuller picture of slavery state- and
country-wide. Included are timelines per state, photos, numerous
tables for comparison, and appendixes on the numbers of
slaveholders by state in 1860; dates of admission, secession, and
readmission; and economic statistics. A bibliography and index
complete the volume.
The schooner Bowdoin was designed and built in 1921 in Maine under
the direction of naval officer and explorer Donald MacMillan. She
is the only American schooner built specifically for Arctic
exploration, and has sailed above the Arctic circle 29 times.
Though named for Bowdoin College, the Bowdoin is owned by the Maine
Maritime Academy, where it is used in the sail training program.
The Bowdoin is the official sailing vessel of the state of Maine
and is a registered national landmark. Author Kathryn Beales
explores the first one hundred years of the Bowdoin's life at sea,
covering its inception as a vessel that could withstand the rigors
of Arctic exploration, fascinating stories of it many trips north,
its commissioning by the U.S. Navy during World War II-and its
subsequent decommissioning and sale as a hulk-its restoration to
sailing status in 1968, and its final home at Maine Maritime. The
vessel continues to sail and make exploratory trips to the Arctic.
Her last open-sea voyage was to Nova Scotia in 2014.
This title includes a selection of images taken by staff
photographers showing the physical and social changes in the city
during the 1980s and 1990s. From bustling streets full of shopping
queues and vintage motors to the characters of yesteryear, this
book vividly depicts this marvellous city as we once knew it. Leeds
is a city which rarely stands still. The photographs in this latest
"Yorkshire Evening Post" book cover twenty years in which the city
we now see began to come together. They were decades of
development. Among the buildings which went up were Quarry House,
standing on the site of the flats which have featured so
prominently in earlier "Yorkshire Evening Post" books, the White
Rose Centre to the south of the city, Leeds City Bus Station and
Number One City Square: the office block which still dominates the
view from the train station. The early nineties are years which
football fans look back on with considerable nostalgia - Leeds
United took the First Division title in 1992, the best team in the
land. Several photographs show the team from that great 1991-92
season, resplendent in their "Yorkshire Evening Post"-sponsored
strip. Leeds is a vibrant, never-sleeping city. The eighties and
nineties helped make it what it is today. Those years are slipping
into history. I hope you enjoy looking at this book of photographs
taken by "Yorkshire Evening Post" photographers and, if you were in
our city in the decades at the end of the twentieth century,
wonderful memories are brought back by them. "The Yorkshire Evening
Post" has been serving the people of Leeds and beyond since the
closing years of the 19th century. It has reported on the lives of
many generations of Yorkshire people, standing up time and again
for its readers and the city at its heart. "The Yorkshire Evening
Post" is one of the UK's largest regional newspapers, reflecting
both the importance of the area it covers and the loyalty of its
readers. For many homes in Leeds and Yorkshire, the day is not
complete without the "Evening Post".
In 1854, the United States acquired the roughly 30,000-square-mile
region of present-day southern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico
from Mexico as part of the Gadsden Purchase. This new Southern
Corridor was ideal for train routes from Texas to California, and
soon tracks were laid for the Southern Pacific and Santa Fe rail
lines. Shipping goods by train was more efficient, and for
desperate outlaws and opportunistic lawmen, robbing trains was
high-risk, high-reward. The Southern Corridor was the location of
sixteen train robberies between 1883 and 1922. It was also the
homebase of cowboy-turned-outlaw Black Jack Ketchum's High Five
Gang. Most of these desperadoes rode the rails to Arizona's Cochise
County on the US-Mexico border where locals and lawmen alike hid
them from discovery. Both Wyatt Earp and Texas John Slaughter tried
to clean them out, but it took the Arizona Rangers to finish the
job. It was a time and place where posses were as likely to get
arrested as the bandits. Some of the Rangers and some of
Slaughter's deputies were train robbers. When rewards were offered
there were often so many claimants that only the lawyers came out
ahead. Southwest Train Robberies chronicles the train heists
throughout the region at the turn of the twentieth century, and the
robbers who pulled off these train jobs with daring, deceit, and
plain dumb luck! Many of these blundering outlaws escaped capture
by baffling law enforcement. One outlaw crew had their own caboose,
Number 44, and the railroad shipped them back and forth between
Tucson and El Paso while they scouted locations. Legend says one
gang disappeared into Colossal Cave to split the loot leaving the
posse out front while they divided the cash and escaped out another
entrance. The antics of these outlaws inspired Butch Cassidy and
the Sundance Kid to blow up an express car and to run out guns
blazing into the fire of a company of soldiers.
Antebellum Missouri's location at the intersection of North, South,
and West makes it a location that allows one to examine regionalism
in the United States in one location since Missouri contained
characteristics of each region. Missouri also provides a view of
how religion functioned for people in the antebellum United States.
The institution of slavery transformed evangelical Christianity in
the South from an influence with potential to erode slavery into an
institution that was a bulwark for slavery. For African Americans,
religion constituted part of their cultural resistance against the
dehumanization of slavery. Through conjure, their traditional
religion, they sought control over their own lives and practical
tools to aid them with everyday issues. Christianity also provided
control over their destiny and a belief system, that in their
hands, affirmed the sinfulness of slavery and confirmed that it was
their right and their destiny to be free.
The West Virginia University Mountaineer is not just a mascot: it
is a symbol of West Virginia history and identity embraced
throughout the state. In this deeply informed but accessible study,
folklorist Rosemary Hathaway explores the figure's early history as
a backwoods trickster, its deployment in emerging mass media, and
finally its long and sometimes conflicted career - beginning
officially in 1937 - as the symbol of West Virginia University.
Alternately a rabble-rouser and a romantic embodiment of the
state's history, the Mountaineer has been subject to ongoing
reinterpretation while consistently conveying the value of
independence. Hathaway's account draws on multiple sources,
including archival research, personal history, and interviews with
former students who have portrayed the mascot, to explore the
complex forces and tensions animating the Mountaineer figure. Often
serving as a focus for white, masculinist, and Appalachian
identities in particular, the Mountaineer that emerges from this
study is something distinct from the hillbilly. Frontiersman and
rebel both, the Mountaineer figure traditionally and energetically
resists attempts (even those by the University) to tame or contain
it.
A heart-warming historical novel about surviving against the odds
and finding a family, from top 10 bestseller Lindsey Hutchinson.In
two rundown houses, at the side of a barren heath, live six
children with no family but each other. Abandoned or orphaned,
every day is a fight to find food and keep warm. But they are
determined to stay free of the clutches of the workhouse and the
horrors that would face them if they were ever torn apart. Dora
Parsons lives with her mother Mary and her evil grandmother Edith.
Edith's house may be comfortable and warm, and food is plentiful,
but every day Dora suffers at the hands of her spiteful gran.
Desperate to protect her child, Mary longs to run away but she has
no money to keep them alive and nowhere else to call home. When
fate intervenes and Mary and Dora meet the children, events are set
in train that will change all their lives forever. But will the
friends find peace and comfort at last, or does the chill of the
winter signal the most desperate ending of all... The top 10
best-seller is back with a heart-breaking, page-turning story of
survival, friendship and what it means to be a family. Perfect for
fans of Catherine Cookson, Val Wood and Lyn Andrews. Praise for
Lindsey Hutchinson: 'A great story with a great mix of characters,
well written and keeps you hooked with each page turn!' Sarah
Davies, NetGalley 'A wonderful read ... The author writes so well,
it's a really hard novel to put down!' Grace Smith, NetGalley.
'Make sure to read this book where you won't be disturbed because
once it gets going, you won't want to put it down' Andrea Ruiz,
NetGalley 'A very poignant, feel-good-factor novel' Shelia Easson,
NetGalley 'Excellent story!' Stephanie Collins, NetGalley 'The
story will linger in your mind long after you finish it' The Avid
Reader
In 1852 Hannah Rebecca Crowell married sea captain William
Burgess and set sail. Within three years, Rebecca Burgess had
crossed the equator eleven times and learned to navigate a vessel.
In 1856, 22-year-old Rebecca saved the ship "Challenger" as her
husband lay dying from dysentery. The widow returned to her
family's home in Sandwich, Massachusetts, where she refused all
marriage proposals and died wealthy in 1917.
This is the way Burgess recorded her story in her prodigious
journals and registers, which she donated to the local historical
society upon her death, but there is no other evidence that this
dramatic event occurred exactly this way. In The Captain's Widow of
Sandwich, Megan Taylor Shockley examines how Burgess constructed
her own legend and how the town of Sandwich embraced that history
as its own. Through careful analysis of myriad primary sources,
Shockley also addresses how Burgess dealt with the conflicting
gender roles of her life, reconciling her traditionally masculine
adventures at sea and her independent lifestyle with the accepted
ideals of the period's "Victorian woman."
_______________ WINNER OF THE SAMUEL JOHNSON PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION
THE NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER A RICHARD AND JUDY BOOK CLUB PICK
_______________ 'A remarkable achievement' - Sunday Times 'A
classic, to my mind, of the finest documentary writing' - John le
Carre 'Absolutely riveting' - Sarah Waters, Guardian
_______________ On a summer's morning in 1860, the Kent family
awakes in their elegant Wiltshire home to a terrible discovery;
their youngest son has been brutally murdered. When celebrated
detective Jack Whicher is summoned from Scotland Yard he faces the
unenviable task of identifying the killer - when the grieving
family are the suspects. The original Victorian whodunnit, the
murder and its investigation provoked national hysteria at the
thought of what might be festering behind the locked doors of
respectable homes - scheming servants, rebellious children,
insanity, jealousy, loneliness and loathing. _______________
'Nothing less than a masterpiece' - Craig Brown, Mail on Sunday
'Terrific' - Ian Rankin 'A triumph' - Observer 'Gripping,
unputdownable' - Sunday Telegraph 'A terrific read in the Wilkie
Collins tradition' - Susan Hill 'The best whodunnit of the year -
and it's all true ... Agatha Christie, eat your heart out' -
Sebastian Shakespeare, Tatler
What historical tragedy could possibly make a young Wallingford
girl daub a wall with her own tears? What really happened to the
family who encountered a UFO in Stanford-in-the-Vale?What made a
Highworth Squire's ghost choose to be banished to a barrel of
cider?And what does the Uffington White Horse get up to once every
hundred years?The Vale of the White Horse and the beautiful
countryside of South Oxfordshire is a landscape steeped in
thousands of years of legends, history and mystery. Here are
witches, monsters and ghosts; old legends and modern-day tales of
strange encounters with the unknown. From the mildly curious to the
frighteningly inexplicable, The Veiled Vale is a treasure trove of
fabulous folklore and modern mysteries.
From its south-eastern tip Sussex is little more than sixty miles
from continental Europe and the county's coastline, some
seventy-six miles long, occupies a large part of Britain's southern
frontier. Before the days of Macadam and the Turnpike, water travel
could prove more certain than land transportation and the seas that
define the borders of our nation aided, rather than deterred, the
invader.Though the last successful invasion of Britain took place
almost 1,000 years ago, the gently shelving beaches of Sussex have
tempted the prospective invader with the promise of both an easy
disembarkation and a short and direct route to London - the last
time being just seven decades ago.As the authors demonstrate, the
repeated threat of invasion from the Continent has shaped the very
landscape of the county. The rounded tops of the Iron Age hill
forts, the sheer walls of the medieval castles, the squat stumps of
Martello towers, the moulded Vaubanesque contours of the
Palmerstone redoubts and the crouched concrete blocks and bricks of
the Second World War pillboxes constitute the visible evidence of
Sussex's position on Britain's front line.
The first comprehensive book about Chillingham in
Northumberland-its unique wild cattle, its historic castle and
church, and the family associated with them since the twelfth
century. Julius Caesar admired the cattle's ancestors for their
brute strength, Sir Walter Scott immortalised them. They were
painted by Sir Edwin Landseer and Archibald Thorburn, and depicted
at their best by Thomas Bewick, the master engraver. Darwin studied
them and wrote about them in the 'Descent of Man'. The historian
Simon Schama described the Chillingham cattle as "the great,
perhaps the greatest icon of British natural history". The Castle's
history is chequered and the nobles who lived there even more so.
Incest, adultery, witchcraft, torture, kingmakers and traitors, a
cricketer and a cowboy are all part of its history, resulting in
its modern reputation for cruel and benign ghosts still regularly
seen in the castle. Founded around 1184, the country church, in its
simplicity hides a fifteenth-century tomb described as "one of the
finest such monuments in the country outside a cathedral". Edited
by Dr Paul G. Bahn and Vera Mutimer, with a foreword by HRH Prince
Charles, the Prince of Wales.
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