At the turn of the Twentieth Century, St. Louis, Missouri, was the fourth largest city in the country. For years, it was the westernmost metropolis, known for its manufacturing, beer, railroad hub, music, baseball, World's Fair, and its romance with the Mississippi. This collection of shocking stories ripped from the headlines of the Gateway City's seamy past includes tales of cholera epidemics, deadly newspaper-daily duels, ragtime racism, and Spiritualism scuffles. Readers will also meet the formative female figures behind the women's suffrage movement in St. Louis, and discover how local brewers fought against Prohibition with the help of America's favorite pastime-baseball.

During the Great Depression, California became a wellspring for some of the era's most inventive and imaginative political movements. In response to the global catastrophe, the multiracial laboring populations who formed the basis of California's economy gave rise to an oppositional culture that challenged the modes of racialism, nationalism, and rationalism that had guided modernization during preceding decades. In Rebel Imaginaries Elizabeth E. Sine tells the story of that oppositional culture's emergence, revealing how aggrieved Californians asserted political visions that embraced difference, fostered a sense of shared vulnerability, and underscored the interconnectedness and interdependence of global struggles for human dignity. From the Imperial Valley's agricultural fields to Hollywood, seemingly disparate communities of African American, Native American, Mexican, Filipinx, Asian, and White working-class people were linked by their myriad struggles against Depression-era capitalism and patterns of inequality and marginalization. In tracing the diverse coalition of those involved in labor strikes, citizenship and immigration reform, and articulating and imagining freedom through artistic practice, Sine demonstrates that the era's social movements were far more heterogeneous, multivalent, and contested than previously understood.

Witches and Warlocks of Massachusetts is a collection of legends and historical accounts about witches and warlocks from the Bay State. Organized by region, city and town, the book dozens of stories including the earliest Puritan accounts of 17th century witches, urban legends about desolate locations haunted by ghostly witch hunt victims, tales of Cape Cod sailors battling witches, and other stories of sinister (and sometimes sympathetic) spellcasters. Massachusetts has a rich history of witchcraft that spans nearly four centuries. Most people are aware of the Salem witch trials but fewer know about the Dogtown witches, the Pepperell farmer who hired a hypnotist to save his bewitched daughter, or Half-Hanged Mary, the witch who died twice and inspired The Handmaid's Tale. These stories are known locally in the towns where they occurred but have never been collected into one book before.

Dublin has many histories: for a thousand years a modest urban settlement on the quiet waters of the Irish Sea, for the last four hundred it has experienced great - and often astonishing - change. Once a fulcrum of English power in Ireland, it was also the location for the 1916 insurrection that began the rapid imperial retreat. That moment provided Joyce with the setting for the greatest modernist novel of the age, Ulysses, capping a cultural heritage which became an economic resource for the brash 'Tiger Town' of the 1990s. David Dickson's magisterial survey of the city's history brings Dublin to life from its medieval incarnation through the glamorous eighteenth century, when it reigned as the 'Naples of the North', through to the millennium. He reassesses 120 years of Anglo-Irish Union, in which Dublin - while economic capital of Ireland - remained, as it does today, a place in which rival creeds and politics struggled for supremacy. Dublin reveals the rich and intriguing story behind the making of a capital city.

An insider's look at the iconic drink and its role in shaping the American West Distilleries are the new microbreweries, cropping up all over the West and producing brands that emulate the predecessors that were made in copper stills by emigrants and served in saloons and dance halls. This history of the spirit and its origins and migration across the country-and its place in shaping the West-celebrates the story of the golden elixir through first-hand accounts, evocative photographs, and historic cocktail recipes.

Take a virtual tour of Northern Arizona. More than 300 postcards show the character and history of popular travel destinations like the 270 million-year-old Grand Canyon, the Painted Desert, Oak Creek Canyon, and the Petrified Forest. Experience the early Fred Harvey Hotels, explore Arizona's Route 66 towns and roadside attractions, and learn about the culture and history of Northern Arizona's Native Americans. Postcard collectors will also find this book a useful resource guide.

Haworth parsonage and village will forever be linked inextricably with one nineteenth-century literary family. For it was here, in 1821, that Patrick Bront, an Irish Anglican clergyman, came from Thornton to be curate. He brought his three young daughters and son to Haworth, and it was here that the sisters grew up to become quite the most remarkable literary phenomenon of the century. As children, they knew the streets and the houses, the moors and the people. And, as Michael Baumber shows, many of the characters in the Bront novels were based upon real Haworth folk - some of whom recognised themselves in the women's novels and were not at all happy with how they had been portrayed - while the moors above the village figure prominently and famously as the haunt of the brooding Heathcliff in Emily's greatest work "Wuthering Heights". Patrick Bront the curate was himself a notable character in the history of the village, and his role in the social, public and religious life of the village is explored at several points. Surprisingly, the Bront novels mention little about the textile industry which by that time had become such a dominant force in the district's economy. Indeed, the industrial development of the region was such an important and all-consuming fact of life in early Victorian Haworth that it forms a major subject of this new book. The Bront's did, however, describe life in the district's rural homes, schools and communities at a time of particularly harsh living conditions and appalling death rates in the new industrial community of Haworth. The village's public health record was poor well into the twentieth century, and Patrick Bront endured the deaths from tuberculosis (or other illnesses aggravated by it) of all four of his children between 1848 and 1855. Yet, as Michael Baumber's highly readable new book shows, the history of Haworth actually stretches back millennia: his book tells the whole story of the Haworth district from the early Mesolithic right up to the popular tourist magnet that the village now becomes during the summer months. The book also features the hamlets of Near and Far Oxenhope and Stanbury, providing a clear and illuminating account of how Haworth developed in the particular way that it did. Fully illustrated, with many rare old photographs, this book offers many new insights into the village and also its occasionally ambivalent relationship with its most famous literary residents.

A richly illustrated architectural "biography" of one of DC's most important boulevards Sixteenth Street NW in Washington, DC, has been called the Avenue of the Presidents, Executive Avenue, and the Avenue of Churches. From the front door of the White House, this north-south artery runs through the middle of the District and extends just past its border with Maryland. The street is as central to the cityscape as it is to DC's history and culture. In Sixteenth Street NW: Washington, DC's Avenue of Ambitions, John DeFerrari and Douglas Peter Sefton depict the social and architectural history of the street and immediate neighborhoods, inviting readers to explore how the push and pull between ordinary Washingtonians and powerful elites has shaped the corridor-and the city. This highly illustrated book features notable buildings along Sixteenth Street and recounts colorful stories of those who lived, worked, and worshipped there. Maps offer readers an opportunity to create self-guided tours of the places and people that have defined this main thoroughfare over time. What readers will find is that both then and now, Sixteenth Street NW has been shaped by a diverse array of people and communities. The street, and the book, feature a range of sites-from Black Lives Matter Plaza to the White House, from mansions and rowhomes to apartment buildings, from Meridian Hill (Malcolm X) Park with its drum circles to Rock Creek Park with its tennis tournaments, and from hotels to houses of worship. Sixteenth Street, NW reveals a cross section of Washington, DC, that shows the vibrant makeup of our nation's capital.

During the Great Depression, California became a wellspring for some of the era's most inventive and imaginative political movements. In response to the global catastrophe, the multiracial laboring populations who formed the basis of California's economy gave rise to an oppositional culture that challenged the modes of racialism, nationalism, and rationalism that had guided modernization during preceding decades. In Rebel Imaginaries Elizabeth E. Sine tells the story of that oppositional culture's emergence, revealing how aggrieved Californians asserted political visions that embraced difference, fostered a sense of shared vulnerability, and underscored the interconnectedness and interdependence of global struggles for human dignity. From the Imperial Valley's agricultural fields to Hollywood, seemingly disparate communities of African American, Native American, Mexican, Filipinx, Asian, and White working-class people were linked by their myriad struggles against Depression-era capitalism and patterns of inequality and marginalization. In tracing the diverse coalition of those involved in labor strikes, citizenship and immigration reform, and articulating and imagining freedom through artistic practice, Sine demonstrates that the era's social movements were far more heterogeneous, multivalent, and contested than previously understood.

The surprising history of the Gowanus Canal and its role in the building of Brooklyn For more than 150 years, Brooklyn's Gowanus Canal has been called a cesspool, an industrial dumping ground, and a blemish on the face of the populous borough-as well as one of the most important waterways in the history of New York harbor. Yet its true origins, man-made character, and importance to the city have been largely forgotten. Now, New York writer and guide Joseph Alexiou explores how the Gowanus creek-a naturally-occurring tidal estuary that served as a conduit for transport and industry during the colonial era-came to play an outsized role in the story of America's greatest city. From the earliest Dutch settlers of New Amsterdam, to nearby Revolutionary War skirmishes, or the opulence of the Gilded Age mansions that sprung up in its wake, historical changes to the Canal and the neighborhood that surround it have functioned as a microcosm of the story of Brooklyn's rapid nineteenth-century growth. Highlighting the biographies of nineteenth-century real estate moguls like Daniel Richards and Edwin C. Litchfield, Alexiou recalls the forgotten movers and shakers that laid the foundation of modern-day Brooklyn. As he details, the pollution, crime, and industry associated with the Gowanus stretch back far earlier than the twentieth century, and helped define the culture and unique character of this celebrated borough. The story of the Gowanus, like Brooklyn itself, is a tale of ambition and neglect, bursts of creative energy, and an inimitable character that has captured the imaginations of city-lovers around the world.

From Kim Heacox, the acclaimed author of The Only Kayak and John Muir and the Ice That Started a Fire, comes Rhythm of the Wild, an Alaska memoir focused on Denali National Park. Music runs through every page of this book, as do stories, rivers and wolves. At its heart, Rhythm of the Wild is a love story. It begins in 1981 and ends in 2014, yet reaches beyond the arc of time. Author and mountaineer Jonathan Waterman has called Heacox "our northern Edward Abbey." In this book we find out why. We hitchhike with Kim through Idaho, camp on the Colorado Plateau, and fly off the sand cliffs of Hangman Creek with a little terrier named Super Max, the Wonder Dog. We meet Zed, the Aborigine; Nine Fingers, the blues guitarist; and Adolph Murie, the legendary wildlife biologist, who dared to say that wolves should be protected, not persecuted. Kim also reprises in this book his friend Richard Steele, a beloved character from The Only Kayak. Some books are larger than their actual subject-this is one. Part memoir, part exploration of Denali's inspiring natural and human history, and part conservation polemic, Rhythm of the Wild ranges from funny to provocative. It's a celebration of-and a plea to restore and defend-the vibrant earth and our rightful place in it.

When the U.S. Army ordered troops into Arizona Territory in the 19th century to protect and defend the new settlements established there, some of those military men brought their wives and families. Many of these women worked as laundresses for the military and maids to officers' families to supplement their husband's meager salaries. They had little time for leisure, but their letters, diaries, and journals from their years on the army posts reveal the hardships and challenges faced by families on the frontier. These women were bold, brave, and compassionate. They were an integral part of military posts that peppered the West and played an important role in civilizing the Arizona frontier. Combining the words of these women with original research tracing their movements from camp to camp over the years they spent in the West, From Reveille to Taps explores the tragedies and triumphs they experienced.

Our images of the big names and places of the Old West often come from the tales of gunfights and violence that were sensationalized by dime novels and yellow journalism in the 19th century and the myths that came from those stories live on today. But in reality many of these fabled characters of the Wild West were gamblers first and gunfighters second- more invested in poker than in the momentary fury of the shootout. Aces and Eights tells story of the role of poker in the lives of these legends, and offers a portrait of the places where they lived and frequently died. This book offers both the "facts" of these lives and the true tales of the game and the gamblers-and the entertaining "tall tales" that have survived to this day.

As an archaeologist, Steven Mithen has worked on the Hebridean island of Islay over a period of many years. In this book he introduces the sites and monuments and tells the story of the island's people from the earliest stone age hunter-gatherers to those who lived in townships and in the grandeur of Islay House. He visits the tombs of Neolithic farmers, forts of Iron Age chiefs and castles of medieval warlords, discovers where Bronze Age gold was found, treacherous plots were made against the Scottish crown, and explores the island of today, which was forged more recently by those who mined for lead, grew flax, fished for herring and distilled whisky - the industry for which the island is best known today. Although an island history, this is far from an insular story: Islay has always been at a cultural crossroads, receiving a constant influx of new people and new ideas, making it a microcosm for the story of Scotland, Britain and beyond.

A remote, barren and ruggedly beautiful island lies at the southern end of the Outer Hebrides. Its people, loyal for centuries, have abandoned it but the beauty and history of Mingulay remain. The story of St Kilda, whose inhabitants were also forced to leave, is well known, but that of Mingulay is no less poignant, and is told in this acclaimed book for the first time. Ben Buxton documents the story of a people and of an island. In the nineteenth century Mingulay was home to up to 160 islanders who lived by crofting, fishing and by catching seabirds from cliffs which are among the highest in Britain. Looking back through the annals of history, he uncovers the traditions of a hospitable, close community which thrived under clan rule. But set in lonely isolation in the stormy Atlantic, with no proper landing place, absentee landlords and insufficient fertile land, life for Mingulay's inhabitants was hard, and By 1912, the 'voluntary' evacuation of the island was complete.

From supreme president to forgotten enemy, John W. Talbot lived a remarkable life. Charismatic, energetic, and powerful, he founded a national fraternal organization, the Order of Owls, and counted senators, congressmen, and business leaders among his friends. He wielded his influence to help causes close to his heart but also to bring down those who stood against him. In So Much Bad in the Best of Us, Greta Fisher's careful research reveals that Talbot was capable of great evil, causing one woman to describe him as "the Devil Incarnate." His string of very public affairs revealed his strange sexual preferences and violent tendencies, and charges leveled against him included perjury, blackmail, jury tampering, slander, libel, misuse of the mail, assault with intent to kill, and White slavery. Ultimately convicted on the slavery charge, he spent several years in Leavenworth penitentiary and eventually lost everything, including control of the Order of Owls. His descent into alcoholism and death by fire was a fitting end to a tumultuous and dramatic life. After 50 years of newspaper headlines and court battles, Talbot's death made national news, but with more enemies than friends and estranged from his family, he was ultimately forgotten. A gripping true crime story, So Much Bad in the Best of Us offers a mesmerizing account of the life of John W. Talbot, the Order of Owls, and how quickly the powerful can fall.

For readers of Laura Hillenbrand's "Seabiscuit" and "Unbroken," the dramatic story of the American rowing team that stunned the world at Hitler's 1936 Berlin Olympics
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"Daniel James Brown's robust book tells the story of the University of Washington's 1936 eight-oar crew and their epic quest for an Olympic gold medal, a team that transformed the sport and grabbed the attention of millions of Americans. The sons of loggers, shipyard workers, and farmers, the boys defeated elite rivals first from eastern and British universities and finally the German crew rowing for Adolf Hitler in the Olympic games in Berlin, 1936.
The emotional heart of the story lies with one rower, Joe Rantz, a teenager without family or prospects, who rows not for glory, but to regain his shattered self-regard and to find a place he can call home. The crew is assembled by an enigmatic coach and mentored by a visionary, eccentric British boat builder, but it is their trust in each other that makes them a victorious team. They remind the country of what can be done when everyone quite literally pulls together--a perfect melding of commitment, determination, and optimism.
Drawing on the boys' own diaries and journals, their photos and memories of a once-in-a-lifetime shared dream, "The Boys in the Boat "is an irresistible story about beating the odds and finding hope in the most desperate of times--the improbable, intimate story of nine working-class boys from the American west who, in the depths of the Great Depression, showed the world what true grit really meant. It will appeal to readers of Erik Larson, Timothy Egan, James Bradley, and David Halberstam's "The Amateurs."

In the first half of the twentieth century, when seismology was still in in its infancy, renowned geologist Bailey Willis faced off with fellow high-profile scientist Robert T. Hill in a debate with life-or-death consequences for the millions of people migrating west. Their conflict centered on a consequential question: Is southern California earthquake country? These entwined biographies of Hill and Willis offer a lively, accessible account of the ways that politics and financial interests influenced the development of earthquake science. During this period of debate, severe quakes in Santa Barbara (1925) and Long Beach (1933) caused scores of deaths and a significant amount of damage, offering turning points for scientific knowledge and mainstreaming the idea of earthquake safety. The Great Quake Debate sheds light on enduring questions surrounding the environmental hazards of our dynamic planet. What challenges face scientists bearing bad news in the public arena? How do we balance risk and the need to sustain communities and cities? And how well has California come to grips with its many faults?

Arran is an archaeological and geological treasure trove of stunning scenic beauty. Its history stretches back to the great stone circles, more than 5,000 years old, whose remnants still decorate the plains of Machrie. Runic inscriptions tell of a Viking occupation lasting centuries. Later, in 1307, King Robert the Bruce began his triumphant comeback from Arran. Subsequently, the island was repeatedly caught up and devastated in the savage dynastic struggles of medieval Scotland. After the 1707 Parliamentary Union, came a new and strange upheaval - unwarlike but equally unsettling: Arran became a test-bed for the new theories of the ideologists of the Industrial Revolution. The ancient 'runrig' style of farming gave way to enclosed fields and labour-saving methods, which eventually lead to the socially disastrous Highland Clearances to Arran, and the misfortune of the times was culminated by the Great Irish Potato Famine of 1845. At last, the area began to settle down through an increasingly stable mixture of agriculture and tourism in the 19th and 20th centuries. In this book, Thorbjorn Campbell gives an original, fascinating and comprehensive account of Arran's long and eventful history.

This book explores the history of Cornwall's picturing on screen, from the earliest days of the moving image to the recent BBC adaptation of Winston Graham's Poldark books. Drawing on art history to illuminate the construction of Cornwall in films and television programmes, the book looks at amateur film, newsreels and contemporary film practice as well as drama. It argues that Cornwall's screen identity has been dominated by the romantic coastal edge, leaving the regional interior absent from representation. In turn, the emphasis on the coast in Cornwall's screen history has had a significant and ongoing economic impact on the area.New research with an innovative approach, looking at amateur film and newsreels alongside mainstream film and television. Will appeal to both the academic and the more general reader.

This anthology of first person-accounts by women who toured Yellowstone Park more than a century ago includes tales of high adventure, raucous humor, and glorious sights of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Including a wide range of stories by women who visited from all over the world and at all ages, these accounts reveal their wonder at the interior of the park, the weeks they traveled on horseback through the roadless wilderness, and the later luxuries of well-maintained roads, comfortable carriages, and fancy hotels.