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Books > Humanities > History > History of specific subjects > Local history
The mixed-race Hawaiian athlete George Freeth brought surfing to
Venice, California, in 1907. Over the next twelve years, Freeth
taught Southern Californians to surf and swim while creating a
modern lifeguard service that transformed the beach into a
destination for fun, leisure, and excitement. Patrick Moser places
Freeth's inspiring life story against the rise of the Southern
California beach culture he helped shape and define. Freeth made
headlines with his rescue of seven fishermen, an act of heroism
that highlighted his innovative lifeguarding techniques. But he
also founded California's first surf club and coached both male and
female athletes, including Olympic swimming champion and "father of
modern surfing" Duke Kahanamoku. Often in financial straits, Freeth
persevered as a teacher and lifeguarding pioneer--building a legacy
that endured long after his death during the 1919 influenza
pandemic. A compelling merger of biography and sports history, Surf
and Rescue brings to light the forgotten figure whose novel way of
seeing the beach sparked the imaginations of people around the
world.
The definitive account of the lynching of twenty-three-year-old
Matthew Williams in Maryland, the subsequent investigation, and the
legacy of "modern-day" lynchings. On December 4, 1931, a mob of
white men in Salisbury, Maryland, lynched and set ablaze a
twenty-three-year-old Black man named Matthew Williams. His
gruesome murder was part of a wave of silent white terrorism in the
wake of the stock market crash of 1929, which exposed Black
laborers to white rage in response to economic anxieties. For
nearly a century, the lynching of Matthew Williams has lived in the
shadows of the more well-known incidents of racial terror in the
deep South, haunting both the Eastern Shore and the state of
Maryland as a whole. In The Silent Shore, author Charles L. Chavis
Jr. draws on his discovery of previously unreleased investigative
documents to meticulously reconstruct the full story of one of the
last lynchings in Maryland. Bringing the painful truth of
anti-Black violence to light, Chavis breaks the silence that
surrounded Williams's death. Though Maryland lacked the notoriety
for racial violence of Alabama or Mississippi, he writes, it
nonetheless was the site of at least 40 spectacle lynchings after
the abolition of slavery in 1864. Families of lynching victims
rarely obtained any form of actual justice, but Williams's death
would have a curious afterlife: Maryland's politically ambitious
governor Albert C. Ritchie would, in an attempt to position himself
as a viable challenger to FDR, become one of the first governors in
the United States to investigate the lynching death of a Black
person. Ritchie tasked Patsy Johnson, a member of the Pinkerton
detective agency and a former prizefighter, with going undercover
in Salisbury and infiltrating the mob that murdered Williams.
Johnson would eventually befriend a young local who admitted to
participating in the lynching and who also named several local law
enforcement officers as ringleaders. Despite this, a grand jury,
after hearing 124 witness statements, declined to indict the
perpetrators. But this denial of justice galvanized Governor
Ritchie's Interracial Commission, which would become one of the
pioneering forces in the early civil rights movement in Maryland.
Complicating historical narratives associated with the history of
lynching in the city of Salisbury, The Silent Shore explores the
immediate and lingering effect of Williams's death on the politics
of racism in the United States, the Black community in Salisbury,
the broader Eastern Shore, the state of Maryland, and the legacy of
"modern-day lynchings."
By the 1970s, Robt. Jowitt & Sons was believed to be the oldest
surviving wool company in Britain. From a small family concern it
grew into a large international business before suffering from the
general decline in domestic demand and increase in overseas
competition which afflicted all British wool businesses. This book
tells the story of the company and the family behind it. In the
seventeenth century, the Jowitts were persecuted for being Quakers.
By hard work and moderate habits, they escaped poverty to become
leading opinion-formers and benefactors in nineteenth-century
Leeds. They backed the Reform Bill, fought tirelessly against the
slave trade and were instrumental in setting up the Leeds branch of
the Cotton Districts Relief Fund. Th ey were a major force behind
the General Infirmary, the Medical School and the University. As
well as business records and newspaper articles, the book draws
upon unpublished diaries which give a fascinating glimpse into the
private lives of the Jowitts, in particular John Jowitt junior and
Deborah Benson's trip to Europe in 1835, the year before their
marriage. The diaries also shed light on the family's central role
in the Beaconite controversy which caused many, including the
Jowitts, to leave the Society of Friends. Peter Danckwerts studied
at Oxford Polytechnic, the University of Leeds, the Open University
and Birkbeck College, University of London.
Where can you see an effigy of a Templar? What prompted King John
to hand England over to an Italian? Who worked for the Templars in
Yorkshire? The Knights Templar in Yorkshire answers all these
questions and many more. This new book explores what medieval life
was like during the Templars' stay in Yorkshire. Not only was it
the biggest county in Britain, but in Templar terms it was also the
richest. They owned more land, property and people in Yorkshire
than in any other county in England. This fascinating volume takes
the reader on an intimate tour of the ten major Templar sites
established in Yorkshire, and reveals what life was like for their
inhabitants - how the land was farmed, what the population ate, how
they were taxed and local legends. Illustrated with an intriguing
collection of photographs and specially commissioned maps, this
book is sure to appeal to anyone interested in medieval history.
In We Showed Baltimore, Christian Swezey tells the dramatic story
of how a brash coach from Long Island and a group of players unlike
any in the sport helped unseat lacrosse's establishment. From 1976
to 1978, the Cornell men's lacrosse team went on a tear. Winning
two national championships and posting an overall record of 42-1,
the Big Red, coached by Richie Moran, were the class of the NCAA
game. Swezey tells the story of the rise of this dominant lacrosse
program and reveals how Cornell's success coincided with and
sometimes fueled radical changes in what was once a minor prep
school game centered in the Baltimore suburbs. Led on the field by
the likes of Mike French and Eamon McEneaney, in the mid-1970s
Cornell was an offensive powerhouse. Moran coached the players to
be in fast, constant movement. That technique, paired with the
advent of synthetic stick heads and the introduction of artificial
turf fields, made the Cornell offensive game swift and lethal. It
is no surprise that the first NCAA championship game covered by ABC
Television was Cornell vs. Maryland in 1976. The 16-13 Cornell win,
in overtime, was exactly the exciting game that Moran encouraged
and that newcomers to the sport wanted to see. Swezey recounts
Cornell's dramatic games against traditional powers such as
Maryland, Navy, and Johns Hopkins, and gets into the strategy and
psychology that Moran brought to the team. We Showed Baltimore
describes how the game of lacrosse was changing-its style of play,
equipment, demographics, and geography. Pulling from interviews
with more than ninety former coaches and players from Cornell and
its rivals, We Showed Baltimore paints a vivid picture of lacrosse
in the 1970s and how Moran and the Big Red helped create the game
of today.
This enchanting collection of stories gathers together legends from
across Ireland in one special volume. Drawn from The History Press'
popular Folk Tales series, herein lies a treasure trove of tales
from a wealth of talented storytellers. From fairies, giants and
vampires to changelings and witches, this book celebrates the
distinct character of Ireland's different customs, beliefs and
dialects, and is a treat for all who enjoy a well-told story.
This is the third volume of the authoritative history of the
county of Gwent, geared towards an understanding of the county's
past for the twenty-first century reader. Volume III is a highly
illustrated collection dealing with the early modern period of
Welsh history, from the creation of Monmouthshire by the Act of
Union in 1536 to the beginnings of industrialization in the later
eighteenth century.
This book explores the background of the NRA, the most important
economic measure of the first hundred days of Franklin D.
Roosevelt's New Deal. It also is the history of the business
community's efforts during the 1920s and '30s to emasculate the
federal policy of maintaining a competitive enterprise system.
In 1914, the East London Federation of Suffragettes, led by Sylvia
Pankhurst, split from the WSPU. Sylvia's mother and sister,
Emmeline and Christabel, had encouraged her to give up her work
with the poor women of East London - but Sylvia refused. Besides
campaigning for women to have an equal right to vote from their
headquarters in Bow, the ELFS worked on a range of equality issues
which mattered to local women: they built a toy factory, providing
work and a living wage for local women; they opened a subsidized
canteen where women and children could get cheap, nutritious food;
and they launched a nursery school, a creche, and a mother-and-baby
clinic. The work of the Federation (and 'our Sylvia', as she was
fondly known by locals) deserves to be remembered, and this book,
filled with astonishing first-hand accounts, aims to bring this
amazing story to life.
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.
Canals of Britain is the most comprehensive and absorbing survey of
Britain's canal network ever published. It provides a fascinating
insight into the linked up waterways as well as the isolated cuts
and quiet waters which may not be fully navigable by larger craft.
Infinitely varied, it passes picturesque open countryside, wild
moorland, coastal harbours, historic industrial buildings, modern
city centres, canalside public houses and abundant wildlife. Stuart
Fisher looks at every aspect of the canals - their construction,
rich history, stunning scenery, heritage, incredible engineering,
impressive architecture and even their associated folklore,
wildlife and art. Enticing photographs give a flavour of each place
and places of interest close to the canals are included. Each canal
is intricately mapped. For those who are keen to explore that
little bit further, the book goes to points beyond which others
usually turn back, with information on little-known parts of the
system, offering a new insight into this country's unique,
surprising and beautiful canal network. Attractive, inspiring and
also a practical guide, Canals of Britain has proved very popular
with walkers, cyclists, narrowboaters, canoeists, kayakers and
others wanting to get the most out of Britain's canals. This fourth
edition has been thoroughly revised to reflect the ever-changing
landscape of Britain's canals, and includes many new colour
photographs to help bring them to life.
" ""Serving as tour guide, Fox invites his audience to go with
him log rafting down the Kentucky River, bass fishing in the
Cumberland Mountains, rabbit hunting in the Bluegrass, and chasing
outlaws in the border country of Kentucky and Virginia. Along the
route we meet Old South colonels and their ladies, lawless
moonshiners and their shy daughters, bloodthirsty preachers, and
educated young gentlemen visitors who explore the southern
mountains for fun and profit. These sketches offer a delightful
blend of macho adventure and sage observation by an erudite young
writer who had lived in the two worlds that provide his subject
matter-the elegant society of the Bluegrass aristocracy and the
hardscrabble feuding clans of mountaineers.""
In the 1920s, drawn by spectacular vistas and colorful fall
foliage, photojournalist Frank Hohenberger (1876-1962) traveled to
the hills of Brown County. Once there, he found more to photograph
than just a picturesque landscape and he set out to record the
lives of the people who lived among the hills. If You Don't Outdie
Me is a brilliantly revealing volume about Hohenberger's encounter
with the people of Brown County. Rather than a society of amusing
and peaceful rustics, Hohenberger discovered that there were
"tragedies in the valleys" and rancorous complexities that belied
sentimental notions about small town life. Reproduced here are
Hohenberger's incomparable photographs, not only the carefully
crafted "art prints," but also the casual snapshots that show him
to have been one of the pioneers of ethnographic photography. The
book includes Hohenberger's previously unpublished diary notes,
which record the humor, gossip, legends, oral history, figures of
speech, and proverbs of the Brown County folk, as well as his
astute and unguarded observations.
Presents the story of a small fishing village in the shadow of
Portsmouth which developed to become a major naval and military
base in its own right. This book shows the ways in which Gosport
has sometimes stood still and sometimes altered almost beyond
recognition.
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