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Books > Humanities > History > History of specific subjects > Local history
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.
The astonishing story of a unique missionary project--and the
America it embodied--from award-winning historian John Demos.
Near the start of the nineteenth century, as the newly established
United States looked outward toward the wider world, a group of
eminent Protestant ministers formed a grand scheme for gathering
the rest of mankind into the redemptive fold of Christianity and
"civilization." Its core element was a special school for "heathen
youth" drawn from all parts of the earth, including the Pacific
Islands, China, India, and, increasingly, the native nations of
North America. If all went well, graduates would return to join
similar projects in their respective homelands. For some years, the
school prospered, indeed became quite famous. However, when two
Cherokee students courted and married local women, public
resolve--and fundamental ideals--were put to a severe test.
"The Heathen School" follows the progress, and the demise, of this
first true melting pot through the lives of individual students:
among them, Henry Obookiah, a young Hawaiian who ran away from home
and worked as a seaman in the China Trade before ending up in New
England; John Ridge, son of a powerful Cherokee chief and
subsequently a leader in the process of Indian "removal"; and Elias
Boudinot, editor of the first newspaper published by and for Native
Americans. From its birth as a beacon of hope for universal
"salvation," the heathen school descends into bitter controversy,
as American racial attitudes harden and intensify. Instead of
encouraging reconciliation, the school exposes the limits of
tolerance and sets off a chain of events that will culminate
tragically in the Trail of Tears.
In "The Heathen School," John Demos marshals his deep empathy and
feel for the textures of history to tell a moving story of families
and communities--and to probe the very roots of American
identity.
"From the Hardcover edition."
In his inimitable prose, master storyteller Peter Quinn chronicles
his odyssey from the Irish Catholic precincts of the Bronx to the
arena of big-league politics and corporate hardball. Cross Bronx is
Peter Quinnâs one-of-a-kind account of his adventures as ad man,
archivist, teacher, Wall Street messenger, court officer, political
speechwriter, corporate scribe, and award-winning novelist. Like
Pete Hamill, Quinn is a New Yorker through and through. His
evolution from a childhood in a now-vanished Bronx, to his exploits
in the halls of Albany and swish corporate offices, to then walking
away from it all, is evocative and entertaining and enlightening
from first page to last. Cross Bronx is bursting with witty,
captivating stories. Quinn is best known for his novels (all
recently reissued by Fordham University Press under its New York
ReLit imprint), most notably his American Book Awardâwinning
novel Banished Children of Eve. Colum McCann has summed up
Quinnâs trilogy of historical detective novels as âgenerous and
agile and profound.â Quinn has now seized the time and
inspiration afforded by âthe strange interlude of the pandemicâ
to give his up-close-and-personal accounts of working as a
speechwriter in political backrooms and corporate boardrooms: âIn
a moment of upended expectations and fear-prone uncertainty, the
tolling of John Donneâs bells becomes perhaps not as faint as it
once seemed. Before judgment is pronounced and sentence carried
out, I want my chance to speak from the dock. Let no man write my
epitaph. In the end, this is the best I could do.â (from the
Prologue) From 1979 to 1985 Quinn worked as chief speechwriter for
New York Governors Hugh Carey and Mario Cuomo, helping craft
Cuomoâs landmark speech at the 1984 Democratic Convention and his
address on religion and politics at Notre Dame University. Quinn
then joined Time Inc. as chief speechwriter and retired as
corporate editorial director for Time Warner at the end of 2007. As
eyewitness and participant, he survived elections, mega-mergers,
and urban ruin. In Cross Bronx he provides his insiderâs view of
high-powered politics and high-stakes corporate intrigue. Incapable
of writing a dull sentence, the award-winning author grabs our
attention and keeps us enthralled from start to finish. Never have
his skills as a storyteller been on better display than in this
revealing, gripping memoir.
It Happened in Connecticut tells twenty-seven true tales of
famous--and infamous--people and events from the state's past,
ranging from witchcraft trials to the Wiffle ball, from mass murder
for profit to the modern game of football.
Providing a comprehensive history of the Baltimore Black Sox from
before the team's founding in 1913 through its demise in 1936, this
history examines the social and cultural forces that gave birth to
the club and informed its development. The author describes aspects
of Baltimore's history in the first decades of the 20th century,
details the team's year-by-year performance, explores front-office
and management dynamics and traces the shaping of the Negro
Leagues. The history of the Black Sox's home ballparks and of the
people who worked for the team both on and off the field are
included.
Kent has a long and illustrious military history dating back to the
Roman occupation but the first great conflict of the twentieth
century brought the horrors of war to a new generation. Thousands
of the county's finest young men were sent off to fight in
battlefields around the world including Europe's Western Front,
which was less than a day's travel from Kent. Because of its
proximity to this major war zone, Kent came to play a pivotal role
in the conflict. The ports of Dover and Folkestone were the main
staging posts for the British Expeditionary Force and the primary
points of arrival for the thousands of wounded servicemen being
repatriated from the Front. Its hospitals cared for the wounded and
its munitions factories produced the armaments needed to fight the
war. The county's geographical position also made it a prime target
for German air raids and naval bombardments, which brought the
terrors of modern war to the civilian population for the first
time. Kent at War tells the remarkable story of the First World War
as it unfolded and affected the county and its people.
In twenty-first-century American cities, policy makers increasingly
celebrate university-sponsored innovation districts as engines of
inclusive growth. But the story is not so simple. In University
City, Laura Wolf-Powers chronicles five decades of planning in and
around the communities of West Philadelphia's University City to
illuminate how the dynamics of innovation district development in
the present both depart from and connect to the politics of
mid-twentieth-century urban renewal. Drawing on archival and
ethnographic research, Wolf-Powers concludes that even as
university and government leaders vow to develop without
displacement, what existing residents value is imperiled when
innovation-driven redevelopment remains accountable to the property
market. The book first traces the municipal and institutional
politics that empowered officials to demolish a predominantly Black
neighborhood near the University of Pennsylvania and Drexel
University in the late 1960s to make way for the University City
Science Center and University City High School. It also provides
new insight into organizations whose members experimented during
that same period with alternative conceptions of economic
advancement. The book then shifts to the present, documenting
contemporary efforts to position university-adjacent neighborhoods
as locations for prosperity built on scientific knowledge.
Wolf-Powers examines the work of mobilized civic groups to push
cultural preservation concerns into the public arena and to win
policies to help economically insecure families keep a foothold in
changing neighborhoods. Placing Philadelphia's innovation districts
in the context of similar development taking place around the
United States, University City advocates a reorientation of
redevelopment practice around the recognition that despite their
negligible worth in real estate terms, the time, care, and energy
people invest in their local environments-and in one another-are
precious urban resources.
Scotland has charmed visitors for centuries, and this collection of
intricate illustrations is a celebration of its unique appeal.
Featuring a range of picturesque vistas, from freshwater lochs and
wooded glens to majestic mountains, granite cities and medieval
castles, 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 wonderful images to life. Suitable
for children. If you love Scotland, then you will love colouring it
in!
In this book he records a world of local legend, folklore and
superstition, and charts the changes he saw in his lifetime in
agriculture, education, the Church and, of course, emigration. He
recounts the history of the leading families of Skye and also the
lives and experiences of the crofters, for whose rights he actively
campaigned in the 1880s. Old Skye Tales is a unique and valuable
record, written by a man of intelligence and sensitivity, whose
life spanned both the traditional and the modern world. As well as
containing a large amount of information of the geography of the
island (particularly the north), there are also important sections
on crofting, the Church, as well as local superstitions, sayings,
second sight and even local characters of his time. An entertaining
and witty book, Old Skye Tales is a marvellous resource for the
historian, as well as a fascinating compendium for all those who
love one of Scotland's most famous islands. It is one of the most
important sources for the history of the island.
Do you remember the docks? In its heyday, the Port of London was
the biggest in the world. It was a sprawling network of quays,
wharves, canals and basins, providing employment for over 100,000
people. From the dockworker to the prostitute, the Romans to the
Republic of the Isle of Dogs, London's docklands have always been a
key part of the city. But it wasn't to last. They might have
recovered from the devastating bombing raids of the Second World
War - but it was the advent of the container ships, too big to fit
down the Thames, that would sound the final death knell. Over
150,000 men lost their jobs, whole industries disappeared, and the
docks gradually turned to wasteland. In London's Docklands: A
History of the Lost Quarter, best-selling historian Fiona Rule
ensures that, though the docklands may be all but gone, they will
not be forgotten.
Duncan Harley takes the reader on a grand tour through
Aberdeenshire's fascinating and rich history, culminating in a
collection of stories and facts that will make you marvel at the
events this county has witnessed. Read about the Beaker People,
blue-painted Picts and the Roman legionnaires who tried, but
ultimately failed to subdue the local populace. William Wallace,
Robert the Bruce and Donald Trump inhabit these pages alongside
tales of Bloody Harlaw, the Herschip of Buchan and the battle of
Mons Graupius. Discover the painter priest of Macduff, the English
Dillinger, the famous diggers of Inverurie's George Square and the
strange tale of how Lawrence of Arabia 'got his scuds' over at
Collieston. The Little History of Aberdeenshire is guaranteed to
enthral both residents and visitors alike.
A rich, and indeed sometimes bizarre, thread of history weaves its
way through the Bristol story. Find out all manner of things, from
why a 'Bristol Diamond' would never be found in a jewellery shop to
why local by-laws restrict carpet beating to certain hours. Along
with a fresh look at city life past and present, these and many
more anecdotes will surprise even those Bristolians who thought
they really knew their city.
The story of how one ethnic neighborhood came to signify a shared
Korean American identity. At the turn of the twenty-first century,
Los Angeles County's Korean population stood at about 186,000-the
largest concentration of Koreans outside of Asia. Most of this
growth took place following the passage of the Hart-Celler Act of
1965, which dramatically altered US immigration policy and ushered
in a new era of mass immigration, particularly from Asia and Latin
America. By the 1970s, Korean immigrants were seeking to turn the
area around Olympic Boulevard near downtown Los Angeles into a
full-fledged "Koreatown," and over the following decades, they
continued to build a community in LA. As Korean immigrants seized
the opportunity to purchase inexpensive commercial and residential
property and transformed the area to serve their community's needs,
other minority communities in nearby South LA-notably Black and
Latino working-class communities-faced increasing segregation,
urban poverty, and displacement. Beginning with the early
development of LA's Koreatown and culminating with the 1992 Los
Angeles riots and their aftermath, Shelley Sang-Hee Lee
demonstrates how Korean Americans' lives were shaped by patterns of
racial segregation and urban poverty, and legacies of anti-Asian
racism and orientalism. Koreatown, Los Angeles tells the story of
an American ethnic community often equated with socioeconomic
achievement and assimilation, but whose experiences as racial
minorities and immigrant outsiders illuminate key economic and
cultural developments in the United States since 1965. Lee argues
that building Koreatown was an urgent objective for Korean
immigrants and US-born Koreans eager to carve out a spatial niche
within Los Angeles to serve as an economic and social anchor for
their growing community. More than a dot on a map, Koreatown holds
profound emotional significance for Korean immigrants across the
nation as a symbol of their shared bonds and place in American
society.
"Novelist Denise Gess and historian William Lutz brilliantly
restore the event to its rightful place in the forefront of
American historical imagination." --"Chicago Sun-Times"
On October 8, 1871--the same night as the Great Chicago Fire--the
lumber town of Peshtigo, Wisconsin, was struck with a
five-mile-wide wall of flames, borne on tornado-force winds of one
hundred miles per hour that tore across more than 2,400 square
miles of land, obliterating the town in less than one hour and
killing more than two thousand people.
At the center of the blowout were politically driven newsmen Luther
Noyes and Franklin Tilton, money-seeking lumber baron Isaac
Stephenson, parish priest Father Peter Pernin, and meteorologist
Increase Lapham. In "Firestorm at Peshtigo," Denise Gess and
William Lutz vividly re-create the personal and political battles
leading to this monumental natural disaster, and deliver it from
the lost annals of American history.
What happens to rural communities when their traditional economic
base collapses? When new money comes in, who gets left behind?
Pushed Out offers a rich portrait of Dover, Idaho, whose
transformation from "thriving timber mill town" to "economically
depressed small town" to "trendy second-home location" over the
past four decades embodies the story and challenges of many other
rural communities. Sociologist Ryanne Pilgeram explores the
structural forces driving rural gentrification and examines how
social and environmental inequality are written onto these
landscapes. Based on in-depth interviews and archival data, she
grounds this highly readable ethnography in a long view of the
region that takes account of geological history, settler
colonialism, and histories of power and exploitation within
capitalism. Pilgeram's analysis reveals the processes and
mechanisms that make such communities vulnerable to gentrification
and points the way to a radical justice that prioritizes the
economic, social, and environmental sustainability necessary to
restore these communities.
The untold story of African-born migrants and their vibrant African
influence in Harlem. From the 1920s to the early 1960s, Harlem was
the intellectual and cultural center of the Black world. The Harlem
Renaissance movement brought together Black writers, artists, and
musicians from different backgrounds who helped rethink the place
of Black people in American society at a time of segregation and
lack of recognition of their civil rights. But where is the story
of African immigrants in Harlem's most recent renaissance? Africans
in Harlem examines the intellectual, artistic, and creative
exchanges between Africa and New York dating back to the 1910s, a
story that has not been fully told until now. From Little Senegal,
along 116th Street between Lenox Avenue and Frederick Douglass
Boulevard, to the African street vendors on 125th Street, to
African stores, restaurants, and businesses throughout the
neighborhood, the African presence in Harlem has never been more
active and visible than it is today. In Africans in Harlem, author,
scholar, writer, and filmmaker Boukary Sawadogo explores Harlem's
African presence and influence from his own perspective as an
African-born immigrant. Sawadogo captures the experiences,
challenges, and problems African emigres have faced in Harlem since
the 1980s, notably work, interaction, diversity, identity,
religion, and education. With a keen focus on the history of
Africans through the lens of media, theater, the arts, and
politics, this historical overview features compelling
character-driven narratives and interviews of longtime residents as
well as community and religious leaders. A blend of
self-examination as an immigrant member in Harlem and research on
diasporic community building in New York City, Africans in Harlem
reveals how African immigrants have transformed Harlem economically
and culturally as they too have been transformed. It is also a
story about New York City and its self-renewal by the contributions
of new human capital, creative energies, dreams nurtured and
fulfilled, and good neighbors by drawing parallels between the
history of the African presence in Harlem with those of other
ethnic immigrants in the most storied neighborhood in America.
When the Island had Fish is the story of a tiny island, Vinalhaven
Maine, that offers a close look at the significant history of Maine
fishing particularly, but also offers perspective on the impact of
industrialized fishing on small fishing villages all over the
United States and the world. Vinalhaven's documented habitation by
fishermen dates back over 5000 years, and still today lobstering is
the primary source of employment for its 1100 year round residents;
islanders currently harvest lobsters at a rate almost unrivaled
nationally. The book investigates the changing meanings of the
notion of a "fishing community" and of community members changing
relationships with the natural world and with international
commerce. Through this broader lens, it sheds light on the way that
species, including humans, are impacted by - and at moments
contribute to - climate change, environmental degradation, and
sustainable and unsustainable uses of natural resources. When the
Island had Fish also provides a meditation on America's past and
future. Vinalhaven's fishing history is in every way America's
history. It's a story of habitations by native peoples and
European-American settlers, their use of natural resources, their
communities and kin, and their efforts to find ways to live in a
harsh environment. Anyone interested in creating a viable
collective future will learn from reading about the Penobscot Bay
fisheries and fishermen, and about Vinalhaven's citizens' expansive
knowledge of craft, husbandry, self-governance and community
independence, and interdependence.
Audubon Park's journey from farmland to cityscape The study of
Audubon Park's origins, maturation, and disappearance is at root
the study of a rural society evolving into an urban community, an
examination of the relationship between people and the land they
inhabit. When John James Audubon bought fourteen acres of northern
Manhattan farmland in 1841, he set in motion a chain of events that
moved forward inexorably to the streetscape that emerged seven
decades later. The story of how that happened makes up the pages of
The Neighborhood Manhattan Forgot: Audubon Park and the Families
Who Shaped It. This fully illustrated history peels back the many
layers of a rural society evolving into an urban community,
enlivened by the people who propelled it forward: property owners,
tenants, laborers, and servants. The Neighborhood Manhattan Forgot
tells the intricate tale of how individual choices in the face of
family dysfunction, economic crises, technological developments,
and the myriad daily occurrences that elicit personal reflection
and change of course pushed Audubon Park forward to the cityscape
that distinguishes the neighborhood today. A longtime evangelist
for Manhattan's Audubon Park neighborhood, author Matthew Spady
delves deep into the lives of the two families most responsible
over time for the anomalous arrangement of today's streetscape: the
Audubons and the Grinnells. Buoyed by his extensive research, Spady
reveals the darker truth behind John James Audubon (1785-1851), a
towering patriarch who consumed the lives of his family members in
pursuit of his own goals. He then narrates how fifty years after
Audubon's death, George Bird Grinnell (1849-1938) and his siblings
found themselves the owners of extensive property that was not
yielding sufficient income to pay taxes, insurance, and
maintenance. Like the Audubons, they planned an exit strategy for
controlled change that would have an unexpected ending. Beginning
with the Audubons' return to America in 1839, The Neighborhood
Manhattan Forgot follows the many twists and turns of the area's
path from forest to city, ending in the twenty-first century with
the Audubon name re-purposed in today's historic district, a
multiethnic, multi-racial urban neighborhood far removed from the
homogeneous, Eurocentric Audubon Park suburb.
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