As the twentieth century began, Black and white southerners alike dealt with low life expectancy and poor healthcare in a region synonymous with early death. But the modernization of death care by a diverse group of actors changed not only death rituals but fundamental ideas about health and wellness. Kristine McCusker charts the dramatic transformation that took place when southerners in particular and Americans in general changed their thinking about when one should die, how that death could occur, and what decent burial really means. As she shows, death care evolved from being a community act to a commercial one where purchasing a purple coffin and hearse ride to the cemetery became a political statement and the norm. That evolution also required interactions between perfect strangers, especially during the world wars as families searched for their missing soldiers. In either case, being put away decent, as southerners called burial, came to mean something fundamentally different in 1955 than it had just fifty years earlier.

This groundbreaking book opens the door on the missing record of South Los Angeles juvenile gangs. It is the result of the unique friendship that developed between John Quicker and Akil Batani-Khalfani, aka Bird, who collaborated to show how structural marginality transformed hang-out street groups of non-White juveniles into gangs, paving the way for the rise of the infamous Crips and Bloods. Before Crips uses a macro historical analysis to sort through political and economic factors to explain the nature of gang creation. The authors mine a critical archive, using direct interviews with original gang members as well as theory and literature reviews, to contextualize gang life and gang formation. They discuss (and fuss and cuss about) topics ranging from the criminal economy and conceptions of masculinity to racial and gendered politics and views of violence. Their insider/outsider approach not only illuminates gang values and organization, but what they did and why, and how they grew in a backdrop of inequality and police brutality that came to a head with the 1965 Watts Rebellion. Providing an essential understanding of early South Los Angeles gang life, Before Crips explains what has remained constant, what has changed, and the roots of the violence that continues.

This folded map (890mm x 1000mm when unfolded) is an ideal souvenir for tourists to Middlesex and also a valuable reference resource for local and family history research. It includes 4 Historic maps of Middlesex, John Speed's County Map of Middlesex 1611, Johan Blaeu's County Map of Middlesex 1648, Thomas Moule's County map of Middlesex 1836 and The Environs of London by Thomas Moule 1836. All the maps have been meticulously re-produced from antique originals and printed on 90 gsm "Progeo" paper which was specially developed as a map paper. It has high opacity to help reduce show through and a cross grain giving it greater durability to as the map is being folded.

Born into the gap between the eras of austerity and boom, David grew up in Merseyside amid an inexorable tide of progress, developing a fascination with the past. With a vivid eye for detail and boundless childhood curiosity for everything from steam trains to 'My Old Man's a Dustman', his account documents the uneasy relationship between worlds old and new. Featuring unique photographs and authoritative observations on architecture, social and local history based on forty years' work in museums and heritage conservation, Escaping Suburbia offers a different view of the 'swinging' sixties.

Chronicles the sweeping history of the storied Henry Street Settlement and its enduring vision of a more just society On a cold March day in 1893, 26-year-old nurse Lillian Wald rushed through the poverty-stricken streets of New York's Lower East Side to a squalid bedroom where a young mother lay dying-abandoned by her doctor because she could not pay his fee. The misery in the room and the walk to reach it inspired Wald to establish Henry Street Settlement, which would become one of the most influential social welfare organizations in American history. Through personal narratives, vivid images, and previously untold stories, Ellen M. Snyder-Grenier chronicles Henry Street's sweeping history from 1893 to today. From the fights for public health and immigrants' rights that fueled its founding, to advocating for relief during the Great Depression, all the way to tackling homelessness and AIDS in the 1980s, and into today-Henry Street has been a champion for social justice. Its powerful narrative illuminates larger stories about poverty, and who is "worthy" of help; immigration and migration, and who is welcomed; human rights, and whose voice is heard. For over 125 years, Henry Street Settlement has survived in a changing city and nation because of its ability to change with the times; because of the ingenuity of its guiding principle-that by bridging divides of class, culture, and race we could create a more equitable world; and because of the persistence of poverty, racism, and income disparity that it has pledged to confront. This makes the story of Henry Street as relevant today as it was more than a century ago. The House on Henry Street is not just about the challenges of overcoming hardship, but about the best possibilities of urban life and the hope and ambition it takes to achieve them.

The Roots of Educational Inequality chronicles the transformation of one American high school over the course of the twentieth century to explore the larger political, economic, and social factors that have contributed to the escalation of educational inequality in modern America. In 1914, when Germantown High School officially opened, Martin G. Brumbaugh, the superintendent of the School District of Philadelphia, told residents that they had one of the finest high schools in the nation. Located in a suburban neighborhood in Philadelphia's northwest corner, the school provided Germantown youth with a first-rate education and the necessary credentials to secure a prosperous future. In 2013, almost a century later, William Hite, the city's superintendent, announced that Germantown High was one of thirty-seven schools slated for closure due to low academic achievement. How is it that the school, like so many others that serve low-income students of color, transformed in this way? Erika M. Kitzmiller links the saga of a single high school to the history of its local community, its city, and the nation. Through a fresh, longitudinal examination that combines deep archival research and spatial analysis, Kitzmiller challenges conventional declension narratives that suggest American high schools have moved steadily from pillars of success to institutions of failures. Instead, this work demonstrates that educational inequality has been embedded in our nation's urban high schools since their founding. The book argues that urban schools were never funded adequately. Since the beginning of the twentieth century, urban school districts lacked the tax revenues needed to operate their schools. Rather than raising taxes, these school districts relied on private philanthropy from families and communities to subsidize a lack of government aid. Over time, this philanthropy disappeared leaving urban schools with inadequate funds and exacerbating the level of educational inequality.

These traditional stories and local legends have been handed down by storytellers for centuries. As folk tales reveal a lot about the people who invented them, this book provides a link to the ethics and way of life of generations of Kentish people. Herein you will find the intriguing tales of Brave Mary of Mill Hill, King Herla, the Pickpockets of Sturry, the Wantsum Wyrm and the Battle of Sandwich, to name but a few. These captivating stories, brought to life with a collection of unique illustrations, will be enjoyed by readers time and again. Tony Cooper has been a full-time storyteller for the past twenty-five years. He attends regular storytelling events, with a particular favourite being the Winter Tales Festival, 'a dark evening of storytelling and object theatre for adults' held in his hometown of Sandwich.

Philadelphia has long been a crucial site for the development of Black politics across the nation. If There Is No Struggle There Is No Progress provides an in-depth historical analysis-from the days of the Great Migration to the present-of the people and movements that made the city a center of political activism. The editor and contributors show how Black activists have long protested against police abuse, pushed for education reform, challenged job and housing discrimination, and put presidents in the White House. If There Is No Struggle There Is No Progress emphasizes the strength of political strategies such as the "Don't Buy Where You Can't Work" movement and the Double V campaign. It demonstrates how Black activism helped shift Philadelphia from the Republican machine to Democratic leaders in the 1950s and highlights the election of politicians like Robert N. C. Nix, Sr., the first African American representative from Philadelphia. In addition, it focuses on grassroots movements and the intersection of race, gender, class, and politics in the 1960s, and shows how African Americans from the 1970s to the present challenged Mayor Frank Rizzo and helped elect Mayors Wilson Goode, John Street, and Michael Nutter. If There Is No Struggle There Is No Progress cogently makes the case that Black activism has long been a powerful force in Philadelphia politics.

If you're looking for a book which is fun and at the same time informative about Lancashire then this is the one for you. If you want to sit down and read it from cover to cover you will be fascinated by the things you did not know about this amazing part of England. On the other hand, if you just want something to dip into on the train or bus or to read for five minutes in bed before you fall asleep, this book will also do the job. Did you know for instance that in Wigan, Eccles cakes used to be called 'slow walking cakes' because they were offered to mourners at funerals? Or that that St Walburge's Church in Preston was named after the Patron Saint of people suffering from rabies? Thought not.

Essex has charmed visitors for centuries, and this collection of intricate illustrations is a celebration of the county's unique appeal. Featuring a range of picturesque vistas, from Norman castles and country parks to rugged coastlines and historic architecture, 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 Essex, then you will love colouring it in!

On July 24, 1964, chaos erupted in Rochester, New York. Strike the Hammer examines the unrest-rebellion by the city's Black community, rampant police brutality-that would radically change the trajectory of the Civil Rights movement. After overcoming a violent response by State Police, the fight for justice, in an upstate town rooted in black power movements, was reborn. That resurgence owed much to years of organizing and resistance in the community. Laura Warren Hill examines Rochester's long Civil Rights history and, drawing extensively on oral accounts of the northern, urban community, offers rich and detailed stories of the area's protest tradition. Augmenting oral testimonies with records from the NAACP, SCLC, and the local FIGHT, Strike the Hammer paints a compelling picture of the foundations for the movement. Now, especially, this story of struggle for justice and resistance to inequality resonates. Hill leads us to consider the social, political, and economic environment more than fifty years ago and how that founding generation of activists left its mark on present-day Rochester.

"What is the value of Black life in America?" In Avidly Reads Passages, Michelle D. Commander plies four freighted modes of travel-the slave ship, train, automobile, and bus-to map the mobility of her ancestors over the past five centuries. In the process, she refreshes the conventional American travel narrative by telling an urgent story about how history shapes what moves us, as well as what prevents so many Black Americans from moving or being moved. Anchored in her maternal kin's long history on and alongside plantations in rural South Carolina, Commander explores her family members' ability and inability to navigate safely through space, time, and emotion, detailing how Black lives were shaped by the actual vehicles that promised an escape from the confines of American racism, yet nearly always failed to deliver on those promises. Using personal and public archives, Avidly Reads Passages unfolds distinct histories of transatlantic slavery ships, the possibilities presented by rail lines in the Reconstruction South, the fateful legacies of school busing, and the ways that Black Americans attempted to negotiate their automobility, including through the use of road and travel compendiums such as Travelguide and The Negro Motorist Green Book. In order to understand the intricacies of slavery and its aftermath, Commander began her exploration with the hope of engaging with the difficult evidences and stubborn gaps in her family's genealogy; what she produced is a biting and elegiac reflection on working-class life in the Black South. Commander demonstrates that the forms of intimidation, brutality, surveillance, and restriction used to control Black mobility have merely evolved since slavery, marking Black life writ large in America, with neither the passage of time nor the passage of laws assuring true and adequate racial progress. Despite this bleak observation, Commander catalogs and celebrates, through affecting stories about her beloved South Carolina community, the compelling strivings of Southern Black people to survive by holding on firmly to family, and their faith that new worlds could be imagined, created, and traveled to someday. Part of the Avidly Reads series, this slim book gives us a new way of looking at American culture. With the singular blend of personal reflection and cultural criticism featured in the series, Avidly Reads Passages offers a unique lens through which to capture the intricacies of Black life.

Beyond its housing estates and identikit high streets there is another Britain. This is the Britain of mist-drenched forests and unpredictable sea-frets: of wraith-like fog banks, druidic mistletoe and peculiar creatures that lurk, half-unseen, in the undergrowth, tantalising and teasing just at the periphery of human vision. How have the remarkably persistent folkloric traditions of the British Isles formed and been formed by the identities and psyches of those who inhabit them? In her sparkling new history, Carolyne Larrington explores the diverse ways in which a myriad of imaginary and fantastical beings has moulded the cultural history of the nation. Fairies, elves and goblins here tread purposefully, sometimes malignly, over an eerie, preternatural landscape that also conceals brownies, selkies, trows, knockers, boggarts, land-wights, Jack o'Lanterns, Barguests, the sinister Nuckleavee, or water-horse, and even Black Shuck: terrifying hell-hound of the Norfolk coast with eyes of burning coal. Focusing on liminal points where the boundaries between this world and that of the supernatural grow thin those marginal tide-banks, saltmarshes, floodplains, moors and rock-pools wherein mystery lies the author shows how mythologies of Mermen, Green men and Wild-men have helped and continue to help human beings deal with such ubiquitous concerns as love and lust, loss and death and continuity and change. Evoking the Wild Hunt, the ghostly bells of Lyonesse and the dread fenlands haunted by Grendel, and ranging the while from Shetland to Jersey and from Ireland to East Anglia, this is a book that will captivate all those who long for the wild places: the mountains and chasms where Gog, Magog and their fellow giants lie in wait."

'Whitstable is a stirring little town, with strong business proclivities, and a history stretching far back into the remote past.' So wrote a Kentish Gazette correspondent in 1873, although he could have been describing the north Kent seaside town today. Over the years, the lives of townspeople have been sustained by sea salt production, diving, smuggling, shipbuilding and fishing, along with copperas mining and tourism. In this pocket-sized guide, author Kerry Mayo takes readers on a fascinating tour around Whitstable's streets and buildings, showing how its famous landmarks used to look and how they have changed over the years, as well as exploring some of its lesser-known sights and hidden corners. With the help of a handy location map, readers are invited to discover for themselves the history and the changing face of the town.

Nature conservation is often framed as an ecological problem in need of repair. With both material and discursive dimensions, repairing things involves repairing people's orientation to those things. As such, nature conservation can be understood as a negotiation between different orientations to ecological problems.

This publication seeks to understand the negotiation through trust, the analysis of which situates repair in a particular setting. Empirically, the book is structured around an encounter that unfolded over the course of a single day between white commercial farmers and experts belonging to various government departments, universities and an NGO working in a South African nature reserve.

By moving through the situation sequence-by-sequence the author captures the relationship between trust and repair vis-à-vis the material forces that structured the situation, and the discursive methods that actors used to repair a degraded ecology.

From cedar totem poles to high-tech video installations, downtown Seattle sparkles with hundreds of artworks adorning plazas, lobbies, parks, and waterfront piers and paths. This impressive collection, comprising works by artists with regional or international reputations (and often both), has expanded rapidly as Seattle's urban core has grown. The explosive development of South Lake Union in recent years has brought major works by Jaume Plensa, Julie Speidel, Annie Han and Daniel Mihalyo, Buster Simpson, Jenny Heishman, and more. The Seattle Art Museum's ten-year-old Olympic Sculpture Park provides a breathtaking setting for Richard Serra's monumental Wake and Beverly Pepper's ever-changing Perre's Ventaglio III, and links the downtown waterfront to Myrtle Edwards Park, which features Michael Heizer's once-maligned and now beloved Adjacent, Against, Upon. To tell the lively stories of those who commissioned and created these artworks, James Rupp interviewed and corresponded with more than ninety artists, also drawing from newspaper reviews, books, catalogs, and artist statements. Photographs by Miguel Edwards, all new to this book, showcase the pieces' street-level presentation and help the reader understand the larger impact of each work in its neighborhood context. This comprehensive guide offers detailed information about the individual works of art, organized by downtown neighborhood, and featuring: More than 350 artworks Over 300 color photographs 9 detailed area maps for self-guided tours Unique descriptions of each artwork Biographies of all the artists Perfect for art and architecture lovers, as well as visitors and newcomers to the city, Art in Seattle's Public Spaces showcases the wealth of urban art to be freely enjoyed by all. A Michael J. Repass Book

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.

Much has been written about Orkney in the olden times, but nothing can quite illustrate the scene as well as a good variety of old photographs. These pioneers of photography recorded the mechanisation of farming and the herring fishing boom of the turn of the century, as well as the faces of the people going about their business.

Storyteller Tony Bonning brings together stories from one of the most enigmatic regions of Scotland: a land hemmed in by rivers and mountains; a land that vigorously maintained its independence, and by doing so, has many unique tales and legends. Here you will meet strange beasts, creatures and even stranger folk; here you will meet men and women capable of tricking even the Devil himself, and here you will find the very tale that inspired Robert Burns's most famous poem, Tam o'Shanter. With each Story told in an engaging style, and illustrated with unique line drawings, these humorous, clever and enchanting folk tales are sure to be enjoyed and shared time and again.