Chicago, The Windy City. grew from a small frontier town into a thriving metropolitan center of finance, industry, transportation, and tourism. More than 300 vintage black and white and hand-tinted postcards, dating from the turn of the century through the 1950s, take readers on a tour through history, showcasing historic scenes and highlighting events and sights that made Chicago famous. Stare at the skyscrapers that line Michigan Avenue, stop at Marshall Fields department store, wander into Lincoln Park, take a tour through Chicago's massive stockyards, or sit down and savor cuisine in fine dining spots.

If you love history and want to amaze your family and colleagues with your prodigious knowledge of Lone Star lore, this book is just what you need.
"A Browser's Book of History" is a day-by-day collection of more than 500 incidents some famous, some obscure that have made Texas the most remarkable state in the Union. Even if you're a dedicated historian or an old-time Texan, you're likely to find something surprising, amusing, thought provoking, or just plain odd.
With this book you can start every day of the year with a concise entry from the chronicles of this unique state, which just seems to naturally breed colorful people and bigger-than-life events.

Now with a new afterword, the Pulitzer Prize-winning dramatic account of the civil rights era's climactic battle in Birmingham as the movement, led by Martin Luther King, Jr., brought down the institutions of segregation.

"The Year of Birmingham," 1963, was a cataclysmic turning point in America's long civil rights struggle. Child demonstrators faced down police dogs and fire hoses in huge nonviolent marches against segregation. Ku Klux Klansmen retaliated by bombing the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, killing four young black girls. Diane McWhorter, daughter of a prominent Birmingham family, weaves together police and FBI records, archival documents, interviews with black activists and Klansmen, and personal memories into an extraordinary narrative of the personalities and events that brought about America's second emancipation.
In a new afterword--reporting last encounters with hero Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth and describing the current drastic anti-immigration laws in Alabama--the author demonstrates that Alabama remains a civil rights crucible.

by local artist John Clark Mayden. Bronze Winner of the Foreword INDIES Award for Photography by FOREWORD Reviews Baltimore native John Clark Mayden's photographs are distinctive to the city and specific to black life there, lingering on the front stoops and in the postage-stamp backyards of Charm City row houses. But these pictures are far from nostalgic. Informed by the photographer's deep commitment to both social justice and storytelling, they strip Baltimore of pretense and illusion and show the city's veins. Baltimore Lives gathers 101 of Mayden's best photographs in print for the first time. Taken between 1970 and 2012, these photos illuminate the experiences of life throughout the predominantly African American city, capturing the relaxed intimacy of community, family, and the comfort of home in contrast to the harsh sting of social injustice, poverty, and crime. In Mayden's work, we meet people who are not expecting us. We bear witness to their lives-their emotions, gestures, and faces that often reveal more than they conceal. But regardless of the camera's presence, people go on waiting for the bus, catching a breeze on their front steps, slogging through the snow to work and school, and, every so often, returning the photographer's gaze with a sly grin, a backward glance, a curious frown. Including a brief biography of John Clark Mayden written by his sister, Ruth W. Mayden, and an essay by art historian Michael Harris on how Mayden's work fits into larger trends of black photography, Baltimore Lives is a stunning visual history of the spatial and human elements that together make Baltimore's inner city.

While the Western was dying a slow death across the cultural landscape, it was blazing back to life as a video game in the early twenty-first century. Rockstar Games' Red Dead franchise, beginning with Red Dead Revolver in 2004, has grown into one of the most critically acclaimed video game franchises of the twenty-first century. Red Dead Redemption: History, Myth, and Violence in the Video Game West offers a critical, interdisciplinary look at this cultural phenomenon at the intersection of game studies and American history. Drawing on game studies, western history, American studies, and cultural studies, the authors train a wide-ranging, deeply informed analytic perspective on the Red Dead franchise-from its earliest incarnation to the latest, Red Dead Redemption 2 (2018). Their intersecting chapters put the series in the context of American history, culture, and contemporary media, with inquiries into issues of authenticity, realism, the meaning of play and commercial promotion, and the relationship between the game and the wider cultural iterations of the classic Western. The contributors also delve into the role the series' development has played in recent debates around working conditions in the gaming industry and gaming culture. In its redeployment and reinvention of the Western's myth and memes, the Red Dead franchise speaks to broader aspects of American culture-the hold of the frontier myth and the "Wild West" over the popular imagination, the role of gun culture in society, depictions of gender and ethnicity in mass media, and the increasing allure of digital escapism-all of which come in for scrutiny here, making this volume a vital, sweeping, and deeply revealing cultural intervention.

Observations on the new American republic by an early president of Georgetown University Father Giovanni Antonio Grassi was the ninth president of Georgetown University and pioneered its transition into a modern institution, earning him the moniker Georgetown's Second Founder. Originally published in Italian in 1818 and translated here into English for the first time, his News on the Present Condition of the Republic of the United States of North America records his rich observations of life in the young republic and the Catholic experience within it. When Grassi assumed his post as president in 1812, he found the university, known then as Georgetown College, to be in a "miserable state." He immediately set out to enlarge and improve the institution, increasing the number of non-Catholics in the school, adding to the library's holdings, and winning authority from Congress to confer degrees. Upon his return to Italy, Grassi published his News, which introduced Italians to the promise and contradictions of the American experiment in self-governance and offered perspectives on the social reality for Catholics in America. This book is a fascinating work for historians of Catholicism and of the Jesuits in particular.

St. Johns River begins in the swamps in southeast Florida, then passes 310 miles through many lakes, communities, forests, and swamps north towards the Atlantic Ocean near Jacksonville. As a resource, it has been enjoyed by millions, but few know its full and fascinating story. It was explored by both the Spanish and French, and hosted a thriving Steamboat trade. Today it has become a popular recreation and tourist site. Illustrated by 300 vintage postcards, this book takes a virtual tour from St. Johns River's source to its basin, with stories of its history, tributaries, cities, and attractions along the way.

Baseball's spread across Illinois paralleled the sport's explosive growth in other parts of the country. Robert D. Sampson taps a wealth of archival research to transport readers to an era when an epidemic of "base ball on the brain" raged from Alton to Woodstock. Focusing on the years 1865 to 1869, Sampson offers a vivid portrait of a game where local teams and civic ambition went hand in hand and teams of paid professionals displaced gentlemen's clubs devoted to sporting fair play. This preoccupation with competition sparked rules disputes and controversies over imported players while the game itself mirrored society by excluding Black Americans and women. The new era nonetheless brought out paying crowds to watch the Rock Island Lively Turtles, Fairfield Snails, and other teams take the field up and down the state. A first-ever history of early baseball in Illinois, Ballists, Dead Beats, and Muffins adds the Prairie State game's unique shadings and colorful stories to the history of the national pastime.

Nestled between the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean, and stretching from Hampton Roads to Assateague Island, Virginia's Eastern Shore is a distinctly southern place with an exceptionally southern taste. In this inviting narrative, Bernard L. Herman welcomes readers into the communities, stories, and flavors that season a land where the distance from tide to tide is often less than five miles. Blending personal observation, history, memories of harvests and feasts, and recipes, Herman tells of life along the Eastern Shore through the eyes of its growers, watermen, oyster and clam farmers, foragers, church cooks, restaurant owners, and everyday residents. Four centuries of encounter, imagination, and invention continue to shape the foodways of the Eastern Shore of Virginia, melding influences from Indigenous peoples, European migrants, enslaved and free West Africans, and more recent newcomers. Herman reveals how local ingredients and the cooks who have prepared them for the table have developed a distinctly American terroir--the flavors of a place experienced through its culinary and storytelling traditions. This terroir flourishes even as it confronts challenges from climate change, declining fish populations, and farming monoculture. Herman reveals this resilience through the recipes and celebrations that hold meaning, not just for those who live there but for all those folks who sit at their tables--and other tables near and far.

Take a tour of the Berkshire Hills and travel along the nation's first scenic route, the Mohawk Trail; delight in the sounds of the Tanglewood Music Center and the Shelbourne and Bish-Bash Falls; visit landmarks including Hancock Shaker Village, the town of Lenox, and Jacob's Ladder. More than 350 color images take you back in time to show how the Berkshires came to be the recreational and cultural mecca that it is today. See why this was the summer getaway place for the elite from the North for many years. This is a keepsake that residents and tourists alike will treasure, and with 250 vintage postcards, collectors worldwide will also find this a valuabe resource.

Enjoy a nostalgic tour around the Chesapeake Bay's charming Talbot County, Maryland, via more than 255 vintage postcards and 25 contemporary photographs. Your tour begins in Oxford, where you can sail on the beautiful Tred Avon River, stroll along tree-lined Morris Street, and see Broad Creek as it once was. Ride the ferry across the river to St. Michaels and visit the downtown and harbor areas as they looked in the early 1900s. Your tour continues on to Claiborne to relive the drama of steamboats arriving from Baltimore, and to Tilghman Island for an intriguing look at charter fishing and oyster work boats of days past. There is more than enough to see, so choose a comfortable seat, let this book be your guide, and enjoy a delightful ride back in time to the Talbot County bayside of long ago.

This is a trip down the garden path to the loos of yesteryear with photographs, a little history and many hilarious anecdotes. It is illustrated.

More than a century after muckraking journalist Lincoln Steffens derided the city of Philadelphia as being "corrupt and contented," Philadelphia struggles to rise above this unfortunate characterization. Philadelphia, Corrupt and Consentingis the story of a city's confrontation with a history that threatens its future. Author Brett Mandel, who has been a reform-oriented government official and political insider, provides a detailed account of the corruption investigation of John Dougherty, one of the city's most powerful political figures, in order to expose and explore networks of corruption. He examines the costs of corruption, both financial and nonpecuniary, and considers the opportunity cost that corruption imposes. Mandel explores the nature and development of Philadelphia's unique culture of corruption, emphasizing how machine politics and self-dealing are entwined with city history, creating a culture that allows corruption to thrive. In addition, he provides practical, achievable policies and actions that can produce positive change in Philadelphia and elsewhere. Mandel seeks to provide insight into how our collective actions or inattention give consent to the corruption, as well as its roots and effects, and the reasons for its persistence. Philadelphia, Corrupt and Consenting is a critique, but above all, it is a call to action.

"More than 40 photographs and illustrations capture the feel of the Sound and render a visual history of its transformation; ultimately, the book shows that despite the over-development of much of the Sound, there are still places that remain pristine and untouched."
--"Publishers Weekly"

"For anyone who cares about where we live, this profusely illustrated book would make a swell gift."
--"Greenwich Time"

"This popular presentation will make interesting reading for those who treasure the endangered Long Island Sound."
--"Choice"

Spanning the shores of Connecticut and Long Island, New York, the Long Island Sound is one of the most picturesque places in North America. From the discovery of the Sound in 1614, to the adventures of Captain Kidd, to the sinking of the "Lexington" in the sound in 1840, the Long Island Sound also holds a unique place in American history.

The Long Island Sound traces the growth of fishing and shipbuilding villages along the sound to the development of major industrial ports, resort towns, and suburban communities along the sound. Marilyn Weigold discusses the subsequent overcrowding and pollution that resulted from this prosperity and expansion.

Originally published in 1974 as "The American Mediterranean" and long out of print, The Long Island Sound has been updated by the author with a new preface and final chapter describing the Sound in the twenty-first century. In this new edition, Weigold particularly focuses on environmental concerns, and describes more current milestones, like the Long Island Pine Barrens Society, who fought and won in 1995 to set aside 100,000 acres as NY State's first forest preserve; the continuousconstruction of the Long Island Expressway, with its forty-one miles of HOV lanes; the attempt made by several of Connecticut's coastal cities to reinvigorate urban redevelopment; and the Long Island Sound Study's investigation of toxic substances--both natural and man-made--which continue to contaminate the waterway.

Through over 40 stunning photographs and many fascinating stories, The Long Island Sound tells the history of a vastly populated, but underdiscussed, part of America.

Take a nostalgic, scenic journey through the San Diego of days gone by. 226 vintage postcards show the city as it appeared decades, and even a century, ago. From crisp Marine formations at Fort Rosecrans to casual strolls through Balboa Park, you'll see San Diego's history unfold. Dozens of images celebrate San Diego's red-carpet welcome for the 1915 Panama-California International Exposition. Romantic views portray Casa de Estudillo, where novelist Helen Hunt Jackson's heroine Ramona captured the nation's heart. Dodge trolleys and horses on D Street, ogle the glorious U.S. Grant Hotel, explore famous beaches and resort areas, and take in the panorama from Mission Cliff when it was an idyllic garden. These wonderful images illustrate sites that lured so many people to San Diego in the early to mid twentieth century.

Before the Bay Bridge made access to the Atlantic easier, the Chesapeake Bay was dotted with beach-type resorts. Located in Calvert County, Maryland, Chesapeake Beach and neighboring North Beach were two of the most popular. Chesapeake Beach, the resort, officially opened on June 9, 1900 when visitors from Washington, D.C., stepped from the coaches of a brand new railroad specifically built to transport them there. Likewise, steamboat service from Baltimore to the resort was inaugurated the same day. The resort's success fueled the rise of North Beach, and the two destinations were popular with Washington and Baltimore residents for many years to come. Here is the story of their halcyon days as summertime resorts of the bay. More than 230 vintage postcards and other memorabilia recall early, happy times there.