A family firm despite its large size, the company was presided over by four generations of the Ley family between 1873 and 1987. Both the family and the foundry were embedded in the history of Derby and their legacies can still be seen in the city today. The Baseball Ground, built by Sir Francis Ley as a home for the game of baseball, was sold by him to Derby County FC and has only recently been demolished. Remnants of the factory buildings and offices, which once covered an area of over 17 acres, can still be seen in Derby streets. Bob Read, a former employee of Ley's, has put together a fascinating survey of the history of the foundry. This book uncovers a wealth of historical detail, and the account of the firm's fortunes is lavishly illustrated with drawings, photographs and ephemera that bring life to his story of a business that was part of Derby life for over a century.

This is a new paperback version for 2011. It includes absorbing real life accounts of nearly every reported murder that took place in Tyneside during the twentieth century. It features well-known cases and those which are lesser known but equally fascinating tales of jealousy, revenge and tragedy. The city of Newcastle and its immediate environs of Jarrow, North and South Shields and the outlying towns, have seen some most intriguing murder cases. Perhaps the most famous of all is that of the murder of John Innes Nisbet by John Alexander Dickman, for which the latter was hanged in August 1910. Yet there are others in the pages of this book whose stories are equally fascinating. You will read of the two Millers, hanged 90 minutes apart on the same day for what was a senseless crime. Or consider Thomas Craig, a man determined to avenge himself on the woman who had spurned him; of William Ambrose Collins who brutally murdered a WAAF during the war years. Capital punishment is a very emotive subject and this book is not intended to argue the case either for, or against. The facts are told and it is up to the reader to decide for themselves whether the hanging of these killers served any purpose beyond judicial revenge.

This is a new paperback version for 2011. It includes absorbing real life accounts of every murder that took place in Manchester during the twentieth century. It features well-known cases and those which are lesser known but equally fascinating tales of jealousy, revenge and tragedy. This book tells the story of every murder which took place in Manchester during the twentieth century and which ended in the execution of the person found guilty of the crime and who went on to pay the ultimate penalty of death by hanging at the end of a rope. Some cases are well-known, such as those of George Rice, William Burtoft and Walter Graham Rowland - who was reprieved for a murder he did commit but was later hanged for one which he may not have committed - but any of the lesser known murders have equally absorbing stories of love, jealousy and lust. Readers will discover child killers such as John Horner, wife killers such as Frederick Ballington, and those who killed out of rage or for revenge, such as James Ryder. And then there was James Henry Corbitt, where the hangman was someone he had known as a friend. All manner of motives are shown, all sorts of weapons are used, but in the final analysis each story represents a human tragedy in which at least two people lost their lives. Read these stories and then decide for yourselves whether or not every one was guilty as charged.

In "Days of London Past" the imaginative though mainly factual stories that unfold on a particular day in a selected century, bring that past vividly to life. London and it's rich history has always had the power to fascinate and absorb. By using some of the famous individuals who have enriched London's existence at various stages of their lives, the effect is one of being transported as if in a time machine. If you have not before been familiar with characters such as Pepys, Johnson and Caxton, the stories in this book will ensure that you will become more intimately acquainted with the personalities behind the names. The stories are so richly detailed with the knowledge we have of those times, that London itself becomes more real through the centuries. The result is a thoroughly absorbing mini celebration of some of London is most famous characters and the London town they inhabited.

"Blackpool's Seaside Stars" is a fascinating collection of celebrity profiles, together with many rare pictures from the archives, and sprinkled with Gazette readers' memories. This selection only scratches the surface of Blackpool's remarkably deep and rich entertainment heritage. It is an entertaining and enjoyable read! Oh we do like to be beside the seaside...A timeless refrain not just from millions of Blackpool holidaymakers, but also from a galaxy of stars - who helped build the Lancashire resort's reputation as THE major entertainment centre outside London. It was the northern mill workers who helped make Blackpool into Britain's number-one holiday resort. They came in their droves to sample its unique atmosphere and bracing sea breezes. They loved the Tower, the Golden Mile, the Illuminations and Piers, but they also demanded to be entertained throughout the decades. The thirties saw the start of a golden era, with Blackpool beginning to gleam as the capital of seaside fun. Stars of music hall, stage and screen - from both sides of the Atlantic - clamoured to perform in the resort, which could boast some of the biggest and best provincial theatres. Even during the war years Blackpool was fondly regarded as a safe haven, which kept a smile on the face of thousands of service personnel and civil servants, dazzled by appearances from the country's top acts. When the hostilities finally ended, Blackpool bounced back with the finest entertainment line-up in the country, in its heyday offering as many as 15 live shows each night during the summer season. Just about every group and solo star of note in Britain and even America headed here during the fifties and sixties - live radio and TV specials came direct from the resort that really knew how to rock. The fun has continued since the seventies, with families flocking to see summer season shows. So step back in time with legends such as Gracie Fields, Jimmy Clitheroe, George Formby, Laurel and Hardy, Marlene Dietrich, Bob Hope, Morecambe and Wise, Hylda Baker, Thora Hird, Sid James, Bruce Forsyth and even The Beatles. More recent household names include Tommy Steele, Les Dawson, Russ Abbot and Cannon and Ball. All have featured in "Seaside Stars", a weekly feature within "The Gazette's" "Memory Lane" pages, which has proved such a hit that it has provided the basis for this book - a fascinating collection of celebrity profiles, together with many rare pictures from the archives, and sprinkled with "Gazette" readers' memories. This selection only scratches the surface of Blackpool's remarkably deep and rich entertainment heritage, but we hope it will be a lasting souvenir to rekindle memories for residents and holidaymakers alike.

On the banks of the Rio Grande, in the foothills of the Sandia Mountains, and in the geographical center of the state of New Mexico lies the city of Albuquerque. Over 200 vintage black and white and hand-tinted postcards from the 1900s to the 1960s take readers on a fantastic journey back in time, to tour Albuquerque and beyond. Many interesting and famous spots are showcased. See the AT & SF Railroad Depot and the Alvarado Hotel in all their former glory. Browse through the selection of handmade Native American arts and crafts sold in Wright's Trading Post or by vendors in Old Town Plaza. Take in a show at the KiMo Theater, stroll among the historic buildings and shops of Old Town, or stop for a tour of the University of New Mexico's campus. Travel outside Albuquerque for a trip up the Sandia Mountains and a tour through Sandia Pueblo.

The attack on London between 1939 and 1945 is one of the most significant events in the city's modern history, the impact of which can still be seen in its urban and social landscapes. As a key record of the attack, the London County Council Bomb Damage Maps represent destruction on a huge scale, recording buildings and streets reduced to smoke and rubble. The full set of maps is made up of 110 hand-coloured 1:2500 Ordnance Survey base sheets originally published in 1916 but updated by the LCC to 1940. Because they use the 1916 map, they give us a glimpse of a 'lost London', before post-war redevelopment schemes began to shape the modern city. The colouring applied to the maps records a scale of damage to London's built environment during the war - the most detailed and complete survey of destruction caused by the aerial bombardment. A clear and fascinating introduction by expert Laurence Ward sets the maps in the full historical context of the events that gave rise to them, supported by archival photographs and tables of often grim statistics.

This informal biography traces the life of Verplanck Colvin, who was superintendent of the Adirondack Survey form 1872 to 1900. While serving in that capacity, he played a major role in the creation of the Park and the NYS Forest Preserve. The story is a tribute to a visionary who is one of the most important figures in Adirondack History.

"A thorough and engaging history of Maine's rocky coast and its tough-minded people."-Boston Herald "[A] well-researched and well-written cultural and ecological history of stubborn perseverance."-USA Today For more than four hundred years the people of coastal Maine have clung to their rocky, wind-swept lands, resisting outsiders' attempts to control them while harvesting the astonishing bounty of the Gulf of Maine. Today's independent, self-sufficient lobstermen belong to the communities imbued with a European sense of ties between land and people, but threatened by the forces of homogenization spreading up the eastern seaboard.In the tradition of William Warner's Beautiful Swimmers, veteran journalist Colin Woodard (author of American Character: A History of the Epic Struggle Between Individual Liberty and the Common Good) traces the history of the rugged fishing communities that dot the coast of Maine and the prized crustacean that has long provided their livelihood. Through forgotten wars and rebellions, and with a deep tradition of resistance to interference by people "from away," Maine's lobstermen have defended an earlier vision of America while defying the "tragedy of the commons"-the notion that people always overexploit their shared property. Instead, these icons of American individualism represent a rare example of true communal values and collaboration through grit, courage, and hard-won wisdom.

In Portland's harbor, environmental justice groups challenge the EPA for a more thorough cleanup of the Willamette River. Near Olympia, the Puyallup assert their tribal sovereignty and treaty rights to fish. Seattle housing activists demand that Amazon pay to address the affordability crisis it helped create. Urban Cascadia, the infrastructure, social networks, built environments, and non-human animals and plants that are interconnected in the increasingly urbanized bioregion that surrounds Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver, enjoys a reputation for progressive ambitions and forward-thinking green urbanism. Yet legacies of settler colonialism and environmental inequalities contradict these ambitions, even as people strive to achieve those progressive ideals. In this edited volume, historians, geographers, urbanists, and other scholars critically examine these contradictions to better understand the capitalist urbanization of nature, the creation of social and environmental inequalities, and the movements to fight for social and environmental justice. Neither a story of green disillusion nor one of green boosterism, Urban Cascadia and the Pursuit of Environmental Justice reveals how the region can address broader issues of environmental justice, Indigenous sovereignty, and the politics of environmental change.

The history of Florida State University's Marching Chiefs is chronicled, from early efforts to form a band before the 1939 establishment of Florida State College for Women, to the Chiefs' attainment of ""world renowned"" status. The band's leaders, shows and music are discussed, along with the origins of some of their venerable traditions, game-day rituals and school songs, including the ""Alma Mater,"" the "Fight Song," and the ""Hymn to the Garnet and Gold."" The story of the Chiefs takes in the growth of FSU and its School of Music, the rise of ""Big Football"" in Tallahassee and the transformations on campus and in American society that affected them.

Stories from bravery at sea, to the innocent casualties of war, to the repressed victims of their religious beliefs all feature in a book that will appeal to anyone with an interest in the area's heritage. "Heroes, Villains, and Victims" is a collection of stories about ordinary people of Hull and the East Riding who found themselves in extraordinary situations. For the most part they are people that history has forgotten, but each, in their own way, contributed to the colourful past of the Humber region. Some were bad, true villains who killed or harmed their fellows and paid the ultimate price, while others were benefactors who left their mark on society, and many were innocent victims who remind us that the 'good old days' were not always so. You can read how a pioneering local plumber successfully opposed three eminent engineers to provide a clean and fresh water supply to Hull, eliminating deadly cholera from the streets. You can find out how a 'cowboy from Yorkshire' helped to change the American Wild West forever, and discover how a farmer's wife's desire to gain a souvenir earned her an MBE and praise from Sir Winston Churchill. The author has trawled newspaper archives and other public documents to uncover the details of the extraordinary lives that are recalled in these pages. The result is a well-researched yet entertaining look at the people of the past.

Ronnie Earle was a Texas legend. During his three decades as the district attorney responsible for Austin and surrounding Travis County, he prosecuted corrupt corporate executives and state officials, including the notorious US congressman Tom DeLay. But Earle maintained that the biggest case of his career was the one involving Frank Hughey Smith, the ex-convict millionaire, alleged criminal mastermind, and Dixie Mafia figure. With the help of corrupt local authorities, Smith spent the 1970s building a criminal empire in auto salvage and bail bonds. But there was one problem: a rival in the salvage business threatened his dominance. Smith hired arsonists to destroy the rival; when they botched the job, he sent three gunmen, but the robbery they planned was a bloody fiasco. Investigators were convinced that Smith was guilty, but many were skeptical that the newly elected and inexperienced Earle could get a conviction. Amid the courtroom drama and underworld plots the book describes, Willie Nelson makes a cameo. So do the private eyes, hired guns, and madams who kept Austin not only weird but also riddled with vice. An extraordinary true story, Last Gangster in Austin paints an unusual picture of the Texas capital as a place that was wild, wonderful, and as crooked as the dirt road to paradise.

'A wonderful memoir, written with great linguistic brio. Candid, shrewd and moving - a classic of its kind,' William Boyd Howard Jacobson's funny, revealing and tender memoir of his path to becoming a writer. It's my theory that only the unhappy, the uncomfortable, the gauche, the badly put together, aspire to make art. Why would you seek to reshape the world unless you were ill-at-ease in it? And I came out of the womb in every sense the wrong way round. In Mother's Boy, Booker-Prize winner Howard Jacobson reveals how he became a writer. It is an exploration of belonging and not-belonging, of being an insider and outsider, both English and Jewish. Born to a working-class family in 1940s Manchester, the great-grandson of Lithuanian and Russian immigrants, Jacobson was raised by his mother, grandmother and aunt Joyce. His father was a regimental tailor, as well as an upholsterer, a market-stall holder, a taxi driver, a balloonist, and a magician. Grappling always with his family's history and his Jewish identity, Jacobson takes us from the growing pains of childhood to studying at Cambridge under F.R. Leavis, and landing in Sydney as a maverick young professor on campus, through to his first marriage, the birth of his son and beyond. Full of Jacobson's trademark humour and infused with bittersweet memories of his parents, this is the story of a writer's beginnings. 'Laugh-out-loud glorious and uproarious of course - but don't let the self-ribbing fool you; this is deep and poignant,' Simon Schama

New England has a long, rich history that can be experienced by visiting the abandoned villages, monuments, and cemeteries that cover the region. Here are 36 locations including a recent ghost town found in Connecticut, an eloquent 9-11 memorial in New Hampshire, a cemetery in Vermont that is more like an outdoor art gallery, the grave of an accused vampire in Rhode Island, an Island in Maine, whose residents were forced out by the state, and the New England Holocaust Memorial in Massachusetts. This handy pictorial guide includes visitor information, detailed directions, 180 color photographs, and the history associated with the towns, monuments, and cemeteries scattered across New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Maine, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Vermont.

Sophisticated and seductive, Santa Fe and Taos clearly illustrate why New Mexico is known as the "Land of Enchantment." The rugged landscape, diverse cultural traditions, and exceptional charm of these two unique destinations have lured explorers for hundreds of years. More than 200 postcards dating from 1905 to 1950 provide a visual tour of this intriguing and alluring area. Explore the Santa Fe Trail, The Palace of the Governors, La Fonda, the Bishop's Lodge, Loretto Chapel, and much more in the town of Santa Fe. Then move on with images of Taos Pueblo and Taos Mission, cowboys, Pueblo Indians and their adobe architecture, crafts and religious celebrations, charming burros, chili-covered walls, and desert flora. Approximate dates and values of the postcards make this a wonderful reference for collectors of these historic treasures as well. Santa Fe and Taos both come alive in all their glorious colors within this beautiful and informative book.

The Campaign for Real Ale is one of the largest and most successful consumer rights groups' operating in the UK today but it wasn't always that way...CAMRA at 40 is a collection of essays by beer writers, brewing industry representatives and a host of others involved with the Campaign for Real Ale. The book charts the campaigns four decades of history and looks forward to the future of real beer in Britain.

Thirty-five years after this landmark of urban history first captured the rise, fall, and rebirth of a once-thriving New York City borough-ravaged in the 1970s and '80s by disinvestment and fires, then heroically revived and rebuilt in the 1990s by community activists-Jill Jonnes returns to chronicle the ongoing revival of the South Bronx. Though now globally renowned as the birthplace of hip-hop, the South Bronx remains America's poorest urban congressional district. In this new edition, we meet the present generation of activists who are transforming their communities with the arts and greening, notably the restoration of the Bronx River. For better or worse, real estate investors have noticed, setting off new gentrification struggles.

A personal account of life in the orbit of Mao and Zhao En-Lai and one woman's effort to tell what it was like to be at the center of the storm. The history of China in the twentieth century is comprised of a long series of shocks: the 1911 revolution, the civil war between the communists and the nationalists, the Japanese invasion, the revolution, the various catastrophic campaigns initiated by Chairman Mao between 1949 and 1976, its great opening to the world under Deng, and the Tiananmen Square Massacre. Yuan-tsung Chen, who is now 90, lived through most of it, and at certain points in close proximity to the seat of communist power. Born in Shanghai in 1929, she came to know Zhou En-Lai-second only to Mao in importance-as a young girl while living in Chongqing, where Chiang Kai-Shek's government had relocated to, during the war against Japan. That connection to Zhou helped her save her husband's life in Cultural Revolution. After the communists took power, she obtained a job in one of the culture ministries. While there, she frequently engaged with the upper echelon of the party and was a first-hand witness to some of the purges that the regime regularly initiated. Eventually, the commissar she worked under was denounced in 1957, and she barely escaped being purged herself. Later, during Cultural Revolution, she and her husband were purged and sent to live in a rough, poor area. She and her husband finally moved to Hong Kong, with Zhou's special permission, in 1971. A first-hand account of what life was like in the period before the revolution and in Mao's China, The Secret Listener gives a unique perspective on the era, and Chen's vantage point provides us with a new perspective on the Maoist regime-one of the most radical political experiments in modern history and a force that genuinely changed the world.

Though the English colony that would be known as Newport News, Virginia was settled in the early 1600s, the modern story began in the 1880s with the arrival of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad and the building of shipyards by the Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company. Over 250 vintage postcards will take readers on a journey through the city's history, industry, recreation, and culture from the 1890s through World War II. Enjoy a nostalgic tour of the Maritime Museum, stroll down the beach, or take a tour of the biggest privately owned shipyard in the United States. A chapter on deltiology (the study and collecting of postcards) gives collectors useful information to help them build their own postcard collection.

From the exceptional town plans and maps contained within this unique volume emerges a social picture of Birmingham; a town quickly developing in size and population in the eighteenth century; along with the changes brought about by urbanisation. Land was bought up for development; hundreds of 'courts' were built to home the industrial workers pouring in from the many outlying villages. The many gardens, orchards and wide expanses of open space detailed on Wesley's 1731 plan of Birmingham were soon to be transformed into a sprawling mass of habitation. By 1765 Matthew Boulton, a leading entrepreneur and pioneer of the Industrial Revolution, had built his famous Soho Manufactory on Handsworth Heath. Shortly afterwards, the town plans of Birmingham in the first quarter of the 1800s chart the arrival of the railway; a plan from 1832 is the last glimpse of the city before the arrival of the Grand Junction Railway and other main line stations. Accompanied with informative text and pictures of the cityscape, the many detailed plans contained in this historic atlas of Birmingham are a gateway to its past, allowing the reader and researcher to visually observe the journey of this historic town to city status in 1889 and beyond.

In the early 1900s, three small-town midwestern playwrights helped shepherd American theatre into the modern era. Together, they created the renowned Provincetown Players collective, which not only launched many careers but also had the power to affect US social, cultural, and political beliefs. The philosophical and political orientations of Floyd Dell, George Cram Cook, and Susan Glaspell generated a theatre practice marked by experimentalism, collaboration, leftist cultural critique, rebellion, liberation, and community engagement. In Three Midwestern Playwrights, Marcia Noe situates the origin of the Provincetown aesthetic in Davenport, Iowa, a Mississippi River town. All three playwrights recognized that radical politics sometimes begat radical chic, and several of their plays satirize the faddish elements of the progressive political, social, and cultural movements they were active in. Three Midwestern Playwrights brings the players to life and deftly illustrates how Dell, Cook, and Glaspell joined early 20th-century midwestern radicalism with East Coast avant-garde drama, resulting in a fresh and energetic contribution to American theatre.

Before the onset of his irreversible decline, Eddie Socket always suspected he was on the verge of something. Now that "something" has arrived in the form of Merrit Mather, an attractive older gentleman of impeccable taste in everything from sweaters to his numerous sexual conquests. That Merrit happens to be the lover of Eddie's agitated boss, Saul, hardly fazes the smitten Eddie; that the elusive Merrit loses interest in Eddie with dizzying speed hardly dims his ardor. While Eddie continues his futile chase, he finds solace in his roommate, Polly, involved in her own implausible affair with a self-involved banker. Both Eddie and Polly eventually conclude that solitude is their best option. But even that is not possible as Eddie finds his life taking an unexpected turn-a turn that that serves as the catalyst for Eddie, love-ravaged Polly, and the indomitable Saul to reclaim their lives. First published in 1989 and winner of the 1990 Lambda Literary Award for Best Gay Debut Novel, The Irreversible Decline of Eddie Socket is one of the first novels to respond to the global AIDS crisis. A comedy of absurdist horror, it weaponizes the comic as a way of intensifying the tragic aspects of AIDS, which were especially acute in the early 1980s, and the scars of which are still visible today.

Don Williams, born and raised in the southern Adirondacks, has had columns about his beloved mountains published in newspapers across New York State. His readers have enjoyed informative yet subtly humorous and offbeat topics such as "Adirondack 'Skeeters," "Thars Gold in Them Thar Hills," Speakin' Adirondackish," "Pants Lawrence," "Skunk Oil," and "The 'TellTale'Bill ." You'll love the Adirondacks too, as you explore Don Williams' world of Adirondack mystery, youth, and culture. Unique sketches by North Country artist John Mahaffy 'top off' Williams' thoroughly enjoyable storytelling. Relax and have fun with Inside the Adirondack Blue Line.

In this work readers can discover the role local historians play, find out what the experts see as the values of the local history while exploring their theories, and see how local history has been practised by those who have dedicated their lives to it.