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Books > History > History of specific subjects > Local history
Across the decades, photographers from the Bristol EVening Post and
its predecessors have been faithfully recording life in the city to
produce a precious archive of Bristol and its suburbs as they used
to be. Narrow roadways have become dual carriageways, horse-drawn
vehicles have disappeared from the streets, the trams have come and
gone, and whole areas have been redeveloped as green fields became
new estates. Areas like Brislington and Clifton, once separate
villages, have been encompassed by the spreading city. And
throughout these momentous changes, photographers have been on hand
to capture the ever-changing story. Now this wonderful record is
available in a new paperback format to entrance a new generation of
readers. The quality of the photographs and the reproduction will
make this most enthralling pictorial view of bygone Bristol a
delight for readers across the city.
The Rouge River is a mostly urbanized watershed of about 500 square
miles populated by nearly 1.4 million people. While not
geographically large, the river has played an outsized role in the
history of southeast Michigan, most famously housing Ford's massive
Rouge Factory, designed by architect Albert Kahn and later
memorialized in Diego Rivera's renowned "Detroit Industry" murals.
In recent decades, the story of the Rouge River has also been one
of grassroots environmental activism. After pollution from the Ford
complex and neighboring factories literally caused the river to
catch on fire in 1969, community groups launched a Herculean effort
to restore and protect the watershed. Today the Rouge stands as one
of the most successful examples of urban river revival in the
country. Rouge River Revived describes the river's history from
pre-European times into the 21st century. Chapters cover topics
such as Native American life on the Rouge; indigenous flora and
fauna over time; the river's role in the founding of local cities;
its key involvement in Detroit's urban development and intensive
industrialization; and the dramatic clean-up arising from citizen
concern and activism. This book is not only a history of the
environment of the Rouge River, but also of the complex and
evolving relationship between humans and natural spaces.
In this collection, local experts use personal narratives and
empirical data to explore the history of Mexican American and
Puerto Rican education in the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) system.
The essays focus on three themes: the historical context of
segregated and inferior schooling for Latina/o/x students; the
changing purposes and meanings of education for Latina/o/x students
from the 1950s through today; and Latina/o/x resistance to
educational reforms grounded in neoliberalism. Contributors look at
stories of student strength and resistance, the oppressive systems
forced on Mexican American women, the criminalization of Puerto
Ricans fighting for liberatory education, and other topics of
educational significance. As they show, many harmful past practices
remain the norm--or have become worse. Yet Latina/o/x communities
and students persistently engage in transformative practices
shaping new approaches to education that promise to reverberate not
only in the city but nationwide. Insightful and enlightening,
Latina/o/x Education in Chicago brings to light the ongoing
struggle for educational equity in the Chicago Public Schools.
`We made Kinder Scout, not just metaphorically, or metaphysically,
not just with our stories and our battles, but literally changed
its shape, from the peat washing off its summit, to the drystone
walls that turn the hillside into a harmonious grid, the trees that
are and more often aren't there, to the creatures that we've
allowed to remain and those we've done away with. It's our
mountain.' In 1951 the Peak District was designated the UK's first
national park: a commitment to protect and preserve our countryside
and wild places. Sandwiched between Manchester and Sheffield, and
sitting at the base of the Pennines, it is home to Kinder Scout,
Britain's most popular `mountain', a beautiful yet featureless and
disorientating plateau which barely scrapes the 600-metre contour,
whose lower slopes bore witness in 1932 to a movement of feet, a
pedestrian rebellion, which helped shape modern access legislation:
the Kinder Mass Trespass. But Kinder Scout's story is about much
more than the working class taking on the elite. Marked by the
passage of millions of feet and centuries of farming, a graveyard
for lost souls and doomed aircraft, this much-loved mountain is a
sacred canvas on which mankind has scratched and scraped its
likeness for millennia. It is a record of our social and political
history, of conflict and community. Writer Ed Douglas and
photographer John Beatty are close friends and have a shared
history with Kinder going back decades. In this unique
collaboration they reveal the social, political, cultural and
ecological developments that have shaped the physical and human
landscape of this enigmatic and treasured hill. Kinder Scout: The
People's Mountain is a celebration of a northern English mountain
and our role in its creation.
Cities are mankind's greatest creation. They represent the most
eloquent expression of our species' ingenuity, beliefs and ideals.
From Babylon and Rome to London, New York and Tokyo, Joel Kotkin
examines the evolution of urban life over the millennia in order to
establish what made - and makes - a city great. Despite their
infinite variety, all cities essentially serve three purposes:
spiritual, political and economic. Kotkin follows the progression
of the city from the early religious centres of Mesopotamia, the
Indus Valley and China, to the imperial centres of the Classical
era, through the rise of the Islamic city and the European
commercial capitals, ending with today's post-industrial suburban
metropolis'. Today's cities face many problems, and they can only
thrive if they remain sacred, safe and busy. This is as true for
the developing world, where at least 600 million people now live in
squatter cities' , as it is for the great global cities which face
the challenges of shifting demographics, new technologies and the
threat of terrorism.
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.
Containing information regarding the geology, ecology, and history
of the terrain, this walkers guide to Richmond Park includes both
its political history (its medieval and post medieval ownership)
and also its socio-economic history - how its natural products have
been used over the centuries.
In this third book beckoning readers to search for historic lost
loot, journey to New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania to learn
about Native American villages, lost mines, pirate booty, ghosts,
curses, monsters, dangers, and more. Learn about the connection
between the infamous Jersey Devil monster and Captain Kidd - both
are said to guard a pirate treasure! Discover precious and rare
gems in New York, and look up to see what has been flying through
the Pennsylvania skies, a sentry of a golden treasure since
prehistoric times. There may be military artifacts to discover, but
one may also see the soldiers who gave the ultimate sacrifice still
roaming the battlefields. Take the journey to find the loot, but
always walk into the adventure with both eyes wide open!
Tourists have been drawn to Charleston, South Carolina, for
centuries, lured by her reputation as a famously beautiful seaside
town. Visitors delight in her maze of streets, each lined with
architectural and historical treasures and festooned with fantastic
botanical displays. The beautiful waterfront location is a bonus,
as the town is located on a peninsula where the Ashley and Cooper
Rivers meet the Atlantic Ocean. Here the first shots of the Civil
War were fired. Fort Sumter, stately mansions, the gardens at
Magnolia Plantation, and the beautiful beaches are among the many
attractions. Over 300 historic, hand-tinted postcards depict these
and other diverse places that have made Charleston renowned.
Accompanying text helps to illuminate her history. A value guide
will aid collectors in their search for these and other historic
postcard treasures.
For centuries, Sydenham was a small hamlet on the edge of a large
tract of common land, known as Sydenham Common, in the parish of St
Mary's, Lewisham. London was more than an hour's travel away. Over
little more than half a century, three events radically altered
Sydenham, turning it from a rural hamlet into a populous, even
fashionable, suburb of London: the enclosure of Sydenham Common,
the coming of the railway in 1839 and the construction of the
Crystal Palace on Sydenham Hill. Today, Sydenham and Forest Hill
are attractive and popular places to live, with good access to
green spaces and local amenities. Join local historian Steve
Grindlay on a photographic tour of Sydenham and Forest Hill past
and present, showcasing points of interest such as the Horniman
Museum, the Kirkdale Building and Jews Walk. Sydenham and Forest
Hill Through Time is an essential volume for anyone who knows and
loves these leafy suburbs.
The newest series from Globe features regional history with a true
crime twist! Written by true crime author-experts, each book
focuses on the most significant (and prolific) violent female
criminals from that state or region. Female killers are often
portrayed as caricatures: Black Widows, Angels of Death, or Femme
Fatales. But the real stories of these women are much more complex.
The author provides a look at the lives of at each killer through
primary source materials, including diaries and trial records.
Readers will be glued to their seats as they follow the killers
through broken childhoods, first brushes with death, and
overwhelming urges that propelled these women to commit these
heinous crimes. The kidnappings, murders, investigations, trials,
and ultimate verdicts will stun and surprise readers as they live
vicariously through the killers and the dogged investigators who
caught them.
B-Day, as it came to be known, finally arrived. It was a Friday.
A school day. I identified with Cinderella as I watched Dad get
ready for work. Holster, check. Gun, check. Billy club, check.
Handcuffs, check. . . . Saturday morning I got up early. Dad was
already gone. Back to work. Ushering the Beatles out of town. On
the table . . . there were two small bars of soap, slightly used,
the words "Coach House Inn" still legible. One book of matches with
four missing. And a note from Dad, "From their room." . . . No one
else's dad comes home from work with something that might, just
might, have been intimate with a Beatle.
Growing up, Mel Miskimen thought that a gun and handcuffs on the
kitchen table were as normal as a gallon of milk and a loaf of Mrs.
Karl's bread. Her father, a Milwaukee cop for almost forty years
was part Super Hero (He simply held up his hand and three lanes of
traffic came to a screeching halt) and part Supreme Being (He could
be anywhere at anytime. I never knew when or where he would pop
up.) Miskimen's memoir, told in humorous vignettes, tells what it
was like for a girl growing up with a dad who packed a lunch and
packed heat.
This second, revised and expanded, edition of this popular
collection, including 233 photos and sketches, represents the most
comprehensive study of the Chesapeake Bay's fisheries, but it is
far more. It records the pictures and recollections of the homespun
tales of the hardy men and women who have lived and worked along
the shores of the nation's largest estuary. Since the first edition
was published in 1990, some of these tools and traditions have
disappeared and are now part of Chesapeake Bay lore. Many of the
implements and skills used by Chesapeake Bay watermen had their
origins in the 1600s, and, until now, much of what is known about
the various forms of gear had been passed down orally from
generation to generation. Some of these tools and traditions are
likely to disappear in the twenty-first century. The text to this
fascinating book documents the harvesting of the Bay, including
much information gathered by personal interviews with elderly
practitioners of the trade, making sure that the crafts and lore of
the Bay's harvesters are preserved.
The Texans from Hood's Texas Brigade and other regiments who fought
at Gettysburg on 1-3 July 1863 described their experiences of the
battle in personal diaries, interviews, newspaper articles, letters
and speeches. Their reminiscences provide a fascinating and
harrowing account of the battle as they fought the Army of the
Potomac. Speeches were given in the decades after the battle during
the annual reunions of Hood's Brigade Association and the
dedication of the Hood's Brigade Monument that took place on 26-27
October 1910 at the state capital in Austin, Texas. These accounts
describe their actions at Devil's Den, Little Round Top and other
areas during the battle. For the first time ever, their experiences
are compiled in Texans at Gettysburg: Blood and Glory with Hood's
Texas Brigade.
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.
Latina/o/x places exist as both tangible physical phenomena and
gatherings created and maintained by creative cultural practices.
In this collection, an interdisciplinary group of contributors
critically examines the many ways that varied Latina/o/x
communities cohere through cultural expression. Authors consider
how our embodied experiences of place, together with our histories
and knowledge, inform our imagination and reimagination of our
surroundings in acts of placemaking. This placemaking often
considers environmental sustainability as it helps to sustain
communities in the face of xenophobia and racism through cultural
expression ranging from festivals to zines to sanctuary movements.
It emerges not only in specific locations but as movement within
and between sites; not only as part of a built environment, but
also as an aesthetic practice; and not only because of efforts by
cultural, political, and institutional leaders, but through mass
media and countless human interactions. A rare and crucial
perspective on Latina/o/x people in the Midwest, Building
Sustainable Worlds reveals how expressive culture contributes to,
and sustains, a sense of place in an uncertain era.
A comprehensive compilation and explanation of Manhattan's streets,
alleys, avenues, plazas, parks and corners New York is the oldest
continually occupied city in America, yet its rich history is
largely obscured by development. New Yorkers are surrounded by
hundreds of place names, from those that survive from Manhattan's
earliest days as a Dutch trading post to those that reflect the
city's rich colonial, African and immigrant heritage. They provide
a veritable encyclopedia of the city's history. Buildings may come
and go, but place names are surprisingly durable. Naming New York
is a comprehensive compilation and explanation of the names of
Manhattan's streets, alleys, avenues, plazas, parks and corners. It
surveys names currently in use and includes the oldest and the
newest honorific "add-on" names, from Astor Place to Yitzak Rabin
Way. Whether you're a history or trivia buff, tourist, or just
fascinated by place names, learning about the origins of these
mostly unexamined sources enriches one's experience of the city,
and transforms a simple neighborhood errand into a trip through
time. For example: Bowery: In the 17th century, Dutch farms known
as "bowerij" were laid out in this section of Manhattan along the
path of an old Indian trail. Known since that time as the Bowery,
the thoroughfare became the first section of the Post Road from New
York City to Boston. Houston Street: For William Houstoun,
1757-1812, of a prominent Georgia family, who married a daughter of
Manhattan landowner Nicholas Bayard III. The Georgia provenance of
the name accounts for its pronunciation and spelling both of which
distinguish it from the Texas city. Wall Street: Follows the line
of the city wall that the Dutch erected in 1653 across the northern
perimeter of New Amsterdam to protect against attack from the
British in New England.
The Crowley Millers were the talk of minor league baseball in the
1950s, with crowds totaling nearly 10 times Crowley's population
and earning Crowley the nickname of "The Best Little Baseball Town
in the World." The Best Little Baseball Town in the World: The
Crowley Millers and Minor League Baseball in the 1950s tells the
fun, quirky story of Crowley, Louisiana, in the fifties, a story
that reads more like fiction than nonfiction. The Crowley Millers'
biggest star was Conklyn Meriwether, a slugger who became infamous
after he retired when he killed his in-laws with an axe. Their
former manager turned out to be a con man, dying in jail while
awaiting trial on embezzlement charges. The 1951 team was torn to
pieces after their young centerfielder was struck and killed by
lightning during a game. But aside from the tragedy and turmoil,
the Crowley Millers also played some great baseball and were the
springboard to stardom for George Brunet and Dan Pfister, two
Crowley pitchers who made it to the majors. Interviews with players
from the team bring to light never-before-heard stories and inside
perspectives on minor league baseball in the fifties, including
insight into the social and racial climate of the era, and the
inability of baseball in the fifties to help players deal with
off-the-field problems. Written by respected minor-league baseball
historian Gaylon H. White, The Best Little Baseball Town in the
World is a fascinating tale for baseball fans and historians alike.
History melts into the present in the lovely Berkshire Hills OF
western Massachusetts, but it is an uncomfortable present. Could it
be the whispers of nearly 200 men who died in the Hoosic Tunnel or
the legend of the Hessian soldier who roams the hills because he
has no need to be in the grave? Could it be folklore telling of a
gentlman burgular whose decision not to rob became more important
than who he robbed? And will you choose truth or fiction as you
encounter the killer lion instincts of Victoria and Sappho, the
animal show lions?
Buildings once symbolized Chicago's place as the business capital
of Black America and a thriving hub for Black media. In this
groundbreaking work, E. James West examines the city's Black press
through its relationship with the built environment. As a house for
the struggle, the buildings of publications like Ebony and the
Chicago Defender embodied narratives of racial uplift and community
resistance. As political hubs, gallery spaces, and public squares,
they served as key sites in the ongoing Black quest for
self-respect, independence, and civic identity. At the same time,
factors ranging from discriminatory business practices to editorial
and corporate ideology prescribed their location, use, and
appearance, positioning Black press buildings as sites of both
Black possibility and racial constraint. Engaging and innovative, A
House for the Struggle reconsiders the Black press's place at the
crossroads where aspiration collided with life in one of America's
most segregated cities.
Step back in time and learn what life was like for people living in
Monterey, California, in the 1800s. This charming book displays
over 400 beautiful color photographs of the town and gardens, and
the area stretching to Carmel, with quotes from sailors, travel
writers, explorers, politicians, clergymen, and tourists that
capture the fascinating evolution of the region. The book will
remind readers of their days spent wandering these historic places
and introduce them to fascinating real people who lived there.
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