Local History

The Mound Builder Myth is the first book to chronicle the attempt to recast the Native American burial mounds as the work of a lost white race of “true” native Americans. Thomas Jefferson’s pioneering archaeology concluded that the earthen mounds were the work of Native Americans. In the 1894 report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, Cyrus Thomas concurred, drawing on two decades of research. But in the century in between, the lie took hold, with presidents Andrew Jackson, William Henry Harrison, and Abraham Lincoln adding their approval.

Yellowstone is America's premier national park. Today Yellowstone is often a byword for conservation, natural beauty, and a way for everyone to enjoy the great outdoors. But it was not always this way. Wonderlandscape presents a new perspective on Yellowstone, the emotions that various natural wonders and attractions evoke, and how this explains the park's relationship to America as a whole.

When Adam Gopnik and his soon-to-be-wife, Martha, left the comforts of home in Montreal for New York, the city then, much like today, was a pilgrimage site for the young, the arty, and the ambitious. But it was also becoming a city of greed, where both life's consolations and its necessities were increasingly going to the highest bidder. At the Strangers' Gate builds a portrait of this particular moment in New York through the story of this couple's journey - from their excited arrival as aspiring artists to their eventual growth into a New York family.

As the 20th century began, oil in Texas was easy to find, but the quantities were too small to attract industrial capital and production. Then, on January 10, 1901, the Spindletop gusher blew in. Over the next 50 years, oil transformed Texas, creating a booming economy that built cities, attracted out-of-state workers and companies, funded schools and universities, and generated wealth that raised the overall standard of living - even for blue-collar workers. No other 20th-century development had a more profound effect upon the state.

In an easy conversational style, The Restless Northwest provides a brief overview of the remarkable geological processes that have shaped the Pacific Northwest. The narrative is also sprinkled with firsthand accounts of the people involved in recent exciting, scientific discoveries. Williams enlivens this story of long-ago geologic events, with a variety of fascinating asides, on everything from enormous undersea tubeworms, to the Willamette meteorite.

On the day the first shots of the Civil War were fired, a mob in Richmond clambered on top of the Capitol to raise the Confederate flag. Four years later, another flag was raised in its place while the city burned below. A 13-year-old girl compared the stars and stripes to "so many bloody gashes". This richly detailed, absorbing book brings to life the years in which Richmond was the symbol of Southern independence and the theater for a drama as splendid, sordid, and tragic as the war itself.

G.C. "Red" Jones' classic memoir of growing up in rural eastern Kentucky during the Depression is a story of courage, persistence, and eventual triumph. His priceless and detailed recollections of hardscrabble farming, of the impact of Prohibition on an individualistic people, of the community-destroying mine wars of "Bloody Harlan", and of the drastic dislocations brought by World War II are essential to understanding this seminal era in Appalachian history.

Mark Clague brilliantly weaves together the stories of the song and the nation it represents. Examining the origins of both text and music, alternate lyrics and translations, and the song’s use in sports, at times of war, and for political protest, he argues that the anthem’s meaning reflects—and is reflected by—the nation’s quest to become a more perfect union. From victory song to hymn of sacrifice and vehicle for protest, the story of Key’s song is the story of America itself.

There were, Peter Thompson notes, some 150 synonyms for inebriation in common use in colonial Philadelphia and, on the eve of the Revolution, just as many licensed drinking establishments. Clearly, 18th-century Philadelphians were drawn to the tavern. In addition to the obvious lure of the liquor, taverns offered overnight accommodations, meals, and stabling for visitors. They also served as places to gossip, gamble, find work, make trades, and gather news.

The revolutionary Ohio Valley is often depicted as a chaotic Hobbesian dystopia, in which Indians and colonists slaughtered each other at every turn. In Unsettling the West, Rob Harper overturns this familiar story. Rather than flailing in a morass, the peoples of the revolutionary Ohio Valley actively and persistently sought to establish a new political order that would affirm their land claims, protect them against attack, and promote trade.

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.

Educated in Amherst, Massachusetts, Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe (1819-1906) accompanied her physician-husband to California in 1849. The Shirley Letters (1922) is the book edition of a series of letters written by Mrs. Clappe to her sister in 1851 and 1852. They were first published under the pseudonym of Dame Shirley in the Pioneer magazine, 1854-55. In these letters, Louise Clappe writes of life in San Francisco and the Feather River mining communities of Rich Bar and Indian Bar.

Pickering has a long, continuous history, reaching back to prehistoric times. This new book traces the story of the town down the ages from prehistoric times to Saxon village, the coming of the Normans and the building of the castle to modern times when the town's economy changed from serving farming to light industry and tourism. This full colour book will delight tourists and young people and anyone wanting a brief but authoritative history of Pickering.

Living Landmarks of Chicago goes beyond the what, when, and where to tell the how and why of 50 Chicago landmarks. More than a book about architecture, these are stories of the people who made Chicago and many of its most popular tourist attractions what they are today.

Remembering the Alamo is a tale of extraordinary courage and riveting adventure. For thirteen days, 189 men lead by Davy Crockett, Colonel William Travis and hopelessly outnumbered, held off the Mexican army lead by General Santa Anna at the Mission San Antonio de Valero-the Alamo. Their valiant sacrifice for the cause of Texas liberty became the rallying cry, "Remember the Alamo!"

Learn about the bomb blast that rocked the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church on Sunday morning, September 15, 1963, killing four young girls.

This is the third in the series of serial killer books. This book involves Psychics and Seers that aid in the story to solve the murders. However, one seer is also the serial killer hiding in plain public sight. The killer is hiding by working as a counselor, investor as well as a seer in the community at large. Our hero, Brooks Kincade, enters the world of mediums and psychics where many clues come from their visions or from the dead speaking to the psychics. It is a challenging case to solve and takes all his and the team's skills to solve this action packed mystery. This story also ...

William Elliott Hazelgrove provides the exciting and sprawling history behind the 1933 World's Fair, the last of the golden age. He reveals the story of the six millionaire businessmen, dubbed The Secret Six, who beat Al Capone at his own game, ending the gangster era as prohibition was repealed. The story of an intriguing woman, Sally Rand, who embodied the World's Fair with her own rags to riches story and brought sex into the open.

Indians! Pirates! Rebels! Blockade runners! Smugglers! Murder! Beaches! Beauty contests! Hurricanes! These are all parts of the colorful history of an island city that once called itself The Free State of Galveston. Located at a natural harbor on the northeastern part of a 30-mile-long sand barrier island, the city dates its beginning to the end of the Texas Revolution.

The Huck Finn of foreign correspondents provides a colorful account of old Honolulu, the island nobility, the City of Refuge on the Kona coast, and the active volcano of Kilauea. These selections of Mark Twain's newspaper dispatches are both charming and informative. The light touch of the great humorist is seldom missing as he reveals the "loveliest fleet of islands that lie anchored in any ocean".