The vast majority of Americans have, at one point or another gotten drunk, smoked, dabbled with drugs, gambled, sworn or engaged in adultery. During the 1800s, respectable people struggled to control these behaviors, labeling them bad and the people who indulged in them unrespectable. In the twentieth century, however, these minor vices were transformed into a societal complex of enormous and pervasive influence. Yet the general belief persists that these activities remain merely harmless bad habits, individual transgressions more than social problems. Not so, argues distinguished historian...
The vast majority of Americans have, at one point or another gotten drunk, smoked, dabbled with drugs, gambled, sworn or engaged in adultery. During t...
In this important book, Elaine Breslaw claims to have rediscovered Tituba, the elusive, mysterious, and often mythologized Indian woman accused of witchcraft in Salem in 1692 and immortalized in Arthur Miller's The Crucible.
Reconstructing the life of the slave woman at the center of the notorious Salem witch trials, the book follows Tituba from her likely origins in South America to Barbados, forcefully dispelling the commonly-held belief that Tituba was African. The uniquely multicultural nature of life on a seventeenth-century Barbadan sugar plantation--defined by a...
In this important book, Elaine Breslaw claims to have rediscovered Tituba, the elusive, mysterious, and often mythologized Indian woman accused of ...
On May 29, 1917, Mrs. E. M. Craise, citizen of Denver, Colorado, penned a letter to President Woodrow Wilson, which concluded, We have surrendered to your absolute control our hearts' dearest treasures--our sons. If their precious bodies that have cost us so dear should be torn to shreds by German shot and shells we will try to live on in the hope of meeting them again in the blessed Country of happy reunions. But, Mr. President, if the hell-holes that infest their training camps should trip up their unwary feet and they be returned to us besotted degenerate wrecks of their former selves...
On May 29, 1917, Mrs. E. M. Craise, citizen of Denver, Colorado, penned a letter to President Woodrow Wilson, which concluded, We have surrendered ...
It was in the 1840s that Americans first began to sue physicians on a wide scale. The unprecedented wave of litigation that began in this decade disrupted professional relations, injured individual reputations, and burdened physicians with legal fees and damage awards. De Ville's account discusses this outbreak of malpractice litigation with the use of anecdotes.
It was in the 1840s that Americans first began to sue physicians on a wide scale. The unprecedented wave of litigation that began in this decade disru...
Frederick Law Olmsted is famous for his urban landscape designs: Central Park in Manhattan, Prospect Park in Brooklyn, and Franklin Park in Boston. Olmsted devoted much of his later life to this work. What was the source of this creative energy and imagination in his fascinating years?
Melvin Kalfus is the first author to examine Olmsted's troubled, sometimes tragic childhood and adolescence in a search for the inner sources of his creative imagination. Kalfus argues that Olmsted's distressing early experiences fired his ambition and led him so obsessively to seek the world's esteem...
Frederick Law Olmsted is famous for his urban landscape designs: Central Park in Manhattan, Prospect Park in Brooklyn, and Franklin Park in Boston....
One of the images Americans hold most dear is that of the drum-beating, fire-eating Yankee Doodle Dandy rebel, overpowering his British adversaries through sheer grit and determination. The myth of the classless, independence-minded farmer or hard-working artisan-turned-soldier is deeply ingrained in the national psyche.
Charles Neimeyer here separates fact from fiction, revealing for the first time who really served in the army during the Revolution and why. His conclusions are startling. Because the army relied primarily on those not connected to the new American...
One of the images Americans hold most dear is that of the drum-beating, fire-eating Yankee Doodle Dandy rebel, overpowering his British adversaries...
In 1933 Americans did something they had never done before: they voted to repeal an amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The Eighteenth Amendment, which for 13 years had prohibited the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages, was nullified by the passage of another amendment, the Twenty-First. Many factors helped create this remarkable turn of events. One factor that was essential, Kenneth D. Rose here argues, was the presence of a large number of well-organized women promoting repeal.
Even more remarkable than the appearance of these women on the political scene was the approach...
In 1933 Americans did something they had never done before: they voted to repeal an amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The Eighteenth Amendment, w...
In 1835, Winston and Salem was a well-ordered, bucolic, and attractive North Carolina town. A visitor could walk up Main Street from the village square and get a sense of the quiet Moravian community that had settled here. Yet, over the next half-century, this idyllic village was to experience dramatic changes.
The Industrial Revolution calls forth images of great factories, mills, and machinery; yet, the character of the Industrial Revolution went beyond mere changes in modes of production. It meant the radical transformation of economic, social, and political institutions, and the...
In 1835, Winston and Salem was a well-ordered, bucolic, and attractive North Carolina town. A visitor could walk up Main Street from the village sq...
One of the most hotly debated issues in the historical study of race relations is the question of how the Civil War and Reconstruction affected social relations in the South. Did the War leave class and race hierarchies intact? Or did it mark the profound disruption of a long-standing social order?
Yankee Town, Southern Cityexamines how the members of the southern community of Lynchburg, Virginia experienced four distinct but overlapping events--Secession, Civil War, Black Emancipation, and Reconstruction. By looking at life in the grog shop, at the...
One of the most hotly debated issues in the historical study of race relations is the question of how the Civil War and Reconstruction affected soc...
