The Pulitzer prize-winning The Store is the second novel of Stribling's monumental trilogy set in the author's native Tennessee Valley region of north Alabama. The action begins in 1884, the year in which Grover Cleveland became the first Democratic president since the end of the Civil War; and it centers about the emergence of a figure of wealth in the city of Florence.

In The Store, Stribling succeeds in presenting the essence of an age through the everyday lives of his characters. In the New Yorker, reviewer Robert M. Coates compared Stribling with Mark Twain...

Using the history of Alabama and the stories of her pioneering ancestors, Lella Warren created the Whetstone clan who settled Alabama in the 1820s, helped lead it into the prosperity of the 1850s, and fought for it in the War Between the States. The historical background of "Foundation Stone" is authentic, but, more, it is a compelling story about believable characters. The story of these peoplethree generations of Whetstonescaptures the American pioneering spirit. As an unidentified reviewer described the novel, Lella Warren s Foundation Stone is the long, well-told chronicle of a family...

Andre Penicaut, a carpenter, sailed with Iberville to the French province of Louisiana in 1699 and did not return to France until 1721. The book he began in the province and finished upon his return to France is an eyewitness account of the first years of the French colony, which stretched along the Gulf Coast from Florida to Texas and in the Mississippi Valley from the Balize to the Illinois country. As a ship carpenter, Penicaut was chosen as a member of several important expeditions: he accompanied Le Sueur up the Mississippi River in 1700 to present-day Minnesota, and he went with...

Situated at the head of the Alabama River system at the juncture of the Coosa and Tallapoosa rivers Fort Toulouse in 1717 was planned to keep the local Indians neutral, if not loyal, to the French and contain the British in their southernmost Atlantic colonies. Unlike the usual frontier settlements, Fort Toulouse was both a diplomatic post, since its officers acted as resident ministers, and a military post. Because it was located in a friendly territory adjoining an area under a rival (British) influence, the post participated in psychological warfare rather than in blood-letting. It used...

This novel is about a young man, Jule, who grew up in rural Alabama in the 1930s. He experienced a peaceful farm life filled with hard work in the hot sun followed by socializing by moonlight in the cooling hours of the night. His mother, Ollie Miss, raised him to be somebody, as she said, and he always knew that he would follow her advice.As he grew, he developed a close friendship with the white storekeeper s son, Rollo, and an earthly love for Berta Mae, a neighbor girl. This quiet life changed abruptly for the young Negro boy when he fled Alabama and arrived in Harlem, there to gain a...

Physician to the World by John M. Gibson is a study of the career of William Crawford Gorgas, focusing primarily on the 22 years from the Spanish-American War until his death at the age of 65. The book details the medical community s gradual acceptance of the mosquito theory as the cause for yellow fever epidemics and follows Gorgas as his initial skepticism gave way to belief while he participated in Walter Reed s massive cleanup of Havana. From this success Gorgas moved to the Panama Canal Zone and a bureaucratic quagmire as he attempted to apply sanitary principles there to...

This book was originally published in 1933. It is the first novel by William March, pen name for William Edward Campbell. Stemming directly from the author's experiences with the U.S. Marines in France during World War I, the book consists of 113 sketches, or chapters, tracing the fictional Company K's war exploits and providing an emotional history of the men of the company that extends beyond the boundaries of the war itself.

William Edward Campbell served courageously in France as evidenced by his chestful of medals and certificates,...

The Formative Period in Alabama, 1815-1828 is a beautifully crafted history of the evolution of the state written by Thomas Perkins Abernethy in 1922.The work shows how Alabama grew out of the Mississippi Territory and discusses the economic and political development during the years just before and just after Alabama became a state.