The daughter of Joseph Henry, one of America's most renowned scientists, Mary Henry was 21-years-old when her family moved into the only castle in Washington, D.C., the Smithsonian Institution Building. A prolific writer and astute observer, Mary began recording a diary in 1858, including a daily log of her personal reflections, events at the Smithsonian and conversations she had shared with many of the most influential leaders in America. It would have been impossible for the youthful lady, filled with juvenile yearnings and wanderlust, to have imagined the unspeakable horrors that would...

Written by Mingo County native Jeremy T.K. Farley, founder of Appalachian Magazine and descendant of a Confederate prisoner of war from Logan County, Farley not only lays out a very clear case as to why West Virginia was created illegally, but also links the state's unconstitutional beginning to many of the woes that have plagued the Mountain State throughout its entire existence. Championing the cause of Southern West Virginia, this book asserts that much of the Mountain State's disproportionate level of poverty, political suppression and historic labor wars - especially in the southern...