Happy As a Big Sunflower by Rolf Johnson; Richard E. Jensen (Editor, Introduction by)In 1876 Rolf Johnson and his family left Illinois for Phelps County, Nebraska. There they faced the challenges of pioneering on the Great Plains: digging wells, building sod houses, plowing and planting crops, and fighting prairie fires. Johnson's diary goes beyond individual conquest, however, and provides insight into the great cooperative endeavor of plains settlement. Rolf's Swedish family and neighbors worked and socialized with other Swedes just as nearby Danish settlers remained in close physical and cultural contact with other Danish immigrants. A very eligible ninetten-year-old bachelor, Rolf also offers touching vignettes on the rituals of courting. Abruptly, with no explanation in his diary, and with no itinerary or prospects, Rolf left home in 1879 "with the intention of going west for a season." His departure may have been sparked by the marital fervor exhibited by a female suitor. Rolf felt he was "not quite prepared to leave the state of single blessedness for that of double misery." In Sidney, Nebraska, he ran with the "sporting" element, who showed him photographs of "fast women of the town stark naked." He found employment with a wagon freighter headed for the Black Hills, where he saw Calamity Jane in action. Rolf's education continued until the diaries end in Cubero, New Mexico, in 1880. He returned to Phelps County in 1882 and remained there for most of his life. Rolf's lively diaries offer an entertaining eyewitness account of pioneer life and an unmatched resource for historians.
The Gold Rush Diary of Ramón Gil Navarro by Ramon Gil Navarro; David Reher (Editor, Translator); María del Carmen Ferreyra (Editor, Translator)Gold! Gold! Gold! This seductive mantra, shouted throughout the Americas in 1848-49, convinced thousands of people that California's gold could be had simply by picking it up off the ground. Ramón Gil Navarro, an Argentinean political exile living in Chile, heard these rumors of a new El Dorado, but he was not so naïve as to believe that the gold merely had to be gathered. He understood that mining required extensive capital investment and labor, and along with three other investors he arranged to have 120 workers and a shipload of supplies sent to California. Navarro accompanied the workers to Stockton and began prospecting. Gold rush California was a rough and tumble world where finding gold--and keeping it--was not a simple matter. Navarro encountered people from all over the world brought together in a society marked by racial and ethnic intolerance, swift and cruel justice, and great hardships. It was a world of contrasts, where the roughest of the rough lived in close proximity to extremely refined cultural circles. Despite his planning, Navarro had not reckoned on the racism he would encounter. He witnessed several instances of Anglo miners harassing Latinos and other ethnic groups. After three years without success, Navarro returned to South America. He became a national representative in the Argentinean congress and worked as a journalist. He never returned to California.
ISBN: 0803233434
Generation on fire : voices of protest from the 1960s : an oral history by Jeff KisseloffThe political and cultural upheaval of the '60s has become a subject blighted by misconceptions and stereotypes. To many, it is synonymous with widespread drug abuse, failed social experiments, and general irresponsibility. Despite sustained public interest, few remember that many of the freedoms and rights Americans enjoy today are the direct result of those who defied the established order during this tumultuous period. It was an era that challenged both mainstream and elite American notions of how politics and society should function. In Generation on Fire, Jeff Kisseloff's continuing work in oral history, witnesses speak about their motives and actions during the 1960s through the present. Kisseloff provides an eclectic and highly personal account of the political and social activity of the decade. Among other things, the book offers firsthand accounts of what it was like to face a mob's wrath in the segregated South and to survive the jungles of Vietnam. It takes readers inside the courtroom of the Chicago Eight and into a communal household in Vermont. From the stage at Woodstock to the playing fields of the NFL and finally to a fateful confrontation at Kent State, Generation on Fire brings the '60s alive again. In this riveting collection of never-before published interviews, Generation on Fire unapologetically contextualizes the world of the 1960s, illuminating the ingrained social and cultural obstacles facing those working for change as well as the courage and shortcomings of those who defied "acceptable" conventions and mores. Sometimes tragic, sometimes hilarious, the stories in this volume celebrate the passion, courage, and independent thinking that led a generation to believe change for the better was possible.
ISBN: 0813124166
Publication Date: 2006-12-29
From slavery to salvation : the autobiography of Rev. Thomas W. Henry of the A.M.E. Church / (1872) by Thomas W. Henry; Jean Libby (Editor); Edward C. Papenfuse (Introduction by)"Thomas W. Henry was born a slave on a Maryland tobacco plantation in 1794. Until he was twenty-seven, when he was made free according to the slaveholder's will, he was an apprentice blacksmith. His wife Catherine and two of their children remained in bondage until he was able to purchase them. Two other children were lost to the slave trade." "This volume is a reprinting of Henry's memoirs, first published in 1872 by the African Methodist Episcopal Church. It provides a firsthand account of A.M.E. church politics and denominational relations, as well as a picture of community life as described by a manumitted slave." "This illuminating resource of information about America's black religious heritage conveys Henry's sense of mission and consecration as he ministered to the African Methodist Episcopal churches of Maryland and rural Pennsylvania. Because he spent his early life as a blacksmith, his descriptions of the slave community of the Antietam Ironworks are charged with understanding and authority. His account is an unparalleled primary source for the study of the slave's role in the social history of the iron industry. As Henry documents the harsh economics of life in a free black family, he reveals the changing nature of American slavery in the early nineteenth century as well as the growing hostility of European workers toward the skill of slaves." "Henry's autobiography, prepared for publication in this edition from a rare copy in the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center at Howard University, documents the role of this religious and community mentor and sheds additional light on the history of black leadership in the quest for abolition."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Dust Bowl Diary by Ann Marie Low"Life in what the newspapers call 'the Dust Bowl' is becoming a gritty nightmare," Ann Marie Low wrote in 1934. Her diary vividly captures that "gritty nightmare" as it was lived by one rural family--and by millions of other Americans. The books opens in 1927--"the last of the good years"--when Ann Marie is a teenager living with her parents, brother, and sister on a stock farm in southeastern North Dakota. We follow her family and friends, descendants of homesteaders, through the next ten years--a time of searing summer heat and desiccated fields, dying livestock, dust to the tops of fence posts and prices at rock bottom--a time when whole communities lost their homes and livelihoods to mortgages and, hardest of all, to government recovery programs. We also see the coming to maturity of the author in the face of economic hardship, frustrating family circumstances, and the stifling restrictions that society then placed on young women. Ann Marie Low's diary, supplemented with reminiscences, offers a rich, circumstantial view of rural life a half century ago: planting and threshing before the prevalence of gasoline-powered engines, washing with rain water and ironing with sadirons, hauling coal on sleds over snow-clogged roads, going to end-of-school picnics and country dances, and hoarding the egg and cream money for college. Here, too, is an iconoclastic on-the-scene account of how a federal work project, the construction of a wildlife refuge, actually operated. Many readers will recognize parts of their own past in Ann Marie Low's story; for others it will serve as a compelling record of the Dust Bowl experience.
ISBN: 0803279132
Publication Date: 1984-12-01
Emma Spaulding Bryant : Civil War bride, carpetbagger's wife, ardent feminist : letters and diaries, 1860-1900 by Ruth Douglas Currie (Editor)Emma Spaulding's life might have been the simple story of a nineteenth-century woman in rural Maine. Instead, wooed by the ambitious John Emory Bryant, the Yankee Reconstruction activist and Georgia politician, she became the Civil War bride of a Republican carpetbagger intent on reforming the South. The grueling years in the shadow of her husband's controversial political career gave her a backbone of steel and the convictions of an early feminist. Emma supported John's agenda-to "northernize" the South and work for civil rights for African-Americans- and frequently reflected on national political events. Struggling virtually alone to rear a daughter in near poverty, Emma became an independent thinker, suffragist, and officer in the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. In eloquent letters, Emma coached her husband's understanding of "the woman question;" their remarkable correspondence frames a marriage of love and summarizes John's career as it determined the contours of Emma's own story--from the bitter politics of Reconstruction Georgia to her world as a mother, writer, editor, and teacher in Tennessee and, with her husband, running a mission for the homeless in New York. In this extraordinary resource, Ruth Douglas Currie organizes and edits their voluminous correspondence, enhancing the letters with an extensive introduction to Emma Spaulding Bryant's life, times, and legacy.
ISBN: 082322273X
Down These Mean Streets by Piri Thomas"A linguistic event. Gutter language, Spanish imagery and personal poetics . . . mingle into a kind of individual statement that has very much its own sound." --The New York Times Book Review Thirty years ago Piri Thomas made literary history with this lacerating, lyrical memoir of his coming of age on the streets of Spanish Harlem. Here was the testament of a born outsider: a Puerto Rican in English-speaking America; a dark-skinned morenito in a family that refused to acknowledge its African blood. Here was an unsparing document of Thomas's plunge into the deadly consolations of drugs, street fighting, and armed robbery--a descent that ended when the twenty-two-year-old Piri was sent to prison for shooting a cop. As he recounts the journey that took him from adolescence in El Barrio to a lock-up in Sing Sing to the freedom that comes of self-acceptance, faith, and inner confidence, Piri Thomas gives us a book that is as exultant as it is harrowing and whose every page bears the irrepressible rhythm of its author's voice. Thirty years after its first appearance, this classic of manhood, marginalization, survival, and transcendence is available in an anniversary edition with a new Introduction by the author.
ISBN: 0679732381
Publication Date: 1991-01-02
The Autobiography of Medgar Evers by Manning Marable; Myrlie Evers-WilliamsOn the evening of June 12, 1963--the day President John F. Kennedy gave his most impassioned speech about the need for interracial tolerance --Medgar Evers, the NAACP’s first field secretary in Mississippi, was shot and killed by an assassin’s bullet in his driveway. The still-smoking gun--bearing the fingerprints of Byron De La Beckwith, a staunch white supremacist--was recovered moments later in some nearby bushes. Still, Beckwith remained free for over thirty years, until Evers’s widow finally forced the Mississippi courts to bring him to justice. The Autobiography of Medgar Evers tells the full story of one the greatest leaders of the civil rights movement, bringing his achievement to life for a new generation. Although Evers’s memory has remained a force in the civil rights movement, the legal battles surrounding his death have too often overshadowed the example and inspiration of his life.Myrlie Evers-Williams and Manning Marable have assembled the previously untouched cache of Medgar’s personal documents, writings, and speeches. These remarkable pieces range from Medgar’s monthly reports to the NAACP to his correspondence with luminaries of the time such as Robert Carter, General Counsel for the NAACP in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case. Most important of all are the recollections of Myrlie Evers, combined with letters from her personal collection. These documents and memories form the backbone of The Autobiography of Medgar Evers -- a cohesive narrative detailing the rise and tragic death of a civil rights hero.
Collected Letters, 1944-1967 by Neal Cassady; Dave Moore (Editor); Carolyn Cassady (Introduction by)"Dave Moore's work on this collection is simply awesome.... It should become and remain the definitive reference book for Beat scholars forever." --Carolyn Cassady Neal Cassady is best remembered today as Jack Kerouac's muse and the basis for the character "Dean Moriarty" in Kerouac's classic On The Road, and as one of Ken Kesey's merriest of Merry Pranksters, the driver of the psychedelic bus "Further," immortalized in Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. This collection brings together more than two hundred letters to Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, John Clellon Holmes, and other Beat generation luminaries, as well as correspondence between Neal and his wife, Carolyn. These amazing letters cover Cassady's life between the ages of 18 and 41 and finish just months before his death in February 1968. Brilliantly edited by Dave Moore, this unique collection presents the "Soul of the Beat Generation" in his own words--sometimes touching and tender, sometimes bawdy and hilarious. Here is the real Neal Cassady--raw and uncut.
ISBN: 0142002178
Publication Date: 2005-01-25
Dissent in America by Ralph F. YoungThis concise collection of primary sources presents the story of US History as told by dissenters who, throughout the course of American history, have fought to gain rights they believed were denied to them or others, or who disagreed with the government or majority opinion. Each document is introduced by placing it in its historical context, and thought-provoking questions are provided to focus the student when s/he reads the text. Instructors are at liberty to choose the documents that best highlight themes they wish to emphasize.
Diaries of Girls and Women by Suzanne L. BunkersDiaries of Girls and Women captures and preserves the diverse lives of forty-seven girls and women who lived in Minnesota, Iowa, and Wisconsin between 1837 and 1999--young schoolgirls, adolescents coming of age, newlywed wives, mothers grieving the loss of children, teachers, nurses, elderly women, Luxembourger immigrant nuns, and women traveling abroad. A compelling work of living history, it brings together both diaries from historical society archives and diaries still in possession of the diarists or their descendents. Editor Suzanne L. Bunkers has selected these excerpts from more than 450 diaries she examined. Some diaries were kept only briefly, others through an entire lifetime; some diaries are the intensely private record of a life, others tell the story of an entire family and were meant to be saved and appreciated by future generations. By approaching diaries as historical documents, therapeutic tools, and a form of literature, Bunkers offers readers insight into the self-images of girls and women, the dynamics of families and communities, and the kinds of contributions that girls and women have made, past and present. As a representation of the girls and women of varied historical eras, locales, races, and economic circumstances who settled and populated the Midwest, Diaries of Girls and Women adds texture and pattern to the fabric of American history.
ISBN: 0299172244
Details opened. Press escape to close. I refuse : memories of a Vietnam war objector by Donald L. Simons; David List (Introduction by)Illus. in full color. Brer Fox makes a boy out of tar, so when Brer Rabbit shakes hands, he'll get stuck. "About fifty sentences, with one or two per gracefully color-cartooned page, this tale is reduced to the most basic motifs, but it does respect the ones it keeps. It will be a book to hand to kids who clamor for a version they can read for themselves."--Bulletin, Center for Children's Books.  
The Autobiography of William Sanders Scarborough by W. S. Scarborough; Michele V. Ronnick (Introduction by)This illuminating autobiography traces Scarborough's path out of slavery in Macon, Georgia, to a prolific scholarly career that culminated with his presidency of Wilberforce University. Despite the racism he met as he struggled to establish a place in higher education for African Americans, Scarborough was an exemplary scholar, particularly in the field of classical studies. He was the first African American member of the Modern Language Association, a forty-four-year member of the American Philological Association, and a true champion of higher education. Scarborough advocated the reading, writing, and teaching of liberal arts at a time when illiteracy was rampant due to slavery's legacy, white supremacists were dismissing the intellectual capability of blacks, and Booker T. Washington was urging African Americans to focus on industrial skills and training. The Autobiography of William Sanders Scarborough is a valuable historical record of the life and work of a pioneer who helped formalize the intellectual tradition of the black scholar. Michele Valerie Ronnick contextualizes Scarborough's narrative through extensive notes and by exploring a wide variety of sources such as census records, church registries, period newspapers, and military and university records. This book is indispensable to anyone interested in the history of intellectual endeavor in America, Africana studies and classical studies, in particular, as well as those familiar with the associations and institutions that welcomed and valued Scarborough.
ISBN: 0814332242
A-train : memoirs of a Tuskegee Airman by Charles W. Dryden; Benjamin O. Davis (Foreword by)A-Train is the story of one of the black Americans who, during World War II, graduated from Tuskegee (AL) Flying School and served as a pilot in the Army Air Corps’ 99th Pursuit Squadron. Charles W. Dryden presents a fast-paced, balanced, and personal account of what it was like to prepare for a career traditionally closed to African Americans, how he coped with the frustrations and dangers of combat, and how he, along with many fellow black pilots, navigators, bombardiers, and crewmen, emerged with a magnificent war record. Under the command of Colonel Benjamin O. Davis Jr., the Tuskegee airmen fought over North Africa, Sicily, and Europe, escorting American bomber crews who respected their "no-losses" record. Some were shot down, many of them were killed or captured by the enemy, and several won medals of valor and honor. But the airmen still faced great barriers of racial prejudice in the armed forces and at home. As a member of that elite group of young pilots who fought for their country overseas while being denied civil liberties at home, Dryden presents an eloquent story that will touch each and every reader. nbsp;
ISBN: 0817308563
Publication Date: 1997-04-30
America in Vietnam : a documentary history by William Appleman Williams; Thomas McCormick (Editor); Lloyd C. Gardner; Walter LaFeber (Editor)Through a wide variety of documents--including newly opened presidential papers, congressional debates, military reports, treaties, and newspaper articles--the authors trace the origins of the war back to pre-World War II attitudes and then proceed through the development of the "domino theory" and the policies of Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon to the fall of South Vietnam in 1975. Each of the editors has written an introductory essay to place the documents in heir historical context. These essays explore the controversial questions raised by Vietnam--such as whether each president understood what he was getting into, whether (as some now charge) the media and public opinion undermined America's ability to win the war, whether official statements were intended to mislead the American people, and, most fundamentally, why America was in Vietnam.
ISBN: 0393305554
The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X; Alex Haley (As told to)ONE OF TIME'S TEN MOST IMPORTANT NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY In the searing pages of this classic autobiography, originally published in 1964, Malcolm X, the Muslim leader, firebrand, and anti-integrationist, tells the extraordinary story of his life and the growth of the Black Muslim movement. His fascinating perspective on the lies and limitations of the American Dream, and the inherent racism in a society that denies its nonwhite citizens the opportunity to dream, gives extraordinary insight into the most urgent issues of our own time. The Autobiography of Malcolm X stands as the definitive statement of a movement and a man whose work was never completed but whose message is timeless. It is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand America. Praise for The Autobiography of Malcolm X "Malcolm X's autobiography seemed to offer something different. His repeated acts of self-creation spoke to me; the blunt poetry of his words, his unadorned insistence on respect, promised a new and uncompromising order, martial in its discipline, forged through sheer force of will."--Barack Obama, Dreams from My Father "Extraordinary . . . a brilliant, painful, important book."--The New York Times "A great book . . . Its dead level honesty, its passion, its exalted purpose, will make it stand as a monument to the most painful truth."--The Nation "The most important book I'll ever read, it changed the way I thought, it changed the way I acted. It has given me courage I didn't know I had inside me. I'm one of hundreds of thousands whose lives were changed for the better."--Spike Lee "This book will have a permanent place in the literature of the Afro-American struggle."--I. F. Stone
ISBN: 0345379756
The American nation : primary sources by Bruce Frohnen (Editor)The American Nation: Primary Sources resumes the narrative begun in its companion volume, The American Republic which covered the first eight decades of U.S. history, ending at the onset of the Civil War. The American Nation continues the story through America’s entrance into World War II. The American Nation makes available, in one volume, many of the most crucial documents necessary for understanding the variety of policies and viewpoints driving American public life during an important, substantive part of American history. The primary sources in The American Nation are relevant to the Civil War, Reconstruction, the rise of a national capitalist system and culture, the waves of reform-minded thought and policy that moved the nation toward formation of the national administrative and welfare states, and America’s emergence as a major power on the world stage. This period was a watershed in the history of the nation--the time of establishing and consolidating national power and laying the foundations of a national government committed to promoting the material well-being of Americans. It was an era that witnessed the development of the nation-state and the establishment of the New Deal regime, which set the stage for the radical social movements of the 1960s and beyond. For decades debates have raged concerning the nature and impact of post-Civil War Reconstruction, as well as the major popular legal and ideological movements shaping the United States during the period up to World War II. This critical era encompassed the rise of mass-market corporatism and America’s entry into world politics. Recent social history has uncovered a great deal of information regarding the daily lives of Americans during this era. Of equal importance is an in-depth study of the public documents critical for an understanding of the effects of public acts and pronouncements on Americans. This volume will allow students and readers to readily engage, without interpretation, the original historical documents that have shaped the history of American public life. Some of the primary documents include the Emancipation Proclamation, the Freedmen’s Bureau Bill, the Sherman Antitrust Act, and the Monroe Doctrine. Some of the authors featured include Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Jefferson Davis, Robert LaFollette, Eugene Debs, Jane Addams, William Graham Sumner, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Booker T. Washington, among many others. Bruce P. Frohnen is Associate Professor of Law at Ohio Northern University College of Law. He holds a J.D. from the Emory University School of Law and a Ph.D. in Government from Cornell University.
"Takin' it to the streets" : a sixties reader by Alexander Bloom (Editor); Wini Breines (Editor)The second edition of "Takin' it to the streets" revises the comprehensive collection of primary documents of the 1960s that has become the leading reader on the era. Adopted nationwide, this anthology brings together representative writings, many of which have been unavailable for years orhave never been reprinted. Drawn from mainstream sources, little-known sixties periodicals, pamphlets, public speeches, and personal voices, the selections range from the Port Huron Statement and the NOW Bill of Rights to speeches by Malcolm X, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan, to private lettersfrom civil rights workers and Vietnam soldiers. Introductions and headnotes by the editors highlight the importance of particular documents, relating them to each other and placing them within the broader context of the decade. Particular attention is paid to civil rights, Black Power, the counterculture, the women's movement, anti-waractivity, and gay and lesbian struggles, as well as the conservative current that ran counter to more typical sixties movements. For this revised edition, the editors have added nearly thirty selections, including new readings on religion, the drug culture, the sexual revolution, gay rights,conservatism, and the Vietnam War experience. Covering an extremely popular period of history, "Takin' it to the streets" remains the most accessible and authoritative reader on an extraordinary decade, one unlike America had seen before or has experienced since.
ISBN: 019514290X
Impounded : Dorothea Lange and the censored images of Japanese American internment by Dorothea Lange; Linda Gordon; Gary Y. OkihiroThis indelible work of visual and social history confirms Dorothea Lange's stature as one of the twentieth century's greatest American photographers. Presenting 119 images originally censored by the U.S. Army--the majority of which have never been published--Impounded evokes the horror of a community uprooted in the early 1940s and the stark reality of the internment camps. With poignancy and sage insight, nationally known historians Linda Gordon and Gary Okihiro illuminate the saga of Japanese American internment: from life before Executive Order 9066 to the abrupt roundups and the marginal existence in the bleak, sandswept camps. In the tradition of Roman Vishniac's A Vanished World, Impounded, with the immediacy of its photographs, tells the story of the thousands of lives unalterably shattered by racial hatred brought on by the passions of war.
ISBN: 039306073X
Publication Date: 2006-11-17
The Iraq Papers by John Ehrenberg (Editor); J. Patrice McSherry (Editor); José Ramón Sánchez (Editor); Caroleen Marji Sayej (Editor)The Iraq Papers will be the most comprehensive and best-organized document collection of America's misadventure in Iraq. The editors have organized the book around the concept of pre-emption, a policy that represented a significant break with past American foreign policy. The editors locatethe intellectual origins of pre-emption in neoconservative writings from the early 1990s, and then trace how the logic of pre-emption played out across a number of arenas in the first decade of the twenty first century: the war itself, America's relationship with its allies and the UN, itsdealings with Iraqi society and successive Iraqi governments after 2003, and domestic policy in the Bush-era United States. They close with a chapter on the limits of American policy as it moves into the Obama era. There are eleven chapters in total, and ten will feature a representative selectionof the most important documents relating to the origins of the war - including prominent writings by early neoconservative advocates for invasion - and the war's impact on Iraq, America, and the world. Covering more than a decade, The Iraq Papers will be a definitive source for anyone interested inunderstanding this enormously complicated and difficult conflict.
ISBN: 9780195398595
Jeb and Dash : a diary of gay life, 1918-1945 by Ina D. Russell (Editor)"It occurred to me today with something of a shock how horrible it would be for this diary of mine to be pawed over and read unsympathetically after I am dead, by those incapable of understanding... And then the thought of the one thing even more dreadful and terrible than that - for my diary never to be read by the one person who would or could understand. For I do want it to be read - there is no use concealing the fact - by somebody who is like me, who would understand." "Jeb Alexander was a gay man who lived in Washington, D.C., during the first half of the twentieth century. From 1918, when he was nineteen years old, until the late 1950s, he chronicled his daily life engagingly and unsparingly, leaving behind a unique record of ordinary gay life before Stonewall, a history that has remained largely hidden until now." "Jeb came of age as the century did, witnessing and recording political and social change from the position of insider as an editor for the U.S. Government and outsider as a gay man. Painfully shy, and frustrated in his ambition to be a novelist by writer's block, Jeb turned to his diary as a way of expressing himself as well as recording events, creating a full emotional self-portrait and unforgettable sketches of the men who made up his lively circle of friends." "Jeb and Dash also details the joy and anguish of an extraordinary on-and-off love affair between Jeb and C. C. Dasham (Dash), whom he met in college and with whom he remained friends throughout his life." "A rare and important historical document, a beautifully written memoir, a love story, an ode to old Washington, D.C., Jeb and Dash is a remarkable find and an enduring literary achievement."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
ISBN: 0571198171
Journal of a Georgia Woman, 1870-1872 by Eliza Frances Andrews; S. Kittrell Rushing (Editor)"Eliza Frances "Fanny" Andrews (1840-1931) was born into southern aristocracy in Washington, Georgia. The acclaimed author of Journal of a Georgia Girl: 1864-1865, she was an exceptional woman who went on to become a journalist, writer, teacher, and internationally recognized botanist. In 1870, as Andrews was working on her first novel, she embarked on a visit to wealthy "Yankee kin" in Newark, New Jersey. The trip had a profound effect on her life, as she was astonished by the contrasts between North and South. This previously unpublished segment of Andrews's writings begins with her New Jersey sojourn and ends with her mother's death in 1872. It is remarkable for the light it sheds on the social and economic transformations of the Reconstruction era, particularly as they were perceived and experienced by a southern woman."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
ISBN: 1572331712
Kate Chopin's Private Papers by Emily Toth (Editor); Per Seyersted (Editor); Marilyn Bonnell (Editor); Cheyenne Bonnell (Associate Editor)Toth and Seyersted's well-organized, carefully edited volume makes available all manuscripts and related items from all archival collections.... This volume is essential for American literature collections." --Choice An edition of the primarily unpublished papers of Kate Chopin, author of the feminist classic The Awakening. These papers illuminate the growth of Chopin as a writer, reveal the reactions of critics to her work, and settle a number of controversies in Chopin studies.
Letters from the Dust Bowl by Caroline A. Henderson; Alvin O. Turner (Editor)In May 1936 Secretary of Agriculture Henry A. Wallace wrote to Caroline Henderson to praise her contributions to American "understanding of some of our farm problems." His comments reflected the national attention aroused by Henderson’s articles, which had been published in Atlantic Monthly since 1931. Even today, Henderson’s articles are frequently cited for her vivid descriptions of the dust storms that ravaged the Plains. Caroline Henderson was a Mount Holyoke graduate who moved to Oklahoma’s panhandle to homestead and teach in 1907. This collection of Henderson’s letters and articles published from 1908 to1966 presents an intimate portrait of a woman’s life in the Great Plains. Her writing mirrors her love of the land and the literature that sustained her as she struggled for survival. Alvin O. Turner has collected and edited Henderson’s published materials together with her private correspondence. Accompanying biographical sketch, chapter introductions, and annotations provide details on Henderson’s life and context for her frequent literary allusions and comments on contemporary issues.
The Portable Sixties Reader by Ann Charters (Editor)From civil rights to free love, JFK to LSD, Woodstock to the Moonwalk, the Sixties was a time of change, political unrest, and radical experiments in the arts, sexuality, and personal identity. In this anthology of more than one hundred selections of essays, poetry, and fiction by some of America's most gifted writers, Ann Charters sketches the unfolding of this most turbulent decade. The Portable Sixties Reader is organized into thematic chapters, from the Civil Rights movement to the Anti-Vietnam movement, the Free Speech movement, the Counterculture movement, drugs and the movement into Inner Space, the Beats and other fringe literary movements, the Black Arts movement, the Women's movement, and the Environmental movement. The concluding chapter, "Elegies for the Sixties," offers tributes to ten figures whose lives--and deaths--captured the spirit of the decade. Contributors include: Edward Abbey, Sherman Alexie, James Baldwin, Richard Brautigan, Lenny Bruce, Charles Bukowski, William Burroughs, Jim Carroll, Rachel Carson, Carlos Castenada, Bob Dylan, Betty Friedan, Nikki Giovanni, Michael Herr, Abbie Hoffman, Robert Hunter, Ken Kesey, Martin Luther King, Jr., Timothy Leary, Denise Levertov, Norman Mailer, Malcolm X, Country Joe McDonald, Kate Millet, Tim O'Brien, Sylvia Plath, Susan Sontag, Gloria Steinem, Hunter S. Thompson, Calvin Trillin, Alice Walker, Eudora Welty and more. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
ISBN: 0142001945
Pure Goldwater by John W. Dean; Barry M. GoldwaterBarry Goldwater is a defining figure in American public life, a firebrand politician associated with an optimistic brand of conservatism. In an era in which American conservatism has lost his way, his legacy is more important than ever. For over 50 years, in those moments when he was away from the political fray, Senator Goldwater kept a private journal, recording his reflections on a rich political and personal life. Here bestselling author John Dean combines analysis with Goldwater's own words. With unprecedented access to his correspondence, interviews, and behind-the-scenes conversations, Dean sheds new light on this political figure. From the late Senator's honest thoughts on Richard Nixon to his growing discomfort with the rise of the extreme right,Pure Goldwateroffers a revelatory look at an American icon--and also reminds us of a more hopeful alternative to the dispiriting political landscape of today.
ISBN: 9781403977410
Ravens in the storm : a personal history of the 1960s antiwar movement by Carl Oglesby"This beautifully written and elegiac memoir is rich in contemporary echoes as America once again must come to terms with an ill-conceived military adventure abroad. Carl Oglesby warns of the destructive frustrations of a peace campaign unable to achieve its goals. But above all, he captures the joyful liberation of joining together to take a stand for what is right and just - the soaring and swooping of a protest movement in full flight, like ravens in a storm."--BOOK JACKET.
Rosa Parks by Rosa Parks; Jim HaskinsRosa Parks is best known for the day she refused to give up her seat on a segregated bus, sparking the Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott. Yet there is much more to her story than this one act of defiance. In this straightforward, compelling autobiography, Rosa Parks talks candidly about the civil rights movement and her active role in it. Her dedication is inspiring; her story is unforgettable. "The simplicity and candor of this courageous woman's voice makes these compelling events even more moving and dramatic."--Publishers Weekly, starred review
The South since the War by Sidney Andrews; Heather Cox Richardson (Introduction by)Five months after the end of the Civil War, northern journalist Sidney Andrews toured the former Confederacy to report on the political, economic, and social conditions in the aftermath of the South's defeat. His more than forty articles in the Chicago Tribune and the Boston Advertiser were so popular with curious northerners that Andrews published them as a book in 1866. This new edition of that volume, abridged by Heather Cox Richardson, makes Andrews's vivid first-hand account of the South after the Civil War available once again to a wide audience. Despite his claims to neutrality, Andrews's writing reveals a bias against southern culture and society that was founded on a belief in the fundamental superiority of the North's free-labor economy. His harshest criticism is of southern whites, who, he warned, remained dangerously close to the idea of independence. Ultimately, Andrews concluded, thorough reconstruction of white southern attitudes was necessary before the southern states could be readmitted to the Union. Andrews first-hand picture of the postwar South is a true classic. This abridgement of The South since the War offers an excellent, accessible primary resource for scholars and students alike.
The voice of the people : primary sources on the history of American labor, industrial relations, and working-class culture by Jonathan Z. S. Pollack; Jonathan ReesThe first all-primary source reader in labor history published in nearly one hundred years, The Voice of the People presents excerpts from fifty-four primary sources to blend labor history's traditional focus on the growth of a union movement with windows into all aspects of workers lives-their workplaces, their unions, their home lives and their culture-the engaging selections mirroring the great diversity of the American workforce from the colonial era to the present. Arranged into four parts, each of which begins with an original overview of the corresponding period in American history, this unique compilation of edited documents-each of which is preceded by a contextual introduction-offers students the opportunity to explore for themselves how specific events as well as general trends in American labor history affected real people, whether farm laborers, slaves, servants, mill hands, prostitutes, assembly-line workers, office temps, fast-food employees, or union leaders. While its organization and diverse range make it an excellent companion to Harlan Davidson's popular Labor in America,* The Voice of the People can also stand alone or be used as an engaging supplement for any course in labor or United States history.
ISBN: 0882952250
Voices of freedom : a documentary history by Eric FonerThe freedom theme is explored in the words of well-known historical figures and ordinary Americans. Each document is accompanied by an introductory headnote and study questions.
Women and the National Experience : primary sources in American history by Ellen SkinnerThis brief, affordable primary source reader contains more than one hundred different sources that describe the history of women in the United States. Women and the National Experience, 2/e, is part of the Primary Sources in American History Series, which provides students with inexpensive collections of thought-provoking primary sources. Combining classic and unusual sources, this anthology explores the private voices and public lives of women throughout U.S. history, and also lets students experience what historians really do and how history is written.
ISBN: 0321005554
Women and the national experience : primary sources in American history. Volume 2 by Ellen SkinnerWomen and the National Experience, 3/e provides students with inexpensive collections of thought-provoking primary sources. Combining classic and unusual sources, this anthology explores the private voices and public lives of women throughout U.S. history, and also lets students experience what historians really do and how history is written.
ISBN: 9780205809349
Wounded Knee 1973 by Stanley David Lyman; Floyd A. O'Neil (Editor); June K. Lyman (Editor); Susan McKay (Editor); Alvin M. Josephy (Foreword by)Stanley Lyman, who was the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) superintendent at the Pine Ridge Reservation in 1973, gives an inside view of what happened when the American Indian Movement (AIM) activists occupied the village of Wounded Knee. Close to the action, he recorded it with unusual candor, directing his sorrow, frustration, and occasional anger to all parties involved--the Tribal Council, the Justice Department, the BIA, FBI, and AIM. His account of the besiegers and besieged reveals a well-meaning and intelligent man forced by dramatic events to reevaluate some long-cherished assumptions. It deserves to be read and studied in any attempt to understand fully Wounded Knee II.
ISBN: 0803279337
Speeches, Poetry, Music and more
Samples of resources
33 revolutions per minute : a history of protest songs, from Billie Holiday to Green Day by Dorian LynskeyFrom one of the most prominent music critics writing today, a page-turning and wonderfully researched history of protest music in the twentieth century and beyond Nowhere does pop music collide more dramatically with the wider world than in the protest song, which forces its way into the news and prompts conversations from Washington to Westminster. Rather than being merely a worthy adjunct to the business of pop, protest music is woven into its DNA. When you listen to Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder, Public Enemy, or the Clash, you are not sitting down to a dusty seminar; you are hearing pop music at its most thrillingly alive. 33 Revolutions Per Minute is the story of protest music told in 33 songs. An incisive history of a wide and shape-shifting genre, Dorian Lynskey's authoritative book takes us from the days of Billie Holliday crooning "Strange Fruit" before shocked audiences to Vietnam-era crowds voicing their resentment at the sounds of Bob Dylan to the fracas over the Dixie Chicks' comments against George W. Bush during the Iraq War. For anyone who enjoyed Alex Ross's The Rest is Noise, Bob Dylan's Chronicles, or Simon Reynolds' Rip It Up and Start Again, 33 Revolutions Per Minute is an absorbing and moving portrait of a century when music was the people's truest voice.
ISBN: 0061670154
The African American experience : black history and culture through speeches, letters, editorials, poems, songs, and stories by Kai Wright (Editor)This wide-ranging archive, capturing more than four centuries of African American history and culture in one essential volume, is at once poignant, painful, celebratory, and inspiring. The African American Experience is a one-of-a-kind and absolutely riveting collection of more than 300 letters, speeches, articles, petitions, poems, songs, and works of fiction tracing the course of black history in America from the first slaves brought over in the 16th century to the events of the present day. All aspects of African American history and daily life are represented here, from the days of abolition and the Civil War to the Civil Rights movement and the current times. Organized chronologically, here are writings from the great political leaders including Frederick Douglass, Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, Jesse Jackson, and Barack Obama; literary giants including Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, James Baldwin, and bell hooks; scholars such as Cornel West and Henry Louis Gates, Jr.; artists including Miles Davis, Billie Holiday, Wynton Marsalis, Run-DMC, the Sugar Hill Gang, and Chuck Berry; athletes such as Muhammad Ali and Jackie Robinson; and many more. A new introduction by Kai Wright provides overall context, and introductory material for each document delineates its significance and role in history. This edition features all new and updated material.
ISBN: 9781579127732
The Big aiiieeeee! : an anthology of Chinese American and Japanese American literature by Jeffrey P. Chan (Editor); Frank Chin (Editor); Lawson Fusao Inada (Editor); Shawn Wong (Editor); Jeffrey Paul Chan (Editor)An Anthology of Chinese American and Japanese American Literature When the first volume of this collection of Asian American literature appeared in 1974, it showed readers the roots and the richness of Chinese American and Japanese American writing. The authors called their anthology Aiiieeeee! because that was the shout, the scream, often the only sound coming from the yellow man or woman in American movies, television, or comic books. But as that work demonstrated, the Asian American writer, long ignored and excluded from participating in American culture, has an articulate and creative voice. The Big Aiiieeeee!--an entirely new and truly comprehensive collection--brings together the earliest writings to appear in America, such as the revealing An English-Chinese Phrase Book used by the first generation of Chinese immigrants, and recent stories and essays, such as "Come All Ye Asian American Writers" by Frank Chin, about the importance of Chinese and Japanese heroic tradition. Here we all can now learn of the pain, the dreams, the betrayals, and the indelible sense of "otherness" of Americans of Chinese and Japanese descent, in a seminal collection of poetry, prose, and drama--writings filled with rage and beauty, memory and vision. "Here is a Gold Mountain of voices. In the telling and retelling of our stories, we create a community of memory. This huge collection invites all of us to become listeners and to claim America."--Ronald Takai, author of Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans
Debating the 1960s : liberal, conservative, and radical perspectives by Michael W. Flamm; David SteigerwaldSummer Link Math Plus Reading is designed to be a fun way to help a child prepare for the grade ahead during the summer. Each 320-page book includes fun learning activities covering a range of topics in math and reading. The activities review skills from the previous grade and gradually increasing in difficulty to prepare a child for the grade ahead. Summer Link Math Plus Reading is designed for parents looking for a fun and affordable way to help their children stop the summer learning slide and prepare for the grade ahead during the 10 weeks of summer. The easy-to-use full-color activities review and extend essential skills and increase confidence at school. A Test Practice section at the end of each book provides tips and practice for standardized tests and will allow the child to review the topics covered. A skills checklist for parents, a recommended summer reading list, and an answer key are also included.
ISBN: 9780742522121
The Eyes on the Prize Civil Rights Reader by Clayborne Carson (Editor); David J. Garrow (Editor); Gerald Gill (Editor); Vincent Harding (Editor); Darlene Clark Hine (Editor); D. ClarThe most comprehensive anthology of primary sources available, spanning the entire history of the American civil rights movement. A record of one of the greatest and most turbulent movements of this century, The Eyes on the Prize Civil Rights Reader is essential for anyone interested in learning how far the American civil rights movements has come and how far it has to go. Included are the Supreme Court's Brown vs Board of Education decision in its entirety; speeches by Martin Luther King, Jr., and his famous "Letter from Birmingham City Jail"; an interview with Rosa Parks; selections from Malcolm X Speaks; Black Panther Bobby Seale's Seize the Time; Ralph Abernathy's controversial And the Walls Came Tumbling Down; a piece by Herman Badillo on the infamous Attica prison uprising; addresses by Harold Washington, Jesse Jackson, Nelson Mandel, and much more. "An important volume for students and professionals who wish to grasp the basic nature of the civil rights movement and how it changed America in fundamental ways." --Aldon Morris, Northwestern University
ISBN: 0140154035
Howl and Other Poems by Allen Ginsberg; William Carlos Williams (Introduction by)Allen Ginsberg'sHowl and Other Poems was originally published by City Lights Books in the Fall of 1956. Subsequently seized by U.S. customs and the San Francisco police, it was the subject of a long court trail at which a series of poets and professors persuaded the court that the book was not obscene. Howl & Other Poems is the single most influential poetic work of the post-World War II era, with over 1,000,000 copies now in print. "Howl was Allen's metamorphosis from quiet, brilliant, burning bohemian scholar trapped by his flames and repressions to epic vocal bard."--Michael McClure "It is the poet, Allen Ginsberg, who has gone, in his own body, through the horrifying experiences described from life in these pages." --William Carlos Williams "At the height of his bardic powers, Allen Ginsberg could terrify the authorities with the mere utterance of the syllable "om" as he led street throngs of citizens protesting the Vietnam War. Ginsberg reigned as the raucous poet of American hippiedom and as a literary pioneer whose freewheeling masterwork "Howl" prevailed against government censorship in a landmark obscenity trial 50 years ago." -- New York Times "Fifty years ago, on October 3, Judge Clayton Horn ruled that Allen Ginsberg's great epic Beat-era poem HOWL was not obscene but instead, a work of literary and social merit. This ruling allowed for the publication of HOWL and exonerated the poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who faced jail time and a fine 50 years ago for publishing 'HOWL.'" -- Pacifica.org Allen Ginsberg was born June 3, 1926, the son of Naomi Ginsberg, Russian émigré, and Louis Ginsberg, lyric poet and schoolteacher, in Paterson, New Jersey. To these facts Ginsberg adds: "High school in Paterson till 17, Columbia College, merchant marine, Texas and Denver copyboy, Times Square, amigos in jail, dishwashing, book reviews, Mexico City, market research, Satori in Harlem, Yucatan and Chiapas 1954, West Coast 3 years. Later Arctic Sea trip, Tangier, Venice, Amsterdam, Paris, read at Oxford Harvard Columbia Chicago, quit, wrote Kaddish 1959, made tape to leave behind & fade in Orient awhile. Carl Solomon to whom Howl is addressed, is a intuitive Bronx dadaist and prose-poet."
Lyrics, 1962-1985 by Bob DylanThe complete collection includes all of Dylan's writings and drawings plus 120 new writings. Index of song titles.
ISBN: 0394542789
Songs of Work and Protest by Edith Fowke; Joe GlazerNo other form could capture the history of the labor movement better than the songs sung in times both bitter and courageous by coal miners and textile workers, railroad men and steelworkers, farmers, seamen, and cow-hands as they worked to supply the nation's needs and as they worked to defeat political and industrial tyranny, child labor, hunger, poverty, and unemployment. This collection includes a hundred songs of the people, as they have been sung at one time or another on the workers' long road toward freedom and justice, together with the stories of the genuine situations from which they sprang. They are straight trade union songs and ditties; specific songs of miners, textile workers, steel, and railway workers and farmers; typical working songs of sailors, canalers, lumberjacks, and cowboys; songs of the hardships that working men and women have to face during times of depression; philosophic songs and ironic comments on the economic system; songs that grew out of the fight against slavery; and songs expressing the dreams of people of many lands throughout the ages. Often set to tunes of familiar folk songs, popular songs, and gospel hymns, these are the songs by which unions organized and which the members of each labor group sang out. They are songs sung to words by itinerant wanderers, unlettered farmers, and factory hands; songs by Joe Hill, Ralph Chaplin, Joe Glazer, Merle Traive, Woody Guthrie, the Almanac Singers; songs by famous poets such as Burns and Blake. Most of the songs are American in origin. A few, drawn from England, Scotland, Ireland, France, Germany, Israel, and the Philippines, remind us that the fight for freedom knows no boundaries. The songs are presented with simple piano accompaniments and guitar chords to encourage their use in group singing. The songs of work and the songs of protest are, in a very important sense, the songs of the New World, capturing the stirring sounds and deep emotions of people over hundreds of years on the march to build a better world. Whether you are looking for material for singing or whether you are looking for material on the struggles of the labor movement, there will be much in this important collection for song and for thought.