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Understanding the history of Alexandria, Virginia is key to the early history of the United States. This throrough overview examines its long and storied history, from former colonial tobacco port to vibrant modern community. Alexandria has a long and storied past. Founded as a colonial tobacco port by English and Scottish merchants in 1749, the city prospered. It became the social and economic center of Northern Virginia and the upper Potomac region. When the nation's capital was established in 1791, Alexandria became a part of the District of Columbia. In 1833, a canal intended to increase tradeand revenue nearly bankrupted the city. By the time Alexandria retroceded to Virginia in 1847, it had lost its standing among maritime cities on the Eastern Seaboard. Notable residents have included politicians and military heroes, such as George Washington, Robert E. Lee, and Gerald R. Ford, as well as cultural icons Willard Scott and Jim Morrison. Today's Alexandria includes descendants of free and enslaved African Americans and the progeny of 18th- and 19th-century European immigrants who have joined with "new" Americans to create vibrant 21st-century communities.
In the fall of 1862 Julia Wilbur left her family's farm near Rochester, New York, and boarded a train to Washington DC. As an ardent abolitionist, the forty-seven-year-old Wilbur left a sad but stable life, headed toward the chaos of the Civil War, and spent most of the next several years in Alexandria devising ways to aid recently escaped slaves and hospitalized Union soldiers. A Civil Life in an Uncivil Time shapes Wilbur's diaries and other primary sources into a historical narrative sending the reader back 150 years to understand a woman who was alternately brave, self-pitying, foresighted, petty--and all too human. Paula Tarnapol Whitacre describes Wilbur's experiences against the backd...
Follow the electrifying footprints of my family through 400 years of American history. The scope and vision of the Godfrey family, is one of maritime history, fortune seeking and western expansion. With an aura of mystique, they were visionaries and dreamers. From high seas adventure, to colonial settlement, slave trading, pioneer exploration, to Civil War heroics, mountain climbing, Forty-Niner's Gold Rush, famous Indian fighters to establishing educational and church policy, the Godfrey legacy is varied, robust and compelling. Their incredible story; unsanitized, tainted with blemishes, scars and harsh realities of life, is revealed for the first time. This book may appeal to family researchers, genealogists, historical societies and libraries.
Newly annotated by a noted historian, “transforming an important book into a vital foundational document on the inner life of the doomed Confederacy” (William C. Davis, author of Lincoln’s Men: How President Lincoln Became Father to an Army and a Nation). Judith Brockenbrough McGuire’s Diary of a Southern Refugee During the War is among the first of such works published after the Civil War. Although it is one of the most-quoted memoirs by a Confederate woman, James I. Robertson’s edition is the first to present vital details not given in the original text. His meticulous annotations furnish references for poems and quotations, supply the names of individuals whom McGuire identifies...
This story of the young city of Washington coming up in the international scene is populated with presidents, foreign diplomats, civil servants, architects, artists, and influential hosts and hostesses who were enamored of the idea of world power but had little idea of the responsibilities involved. Between the Spanish American War and World War I, the thrill of America's new international role held the nation's capital in rapture. Visionaries gravitated to Washington and sought to make it the glorious equal to the great European capitals of the day. Remains of the period still define Washington--the monuments and great civic buildings on the Mall as well as the private mansions built on the...
Volume 1 - Lyons to Mulberry During the 1800's, the area along and between the East and West Navidad Rivers in Texas was known as the Navidad Country. A majority of the pioneers came from the Old South, some arriving with Stephen F. Austin's Old Three Hundred. Once settled, they proceeded to clear the land, till the soil and build homes and towns. The aftermath of the Civil War brought great change and loss to these once prosperous people. Information and photographs for over 100 of the families and their relationships is made available for the first time, in addition to descriptive accounts of the once thriving towns of the area.
The Alexandria Library Company describes a rare American library in Virginia and the booklovers associated with it through two centuries. Historian William Seale presents the story--through good times and bad--of this historic library company, which has been in business since 1794. Sponsored by the Company, the book is documented from the shelves and boxes of early manuscripts that chronicle the history of the organization.The focus of The Alexandria Library Company in the illustrations and the text is on the surviving books of the Alexandria Library Company, some 1,800 volumes, many of which were published in the eighteenth century. At least one volume came from the library of George Washin...
People with only a slight interest in history will enjoy these fascinating, short and easy to understand stories. Serious history buffs will like these lesser-known episodes, not the stories we've heard a million times. For example: try to find anyone who knows about the attempted slave insurrection in Fairfax County, Virginia. With Mary Lincoln's spending habits, who knew that Abraham Lincoln actually saved an enormous percentage of his presidential salary? A slave honored in Virginia with a monument; the history of Lee Highway which 'opened' with great fanfare in 1923 as a 3,000 mile road from Washington, DC to San Diego; a story about the Little River Turnpike, the second oldest turnpike ...
The first volume in this comprehensive history of Virginia during the Civil War examines the early phases of secession, struggle and conflict. Several Southern states preceded Virginia in seceding from the Union, but until Virginia joined them in April 1861, the Confederacy lacked cohesion. Richmond was immediately named the capital of the fledgling nation. By the end of spring, Virginia had become the primary political and military theater of the Civil War. The first in a series of five volumes examining Virginia’s years as a Confederate state, Virginia at War, 1861, vividly portrays the process of secession, the early phases of conflict, and the struggles of ordinary Virginians to weathe...
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