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Nineteenth-century American authors, critics, and readers believed that biography had the power to shape individuals' characters and to help define the nation's identity. In an age predating radio and television, biography was not simply a genre of writing, says Scott Casper; it was the medium that allowed people to learn about public figures and peer into the lives of strangers. In this pioneering study, Casper examines how Americans wrote, published, and read biographies and how their conceptions of the genre changed over the course of a century. Campaign biographies, memoirs of pious women, patriotic narratives of eminent statesmen, "mug books" that collected the lives of ordinary midwest...
CD-ROM contains: Digital image archive of books, magazines, manuscripts, technologies, and readers to accompany text.
Volume 3 of A History of the Book in America narrates the emergence of a national book trade in the nineteenth century, as changes in manufacturing, distribution, and publishing conditioned, and were conditioned by, the evolving practices of authors and readers. Chapters trace the ascent of the "industrial book--a manufactured product arising from the gradual adoption of new printing, binding, and illustration technologies and encompassing the profusion of nineteenth-century printed materials--which relied on nationwide networks of financing, transportation, and communication. In tandem with increasing educational opportunities and rising literacy rates, the industrial book encouraged new si...
Casper's candid account of Operation Continue Hope and the brigade's involvement in Somalia, showcases the leadership skills and courage necessary for troop survival under beleaguered circumstances.".
Mount Vernon, despite its importance as the estate of George Washington, is subject to the same threats of time as any property and has required considerable resources and organization to endure as a historic site and house. This book provides a window into the broad scope of preservation work undertaken at Mount Vernon over the course of more than 160 years and places this work within the context of America’s regional and national preservation efforts. It was at Mount Vernon, beginning with efforts in 1853, that the American tradition of historic preservation truly took hold. As the nation’s oldest historic house museum, Mount Vernon offers a unique opportunity to chronicle preservation...
To understand the aboriginal roots of lacrosse, one must enter a world of spiritual belief and magic where players sewed inchworms into the innards of lacrosse balls and medicine men gazed at miniature lacrosse sticks to predict future events, where bits of bat wings were twisted into the stick's netting, and where famous players were—and are still—buried with their sticks. Here Thomas Vennum brings this world to life.
THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Bestselling author of The Four and NYU Business School professor delivers an insightful, urgent analysis of who stands to win and who's at risk to lose in a post-pandemic world. 'Thought-provoking... As good an analysis as you could wish to read.' FINANCIAL TIMES _______________ The Covid-19 outbreak has turned bedrooms into offices, pitted young against old and widened the gaps between rich and poor, red and blue, the mask-wearers and the mask-haters. Some businesses, like Amazon and video conference software maker Zoom, woke up to find themselves crushed under an avalanche of consumer demand. Others, like the restaurant, travel, hospitality and live entertainm...
The Oxford History of the United States is by far the most respected multi-volume history of our nation. In this Pulitzer prize-winning, critically acclaimed addition to the series, historian Daniel Walker Howe illuminates the period from the battle of New Orleans to the end of the Mexican-American War, an era when the United States expanded to the Pacific and won control over the richest part of the North American continent. A panoramic narrative, What Hath God Wrought portrays revolutionary improvements in transportation and communications that accelerated the extension of the American empire. Railroads, canals, newspapers, and the telegraph dramatically lowered travel times and spurred th...
By the end of the nineteenth century, Ralph Waldo Emerson was well on his way to becoming the “Wisest American” and the “Sage of Concord,” a literary celebrity and a national icon. With that fame came what Robert Habich describes as a blandly sanctified version of Emerson held widely by the reading public. Building Their Own Waldos sets out to understand the dilemma faced by Emerson’s early biographers: how to represent a figure whose subversive individualism had been eclipsed by his celebrity, making him less a representative of his age than a caricature of it. Drawing on never-before-published letters, diaries, drafts, business records, and private documents, Habich explores the ...