Excelsior Editions
Format
Format
User Rating
User Rating
Release Date
Release Date
Date Added
Date Added
Language
Language
ebook
(0)
Cyrenius Chapin
Buffalo's First Physician And War Of 1812 Hero
by Thomas C. Rosenthal
Part of the Excelsior Editions series
Cyrenius Chapin tells the story of life in the young American republic through the experiences of a local physician, land speculator, and patriotic citizen. Chapin arrived in Buffalo in 1803 blessed with a forceful personality, infuriating gall, and a caring nature. He became a leader in the growing community, tending to its sick, training its future doctors, and engaging in local politics. A determined Federalist, he challenged Joseph Ellicott of the Holland Land Company, raised a family, and was a personal friend of Native American leaders. During the War of 1812, Dr. Chapin single-handedly resisted the British advance on the city but ultimately failed to prevent Buffalo's burning by the royalist forces. Pneumonia struck him down in 1838 following his third attempt to drive the British out of upper Canada. Extensively researched, this is the story about the age of revolution and a time when American independence and self-determination were inseparable.
ebook
(0)
The Art of the Watchdog
Fighting Fraud, Waste, Abuse, and Corruption in Government
by Daniel L. Feldman
Part of the Excelsior Editions series
Expert advice on how any citizen can fight government fraud, waste, abuse, and corruption.
In The Art of the Watchdog, Daniel L. Feldman and David R. Eichenthal show how to fight back. Based on their own work in federal, state, and local government over the last forty years, they will arm you with the tools and techniques needed to put the spotlight on those who cheat and steal from the public or who squander valuable taxpayer dollars through waste and inefficiency. At the same time, Feldman and Eichenthal outline what they see as the good and the bad of current oversight efforts based on case studies from across the nation. Ultimately, their goal is to ensure that the "art of the watchdog" does not become a lost one and to improve the quality and integrity of government and strengthen democracy.
ebook
(0)
Revolutionary New York
250 Years Of Social Change
by Various Authors
Part of the Excelsior Editions series
How New York State has led the way in expanding freedom for all over the last 250 years.
Revolutionary New York celebrates the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution and the many historical changes that have occurred since, as reflected through the history of the state. This book explores "unfinished revolutions" in the Empire State: the two-and-a-half century struggle to realize the revolution's ideals and bring increased freedom and opportunities to previously marginalized populations. The book presents the pageant of revolutionary New York through sixteen historical stories about conflict, change, and turning points. From the initial settlement of the region through the state's first constitution, through struggles for civil and equal rights, women's rights and gay rights, through innovations in industry and commerce, to the crises 9/11 and COVID, New York has charted its own course. It has often led the nation toward expanding its peoples' rights. These are inspirational, against-the-odds stories where a determined individual or a group struggled against the status quo to improve social conditions, move toward equality, or effect social justice. Most are about ordinary New Yorkers who rose to the occasion in their time and achieved extraordinary results. And though drawn from over 250 years of history, these stories resonate today, where some of the same issues linger, though in different form. New York seems to be always undertaking, in the midst of, or finishing some sort of revolution. Restless New Yorkers rarely accept the status quo but rather are inclined to alter the state of affairs to (hopefully) make things better. In New York, the revolution never ends.
ebook
(0)
Progressives on the Hudson
Their Impact On New York State Politics And Policy
by Michael A. Armato
Part of the Excelsior Editions series
Chronicles the civic endeavors of progressive political activists in New York's Hudson Valley.
Drawing on riveting firsthand accounts, Progressives on the Hudson highlights the influence of progressives in campaigns and elections, political parties, nongovernmental organizations, and the policy arena. Michael A. Armato explores these activities in the context of structural factors unique to the state of New York. Beyond simply serving as a study of one of New York's most historic regions, Armato shows that progressive civic engagement is not confined to America's largest cities. And, even more broadly, he provides readers with an in-depth discussion of progressive political ideology and illustrates that while progressives share some common ideas, they are by no means a monolith. Offering readers a rich description of civic life in the Hudson Valley, as told by progressive activists, and supplemented by local news sources and primary documents, Progressives on the Hudson skillfully contributes to our understanding of civic engagement and political ideology.
ebook
(0)
The Truth and Legend of Lily Martindale
An Adirondack Novel
by Mary Sanders Shartle
Part of the Excelsior Editions series
When a successful New Yorker returns to her birthplace in the Adirondack Mountains to escape her publicly tragic life, she begins to find peace for the first time since she was five years old. Hired as a caretaker for an Adirondack Great Camp, she spends over ten years living alone. But Lily Martindale's days as a recluse are plagued by a secret which aggravates her fragile state of mind. On a winter day in the 1990s, deep in the mountains, she opens fire on a military flyover. Lily, once again, is a person of interest in the press, to the public, and now to the FBI-not an enviable position for a hermit. The Adirondack hamlet of Winslow Station is transformed by the unexpected return of its solitary prodigal child. She is driven to confront her own isolation, years of sadness, and her deteriorating health. She also finds something, and someone, she never expected to see again.
Mary Sanders Shartle is a writer and poet. She teaches writing workshops in the Albany, Saratoga, and Adirondack areas.
ebook
(0)
The Last Amateur
The Life of William J. Stillman
by Stephen L. Dyson
Part of the Excelsior Editions series
The authoritative biography of a nineteenth-century polymath.
This fascinating biography tells the story of William J. Stillman (1828—1901), a nineteenth-century polymath. Born and raised in Schenectady, New York, Stillman attended Union College and began his career as a Hudson River School painter after an apprenticeship with Frederic Edwin Church. In the 1850s, he was editor of The Crayon, the most important journal of art criticism in antebellum America. Later, after a stint as an explorer-promoter of the Adirondacks, he became the American consul in Rome during the Civil War. When his diplomatic career brought him to Crete, he developed an interest in archaeology and later produced photographs of the Acropolis, for which he is best known today. In yet another career switch, Stillman became a journalist, serving as a correspondent for The Times of London in Rome and the Balkans. In 1871, he married his second wife, Marie Spartali, a Pre-Raphaelite painter, and continued to write about history and art until his death. One of the later products of the American Enlightenment, he lived a life that intersected with many strands of American and European culture. Stillman can indeed be called "the last amateur."
ebook
(0)
The Full Pomegranate
Poems of Avrom Sutzkever
by Avrom Sutzkever
Part of the Excelsior Editions series
Translations of selected poems by the Yiddish writer, covering the entire breadth of his career.
Yiddish writer Avrom Sutzkever (1913–2010) was described by the New York Times as "the greatest poet of the Holocaust." Born in present-day Belarus, Sutzkever spent his childhood as a war refugee in Siberia, returned to Poland to participate in the interwar flourishing of Yiddish culture, was confined to the Vilna ghetto during the Nazi occupation, escaped to join the Jewish partisans, and settled in the new state of Israel after the war. Personal and political, mystical and national, his body of work, including more than two dozen volumes of poetry, several of stories, and a memoir, demonstrated the ways in which Yiddish creativity simultaneously balanced the imperatives of mourning and revival after the Holocaust. In The Full Pomegranate, Richard J. Fein selects and translates some of Sutzkever's best poems covering the full breadth of his career. Fein's translations appear alongside the original Yiddish, while an introduction by Justin Cammy situates Sutzkever in both historical and literary context.
Richard J. Fein is Professor Emeritus of English at the State University of New York at New Paltz and the author, editor, and translator of many books, including With Everything We've Got: A Personal Anthology of Yiddish Poetry.
ebook
(0)
Jazz With a Beat
Small Group Swing, 1940–1960
by Tad Richards
Part of the Excelsior Editions series
“Jazz with a Beat” is the first book on the often overlooked but vitally important genre of small group swing jazz. Coming into being in the early 1940s, small group swing answered the need in the Black community for a form of jazz that was more accessible (and more danceable) than the new bebop. An adaptation of the big band Black swing (Erskine Hawkins, Jimmie Lunceford, Chick Webb) of the 1930s to small combos, and with a more vigorous beat for the new generation, this music developed and was beloved through the 1940s, continued to be enjoyed through the rock and roll years of the 1950s, and was a major influence on the soul jazz of the 1960s. Among the many hit artists portrayed in its pages are Illinois Jacquet, Louis Jordan, Big Jay McNeely, Joe Liggins, Nat "King" Cole, Red Prysock, Ruth Brown, Nellie Lutcher, Camille Howard, T-Bone Walker, and Ray Charles. Dismissed as "rhythm and blues," this music has been ignored by jazz historians. Jazz with a Beat honors this music as a legitimate genre of jazz and is a stirring evocation of an era. It should be of interest to lovers of jazz and Americana.
ebook
(0)
New York
A Sketch of the City's Social, Political, and Commercial Progress from the First Dutch Settlement to
by Theodore Roosevelt
Part of the Excelsior Editions series
Theodore Roosevelt's New York, published in 1891, was one of forty titles he authored during his lifetime. Roosevelt sets out, as he declares in his preface, "to trace the causes which gradually changed a little Dutch trading-hamlet into a huge American city." New York admirably accomplishes this objective. Proceeding chronologically, Roosevelt maintains control of his concise narrative throughout, recounting events clearly while continually providing well-considered and enlightening analysis. In suitable places-without disrupting the narrative-Roosevelt offers the reader his perspectives on a variety of broader topics, including his admiration for leaders who combine boldness with wisdom and moderation and his perceptive outlook on the frequent lack of connection between wealth accumulation and good character and meaningful living. While Roosevelt's own time as an exemplary top-level "man in the arena" was still years away, in this revealing and engaging book about his native city by a historian then in his early thirties, there are glimpses of the mindset and temperament of the world-historical leader who was to preside over the government of the United States from 1901 to 1909-yet another reason why Roosevelt's classic book New York remains well worth reading.
ebook
(0)
Growing Up Roosevelt
A Granddaughter's Memoir of Eleanor Roosevelt
by Nina Roosevelt Gibson
Part of the Excelsior Editions series
When Nina Roosevelt was just seven years old, her family moved from California to live with her grandmother at the small cottage, Val-Kill, in Hyde Park, New York. It was at Val-Kill Farm that Nina shared her childhood years with her remarkable grandmother, the woman who would change her life. To Nina, she was Grandmère, but, to most everyone else, she was Eleanor Roosevelt. Few people realize how important Val-Kill was for Eleanor Roosevelt. Returning "home again" nourished her, allowed her time for reflection, planning, and rejuvenation so that she could continue pouring her heart and soul into the needs of so many people the world over.
Growing Up Roosevelt gives an intimate picture of life at Val-Kill as well as Nina's wide-ranging experiences traveling as a teenager with her grandmother. Included are portraits of the family, staff, famous friends, people in need, and world leaders as disparate as Nikita Khrushchev, Haile Selassie, and John F. Kennedy. This book will appeal to anyone interested in the life and times of Eleanor Roosevelt, her work as a trailblazing political and feminist leader, and the intimate behind-the-scenes details that only her granddaughter can tell.
ebook
(0)
The Life and Death of Buffalo's Great Northern Grain Elevator
1897-2023
by Bruce Jackson
Part of the Excelsior Editions series
Archer Daniels Midland got lucky the night of December 11, 2021: a fierce winter wind took out a third of the brick wall of Buffalo's Great Northern Grain Elevator. ADM had wanted to demolish the building since 1993, but each of its demolition requests to the city had been blocked. Six days after the storm, with no public hearings, the building was condemned. A unique piece of Buffalo's economic and global architectural history was gone.
Grain elevators are part of Buffalo's-and the nation's-architectural heritage. Unlike earlier wooden structures, the Great Northern was made of steel; it was fireproof. The steel bins kept the grain dry and the rats out. The entire steel structure was riveted and bolted into a single entity. The Great Northern couldn't burn down or blow up; it couldn't be knocked down, and it was incapable of falling down. When the Great Northern was completed seven months after the shovels broke ground, it was the largest grain elevator in the world. It was built to last, and last it did until the eight-month task of tearing it apart began on September 16, 2022.
Photographer and activist Bruce Jackson documents the story of this key architectural landmark through text, documents, and his own photographs taken over a period of several decades to tell this tragic story that will appeal to anyone interested in the history and preservation of America's industrial culture.
ebook
(0)
Ducktails, Drive-ins, and Broken Hearts
An Unsweetened Look at '50s Music
by Hank Davis
Part of the Excelsior Editions series
They all tried, but few singers and musicians from the 1950s became stars. Yet many of them had stories to tell that were far more interesting than the ones you already know. Author Hank Davis was bitten by the music bug as a teenager. By the time he entered college in 1959, he was no stranger to New York's recording studios and had a few 45s of his own on the market.
Spanning a 45 year career in music journalism, Davis has spent time backstage, in motel rooms, and on tour buses to uncover stories that rarely made the official annals of pop music history. Based on hundreds of hours of interviews and new research, Ducktails, Drive-Ins, and Broken Hearts offers a fascinating, behind-the-scenes look at the winners and losers during rock 'n' roll's formative era.
How did a decade as uptight and puritanical as the '50s produce so much cringe-worthy, politically incorrect music? What was it like to see a pale cover version of your latest record climb the charts while yours sat unplayed by mainstream radio stations? How did precious Elvis tapes end up in a Memphis landfill? And who was that thirteen-year-old girl who made a five-dollar vanity record at Sun just two years after Elvis had-and ended up singing backup on "Suspicious Minds" and "In the Ghetto?" This book is a must-read for all fans of '50s music.
In the words of Jerry Phillips, son of Sun Records founder, Sam Phillips, "Hank Davis is one of the few guys who really gets it."
ebook
(0)
Made in New York
25 Innovators Who Shaped Our World
by Frank Vizard
Part of the Excelsior Editions series
When singer Frank Sinatra famously crooned about New York, "If I can make it there, I'll make it anywhere," he could have been talking about New York's great inventors whose works have travelled across the globe. New York has been a hotbed of innovation since its founding. Made in New York tells the stories behind the innovators and their inventions. Like many New Yorkers, some came from elsewhere to find success in their new home. Some became famous; others struggled for recognition. All were visionaries and risk-takers who were willing to put their lives on the line if necessary. From the first brassiere to the life-saving pacemaker, and from a solar lantern to the first mass-produced cameras, New York has been the seedbed of life-changing technologies that have altered how we live. Made in New York celebrates these compelling stories.
ebook
(0)
Ways of the Hand
A Photographer's Memoir
by Bruce Jackson
Part of the Excelsior Editions series
Rocker Rod Stewart, Jackson says, had it wrong when he titled his breakthrough album Every Picture Tells a Story. Pictures don't tell stories-but many of them call to mind stories or have stories about their making.
Throughout his sixty-year career as folklorist, ethnographer, criminologist, filmmaker, and journalist, Bruce Jackson has taken photographs of family, friends, people he worked with, people he studied, and people he encountered. Ways of the Hand includes 112 of his favorite portraits, portraits in which the hands are often as expressive as the faces. In six sections, Jackson shares photographs of notable musicians, political figures, activists, actors, artists, and writers. These portraits are accompanied by stories of how and where they were taken and the stories they invoke or reflect. The result is a stunning visual and narrative memoir of a lifetime of encounters.
ebook
(0)
A Most Glorious Ride
The Diaries of Theodore Roosevelt, 1877-1886
by Various Authors
Part of the Excelsior Editions series
Encompasses key years and important events in Theodore Roosevelt's early life and career.
A Most Glorious Ride presents the complete diaries of Theodore Roosevelt from 1877 to 1886. Covering the formative years of his life, Roosevelt's entries show the transformation of a sickly and solitary Harvard freshman into a confident and increasingly robust young adult. He writes about his grief over the premature death of his father, his courtship and marriage to his first wife, Alice Hathaway Lee, and later the death of Alice and his mother on the same day. The diaries chronicle his burgeoning political career in New York City and his election to the New York State Assembly. With his descriptions of balls, dinner parties, and nights at the opera, they offer a glimpse into life among the Gilded Age elite in Boston and New York. They also recount Roosevelt's first birding and hunting trips to the Adirondacks, the Maine woods, and the American West. Ending with Roosevelt's secret engagement to his second wife, Edith Kermit Carow, A Most Glorious Ride provides an intimate look into the life of the man who would become America's twenty-sixth president.
Brought together for the first time in a single volume, the diaries have been meticulously transcribed, annotated, and introduced by Edward P. Kohn. Twenty-four black-and-white photographs are also included.
ebook
(3)
Bob Dylan's New York
A Historic Guide
by Dick Weissman
Part of the Excelsior Editions series
Bob Dylan's New York is a guidebook and a history of New York's key role through Dylan's lengthy career. It places Dylan's early career in the storied history of Greenwich Village, a hotbed of new developments in the arts. A contemporary of Dylan's, author Dick Weissman walked the same streets, played music in the same venues, and witnessed the growth of the folk music revival from before Dylan became popular to after the height of his impact on the music scene. The book features ten easy-to-follow walking maps and historic photographs, allowing the reader to retrace Dylan's footsteps and simultaneously experience Dylan's New York and contemporary New York. It also goes beyond the Village to include the many areas of the city where Dylan lived and worked, as well as the storied time he spent in Woodstock. Combining cultural history with personal history and anecdotes, Bob Dylan's New York illuminates the life and times of this seminal artist.
ebook
(0)
Listening to Prestige
Chronicling Its Classic Jazz Recordings, 1949–1972
by Tad Richards
Part of the Excelsior Editions series
A complete chronicle of one of the greatest postwar jazz labels.
Founded by jazz enthusiast Bob Weinstock, Prestige Records recorded the leading jazz artists of its day, many of whom were at or approaching their creative peak, from its inception in 1949 until 1972. It documented the changing jazz styles as they emerged, from bebop and post-bop, to third stream, hardbop, free jazz, and soul jazz, while honoring the previous generation of jazz musicians. Prestige was also among the first labels to work with recording engineer Rudy Van Gelder, who revolutionized the way jazz was recorded. The 1950s were a growth era for jazz, as modern jazz came to be accepted as part of mainstream American music. Prestige captured the leading artists of the era, including the Modern Jazz Quartet, Thelonious Monk, Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane, and especially Miles Davis, all of whom did some of their most important work for the label in this period. The 1960s saw an exciting and challenging new avant-garde, making the music that came to be known as "free jazz," epitomized by leading Prestige artists Eric Dolphy and Booker Ervin. Other musicians looked back to their roots, developing the earthy, danceable style called soul jazz or jazz funk. Prestige became the epicenter of this new sound, thanks to artists such as Gene Ammons, Shirley Scott, Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, Brother Jack McDuff, and George Benson. Listening to Prestige presents the author's lifelong enthusiasm for the label and takes a deep dive into Prestige's impressive catalog, documenting the key artists who shaped postwar American jazz.
ebook
(0)
Get Your Ass in the Water and Swim Like Me
African American Narrative Poetry from Oral Tradition
by Bruce Jackson
Part of the Excelsior Editions series
The classic work on African American toasts, the predecessor of rap.
“Get Your Ass in the Water and Swim Like Me” celebrates the African American oral tradition of toasting, one of the key roots of contemporary rap. Jackson was among the few to appreciate the profane energy and beauty of this rhymed form, collecting such classic toasts as "Stackolee," "The Titanic," "Signifying Monkey," "Dance of the Freaks," and dozens more. This unexpurgated edition offers the raw, vibrant, and still startling imagery of these toasts shaped by decades of oral transmission through the voices of countless rhymers. Just like rap, the toasting tradition enabled previously unheard or stifled topics, including racism, sexual exploitation, economic deprivation, and social oppression, to be expressed in a form that embodied multiple layers of meaning. Jackson helped preserve a rapidly dying art form to ensure that it would be available for many generations to come
ebook
(0)
Sharkey
When Sea Lions Were Stars of Show Business (1907-1958)
by Gary Bohan
Part of the Excelsior Editions series
Sharkey is the natural artist, performing his magic for nothing but love.-Wolcott Gibbs, the New Yorker
Sharkey tells the compelling story of an unusually gifted, trained sea lion who shared the stage with practically every important performer of the first half of the twentieth century-from Bob Hope to Ella Fitzgerald, from Broadway to Hollywood and beyond. Readers follow Sharkey and his flippered colleagues as they travel the world with stops at the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, vaudeville houses, Manhattan during the Harlem Renaissance, burlesque nightclubs, movie palaces, Radio City Music Hall, and the legendary studios of early radio, movies, and television, meeting a who's who of showbiz entertainers, sports superstars, and even a US president. Meticulously researched and lavishly illustrated, Sharkey is a quirky slice of New York and entertainment history sure to delight fans of vintage pop culture and Americana, as well as animal lovers.
ebook
(0)
The Spirit of New York
Defining Events in the Empire State's History
by Bruce W. Dearstyne
Part of the Excelsior Editions series
In this lively and engaging book, Bruce W. Dearstyne presents New York state history through an exploration of nineteen dramatic events. From the launch of the state government in April 1777 through the debut of the musical play Hamilton in 2015, Dearstyne puts the fascinating people who made history at the center of the story: John Jay, the lead writer of the first state constitution; Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the irrepressible crusader for women's rights; Glenn Curtiss, New York's aviation pioneer; Jackie Robinson, the first Black man to play baseball for the Brooklyn Dodgers; and Lois Gibbs, an environmental activist. This new edition is updated with four recent significant events, including the stories of New Yorkers who joined the "Occupy" protests and those who struggled through Superstorm Sandy. The stories in this book illustrate the "spirit" of New York-the elusive traits that make New York State unique-and the complexity of its history.
ebook
(0)
Knickerbocker Commodore
The Life and Times of John Drake Sloat, 1781-1867
by Bruce A. Castleman
Part of the Excelsior Editions series
Knickerbocker Commodore chronicles the life of Rear Admiral John Drake Sloat, an important but understudied naval figure in US history. Born and raised by a slave-owning gentry family in New York's Hudson Valley, Sloat moved to New York City at age nineteen. Bruce A. Castleman explores Sloat's forty-five-year career in the Navy, from his initial appointment as midshipman in the conflicts with revolutionary France to his service as commodore during the country's war with Mexico. As the commodore in command of the naval forces in the Pacific, Sloat occupied Monterey and declared the annexation of California in July 1846, controversial actions criticized by some and defended by others. More than a biography of one man, this book illustrates the evolution of the peacetime Navy as an institution and its conversion from sail to steam. Using shipping news and Customs Service records from Sloat's merchant voyages, Castleman offers a rare and insightful perspective on American maritime history.
ebook
(0)
Lichen Tufts, From the Alleghanies
by Elizabeth C. Wright
Part of the Excelsior Editions series
In her 1860 book Lichen Tufts, from the Alleghanies, Elizabeth C. Wright weaves together environmental philosophy, lyrical nature writing, and social consciousness. A graduate of Alfred University, Wright was an activist for women's rights, temperance, and the abolition of slavery. She was a teacher, a botanist, and, later in life, a Kansas homesteader. In Lichen Tufts, Wright urged her readers to cultivate an intimate knowledge of the natural world, reflecting her Transcendentalist belief that an immersive relationship with nature benefits the individual as well as society as a whole. Composed of four essays and forty poems, Lichen Tufts reveals wisdom and beauty in an early example of eco-feminism that highlights the natural world as antidote to society's restrictive gender codes, one that is still relevant today.
SUNY Press brings Lichen Tufts, from the Alleghanies to life for modern audiences, with a recovery edition featuring the 1860 book in its entirety. An Introduction by Emily E. VanDette places the book and its author in the context of nineteenth-century social reform campaigns throughout the "Burned Over District" of western New York. An Afterword written by Laurie Lounsberry Meehan highlights the history of Alfred University and the cohort that influenced Wright's environmental and social reform activism.
ebook
(0)
The Affair of the Veiled Murderess
An Antebellum Scandal and Mystery
by Jeanne Winston Adler
Part of the Excelsior Editions series
An account of a mysterious murder committed in nineteenth-century Troy, New York, and the sensational trial that ensued.
Troy, New York, 1853. Two Irish immigrants-a man and a woman-die shortly after drinking beer poured by a neighbor. Was it poisoned? And if so, was their slayer the beautiful mistress of an important Democratic politician? Many Trojans soon answer yes to both questions, but others question the guilt of the glamorous accused. Rumored to be the once-respectable Miss Charlotte Wood, a former student at Emma Willard's elite Troy Female Seminary and the runaway wife of a British lord, her identity remains in doubt, and the air of mystery is only heightened by her decision to remain hidden behind a veil during her trial, which earns her the nickname "The Veiled Murderess." As the affair widens to include the antebellum social and political worlds of Troy and Albany, the blossoming scandal threatens important people on both sides of the Atlantic.
Drawing on newspapers, court documents, and other records of the time, Jeanne Winston Adler attempts to come to an understanding of the truth behind the strange affair of the veiled murderess. In the process, she addresses a number of topics important to our understanding of nineteenth-century life in New York State, including the changing roles of women, the marginal position of the Irish, and the contentious political firmament of the time.
ebook
(1)
The Untold Story of Champ
A Social History of America's Loch Ness Monster
by Robert E. Bartholomew
Part of the Excelsior Editions series
The definitive account of a Lake Champlain legend.
"The lake surface was glass. My girlfriend and I were fishing from our anchored rowboat in about fifteen feet of water, facing the New York shore. 'Ron, what's that?' I turned. About thirty feet away I saw three dark humps ... protruding about two feet above the surface. The humps were perhaps two or three feet apart. They didn't move. We didn't either. We watched in disbelief for about ten seconds. The humps slowly sank into the water. There was no wake, no telltale sign of movement. Unexplained. Eerie. Unsettling." - from the Foreword by Ronald S. Kermani
Scotland may have Nessie, the Loch Ness Monster, but we have Champ, the legendary serpent-like monster of Lake Champlain. The first recorded sighting of Champ, in 1609, has been attributed to the lake's namesake, French explorer and cartographer Samuel de Champlain. This is pure myth, but there have been hundreds of sightings since then. Robert E. Bartholomew embarks on his own search, both of the lake firsthand and through period sources and archives-many never before published. Although he finds the trail obscured by sloppy journalism, local leaders motivated by tourism income, and bickering monster hunters, he weighs the evidence to craft a rich, colorful history of Champ. From the nineteenth century, when Champ was a household name, to 1977, when he appeared in Sandra Mansi's controversial photograph, Bartholomew covers it all. Real or imaginary, Champ and his story will fascinate believers and skeptics alike.
ebook
(0)
Inside Ocean Hill–Brownsville
A Teacher's Education, 1968-69
by Charles S. Isaacs
Part of the Excelsior Editions series
The story of an Ocean Hill—Brownsville teacher who crossed picket lines during the racially charged New York City teachers' strike of 1968.
In 1968 the conflict that erupted over community control of the New York City public schools was centered in the black and Puerto Rican community of Ocean Hill—Brownsville. It triggered what remains the longest teachers' strike in US history. That clash, between the city's communities of color and the white, predominantly Jewish teachers' union, paralyzed the nation's largest school system, undermined the city's economy, and heightened racial tensions, ultimately transforming the national conversation about race relations.
At age twenty-two, when the strike was imminent, Charles S. Isaacs abandoned his full scholarship to a prestigious law school to teach mathematics in Ocean Hill—Brownsville. Despite his Jewish background and pro-union leanings, Isaacs crossed picket lines manned by teachers who looked like him, and took the side of parents and children who did not. He now tells the story of this conflict, not only from inside the experimental, community-controlled Ocean Hill—Brownsville district, its focal point, but from within ground zero itself: Junior High School 271, which became the nation's most famous, or infamous, public school. Isaacs brings to life the innovative teaching practices that community control made possible, and the relationships that developed in the district among its white teachers and its black and Puerto Rican parents, teachers, and community activists.
ebook
(0)
The Sadness of Antonioni
A Novel
by Frank Lentricchia
Part of the Excelsior Editions series
An American adventure in the Antonioni vein-visually rich and emotionally mysterious.
Part Mafia murder mystery, part novel of ideas, but most of all a love story, The Sadness of Antonioni follows Hank Morelli, a young assistant professor of film who is obsessed with Antonioni's L'Avventura. As he embarks on an unlikely romance with a Wendy's cashier, he is also drawn into the mystery of his grandfather's underworld connections and tempted by his department chair and his department chair's mysterious girlfriend, Nadia, to take part in a monstrous film project they are planning. Haunted throughout by the terror of time's raw present without exit, The Sadness of Antonioni is an American adventure in the Antonioni vein-visually rich and emotionally mysterious-in which an unlikely young couple navigates the difficult waters of their relationship, each suffering the remnants of a violent past that must be resolved if they hope to stay together.
ebook
(0)
Failed State
Dysfunction and Corruption in an American Statehouse
by Seymour P. Lachman
Part of the Excelsior Editions series
Shines a light on the dark corners of New York's legislature and points the way to much-needed reform.
Failed State is both an original account of a state legislature in urgent need of reform and a call to action for those who would fix it. Drawing on his experiences both in and out of state government, former New York State senator Seymour P. Lachman reveals and explores Albany's hush-hush, top-down processes, illuminating the hidden, secretive corners where the state assembly and state senate conduct the people's business and spend public money. Part memoir and part exposé, Failed State is a revision of and follow-up to Three Men in a Room, published in 2006. The focus of the original book was the injury to democratic governance that arises when three individuals-governor, senate majority leader, and assembly speaker-tightly control one of the country's largest and most powerful state governments. Expanding on events that have occurred in the decade since the original book's publication, Failed State shows how this scenario has given way to widespread corruption, among them the convictions of two men in the room-the senate and assembly leaders-as well as a number of other state lawmakers. All chapters have been revised and expanded, new chapters have been added, and the final chapter charts a path to durable reform that would change New York's state government from its present-day status as a national disgrace to a model of transparent, more effective state politics and governance.
ebook
(0)
Going the Distance
A Novel
by Michael Joyce
Part of the Excelsior Editions series
His major league baseball dreams dashed, a former pitcher returns home to make a life or death family decision.
Going the Distance is a baseball novel with a difference; a multilayered love story, a celebration of both America's game and the New York landscape. John "Jack" Flynn was a major league pitcher with all-star promise. But on the day of the 1979 All-Star game, he finds himself back in the North Country of New York where he was born, his career cut short by an injury, no recollection as to how he came to be back there with a beautiful woman he doesn't recognize beside him in the passenger seat of his car. The mystery of this passenger is but the first of many mysteries in this richly poetic, deeply moving, and sometimes comic novel.
Flynn faces losses much greater than the end of an athletic career. In a journey both to recover his past and to find a place and time to begin life anew, he faces perhaps the most difficult decision a human being must make. In the process he garners support from a band of magical characters: a mystical girl who tells fortunes with baseball cards; a onetime "bird dog" baseball scout who dresses in a hazmat body suit to avoid polluting himself with human contact; a former teammate, a homerun hitter and juju man who comes to the rescue from the sky; and, most of all, that woman beside Flynn who teaches him how to love again, or perhaps for the first time.
Michael Joyce is Professor of English and Media Studies at Vassar College. He is the author of many books, including Disappearance, Liam's Going: A Novel, and Moral Tales and Meditations: Technological Parables and Refractions, also published by SUNY Press. He lives along the Hudson River near Poughkeepsie, New York.
ebook
(0)
Forgetting Fathers
Untold Stories from an Orphaned Past
by David Marshall
Part of the Excelsior Editions series
An eloquent personal reflection on the fascination of family history and the desire to both discover and escape origins.
In Forgetting Fathers, David Marshall weaves together the stories of his grandfather and great-grandfather with his own quest to solve the mystery of his family's past. Beginning as a search for his lost family name, Marshall attempts to understand the origins of his grandfather, who spent part of his childhood in the Hebrew Orphan Asylum of the City of New York. He also reconstructs the life and death of his great-grandfather, a Russian immigrant tailor who died at age thirty-six in a private sanitarium dedicated to the treatment of mental and nervous diseases. The narrative becomes a detective story that reflects on our ambivalence about origins, the relation between history and mourning, and the compulsion to search for life stories. Forgetting Fathers combines historical accounts based on records, reports, and public documents with autobiographical reflections and speculations. Included throughout are photographs, newspaper clippings, and facsimiles of original documents that provide a sense of both the texture of the times and the fabric of archival and genealogical research.
ebook
(0)
The Impeachment of Governor Sulzer
A Story of American Politics
by Matthew L. Lifflander
Part of the Excelsior Editions series
Brings to life the dramatic and colorful career of William Sulzer (1863—1941), former governor of New York State.
In The Impeachment of Governor Sulzer, Matthew L. Lifflander brings to life the dramatic story of a forgotten incident in New York State political history. When William Sulzer was elected to the office of governor of New York State in November 1912, it represented the culmination of a long and successful career in politics. The son of a German immigrant father and a Scotch-Irish American mother, Sulzer (1863—1941) rose through the powerful Tammany Hall machine to become the youngest man ever to serve as speaker of the New York State Assembly. In 1894, he was elected to Congress, where he served with distinction for eighteen years, rising to chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. When he became governor, it was with the support of the Tammany Hall machine, and everyone expected that he would duly perform his duties under the direction of Tammany boss Charles F. Murphy.
Political reform and the corrupt influence of political machines were significant issues of the day, however, and shortly after Sulzer's election he began to project a populist "man of the people" image, announcing that he "belonged to no man." After he rejected some of Murphy's recommendations for key appointments and initiated investigations into corrupt state officials-many of them with Tammany connections-it was decided that he was a threat to the party bosses and had to be removed. Incredibly, less than a year after his election to the highest office in New York State, Sulzer had been impeached and removed.
In addition to shedding light on the career of one of the most interesting and colorful figures in American political history, The Impeachment of Governor Sulzer explores legal, moral, and political issues that continue to this day, including pervasive questions about money and politics.
A longtime political insider, Matthew L. Lifflander began his career in Albany as assistant counsel to Governor W. Averell Harriman, where he first became acquainted with the story of Governor William Sulzer. As special counsel to the speaker of the New York State Assembly, he drafted laws that enhanced state tourism as a vital economic development program, including the world-famous "I Love NY" campaign. He was also instrumental in drafting the state's campaign finance reform legislation, and has served as finance chairman of the New York State Democratic Party, headed New York State fundraising for Democratic presidential candidates, and managed presidential and gubernatorial campaigns in New York State. He is currently counsel for SNR Denton US, LLP, and resides in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York.
ebook
(0)
Truckin' with Sam
A Father and Son, The Mick and The Dyl, Rockin' and Rollin', On the Road
by Lee Gutkind
Part of the Excelsior Editions series
A father and son travel across North America in a pick-up truck-talking, laughing, fighting, and bonding.
After years of thinking he'd never have kids, Lee Gutkind became a father at forty-seven and, following his divorce, soon found himself taking over more and more of the primary care responsibilities for his son, Sam. As one of a growing number of "old new dads" (recent studies have shown that one in ten children are born to fathers over forty), Gutkind realized that he faced challenges-both mental and physical-not faced by younger dads, not the least of which was how to bond with a son who was so much younger than himself. For the past five years, Gutkind's approach to this challenge has been to spend several weeks of every summer "truckin'" with Sam, a term they define as a metaphor for spontaneity, a lack of restriction: "Truckin' means that you can what you want to do sometimes; you don't always need to do what's expected."
What began as long, cross-country journeys in a pick-up truck, including one memorable trip up the Alaska-Canadian Highway en route to a writer's conference in Homer, Alaska, have in more recent years ranged farther afield, to Europe, Australia, and Tibet. Whether listening to rock and roll music, entertaining themselves with their secret jokes and code words, fishing for halibut, or fighting over tuna fish sandwiches and how best to butter one's toast, Lee and Sam have learned to respect one another. In the process of their travels and their adventures, Lee has also come to grips with the downside of middle age and the embarrassment of "senior moments," while Sam has inevitably begun to assert himself and shape his own life. Interspersed with Sam's own observations and journal entries, Truckin' with Sam is an honest, moving, and often hilarious account of one father's determination to bond with his son, a spontaneous travelogue that will appeal to old dads, new dads, and women who want to know more about how dads (and sons) think and behave.
ebook
(0)
Grain Dust Dreams
by David W. Tarbet
Part of the Excelsior Editions series
Explores the history and present-day reality of grain elevators on the Great Lakes.
Grain Dust Dreams tells the story of terminal grain elevators-concrete colossi that stand in the middle of a deep river of grain that they lift, sort, and send on. From their invention in Buffalo, New York, through their present-day operation in Thunder Bay, Ontario, David W. Tarbet examines the difficulties and dangers of working in a grain elevator-showing how they operate and describing the effects that the grain trade has on the lives of individuals and cities.
As Tarbet shows, the impact of these impressive concrete structures even extends beyond their working lives. Buildings that were created for a commercial purpose had a surprising and unintended cultural consequence. European modernist architects were taken by the size and elegance of American concrete elevators and used them as models for a revolution in architecture. When the St. Lawrence Seaway made it possible for large ships to bypass Buffalo, many Buffalo elevators were abandoned. Tarbet describes how these empty elevators are now being transformed into centers for artistic and athletic performance, and into a hub for technical innovation. Buffalo has found a way to incorporate its unused elevators into the life of the city long after the grain dust from them has ceased to fly.
David W. Tarbet is a retired attorney who lives in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts.
ebook
(0)
Tales of an Ecotourist
What Travel to Wild Places Can Teach Us about Climate Change
by Mike Gunter
Part of the Excelsior Editions series
Combining humor and memorable anecdotes, five famous ecotourist destinations offer a breathtaking backdrop to better understanding climate change.
Crossing the far corners of the globe, Tales of an Ecotourist showcases travel, from the hot and humid Amazon jungle to the frozen but dry Antarctic, as a simple yet spellbinding lens to better understand the complex issue of climate change. At its core, climate change is an issue few truly understand, in large part due to its dizzying array of scientific, economic, cultural, social, and political variables.
Using both keen humor and memorable anecdotes, while weaving respected scientific studies along the way, Mike Gunter Jr. transports the reader to five famous ecodestinations, from the Galapagos Islands to the Great Barrier Reef, revealing firsthand the increasing threats of climate change. Part travelogue, part current events exposé, with a healthy dose of history, ecology, and politics, these tales of ecoadventure tackle such obstacles head on while fleshing out much-needed personal context to perhaps society's greatest threat of all.
ebook
(1)
Breaching Jericho's Walls
A Twentieth-Century African American Life
by Allen B. Ballard
Part of the Excelsior Editions series
An award-winning African-American historian and novelist takes the reader on an exciting journey from a segregated Philadephia childhood in the 1930's to mid-century Paris, Moscow, Cambridge, and Manhattan.
A rich narrative recounting the life story of award-winning African American historian and novelist Allen B. Ballard, Breaching Jericho's Walls takes its readers on an exciting journey from a segregated Philadelphia community in the 1930s to mid-century Paris, Moscow, Cambridge, and Manhattan. The author reflects on his own pioneering role as he expands his horizons, as one of the first African American students at Ohio's Kenyon College, studying abroad in France and sharing a café table with Richard Wright and James Baldwin, serving in the military in the American South and attending graduate school at Harvard University. Becoming one of the nation's first black Russian specialists, Ballard studies in post-Stalinist Russia for a year, where, among other adventures, he spends a month with Michael Gorbachev and his wife, Raisa, on a Soviet farm. Though he tells his own personal story within Breaching Jericho's Walls, Ballard also portrays the experiences of those northern African-Americans whose generations bridged the gap from the legacy of slavery to the breakdown of the segregated system in the 1950s and 1960s while revealing the crucial role that individuals like civil rights leader Paul Robeson, Olympic athletes Jesse Owens and Long John Woodruff, and scholar Alain Locke played in inspiring the hopes of an oppressed and downtrodden race. A memoir filled with entertaining anecdotes and insightful reflection, Breaching Jericho's Walls offers Ballard's compelling personal story and reveals how, brick by brick, African Americans built the road that led to the election of President Obama in 2008.
Allen B. Ballard is Professor of History and Africana Studies at the University at Albany—SUNY and Professor Emeritus of Political Science at City College of New York. His previously published works include two books of nonfiction, The Education of Black Folk: The Afro-American Struggle for Knowledge in White America and One More Day's Journey: The Story of a Family and a People; and two novels, Where I'm Bound, a Washington Post Notable Book of the Year and Carried by Six, winner of the "Honor Book Prize" in Afro-American Literature from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association.
ebook
(0)
The Stadium
Images and Voices of the Original Yankee Stadium
by Various Authors
Part of the Excelsior Editions series
Photographs and recollections of one of baseball's most storied icons.
Through images and words, The Stadium brings to life the emotional and visual experience of the original Yankee Stadium, recalling a special time when children and their parents, joined by thousands of other fans, spent a joyful afternoon or evening together, watching their local heroes. Interspersed among photographer Jon Plasse's black-and-white images of the original Yankee Stadium are the recollections of individuals whose lives were intimately connected to the ballpark: an umpire, an usher, a beer vendor, a souvenir merchandiser, and a fan. Together, photographs and text combine to invoke a fan's memories of the sights and sounds of this beloved ballpark: waiting to buy tickets among throngs of fans, walking through dark cavernous hallways to the upper decks, seeing the dazzling outfield grass and the silky-smooth infield dirt, and listening to the roar of the crowd as the first batter steps up to the plate. The Stadium is a fitting tribute to one of baseball's most storied icons.
Jon Plasse is a fine arts photographer whose previous photography books are The Light Remains and Passing Moments. He lives in New York City.
ebook
(0)
National Museum of Dance and Hall of Fame
Celebrating 30 Years
by Lisa Schlansker Kolosek
Part of the Excelsior Editions series
Explores the rich history, collections, and significance of the only museum in the United States dedicated solely to the art form of dance.
The only museum in the United States dedicated entirely to the art form of dance, the National Museum of Dance and Hall of Fame opened in June 1987, after a short preview season the summer before. This unique and special place celebrates its thirtieth anniversary in 2017. To commemorate this milestone, Lisa Schlansker Kolosek has created a rich pictorial history tracing not only the museum's remarkable evolution but the relevance of the museum to the city of Saratoga Springs, New York.
Kolosek tells the story of the museum's origins, from its notable founders' grand idea to the selection and complete renovation of a historic 1920s bath house as its home. Combining a complete survey of exhibitions presented by the museum and the incredible history of the Hall of Fame, which recognizes dance luminaries across multiple genres, this book offers an in-depth look at the museum's expansive collection of costumes, visual art, and archival materials. The book also covers the history of the museum's Lewis A. Swyer Studios and School of the Arts, a leader in dance education. Beautifully illustrated with more than four hundred photographs, this book pays tribute to the immense impact of the National Museum of Dance and Hall of Fame.
ebook
(0)
Grand Isle
A Novel
by Sarah Van Arsdale
Part of the Excelsior Editions series
A river is a body of moving water. River water comes from sources that include glaciers, springs, and precipitation. Learn more in Rivers, part of the Aquatic Ecosystems series.
ebook
(1)
An Extraordinary Ordinary Woman
The Journal of Phebe Orvis, 1820-1830
by Susan M. Ouellette
Part of the Excelsior Editions series
A rare nineteenth-century journal of an everyday woman richly infused with the minutiae of antebellum daily life and work.
In 1820, Phebe Orvis began a journal that she faithfully kept for a decade. Richly detailed, her diary captures not only the everyday life of an ordinary woman in early nineteenth-century Vermont and New York, but also the unusual happenings of her family, neighborhood, and beyond. The journal entries trace Orvis's transition from single life to marriage and motherhood, including her time at the Middlebury Female Seminary and her observations about the changing social and economic environment of the period. A Quaker, Orvis also recorded the details of the waxing passion of the Second Great Awakening in the people around her, as well as the conflict the fervor caused within her own family.
In the first section of the book, Susan M. Ouellette includes a series of essays that illuminate Orvis's diary entries and broaden the social landscape she inhabited. These essays focus on Orvis and, more importantly, the experience of ordinary people as they navigated the new nation, the new century, and the emerging American society and culture. The second section is a transcript of the original journal. This combination of analytical essays and primary source material offers readers a unique perspective of domestic life in northern New England as well as upstate New York in the early nineteenth century.
ebook
(0)
From Binghamton to the Battlefield
The Civil War Letters of Rollin B. Truesdell
by Amy J. Truesdell
Part of the Excelsior Editions series
From Binghamton to the Battlefield draws the reader alongside Rollin B. Truesdell, a prolific letter-writer and an early enlistee in the 27th NY Volunteers, an infantry regiment that was one of the first to form and that was in the thick of some of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War. Rollin vividly described his day-to-day life as a soldier in such clashes as Gaines' Mill, Crampton's Gap, and Antietam, and in the camps where soldiers were tormented by disease as well as the slow passage of time. Rollin's letters shine a light on the unbreakable bonds of comradeship borne of shared war experience even as he clearly ached for home and family. Through his own words and additional supporting context about the military and political environment within which Rollin soldiered, this book chronicles events from the day Rollin mustered into service as an eager recruit until the day he returned home a war-weary, battle-tested veteran disillusioned by the unseemly political machinations of war, yet steadfast in his commitment to victory for the North.
ebook
(0)
Stories, Streets, and Saints
Photographs and Oral Histories from Boston's North End
by Anthony V. Riccio
Part of the Excelsior Editions series
Stories, Streets, and Saints documents the history of an important Italian American neighborhood, Boston's North End, from the age of immigration at the turn of the twentieth century to the era of neighborhood upheaval in the "New Boston" of the 1980s. Drawing on years of fieldwork, on-site photography, and scholarly research, Anthony V. Riccio records, translates, and transcribes compelling oral histories of elderly Italian American storytellers who weave social history in their unique village idiom, providing an intimate look at daily life in an Italian American neighborhood. Testimonies of post-Unification southern Italy reconstruct the dire social and economic conditions that caused millions to pursue the promise of America. Rare firsthand stories of the Spanish Flu offer timely narratives in the wake of COVID-19, and eyewitness descriptions reconstruct the horrific Molasses Explosion of 1919. Riccio's own photographs from 1979 to1983, along with images from old family albums, illustrate these oral histories, creating a lasting record of the experiences of Italian Americans, who, like many other ethnic groups, contributed mightily to the building of America.
ebook
(0)
Angry Rain
A Brief Memoir
by Maurice Kenny
Part of the Excelsior Editions series
Reveals the development of Maurice Kenny's growing artistic consciousness, while attesting to both the beauty and brutality of the world in which he lived.
Maurice Kenny's career as a writer, teacher, publisher, and storyteller spanned more than six decades, during which he published over thirty books and became one of the most prominent voices in American poetry. From the early 1970s onward, he was instrumental in the resurgence of Native American literature through both his celebrated volumes of poetry, such as I Am the Sun and the award-winning The Mama Poems, and his work as an editor and publisher.
Angry Rain, his bittersweet memoir, reveals this rich literary life by recounting its tumultuous "first half...plus a bit," a time during which he moved through a series of worlds that all left their marks on him. Kenny begins with his early years spent among his family in the small northern New York city of Watertown and continues through an adolescence marked by both significant awakenings and grievous traumas. Determined, Kenny sets out to seek his fortunes and find his poetic voice, landing in the Jim Crow-era South, in St. Louis, in Indiana, and finally in New York City, where he becomes part of a motley creative group of performers and poets that offers both fascinating inspiration and disheartening rejection. These recollections end with Kenny's maturation into a poet whose reaffirmed indigenous heritage unified an artistic vision that remained in conversation with a wide range of other themes and traditions until his death in 2016.
Maurice Kenny (1929—2016) was a Writer-in-Residence Emeritus at the State University of New York at Potsdam and the author of many books, including Tekonwatonti/Molly Brant: Poems of War. He was inducted into the New York State Writers' Hall of Fame in 2014.
ebook
(0)
Adriaen van der Donck
A Dutch Rebel in Seventeenth-Century America
by J. Van den Hout
Part of the Excelsior Editions series
The first comprehensive biography of an important yet understudied figure in the Dutch colony of New Netherland.
This book tells the compelling story of the young legal activist Adriaen van der Donck (1618—1655), whose fight to secure the struggling Dutch colony of New Netherland made him a controversial but pivotal figure in early America. At best, he has been labeled a hero, a visionary, and a spokesman of the people. At worst, he has been branded arrogant and selfish, thinking only of his own ambitions. The wide range of opinions about him testifies to the fact that, more than three centuries after his death, Van der Donck remains an intriguing character.
J. van den Hout follows Van der Donck from his war-torn seventeenth-century childhood and privileged university education to the New World, as he attempted to make his mark on the fledgling fur trading settlement. When he became embroiled in the politics of Manhattan, he took the colonists' complaints against their Dutch West India Company administrators to the highest level of government in the Dutch Republic, in what became a fight for his adopted homeland and a bicontinental showdown. Denounced and detained, but not deterred, Van der Donck wrote a landmark book that stands as a testament to his vision for the country, as the changes he set in motion continued long after his early death and his influence became firmly embedded in the American landscape. Van der Donck's determination to stand by his convictions offers a revealing look into the human spirit and the strong will that drives it against adversity and in search of justice.
ebook
(0)
Somewhere in France
The World War I Letters and Journal of Private Frederick A. Kittleman
by Thomas J. Schaeper
Part of the Excelsior Editions series
Previously unpublished letters and private journal provide an intimate view of World War I through the eyes of an ordinary soldier from western New York.
The United States entered World War I in April 1917, and by the end of the conflict, two million American soldiers were fighting on French soil. One of them was Private Frederick A. Kittleman, who was born in the small city of Olean in western New York. After being drafted in 1918, Kittleman was sent to France as a part of an artillery regiment. While overseas, he participated in several of the large battles in the final stages of the war, including the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. Throughout this time, he wrote regularly to his family.
In Somewhere in France, Thomas J. Schaeper transcribes these letters, which show a young man proud to join the army and excited about his adventures. The letters are contrasted with Kittleman's journal, which recounts the gritty details of battle that he shielded from his family in their correspondence. Schaeper provides detailed annotations of the journal and letters, which, together with a number of illustrations, paint a vivid picture of the experiences of a private in WWI, his opinion on America's participation in the final, bloody campaigns of the war, and the psychological and physical effects that the war had on him.
ebook
(0)
Ghost Fleet Awakened
Lake George's Sunken Bateaux of 1758
by Joseph W. Zarzynski
Part of the Excelsior Editions series
Chronicles the history and archaeological study of Lake George, New York's sunken bateaux of 1758.
In Ghost Fleet Awakened, Joseph W. Zarzynski reveals the untold story of a little-recognized sunken fleet of British warships, bateaux, from the French and Indian War (1755-1763). The story begins more than 250 years ago, when bateaux first plied the waters of Lake George, New York. Zarzynski enlightens readers with a history of these utilitarian vessels, considered the most important vessels that transported armies during eighteenth-century wars in North America, and includes their origins and uses. By infusing the book with underwater archaeology doctrine, Zarzynski shows the nautical significance of these colonial craft.
In the autumn of 1758, the British command at Lake George made a daring decision to deliberately sink two floating batteries (radeaux), some row galleys and whaleboats, a sloop, and 260 bateaux, thereby placing the warships into wet storage and protecting them from marauding French during the coming winter. In 1759, many submerged boats were raised but some were not. Then, in 1960, two divers rediscovered several sunken bateaux, dubbed the "Ghost Fleet." These shipwrecks were the focus of underwater archaeological investigations that provided archaeologists with opportunities to gain unprecedented insight into eighteenth-century lifeways. Zarzynski explores and explains shipwreck preservation techniques, the creation of shipwreck parks for scuba enthusiasts, and the many multifaceted programs developed by the nonprofit organization Bateaux Below to help protect these finite cultural treasures.
ebook
(0)
Shame the Devil
A Novel
by Debra Brenegan
Part of the Excelsior Editions series
The remarkable and true story of the nineteenth-century novelist, journalist, and feminist Fanny Fern.
"There may be married people who do not read the morning paper. Smith and I know them not ... It is not too much to say the newspapers are one of our strongest points of sympathy; that it is our meat and drink to praise and abuse them together; that we often in our imagination edit a model newspaper, which shall have for its motto, 'Speak the truth, and shame the devil.'" - Fanny Fern
Shame the Devil tells the remarkable and true story of Fanny Fern (the pen name of Sara Payson Willis), one of the most successful, influential, and popular writers of the nineteenth century. A novelist, journalist, and feminist, Fern (1811—1872) outsold Harriet Beecher Stowe, won the respect of Nathaniel Hawthorne, and served as literary mentor to Walt Whitman. Scrabbling in the depths of poverty before her meteoric rise to fame and fortune, she was widowed, escaped an abusive second marriage, penned one of the country's first prenuptial agreements, married a man eleven years her junior, and served as a nineteenth-century Oprah to her hundreds of thousands of fans. Her weekly editorials in the pages of the New York Ledger over a period of about twenty years chronicled the myriad controversies of her era and demonstrated her firm belief in the motto, "Speak the truth, and shame the devil." Through the story of Fern and her contemporaries, including Walt Whitman, Catharine Beecher, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Harriet Jacobs, and Nathaniel Hawthorne, Shame the Devil brings the intellectual and social ferment of mid-nineteenth-century America to life.
ebook
(0)
Colonizing Southampton
The Transformation of a Long Island Community, 1870-1900
by David Goddard
Part of the Excelsior Editions series
A study of the times and life in Southampton, New York between 1870 and 1900.
This book concerns the emergence and impact of the summer colony in the village of Southampton, New York, between the years 1870 and 1900, particularly the often fraught relations between the area's wealthy resort population and its year-round residents. Essentially a study in social change and conflict, the book revolves around a number of key issues that preoccupied inhabitants and summer residents alike and were the subject of great controversy at the time, including beach rights, oyster farming in Mecox Bay, and the loss of the Shinnecock Hills, first by the Native American inhabitants and then by the town itself to outside developers. Due consideration is given to those individuals who played major roles in these disputes. The book also explores salient and significant aspects of Southampton's early history insofar as they relate to the period in question.
David Goddard is a retired Professor of Sociology at the City University of New York and is the author of The Maidstone Links. He currently lives in Plattsburgh, New York.
ebook
(0)
Farmingdale State College
A History
by Frank J. Cavaioli, Ph. D.
Part of the Excelsior Editions series
Fascinating history of the oldest public college on Long Island.
Located on 380 acres on the Nassau-Suffolk border, Farmingdale State College (FSC) is the oldest public college on Long Island. In this fascinating and lavishly illustrated history, Frank J. Cavaioli chronicles the school's rich history from the time it was chartered in 1912 up to the present. He investigates the leadership of such important directors and presidents as Albert A. Johnson, Halsey B. Knapp, Charles W. Laffin Jr., and Frank A. Cipriani, and demonstrates how they motivated faculty to create progressive, innovative programs, and urged them to give service to the community. The school's original mission was to provide training in agricultural science, but over time it has transformed into a comprehensive college focused on applied science and technology with a strong humanities and social science component. Now a campus of the State University of New York with nearly seven thousand students, the story of FSC is unique, one that mirrors the transformation and growth of the surrounding Long Island community.
ebook
(0)
The Interpreter
A Story of Two Worlds
by Robert Moss
Part of the Excelsior Editions series
A visionary journey into the crucible in which America was born, a tale of love and war and of a master shaman who folds time to seek the key to the survival of his people.
A vivid narrative of the clash of cultures on the colonial New York frontier, The Interpreter tells the story of a master shaman and his twin apprentices-the Mohawk dreamer called Island Woman and the young immigrant Conrad Weiser-who become critical players in their two peoples' struggle for survival. Island Woman will grow to become mother of the Wolf Clan of the Mohawk nation and a revered atetshents (dream healer). Conrad, transported to North America with the Palatine German refugees from the wars in Europe, helps lead his people's rebellion against the abuses of colonial governors and magnates. Sent to live among the Mohawk, he learns their language and their dreamways, is able to build bridges between communities, and later rises to fame in Pennsylvania as an indispensable Indian interpreter.
In the Mohawk language, the word for interpreter, sakowennakarahtats, speaks of a person who can transplant something from one soil to grow in another. The Interpreter is such a book. Through its pages, we are able to find ourselves in another time, and in other worlds. We accompany the Four Indian Kings on their 1710 visit to London to see the Queen; they were not kings in their own matriarchal society, but they included Hendrick, the redoubtable warrior who later instructed Ben Franklin that he must urge the colonists to unite in a confederacy on the Iroquois model. We travel with Vanishing Smoke, the Bear dreamer, on his journey into the afterlife. And we learn, with Island Woman and Conrad, how we can travel across time as well as space in shamanic lucid dreaming, and guide souls to where they belong.
In his new preface, Robert Moss describes how his Cycle of the Iroquois-Fire Along the Sky, The Firekeeper, and The Interpreter-began with dreams and visions in which an ancient Iroquois arendiwanen (woman of power) insisted on teaching him in her own language, until he was obliged to learn it.