In the late nineteenth century, San Francisco's merchant princes built grand stores for a booming city, each with its own niche. For the eager clientele, a trip downtown meant dressing up--hats, gloves and stockings required--and going to Blum's for Coffee Crunch cake or Townsend's for creamed spinach. The I. Magnin empire catered to a selective upper-class clientele, while middle-class shoppers loved the Emporium department store with its Bargain Basement and Santa for the kids. Gump's de...

For many years, visitors traveling to San Francisco came via ferry, and the Ferry Building, one of San Francisco's most famous landmarks, stood ready to welcome them. In the 1920s, the Ferry Building was the world's second-busiest transit terminal (after Charing Cross, London), with more than 50,000 people a day passing through the elegant structure, designed by architect A. Page Brown and opened in 1898. When the 1906 earthquake struck and the ensuing fire was destroying the city, the ven...

The Emporium��California�s Largest, America�s Grandest Store��was a major shopping destination on San Francisco�s Market Street for a century, from 1896 to 1996. Shoppers flocked to the mid-price store with its beautiful dome and bandstand. Patrons could find anything at the Emporium, from jewelry to stoves, and it was a meeting place for friends to enjoy tea while listening to the Emporium Orchestra. Founded as the Emporium and Golden Rule Bazaar, the store flourished until the disastrous...

With Hicksville, local historians Richard and Anne Evers take us on a journey back in time from the area�s 1648 land purchase from Native Americans and associations with Elias Hicks, the Jericho antislavery leader, to its transformation into a thriving twentieth-century Long Island suburb of New York City. Through evocative images and insightful text, we learn how the Long Island Railroad was dead-ended here in the Panic of 1837 and how German immigrants created a village and vacation spa ...

In the late nineteenth century, San Francisco's merchant princes built grand stores for a booming city, each with its own niche. For the eager clientele, a trip downtown meant dressing up—hats, gloves, and stockings required—and going to Blum's for Coffee Crunch cake or Townsend's for creamed spinach. The I. Magnin empire catered to a selective upper-class clientele, while middle-class shoppers loved the Emporium department store with its Bargain Basement and Santa for the kids. Gump's def...

Some sample anecdotes: 1) Simon and Schuster once published a children's book titled Dr. Dan the Bandage Man. As a publicity gimmick, they decided to include a half-dozen band-aids in each book, so publisher Richard Simon sent this telegram to a friend at Johnson and Johnson: "PLEASE SHIP TWO MILLION BAND-AIDS IMMEDIATELY." The following day Mr. Simon received this telegram in reply: "BAND-AIDS ON THEIR WAY. WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO YOU?" 2) As a young woman, ballerina Margot Fonteyn wish...

This contains 250 anecdotes, including these: 1) Political cartoonist Thomas Nast was also famous for his drawings of Christmas and of Santa Claus, and he was responsible for many of the ideas we associate with Santa Claus—the red and white suit of clothing, the workshop at the North Pole, and the reading by Santa Claus of letters sent to him by children. In a drawing titled 'Christmas Flirtation,' Mr. Nast drew Julia, his daughter, standing under some mistletoe. In England, boys followed ...

A pictorial history celebrating the life and legacy of the 35th President of the United States.Foreword by Caroline KennedyThis selection of more than 300 images—including family letters, personal ephemera, and captivating photographs—collected by Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, many never seen before, features the beloved and revered Kennedy family. This remarkable history dates from 1878 through 1946—up to the aftermath of World War II and the b...

"A history cum memoir by Lena Horne's daughter tells the story of her forebears . . . eloquently conveys . . . how politics and prejudice can shape a family." — The New YorkerIn The Black Calhouns, Gail Lumet Buckley—daughter of actress Lena Horne—delves deep into her family history, detailing the experiences of an extraordinary African American family from Civil War to Civil Rights.Beginning with her great-great...

The Catskills (“Cat Creek” in Dutch), America’s original frontier, northwest of New York City, with its seven hundred thousand acres of forest land preserve and its five counties—Delaware, Greene, Sullivan, Ulster, Schoharie; America’s first great vacationland; the subject of the nineteenth-century Hudson River School paintings that captured the almost godlike majesty of the mountains and landscapes, the skies, waterfalls, pastures, cliffs . . . refuge and home to poets and gangsters, tyco...

This book is about Greek Americans who have lived or live in Essex County, New Jersey. Greeks first started to immigrate to the United States in large numbers after 1900. This book gives the stories of individual Greek American families. It gives a cross section of the Greek immigrants who come to America between 1900 and 1930. And it gives a cross section of the children of these immigrants.A Greek American community is synonomous with a parish of the Orthodox Church. In Essex Cou...

The history of York College of Pennsylvania begins shortly after the Revolutionary War. The college traces its lineage directly to three ancestral schools. The foundation was York County Academy, an English classical school chartered in 1787. The academy merged in 1929 with York Collegiate Institute, founded in 1873. Under one roof, both schools survived the Great Depression. In 1941, the charter was amended to allow two years of college-level courses and the institution became York Junior...