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...

Faith, money and principle collide when Eli Stone, the revered senior rabbi of a large congregation learns that he is dying. A bitter struggle breaks out in the congregation's twelve member Board over the election of his successor. At the same time, Elis estranged son comes home to organize the takeover of a company whose chairman is his fathers closest friend. On a canvas that moves from the synagogue to Wall Street and from the baseball stadium to suburban bedrooms, Congregation explores...

Soul of a People is about a handful of people who were on the Federal Writer's Project in the 1930s and a glimpse of America at a turning point. This particular handful of characters went from poverty to great things later, and included John Cheever, Ralph Ellison, Zora Neale Hurston, Richard Wright, and Studs Terkel. In the 1930s they were all caught up in an effort to describe America in a series of WPA guides. Through striking images and firsthand accounts, the book reveals their experi...

From the early pioneering days to the establishment of one of the premier art colonies in the nation, these are the stories of one of America's most famous small towns.Beneath the gentle slopes of Overlook Mountain lies the townof Woodstock, a thriving community of painters, musicians andcraftsmen. The town's early history of wintry hardships, courageous settlers and rebellious farmers sets the stage for a saga of spirited and creative personalities. As this energetic individualism carried...

DID YOU KNOW .... *that Judi Dench, James Michener and Annie Oakley were Quakers? *that Joan Baez, Ben Kingsley and F. Murray Abrahams have attended Friends Meeting? *that Dave Matthews, Bonnie Raitt and James Dean were raised Quakers? *that Popeye the Quaker Man, a Quaker Tapestry and Quaker stained glass exists? The second edition of the book Quaker Artists contains the stories of the above artists and more: 286 reviews in all, a history of Friends, a history of Quaker art, study questio...

Roots of a Region reveals the importance of folk traditions in shaping and expressing the American South. This overview covers the entire region and all forms of ex-pression-oral, musical, customary, and material.The author establishes how folklore pervades and reflects the region\'s economics, history (espe-cially the Civil War), race rela-tions, religion, and politics. He follows with a catalog of those folk-cultural traits-from food and crafts to music and story-that are distinc...

Virginia Ames was born in the Deep South at the dawn of the twentieth century. In her hundredth year, Ames takes us back to the 1970 cross-country sojourn wherein she and daughter Mary poignantly and critically looked at a century of sociability and social change—including race relations, revolutionary politics, the auto, space exploration, and flight. Braided into the sinuous strands of an epic journey in an old Dodge Wayfarer are stories of a lifetime of issues that continue to touch our...

Mount Pleasant has deep American roots going back to the Revolutionary War, when local tenant farmers filled the ranks of General Washington�s Continental army. For years, travel to New York City was difficult, until the arrival of the railroad in 1846 allowed easy transportation to lower Manhattan. In 1893, John D. Rockefeller Sr. began buying land in Pocantico and built his classic Georgian mansion. The massive Kensico Dam in Valhalla was completed in 1917 to satisfy the growing thirst o...

Join author and historian Terry Ruscin as he reveals Henderson County's forgotten yet colorful history complete with its own cast of characters and historic landmarks. Who composed a blockbuster opera a few miles from downtown Hendersonville? Who were the record-setting McCrary twins, and why were they famous? These questions and many more are answered in this exciting volume of obscured history. From James Brown's 1950s performance on Hendersonville's Main Street to the rumors of illegal ...

A riotous parade of historical facts and antidotes about the formation and evolution of Harvard from 1636 – 1962. Always successful in finding an obscure point or contributing a twist in perception, Bissell tells the story of Harvard's presidents, student life, curriculum, the campus and its buildings, music, sports, restaurants and foods (including the original recipe for Harvard beets) with meticulous attention to detail and irreverent wit. Also a Harvard graduate, Bissell chooses to foc...

In vivid historical images, step into Norwalk's past and discover a new part of Long Island history Located on the shores of Long Island Sound, Norwalk's close proximity to New York City prompted the building of many summer residences and guest cottages along its coast. In the summer, steamships and trolleys arrived with passengers looking to enjoy the local amusement park, Roton Point. Norwalk's earliest industries included farming as well as mills powered by its rivers. The area has been...

West Roxbury, located along the scenic Charles River, is a community of tree-lined streets and panoramic views, which has undergone tremendous changes since its incorporation as a town in 1851. Formerly known as �Westerly� or �South Street,� West Roxbury has grown from a largely rural area, accessible only by train, into a charming neighborhood of Victorian homes that still offers many of the same advantages that attracted people a century ago�the quietness of small town life, with the att...