The end of the Pleistocene era brought dramatic environmental changes to small bands of humans living in North America: changes that affected subsistence, mobility, demography, technology, and social relations. The transition they made from Paleoindian (Pleistocene) to Archaic (Early Holocene) societies represents the first major cultural shift that took place solely in the Americas. This event—which manifested in ways and at times much more varied than often supposed—set the stage for the...

The southeastern United States has one of the richest records of early human settlement of any area of North America. This book provides the first state-by-state summary of Paleoindian and Early Archaic research from the region, together with an appraisal of models developed to interpret the data. It summarizes what we know of the peoples who lived in the Southeast more than 8,000 years ago—when giant ice sheets covered the northern part of the continent, and such mammals as elephants, sab...

The "compelling" story behind the 1995 Chicago weather disaster that killed hundreds—and what it revealed about our broken society ( Boston Globe).On July 13, 1995, Chicagoans awoke to a blistering day in which the temperature would reach 106 degrees. The heat index—how the temperature actually feels on the body—would hit 126. When the heat wave broke a week later, city streets had buckled; records for electrical use were shattered; and power grids had fail...

On the centennial of Joseph Mitchell's birth, here is a new edition of the classic collection containing his most celebrated pieces about New York City. Fifty years after its original publication, The Bottom of the Harbor is still considered a fundamental New York book. Every story Mitchell tells, every person he introduces, every scene he describes is illuminated by his passion for the eccentrics and eccentricities of his beloved adopted city.All of the pieces here are co...

How Native American history can guide us today: "Presents strong voices of old, old cultures bravely trying to make sense of an Earth in chaos." — Whole EarthWritten by a former Green Party vice-presidential candidate who was once listed among "America's fifty most promising leaders under forty" by Time magazine, this thoughtful, in-depth account of Native struggles against environmental and cultural degradation features chapters on the Seminoles, ...

Owen Gutfreund's Twentieth-Century Sprawl explains important--and largely unexamined--changes in the American landscape. He offers an illuminating look at how highways have dramatically transformed American communities, aiding growth and development in unsettled areas and undermining existing urban centers. Gutfreund takes a "follow the money" approach to show how government policies--from as early as the 1890s--subsidized the spread of cities and fueled a chronic nationwide depen...

For the century after 1865 all the largest railroad companies had flagship luxury trains, spectacularly appointed steamliners offering unrivaled standards of service and thoughtful amenities including ladies' perfume and carnations for gentlemen. These luxury trains transported well-heeled passengers in grand style across spectacular American landscapes in an atmosphere of privilege and elegance. Including the iconic Super Chief of the Sante Fe Railway and New York Central System's fabled ...

From the simplest slab of weathered stone to the most imposing mausoleum, every marker in a Texas cemetery bears witness to a life that—in ways small or large—helped shape the history and culture of the state. Telling the stories of some of these significant lives is the purpose of this book. Within its pages, you'll meet not only the heroes of the Texas Revolution, for example, but also one of the great African American cowboys of the traildriving era (Bose Ikard) and the first woman in T...

Cracker Culture is a provocative study of social life in the Old South that probes the origin of cultural differences between the South and the North throughout American history.Among Scotch-Irish settlers the term “Cracker” initially designated a person who boasted, but in American usage the word has come to designate poor whites. McWhiney uses the term to define culture rather than to signify an economic condition. Although all poor whites were Crackers,...

In Nearly Forgotten: Seventh-day Adventists in Jamaica, Vermont, and Their Place in Vermont History, Floyd Greenleaf traces the birth of not only the local Seventh-day Adventist congregation in the rural township of Jamaica but also the rise of the Seventh-day Adventist movement itself, with its roots in Millerism and the development of second-advent and Sabbath theology. Greenleaf explores the complex and dynamic relationship between the trajectory of the church and a multitude o...

In the early to mid-1800s, Jackson County was home to two branches of the Underground Railroad, a secret network that funneled fugitives from slavery in the South to freedom in the North. Many Jacksonians participated in this network, risking their lives to feed, lodge and transport fugitives passing through their county to Canada, where slavery was outlawed.Local agents included a preacher who was almost lynched, an editor whose office was fire bombed and a farmer whose property w...

A short piece that describes Old Time Taverns in New York city from the time of the founding by the Dutch to the American Revolution.John Austin Stevens Jr. (1827–1910) was a leader of business, an adviser of government and a student of the American Revolution. His was the founder of the Sons of the Revolution.