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Author: Charlotte Canning
Publisher: University of Iowa Press
ISBN: 158729592X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 287
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Book Description
Winner of the 2006 Barnard Hewitt Award for Excellence in Theatre History Between 1904 and the Great Depression, Circuit Chautauquas toured the rural United States, reflecting and reinforcing its citizens’ ideas, attitudes, and politics every summer through music (the Jubilee Singers, an African American group, were not always welcome in a time when millions of Americans belonged to the KKK), lectures (“Civic Revivalist” Charles Zueblin speaking on “Militancy and Morals”), elocutionary readers (Lucille Adams reading from Little Lord Fauntleroy), dramas (the Ben Greet Players’ cleaned-up version of She Stoops to Conquer), orations (William Jennings Bryan speaking about the dangers of greed), and special programs for children (parades and mock weddings). Theatre historians have largely ignored Circuit Chautauquas since they did not meet the conventional conditions of theatrical performance: they were not urban; they produced no innovative performance techniques, stage material, design effects, or dramatic literature. In this beautifully written and illustrated book, Charlotte Canning establishes an analytical framework to reveal the Circuit Chautauquas as unique performances that both created and unified small-town America. One of the last strongholds of the American traditions of rhetoric and oratory, the Circuits created complex intersections of community, American democracy, and performance. Canning does not celebrate the Circuit Chautauquas wholeheartedly, nor does she describe them with the same cynicism offered by Sinclair Lewis. She acknowledges their goals of community support, informed public thinking, and popular education but also focuses on the reactionary and regressive ideals they sometimes embraced. In the true interdisciplinary spirit of Circuit Chautauquas, she reveals the Circuit platforms as places where Americans performed what it meant to be American.
Author: Charlotte Canning
Publisher: University of Iowa Press
ISBN: 158729592X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 287
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Book Description
Winner of the 2006 Barnard Hewitt Award for Excellence in Theatre History Between 1904 and the Great Depression, Circuit Chautauquas toured the rural United States, reflecting and reinforcing its citizens’ ideas, attitudes, and politics every summer through music (the Jubilee Singers, an African American group, were not always welcome in a time when millions of Americans belonged to the KKK), lectures (“Civic Revivalist” Charles Zueblin speaking on “Militancy and Morals”), elocutionary readers (Lucille Adams reading from Little Lord Fauntleroy), dramas (the Ben Greet Players’ cleaned-up version of She Stoops to Conquer), orations (William Jennings Bryan speaking about the dangers of greed), and special programs for children (parades and mock weddings). Theatre historians have largely ignored Circuit Chautauquas since they did not meet the conventional conditions of theatrical performance: they were not urban; they produced no innovative performance techniques, stage material, design effects, or dramatic literature. In this beautifully written and illustrated book, Charlotte Canning establishes an analytical framework to reveal the Circuit Chautauquas as unique performances that both created and unified small-town America. One of the last strongholds of the American traditions of rhetoric and oratory, the Circuits created complex intersections of community, American democracy, and performance. Canning does not celebrate the Circuit Chautauquas wholeheartedly, nor does she describe them with the same cynicism offered by Sinclair Lewis. She acknowledges their goals of community support, informed public thinking, and popular education but also focuses on the reactionary and regressive ideals they sometimes embraced. In the true interdisciplinary spirit of Circuit Chautauquas, she reveals the Circuit platforms as places where Americans performed what it meant to be American.
Author: Rilla Askew
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 0806157828
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 198
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Book Description
2018 PEN America Literary Award Finalist! In her first nonfiction collection, award-winning novelist Rilla Askew casts an unflinching eye on American history, both past and present. As she traverses a line between memoir and social commentary, Askew places herself—and indeed all Americans—in the role of witness to uncomfortable truths about who we are. Through nine linked essays, Most American: Notes from a Wounded Place evokes a vivid impression of the United States: police violence and gun culture, ethnic cleansing and denied history, spellbinding landscapes and brutal weather. To render these conditions in the particulars of place, Askew spotlights the complex history of her home state. From the Trail of Tears to the Tulsa Race Riot to the Murrah Federal Building bombing, Oklahoma appears as a microcosm of our national saga. Yet no matter our location, Askew argues, we must own our contradictory selves—our violence and prejudices, as well as our hard work and generosity—so the wounds of division in our society can heal. In these writings, Askew traces a personal journey that begins with her early years as an idealistic teenager mired in what she calls “the presumption of whiteness.” Later she emerges as a writer humble enough to see her own story as part of a larger historical and cultural narrative. With grace and authority she speaks honestly about the failures of the dominant culture in which she grew up, even as she expresses a sense of love for its people. In the wake of increasing gun violence and heightened national debate about race relations and social inequality, Askew’s reflections could not be more relevant. With a novelist’s gift for storytelling, she paints a compelling portrait of a place and its people: resilient and ruthless, decent but self-deceiving, generous yet filled with prejudice—both the best and the worst of what it means to be American.
Author: Wilson Rawls
Publisher: Yearling
ISBN: 0307781550
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 290
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Book Description
From the author of the beloved classic Where the Red Fern Grows comes a timeless adventure about a boy who discovers a tree full of monkeys. The last thing fourteen-year-old Jay Berry Lee expects to find while trekking through the Ozark Mountains of Oklahoma is a tree full of monkeys. But then Jay learns from his grandpa that the monkeys have escaped from a traveling circus, and there’s a big reward for the person who finds and returns them. His family could really use the money, so Jay sets off, determined to catch them. But by the end of the summer, Jay will have learned a lot more than he bargained for—and not just about monkeys. From the beloved author of Where the Red Fern Grows comes another memorable adventure novel filled with heart, humor, and excitement. Honors and Praise for Wilson Rawls’ Where the Red Fern Grows: A School Library Journal Top 100 Children’s Novel An NPR Must-Read for Kids Ages 9 to 14 Winner of 4 State Awards Over 7 million copies in print! “A rewarding book . . . [with] careful, precise observation, all of it rightly phrased.” —The New York Times Book Review “One of the great classics of children’s literature . . . Any child who doesn’t get to read this beloved and powerfully emotional book has missed out on an important piece of childhood for the last 40-plus years.” —Common Sense Media “An exciting tale of love and adventure you’ll never forget.” —School Library Journal
Author: S. Paul O'Hara
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253004993
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 209
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Book Description
U.S. Steel created Gary, Indiana. The new steel plant and town built on the site in 1906 were at once a triumph of industrial capitalism and a bold experiment in urban planning. Gary became the canvas onto which the American public projected its hopes and fears about modern, industrial society. In its prime, Gary was known as "the magic city," "steel's greatest achievement," and "an industrial utopia"; later it would be called "the very model of urban decay." S. Paul O'Hara traces this stark reversal of fortune and reveals America's changing expectations. He delivers a riveting account of the boom or bust mentality of American industrialism from the turn of the 20th century to the present day.
Author: Philipp Meyer
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0857209450
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 675
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Book Description
THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER NOW A MAJOR TV SERIES starring Pierce Brosnan and co-written by Philipp Meyer The critically acclaimed, New York Times-bestselling epic, a saga of land, blood and power, follows the rise of one unforgettable Texas family from the Comanche raids of the 1800s to the oil booms of the 20th century. Eli McCullough is just twelve years old when a marauding band of Comanche storm his Texas homestead, brutally murder his mother and sister and take him captive. Despite their torture and cruelty, Eli - against all odds - adapts to life with the Comanche, learning their ways and language, taking on a new name, finding a place as the adopted son of the band's chief and fighting their wars against not only other Indians but white men too, which complicates his sense of loyalty, his promised vengeance and his very understanding of self. But when disease, starvation and westward expansion finally decimate the Comanche, Eli is left alone in a world in which he belongs nowhere, neither white nor Indian, civilized nor fully wild. Deftly interweaving Eli’s story with those of his son Peter and his great-granddaughter JA, The Son maps the legacy of Eli’s ruthlessness, his drive to power and his lifelong status as an outsider, even as the McCullough family rises to become one of the richest in Texas, a ranching and oil dynasty that is as resilient and dangerous as the land they claim. Yet, like all empires, the McCulloughs must eventually face the consequences of their choices. Panoramic, deeply evocative and utterly transporting, The Son is a masterpiece American novel - part epic of Texas, part classic coming-of-age story - that combines the narrative prowess of Larry McMurtry with the knife-edge sharpness of Cormac McCarthy. 'Stunning ... a book that for once really does deserve to be called a masterpiece' Kate Atkinson 'Magnificent ... McCarthy's Border Trilogy is a point of reference, as is There Will Be Blood, but it is not fanciful to be reminded of certain passages from Moby-Dick - it's that good'The Times 'Brilliant ... a wonderful novel' Lionel Shriver
Author: Ross Patterson
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 194139387X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 228
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Book Description
At Night She Cries, While He Rides His Steed is a side-splitting satire that perfectly parodies romance novels and western dramas. Our hero, Saint James Street James is a tall, extremely muscular, 32-year-old man whose attributes and possessions include a mind stronger than Socrates on acid, a magnificent horse he loves more than anything in the world, a package so large that it requires a signature, a beautiful, passionate wife with a rack so perfect it belongs on a billiard table, a ton of children, and his own personal gold mine. His life, set in 1849 against the backdrop of the California Gold Rush, is one long parade of amazing sex, dynamite montages, whiskey, and explosive gunfights. The kinds of things men could do when men were actually men. He is the richest man in town—equal parts loved and feared by all. But when the Schläger Brothers come to town, so too comes the end of the good times. St. James is forced to defend everything that matters to him (including, but not limited to: prostitutes, his horse, money, and drugs. Oh, and his wife and children too, sort of). God help anyone who stands in his way.
Author: Jim Auchmutey
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
ISBN: 0820338419
Category : Cooking
Languages : en
Pages : 280
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Book Description
Barbecue: It’s America in a mouthful. The story of barbecue touches almost every aspect of our history. It involves indigenous culture, the colonial era, slavery, the Civil War, the settling of the West, the coming of immigrants, the Great Migration, the rise of the automobile, the expansion of suburbia, the rejiggering of gender roles. It encompasses every region and demographic group. It is entwined with our politics and tangled up with our race relations. Jim Auchmutey follows the delicious and contentious history of barbecue in America from the ox roast that celebrated the groundbreaking for the U.S. Capitol building to the first barbecue launched into space almost two hundred years later. The narrative covers the golden age of political barbecues, the evolution of the barbecue restaurant, the development of backyard cooking, and the recent rediscovery of traditional barbecue craft. Along the way, Auchmutey considers the mystique of barbecue sauces, the spectacle of barbecue contests, the global influences on American barbecue, the roles of race and gender in barbecue culture, and the many ways barbecue has been portrayed in our art and literature. It’s a spicy story that involves noted Americans from George Washington and Abraham Lincoln to Louis Armstrong, Elvis Presley, Martin Luther King Jr., and Barack Obama.
Author: Frederick S. Lane
Publisher: Beacon Press
ISBN: 0807044415
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 277
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Book Description
A page-turning narrative of privacy and the evolution of communication, from broken sealing wax to high-tech wiretapping
Author: Tim DeRoche
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780999277621
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :
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Book Description
Which side of the line do you live on? In 1954 the Supreme Court ruled that little Linda Brown couldn't be excluded from a public school because of her race. In that landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education, the court famously declared that public education must be "available to all on equal terms." But sixty-six years later, many of the best public schools remain closed to all but the most privileged families. Empowered by little-known state laws, school districts draw "attendance zones" around their best schools, indicating who is, and who isn't, allowed to enroll. In many American cities, this means that living on one side of the street or the other will determine whether you leave eighth grade on a track for future success - or barely able to read. In Separated By Law, bestselling author Tim DeRoche takes a close look at the laws and policies that dictate which kids are allowed to go to which schools. And he finds surprising parallels between current education policies and the "redlining" practices of the New Deal era in which minority families were often denied mortgages and government housing assistance because they didn't live within certain "desirable" zones of the city. It is an extraordinary story of American democracy gone wrong, and it will make you question everything you think you know about our public education system.
Author: Charles L. Chavis Jr.
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421442930
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 305
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Book Description
The definitive account of the lynching of twenty-three-year-old Matthew Williams in Maryland, the subsequent investigation, and the legacy of "modern-day" lynchings. On December 4, 1931, a mob of white men in Salisbury, Maryland, lynched and set ablaze a twenty-three-year-old Black man named Matthew Williams. His gruesome murder was part of a wave of silent white terrorism in the wake of the stock market crash of 1929, which exposed Black laborers to white rage in response to economic anxieties. For nearly a century, the lynching of Matthew Williams has lived in the shadows of the more well-known incidents of racial terror in the deep South, haunting both the Eastern Shore and the state of Maryland as a whole. In The Silent Shore, author Charles L. Chavis Jr. draws on his discovery of previously unreleased investigative documents to meticulously reconstruct the full story of one of the last lynchings in Maryland. Bringing the painful truth of anti-Black violence to light, Chavis breaks the silence that surrounded Williams's death. Though Maryland lacked the notoriety for racial violence of Alabama or Mississippi, he writes, it nonetheless was the site of at least 40 spectacle lynchings after the abolition of slavery in 1864. Families of lynching victims rarely obtained any form of actual justice, but Williams's death would have a curious afterlife: Maryland's politically ambitious governor Albert C. Ritchie would, in an attempt to position himself as a viable challenger to FDR, become one of the first governors in the United States to investigate the lynching death of a Black person. Ritchie tasked Patsy Johnson, a member of the Pinkerton detective agency and a former prizefighter, with going undercover in Salisbury and infiltrating the mob that murdered Williams. Johnson would eventually befriend a young local who admitted to participating in the lynching and who also named several local law enforcement officers as ringleaders. Despite this, a grand jury, after hearing 124 witness statements, declined to indict the perpetrators. But this denial of justice galvanized Governor Ritchie's Interracial Commission, which would become one of the pioneering forces in the early civil rights movement in Maryland. Complicating historical narratives associated with the history of lynching in the city of Salisbury, The Silent Shore explores the immediate and lingering effect of Williams's death on the politics of racism in the United States, the Black community in Salisbury, the broader Eastern Shore, the state of Maryland, and the legacy of "modern-day lynchings."
