Kansas City and How It Grew, 1822–2011

Kansas City and How It Grew, 1822–2011 PDF Author: James R. Shortridge
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
ISBN: 0700618821
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 262

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Book Description
Think of Kansas City and you'll probably think of barbecue, jazz, or the Chiefs. But for James Shortridge, this heartland city is more than the sum of its cultural beacons. In Kansas City and How It Grew, 1822-2011, a prize-winning geographer traces the historical geography of a place that has developed over 200 years from a cowtown on the bend of the Missouri River into a metropolis straddling two states. He explores the changing character of the community and its component neighborhoods, showing how the city has come to look and function the way it does—and how it has come to be perceived the way it has. Proximity to Great Plains ranches and farms encouraged early and sustained success for Kansas City meatpackers and millers, and Shortridge shows how local responses to economic realities have molded the city's urban structure. He explores the parallel processes of suburbanization and the restructuring of older areas, and tells what happens when transportation shifts from rivers to railroads, then to superhighways and international airports. He also reveals what historians have missed by tending to focus attention only on one side or the other of the state boundary. The book is a virtual who's who of KC progress: without selective law enforcement under political boss Thomas Pendergast, Kansas City would not enjoy its legacy of jazz; without the gift of Thomas Swope's namesake park, upscale residential expansion likely would have gone east instead of south; and without J. C. Nichols, Johnson County suburbs would have developed in a less spectacular manner. Its insight into important molders of the city includes nearly forgotten names such as William Dalton, Charles Morse, and Willard Winner, plus important figures from more recent years including Kay Barnes, Charles Garney, and Bonnie Poteet. With more than 50 photos and dozens of maps specially created for this book, Kansas City and How It Grew is unique in treating the entire metropolitan area instead of just one portion. With coverage ranging from ethnic neighborhoods to development strategies, it's an indispensable touchstone for those who want to try to understand Kansas City as both a city and a place.

Kansas City and How It Grew, 1822–2011

Kansas City and How It Grew, 1822–2011 PDF Author: James R. Shortridge
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
ISBN: 0700618821
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 262

Get Book

Book Description
Think of Kansas City and you'll probably think of barbecue, jazz, or the Chiefs. But for James Shortridge, this heartland city is more than the sum of its cultural beacons. In Kansas City and How It Grew, 1822-2011, a prize-winning geographer traces the historical geography of a place that has developed over 200 years from a cowtown on the bend of the Missouri River into a metropolis straddling two states. He explores the changing character of the community and its component neighborhoods, showing how the city has come to look and function the way it does—and how it has come to be perceived the way it has. Proximity to Great Plains ranches and farms encouraged early and sustained success for Kansas City meatpackers and millers, and Shortridge shows how local responses to economic realities have molded the city's urban structure. He explores the parallel processes of suburbanization and the restructuring of older areas, and tells what happens when transportation shifts from rivers to railroads, then to superhighways and international airports. He also reveals what historians have missed by tending to focus attention only on one side or the other of the state boundary. The book is a virtual who's who of KC progress: without selective law enforcement under political boss Thomas Pendergast, Kansas City would not enjoy its legacy of jazz; without the gift of Thomas Swope's namesake park, upscale residential expansion likely would have gone east instead of south; and without J. C. Nichols, Johnson County suburbs would have developed in a less spectacular manner. Its insight into important molders of the city includes nearly forgotten names such as William Dalton, Charles Morse, and Willard Winner, plus important figures from more recent years including Kay Barnes, Charles Garney, and Bonnie Poteet. With more than 50 photos and dozens of maps specially created for this book, Kansas City and How It Grew is unique in treating the entire metropolitan area instead of just one portion. With coverage ranging from ethnic neighborhoods to development strategies, it's an indispensable touchstone for those who want to try to understand Kansas City as both a city and a place.

K.C.

K.C. PDF Author: Andrew Theodore Brown
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Kansas City (Mo.)
Languages : en
Pages : 330

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Book Description
An interpretive history covering the early 1800s to present that details the success story behind Kansas City's exciting growth.

Kansas City, Missouri

Kansas City, Missouri PDF Author: Carrie Westlake Whitney
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 712

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Book Description


Storied & Scandalous Kansas City

Storied & Scandalous Kansas City PDF Author: Karla Deel
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1493042440
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 169

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Book Description
Welcome to Kansas City—the best town this side of Hell. The Paris of the Plains. Home to the Wettest Block in the World. This collection celebrates a storied history of one notorious city. Meet the mobsters and victims, bootleggers, madams, political bosses and raucous entertainers who truly brought the party to the plains even during Prohibition. Witness the best parades, the wackiest costumes and the wildest scams. Kansas City’s sordid underbelly is full of surprises sure to delight and entice—the odd, macabre and delightful.

Kansas City, America's Crossroads

Kansas City, America's Crossroads PDF Author: Diane Mutti Burke
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
The fourteen articles in this anthology, previously published in the Missouri Historical Review, examine multiple facets of Kansas City's history in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Beginning with events prior to the settlement of the area, the essays describe important episodes in the social, economic, racial, and political life of Kansas City. Boss Tom Pendergast, conflict between incoming Mormons and earlier settlers, and a young female teacher's experience in the 1840s all figure into this rich history of the Kansas City area.

Historic Photos of Kansas City

Historic Photos of Kansas City PDF Author:
Publisher: Turner Publishing Company
ISBN: 1618586459
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 275

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Book Description
By the mid nineteenth century, Kansas City was an important trading center for the westward movement. Through the late 1800s, two World Wars, and into the modern era, Kansas City has continued to grow and prosper by overcoming adversity through the strength and resolve of its citizens. This volume, Historic Photos of Kansas City, captures this journey through still photography from the city’s finest archives. From the Civil War, to the turn of the century, to the building of a modern metropolis, Historic Photos of Kansas City follows life, government, education, and events throughout Kansas City’s history. This book captures unique and rare scenes as depicted in nearly 200 historic photographs. Published in striking black and white, these images communicate historic events and everyday life of two centuries of people building a unique and prosperous city.

Kansas City, Missouri

Kansas City, Missouri PDF Author: George Ehrlich
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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Book Description


Journeys Through Time

Journeys Through Time PDF Author: Monroe Dodd
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780967951904
Category : Children
Languages : en
Pages : 121

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Book Description
Through the magic of history, we'll relive the events that created the place we call home. We'll return to the days of the fur trappers, the riverboat captains, the cowpunchers and the railroad workers -- all the men and women, boys and girls who built Kansas City and the area around it.

Kansas City

Kansas City PDF Author: Andrea L. Broomfield
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1442232897
Category : Cooking
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
While some cities owe their existence to lumber or oil, turpentine or steel, Kansas City owes its existence to food. From its earliest days, Kansas City was in the business of provisioning pioneers and traders headed west, and later with provisioning the nation with meat and wheat. Throughout its history, thousands of Kansas Citians have also made their living providing meals and hospitality to travelers passing through on their way elsewhere, be it by way of a steamboat, Conestoga wagon, train, automobile, or airplane. As Kansas City’s adopted son, Fred Harvey sagely noted, “Travel follows good food routes,” and Kansas City’s identity as a food city is largely based on that fact. Kansas City: A Food Biography explores in fascinating detail how a frontier town on the edge of wilderness grew into a major metropolis, one famous for not only great cuisine but for a crossroads hospitality that continues to define it. Kansas City: A Food Biography also explores how politics, race, culture, gender, immigration, and art have forged the city’s most iconic dishes, from chili and steak to fried chicken and barbecue. In lively detail, Andrea Broomfield brings the Kansas City food scene to life.

Wide-Open Town

Wide-Open Town PDF Author: Diane Mutti Burke
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
ISBN: 0700627065
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
Kansas City is often seen as a mild-mannered metropolis in the heart of flyover country. But a closer look tells a different story, one with roots in the city’s complicated and colorful past. The decades between World Wars I and II were a time of intense political, social, and economic change—for Kansas City, as for the nation as a whole. In exploring this city at the literal and cultural crossroads of America, Wide-Open Town maps the myriad ways in which Kansas City reflected and helped shape the narrative of a nation undergoing an epochal transformation. During the interwar period, political boss Tom Pendergast reigned, and Kansas City was said to be “wide open.” Prohibition was rarely enforced, the mob was ascendant, and urban vice was rampant. But in a community divided by the hard lines of race and class, this “openness” also allowed many of the city’s residents to challenge conventional social boundaries—and it is this intersection and disruption of cultural norms that interests the authors of Wide-Open Town. Writing from a variety of disciplines and viewpoints, the contributors take up topics ranging from the 1928 Republican National Convention to organizing the garment industry, from the stockyards to health care, drag shows, Thomas Hart Benton, and, of course, jazz. Their essays bring to light the diverse histories of the city—among, for instance, Mexican immigrants, African Americans, the working class, and the LGBT community before the advent of “LGBT.” Wide-Open Town captures the defining moments of a society rocked by World War I, the mass migration of people of color into cities, the entrance of women into the labor force and politics, Prohibition, economic collapse, and a revolution in social mores. Revealing how these changes influenced Kansas City—and how the city responded—this volume helps us understand nothing less than how citizens of the age adapted to the rise of modern America.