Research by economists and economic historians has greatly expanded our knowledge of labor markets and real wages in the United States since the Civil War, but the period from 1820 to 1860 has been far less studied. Robert Margo fills this gap by collecting and analyzing the payroll records of civilians hired by the United States Army and the 1850 and 1860 manuscript federal Censuses of Social Statistics. New wage series are constructed for three occupational groups—common laborers, artisans, and white-collar workers—in each of the four major census regions—Northeast, Midwest, South Atlantic, and South Central—over the period 1820 to 1860, and also for California between 1847 and 1860. Margo uses these data, along with previously collected evidence on prices, to explore a variety of issues central to antebellum economic development.
This volume makes a significant contribution to economic history by presenting a vast amount of previously unexamined data to advance the understanding of the history of wages and labor markets in the antebellum economy

zachomikowany

305 KB
6 mar 13 5:36

Ellen Herman - Kinship by Design, A History of Ado ption in the Modern United States (2008).jpg

What constitutes a family? Tracing the dramatic evolution of Americans’ answer to this question over the past century, Kinship by Design provides the fullest account to date of modern adoption’s history.
Beginning in the early 1900s, when children were still transferred between households by a variety of unregulated private arrangements, Ellen Herman details efforts by the U.S. Children’s Bureau and the Child Welfare League of America to establish adoption standards in law and practice. She goes on to trace Americans’ shifting ideas about matching children with physically or intellectually similar parents, revealing how research in developmental science and technology shaped adoption as it navigated the nature-nurture debate.
Concluding with an insightful analysis of the revolution that ushered in special needs, transracial, and international adoptions, Kinship by Design ultimately situates the practice as both a different way to make a family and a universal story about love, loss, identity, and belonging. In doing so, this volume provides a new vantage point from which to view twentieth-century America, revealing as much about social welfare, statecraft, and science as it does about childhood, family, and private life.

zachomikowany

93 KB
6 mar 13 5:36

Kenda Creasy Dean - Almost Christian, What the Fai th of Our Teenagers is Telling the American Church (2010).jpg

USA Books - Kenda Creasy Dean - Almost Christian, What the Faith o...h of Our Teenagers is Telling the American Church 2010.jpg

Based on the National Study of Youth and Religion--the same invaluable data as its predecessor, Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers--Kenda Creasy Dean's compelling new book, Almost Christian, investigates why American teenagers are at once so positive about Christianity and at the same time so apathetic about genuine religious practice.

In Soul Searching, Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton found that American teenagers have embraced a "Moralistic Therapeutic Deism"--a hodgepodge of banal, self-serving, feel-good beliefs that bears little resemblance to traditional Christianity. But far from faulting teens, Dean places the blame for this theological watering down squarely on the churches themselves. Instead of proclaiming a God who calls believers to lives of love, service and sacrifice, churches offer instead a bargain religion, easy to use, easy to forget, offering little and demanding less. But what is to be done? In order to produce ardent young Christians, Dean argues, churches must rediscover their sense of mission and model an understanding of being Christian as not something you do for yourself, but something that calls you to share God's love, in word and deed, with others. Dean found that the most committed young Christians shared four important traits: they could tell a personal and powerful story about God; they belonged to a significant faith community; they exhibited a sense of vocation; and they possessed a profound sense of hope. Based on these findings, Dean proposes an approach to Christian education that places the idea of mission at its core and offers a wealth of concrete suggestions for inspiring teens to live more authentically engaged Christian lives.

Persuasively and accessibly written, Almost Christian is a wake up call no one concerned about the future of Christianity in America can afford to ignore.

zachomikowany

84 KB
6 mar 13 5:36

Byron E. Shafer, Richard Johnston - The End of Sou thern Exceptionalism, Class, Race, and Partisan Ch ange in the Postwar South (2009).jpg

USA Books - Byron E. Shafer, Richard Johnston - The End of Souther..., Race, and Partisan Change in the Postwar South 2009.jpg

The transformation of Southern politics after World War II changed the political life not just of this distinctive region, but of the entire nation. Until now, the critical shift in Southern political allegiance from Democratic to Republican has been explained, by scholars and journalists, as a white backlash to the civil rights revolution.
In this myth-shattering book, Byron Shafer and Richard Johnston refute that view, one stretching all the way back to V. O. Key in his classic book Southern Politics. The true story is instead one of dramatic class reversal, beginning in the 1950s and pulling everything else in its wake. Where once the poor voted Republican and the rich Democrat, that pattern reversed, as economic development became the engine of Republican gains. Racial desegregation, never far from the heart of the story, often applied the brakes to these gains rather than fueling them.
A book that is bound to shake up the study of Southern politics, this will also become required reading for pundits and political strategists, for all those who argue over what it takes to carry the South.

zachomikowany

5,8 MB
6 mar 13 5:36

Byron E. Shafer, Richard Johnston - The End of Sou thern Exceptionalism, Class, Race, and Partisan Ch ange in the Postwar South (2009).pdf

zachomikowany

79 KB
6 mar 13 5:36

Eileen McDonagh - The Motherless State, Women's Po litical Leadership and American Democracy (2009).jpg

American women attain more professional success than most of their counterparts around the world, but they lag surprisingly far behind in the national political arena. Women held only 15 percent of U.S. congressional seats in 2006, a proportion that ranks America behind eighty-two other countries in terms of females elected to legislative office. A compelling exploration of this deficiency, The Motherless State reveals why the United States differs from comparable democracies that routinely elect far more women to their national governing bodies and chief executive positions.
Explaining that equal rights alone do not ensure equal access to political office, Eileen McDonagh shows that electoral gender parity also requires public policies that represent maternal traits. Most other democracies, she demonstrates, view women as more suited to govern because their governments have taken on maternal roles through social welfare provisions, gender quotas, or the continuance of symbolic hereditary monarchies. The United States has not adopted such policies, and until it does, McDonagh insightfully warns, American women run for office with a troubling disadvantage.

zachomikowany

48 KB
6 mar 13 5:36

David C. Barnette - The Official Guide to Christma s in the South, Or, If You Can't Fry It, Spraypain t It Gold (2005).jpg

USA Books - David C. Barnette - The Official Guide to Christmas in...South, Or, If You Cant Fry It, Spraypaint It Gold 2005.jpg

No place celebrates Christmas like Dixie, and with this charming, humorous guide, anyone can learn how to deck the halls, Southern style
It's the one time of the year when both the divine and debutantes take center stage in a perfect storm of hot glue and cheese grits: Christmas. But successfully navigating through the holiday season can be more complex than Santa's midnight journey. There are pitfalls hotter than any chimney -- and social situations more slippery than any roof! But now The Official Guide to Christmas in the South has arrived to reveal the finer and sometimes unspoken details of Dixie etiquette.
Perfect for a true Southerner's coffee table or an imposter's survival guide, The Official Guide to Christmas in the South is the gift that will keep on regifting season after season.

zachomikowany

5,3 MB
6 mar 13 5:36

David C. Barnette - The Official Guide to Christma s in the South, Or, If You Can't Fry It, Spraypain t It Gold (2005).pdf

zachomikowany

139 KB
6 mar 13 5:36

Brian C. Black, Donna L. Lybecker - Great Debates in American Environmental History, vol. 1 (2008).jpg

Students today are often confronted with alarms and concerns over the state of the environment. Global warming, biodiversity, genetically engineered food - disputes over such topics are a constant refrain. But to best understand these contemporary debates, students need to understand the long history of these environmental concerns. Great Debates in American Environmental History examines over 200 of the most important and controversial environmental issues in the history of the United States, conveniently organizing them in chronological order from the Colonial period to the present. Each entry describes the issue, the stakeholders of various positions, and both the immediate outcome of the debate, and the long-term consequences of the result.
Great Debates in American Environmental History examines in detail the environmental issues surrounding such turning points in the history of the United States as: The Louisiana Purchase of 1803 and the resulting addition of the Great Plains to the United States. The controversial mid-19th century plans for a large urban park in the middle of Manhattan, now known as Central Park. The debates over the federal land grants given to railroads in the 1860s to spur the construction of transcontinental rail, and the resulting environmental effects that impact much of the West today. The 1921 discovery of tetraethyl lead as an anti-knock gasoline additive, which was put on the market with little research as to the health impact. The current debates over the drilling for oil in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge, or ANWR.

zachomikowany

11,7 MB
6 mar 13 5:36

Brian C. Black, Donna L. Lybecker - Great Debates in American Environmental History, vol. 1 (2008).pdf

zachomikowany

117 KB
6 mar 13 5:36

Brian C. Black, Donna L. Lybecker - Great Debates in American Environmental History, vol. 2 (2008).jpg

zachomikowany

8,3 MB
6 mar 13 5:36

Brian C. Black, Donna L. Lybecker - Great Debates in American Environmental History, vol. 2 (2008).pdf

zachomikowany

65 KB
6 mar 13 5:36

Richard R. John - Spreading the News, The American Postal System from Franklin to Morse (1998).jpg

In the seven decades from its establishment in 1775 to the commercialization of the electric telegraph in 1844, the American postal system spurred a communications revolution no less far-reaching than the subsequent revolutions associated with the telegraph, telephone, and computer. This book tells the story of that revolution and the challenge it posed for American business, politics, and cultural life.
During the early republic, the postal system was widely hailed as one of the most important institutions of the day. No other institution had the capacity to transmit such a large volume of information on a regular basis over such an enormous geographical expanse. The stagecoaches and postriders who conveyed the mail were virtually synonymous with speed.
In the United States, the unimpeded transmission of information has long been hailed as a positive good. In few other countries has informational mobility been such a cherished ideal. Richard John shows how postal policy can help explain this state of affairs. He discusses its influence on the development of such information-intensive institutions as the national market, the voluntary association, and the mass party. He traces its consequences for ordinary Americans, including women, blacks, and the poor. In a broader sense, he shows how the postal system worked to create a national society out of a loose union of confederated states. This exploration of the role of the postal system in American public life provides a fresh perspective not only on an important but neglected chapter in American history, but also on the origins of some of the most distinctive features of American life today.

zachomikowany

22,1 MB
6 mar 13 5:36

Richard R. John - Spreading the News, The American Postal System from Franklin to Morse (1998).pdf

zachomikowany

120 KB
6 mar 13 5:36

Chad Montrie - To Save the Land and People, A Hist ory of Opposition to Surface Coal Mining in Appala chia (2003).jpg

USA Books - Chad Montrie - To Save the Land and People, A History ...f Opposition to Surface Coal Mining in Appalachia 2003.jpg

Surface coal mining has had a dramatic impact on the Appalachian economy and ecology since World War II, exacerbating the region's chronic unemployment and destroying much of its natural environment. Here, Chad Montrie examines the twentieth-century movement to outlaw surface mining in Appalachia, tracing popular opposition to the industry from its inception through the growth of a militant movement that engaged in acts of civil disobedience and industrial sabotage. Both comprehensive and comparative, To Save the Land and People chronicles the story of surface mining opposition in the whole region, from Pennsylvania to Alabama.
Though many accounts of environmental activism focus on middle-class suburbanites and emphasize national events, the campaign to abolish strip mining was primarily a movement of farmers and working people, originating at the local and state levels. Its history underscores the significant role of common people and grassroots efforts in the American environmental movement. This book also contributes to a long-running debate about American values by revealing how veneration for small, private properties has shaped the political consciousness of strip mining opponents.

zachomikowany

1,4 MB
6 mar 13 5:36

Chad Montrie - To Save the Land and People, A Hist ory of Opposition to Surface Coal Mining in Appala chia (2003).pdf

zachomikowany

48 KB
6 mar 13 5:36

Colin A. Palmer - Encyclopedia Of African American Culture And History, The Black Experience In The Americas (2005).jpg

USA Books - Colin A. Palmer - Encyclopedia Of African American Cul...And History, The Black Experience In The Americas 2005.jpg

Users looking for authoritative and comprehensive information about black history, figures and accomplishments now have a defining and current reference to address their needs. The second edition of the Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History is a much-needed expansion of the 1996 classic and its 2000 supplement. As with the earlier publications, the second edition is aimed at high school and college students, as well as the general reader.
Whereas the first edition focused almost exclusively on the United States, this new set identifies and addresses broad themes critical to understanding the texture of the cultures, achievements, challenges and comprise North America, Central and South America and the Caribbean. Readers can find comparative analyses of social movements, languages, religions and family structures in the context of an interdisciplinary framework that fills a substantial gap in studies of this genre.

zachomikowany

79 KB
6 mar 13 5:36

Glenda Carpio - Laughing Fit to Kill, Black Humor in the Fictions of Slavery (2008).jpg

Reassessing the meanings of "black humor" and "dark satire," Laughing Fit to Kill illustrates how black comedians, writers, and artists have deftly deployed various modes of comedic "conjuring"--the absurd, the grotesque, and the strategic expression of racial stereotypes--to redress not only the past injustices of slavery and racism in America but also their legacy in the present. Focusing on representations of slavery in the post-civil rights era, Carpio explores stereotypes in Richard Pryor's groundbreaking stand-up act and the outrageous comedy of Chappelle's Show to demonstrate how deeply indebted they are to the sly social criticism embedded in the profoundly ironic nineteenth-century fiction of William Wells Brown and Charles W. Chesnutt. Similarly, she reveals how the iconoclastic literary works of Ishmael Reed and Suzan-Lori Parks use satire, hyperbole, and burlesque humor to represent a violent history and to take on issues of racial injustice. With an abundance of illustrations, Carpio also extends her discussion of radical black comedy to the visual arts as she reveals how the use of subversive appropriation by Kara Walker and Robert Colescott cleverly lampoons the iconography of slavery. Ultimately, Laughing Fit to Kill offers a unique look at the bold, complex, and just plain funny ways that African American artists have used laughter to critique slavery's dark legacy.

zachomikowany

11,3 MB
6 mar 13 5:36

Glenda Carpio - Laughing Fit to Kill, Black Humor in the Fictions of Slavery (2008).pdf

zachomikowany

21 KB
6 mar 13 5:36

Joan Waugh - Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant, A His tory of the Union Cause (2003).jpg

Ulysses Simpson Grant was the 18th President of the United States of America, serving from 1869 to 1877. won fame for his victories at Ft. Donaldson (1862), Shiloh (1862), and Vicksburg (1863), and his grueling but successful war of attrition against Robert E. Lee. who surrendered to Grant at Appomattox in April, 1865, ending the Civil War. As president he supported the Radical Republicans in the program for reconstruction, defeated the Ku Klux Klan, and supported civil rights for the Freedmen (freed slaves). In foreign policy he settled a major conflict with Britain regarding the Civil War. Although personally honest, Grant gave out patronage too generously to his loyalists, and protected senior corrupt officials. The Panic of 1873 made his second term one of economic depression, and allowed the Democrats to regain control of the House in 1876. Grant made a celebrated tour around the world, but came back in 1880 to try for a third term and failed. His finances, ruined by a dishonest associate and while dying of throat cancer, wrote a brilliant memoir of his military service; it stands as one of the great monuments in military historiography, and his battlefield achievements rank him as one of the great generals in world history.

Joan Waugh is associate professor of history at the University of California at Los Angeles, where she received her Ph.D. in 1992. She has received several awards for teaching and mentoring undergraduate students and research fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Huntington Library, and the Gilder Lehrman Center.

In addition to her regular teaching, Prof. Waugh leads the “Gettysburg Summer” program at UCLA, which sends undergraduates to Gettysburg, Washington, and other Civil War sites every year. She is the author of Unsentimental Reformer: The Life of Josephine Shaw Lowell (1998) and editor of the volume on the "Civil War and Reconstruction" in Facts on Files Encyclopedia of U.S. History (2003). Prof. Waugh is co-editor of the forthcoming The Memory of the Civil War in American Culture and is currently working on two books: Ulysses S. Grant and the Union Cause and The War for the Common Soldier, both of which will be published by the University of North Carolina Press.

zachomikowany

1,1 MB
6 mar 13 5:36

Joan Waugh - Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant, A His tory of the Union Cause (2003).pdf

zachomikowany

203 KB
6 mar 13 5:36

Michael J. Bennett - Union Jacks, Yankee Sailors i n the Civil War (2004).jpg

Historians have given a great deal of attention to the lives and experiences of Civil War soldiers, but surprisingly little is known about navy sailors who participated in the conflict. Michael J. Bennett remedies the longstanding neglect of Civil War seamen in this comprehensive assessment of the experience of common Union sailors from 1861 to 1865.
To resurrect the voices of the "Union Jacks," Bennett combed sailors' diaries, letters, and journals. He finds that the sailors differed from their counterparts in the army in many ways. They tended to be a rougher bunch of men than the regular soldiers, drinking and fighting excessively. Those who were not foreign-born, escaped slaves, or unemployed at the time they enlisted often hailed from the urban working class rather than from rural farms and towns. In addition, most sailors enlisted for pragmatic rather than ideological reasons.
Bennett's examination provides a look into the everyday lives of sailors and illuminates where they came from, why they enlisted, and how their origins shaped their service. By showing how these Union sailors lived and fought on the sea, Bennett brings an important new perspective to our understanding of the Civil War.

zachomikowany

10,4 MB
6 mar 13 5:36

Michael J. Bennett - Union Jacks, Yankee Sailors i n the Civil War (2004).pdf

zachomikowany

239 KB
6 mar 13 5:36

Naomi Oreskes, Erik M. Conway - Merchants of Doubt , How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth o n Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming (201 0).jpg

USA Books - Naomi Oreskes, Erik M. Conway - Merchants of Doubt, Ho...h on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming 2010.jpg

The U.S. scientific community has long led the world in research on such areas as public health, environmental science, and issues affecting quality of life. Our scientists have produced landmark studies on the dangers of DDT, tobacco smoke, acid rain, and global warming. But at the same time, a small yet potent subset of this community leads the world in vehement denial of these dangers.
Merchants of Doubt tells the story of how a loose-knit group of high-level scientists and scientific advisers, with deep connections in politics and industry, ran effective campaigns to mislead the public and deny well-established scientific knowledge over four decades. Remarkably, the same individuals surface repeatedlysome of the same figures who have claimed that the science of global warming is "not settled" denied the truth of studies linking smoking to lung cancer, coal smoke to acid rain, and CFCs to the ozone hole. "Doubt is our product," wrote one tobacco executive. These "experts" supplied it.
Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, historians of science, roll back the rug on this dark corner of the American scientific community, showing how ideology and corporate interests, aided by a too-compliant media, have skewed public understanding of some of the most pressing issues of our era.
Naomi Oreskes is Professor of History and Science Studies at the University of California, San Diego. Her essay "Beyond the Ivory Tower" was a milestone in the fight against global warming denial.

Erik Conway is the resident historian at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.
The U.S. scientific community has long led the world in research on such areas as public health, environmental science, and issues affecting quality of life. Our scientists have produced landmark studies on the dangers of DDT, tobacco smoke, acid rain, and global warming. But at the same time, a small yet potent subset of this community leads the world in vehement denial of these dangers.

Merchants of Doubt tells the story of how a loose-knit group of high-level scientists and scientific advisers, with deep connections in politics and industry, ran effective campaigns to mislead the public and deny well-established scientific knowledge over four decades. Remarkably, the same individuals surface repeatedlysome of the same figures who have claimed that the science of global warming is "not settled" denied the truth of studies linking smoking to lung cancer, coal smoke to acid rain, and CFCs to the ozone hole. "Doubt is our product," wrote one tobacco executive. These "experts" supplied it...

zachomikowany

2,9 MB
6 mar 13 5:36

Naomi Oreskes, Erik M. Conway - Merchants of Doubt , How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth o n Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming (201 0).djvu

zachomikowany

172 KB
6 mar 13 5:36

New Americans - Solomon Addis Getahun - The Histor y of Ethiopian Immigrants and Refugees in America, 1900-2000 (2006).jpg

USA Books - New Americans - Solomon Addis Getahun - The History of...n Immigrants and Refugees in America, 1900-2000 2006.jpg

Ethiopians form the third largest post-1960 African immigrant in the U.S. Over the years, their migratory patterns have changed in response to changes in Ethiopian and American diplomatic relationships. The Ethiopian immigrants also vary among themselves depending on whether they were granted asylum, are refugees, or benefit from the Diversity Visa (DV) lottery winners. Getahun studies the context of the immigrants arrival, their patterns of settlement, and their adjustment in the U.S. Differences between immigrants may be explained by ethnic or regional origin, class, politics, and religion. The resultant communities support social and religious institutions and Ethiopians are succeeding in establishing community organizations and religious institutions and seek to influence U.S foreign policy towards Ethiopia.

zachomikowany

1,6 MB
6 mar 13 5:36

New Americans - Solomon Addis Getahun - The Histor y of Ethiopian Immigrants and Refugees in America, 1900-2000 (2006).pdf

zachomikowany

50 KB
6 mar 13 5:36

Richard Panchyk - Franklin Delano Roosevelt for Ki ds, His Life and Times with 21 Activities (2007).jpg

Franklin Delano Roosevelt enduring legacy upon the history, culture, politics, and economics of the United States is introduced to children in this engaging activity book. Kids will learn how FDR, a member of one of the founding families of the New World, led the nation through the darkest days of the Great Deion and World War II as 32nd U.S. President. This book examines the Roosevelt family including famous cousin Teddy Roosevelt and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt as well as FDR early political career and subsequent 12 years in office during some of the most fascinating and turbulent times in American history. Interspersed throughout are first-hand accounts from the people who knew FDR and remember him well. Children will also learn how his personal struggles with polio and his physical disability strengthened FDR's compassion and resolve. In addition, kids will explore Roosevelt's entire era through such hands-on activities as staging a fireside chat, designing a WPA-style mural, sending a double encoded message, hosting a swing dance party, and participating in a political debate.

zachomikowany