Search results for ""Kent State University Press""

Discusses the work of the United States Christian Commission (USCC), a civilian relief agency established by northern evangelical Protestants to minister to Union troops during the American Civil War.

Read more less

The haunting debut collection by poet Colin Dekeersgieter, whose lyric poems scrutinize a family's history with addiction, death, and mental illness. With many poems written in emergency departments, behavioral wards, and intensive care units, Dekeersgieter does not just honestly chronicle a family crisis but seeks to survive through poetry.

Read more less

How Malabar Farm pioneered soil conservation and grew the sustainable agriculture movementEstablished in 1939 by Pulitzer Prize–winning author and farmer Louis Bromfield, Malabar Farm was once considered "the most famous farm in the world." Farmers, conservationists, politicians, businessmen, and even a few Hollywood celebrities—including Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, who married there—flocked to rural Ohio to see how Bromfield restored worn-out land to lush productivity using conservation practices. Permanent, sustainable agriculture, Bromfield preached, was the "New Agriculture" that would transform the postwar world.Anneliese Abbott tells the story of Malabar Farm within the context of the wider histories of soil conservation and other environmental movements, especially the Ohio-based organization Friends of the Land. As one of the few surviving landmarks of this movement, which became an Ohio state park in 1976, Malabar Farm provides an intriguing case study of how soil conservation began, how it was marginalized during the 1950s, and how it now continues to influence the modern idea of sustainable agriculture.To see Malabar strictly as a modern production farm—or a nature preserve, or the home of a famous novelist—oversimplifies the complexity of what Bromfield actually did. Malabar wasn't a conventional farm or an organic farm; it was both. It represents a middle ground that is often lacking in modern discussions about sustainability or environmental issues, yet it remains critically important. Today, as Malabar Farm State Park remains a working farm with a new interpretive center that opened in 2006, its importance and impact continue for current and future generations.

Read more less

Devoted to Tolkien, the teller of tales and co-creator of the myths they brush against, these essays focus on his lifelong interest in and engagement with fairy stories, the special world that he called faërie, a world they both create and inhabit, and with the elements that make that world the special place it is. They cover a range of subjects, from The Hobbit to The Lord of the Rings and their place within the legendarium he called the Silmarillion to shorter works like "The Story of Kullervo" and "Smith of Wootton Major."From the pen of eminent Tolkien scholar Verlyn Flieger, the individual essays in this collection were written over a span of twenty years, each written to fit the parameters of a conference, an anthology, or both. They are revised slightly from their original versions to eliminate repetition and bring them up to date. Grouped loosely by theme, they present an unpatterned mosaic, depicting topics from myth to truth, from social manners to moral behavior, from textual history to the micro particles of Middle-earth.Together these essays present a complete picture of a man as complicated as the books that bear his name—an independent and unorthodox thinker who was both a believer and a doubter able to maintain conflicting ideas in tension, a teller of tales both romantic and bitter, hopeful and pessimistic, in equal parts tragic and comedic. A man whose work does not seek for right or wrong answers so much as a way to accommodate both; a man of antitheses.Scholars of fantasy literature generally and of Tolkien particularly will find much of value in this insightful collection by a seasoned explorer of Tolkien's world of faërie.

Read more less

A devastating loss of life and a community's response.March 4, 1908, was an ordinary morning in Collinwood, Ohio, a village about ten miles outside of Cleveland. Children at Lakeview Elementary School were at work on their lessons when fifth-grader Emma Neibert noticed wisps of smoke, a discovery that led to a panicked stampede inside the school—the chaos of nine teachers trying to control and then save pupils in overcrowded classrooms. Outside, desperate parents and would-be rescuers fought to save as many children as possible, while Collinwood's inadequate volunteer fire department—joined by members of the Cleveland fire department—fought a losing battle with the rapidly spreading blaze.While some inside jumped from the building to safety, most were trapped. Ultimately, 172 children, two teachers, and one rescue worker were killed, and the Collinwood community was irrevocably changed.The fire's staggering death toll shocked the entire country and resulted in impassioned official inquiries about the fire's cause, the building's structure, and overall safety considerations. Regionally, and eventually nationwide, changes were implemented in school structures and construction materials.The Collinwood Tragedy: The Story of the Worst School Fire in American History describes not only the events of that fateful day but also their lingering effects. James Jessen Badal's extensive research reveals how the citizens of Collinwood were desperate to find someone to blame for the tragedy. Rumor and suspicion splintered the grieving community. And yet they also rose to the challenge of healing: officials reached out to immigrant families unsure of their rights; city charities, churches, and relief agencies responded immediately with medical help, comfort for the bereaved, and financial support; and fundraising efforts to assist families totaled more than $50,000—more than $1 million in today's terms.

Read more less

It s a joy. . .to come nearer to a realm of experience little explored in American poetry, the lives of those who are engaged in the complex project of transforming their own gender... Oliver Bendorf writes from a paradoxical, new-world position: the adult voice of a man who has just appeared in the world. A man emergent, a man in love, alive in the fluid instability of any category. – Mark Doty, from the Foreword

Read more less

On August 21, 1863, William Quantrill led 400 Confederate irregulars to a rise on the outskirts of Lawrence, Kansas. For two years, the 3,000 inhabitants of this prosperous frontier community had managed to escape the Civil War which raged in the East. At Quantrill's command, the horrors of that war were brought directly into their homes. The attack began at dawn. When it was over, more than 150 townsmen were dead and most of the settlement burned to the ground.In Bloody Dawn, Thomas Goodrich considers why this remote settlement was signaled out to receive such brutal treatment. He also describes the retribution that soon followed, which in many ways surpassed the significance of the Lawrence Massacre itself. The story that unfolds reveals an event unlike anything our nation has experienced before or since.

Read more less

In 1936, Bruno Richard Hauptmann was executed for the kidnapping and murder of Charles Lindbergh Jr. Almost all of America believed Hauptmann guilty; only a few magazines and tabloids published articles questioning his conviction. In the ensuing decades, many books about the Lindbergh case have been published. Some have declared Hauptmann the victim of a police conspiracy and frame-up, and one posited that Lindbergh actually killed his own son and fabricated the entire kidnapping to mask the deed. Because books about the crime have been used as a means to advance personal theories, the truth has often been sacrificed and readers misinformed.Hauptmann's Ladder is a testament to the truth that counters the revisionist histories all too common in the true crime genre. Author Richard T. Cahill Jr. puts the true back in true crime, providing credible information and undistorted evidence that enables readers to form their own opinions and reach their own conclusions.Cahill presents conclusions based upon facts and documentary evidence uncovered in his twenty years of research. Using primary sources and painstakingly presenting a chronological reconstruction of the crime and its aftermath, he debunks false claims and explodes outrageous theories, while presenting evidence that has never before been revealed.Hauptmann's Ladder is a meticulously researched examination of the Lindbergh kidnapping that restores and preserves the truth of the crime of the century.

Read more less

When it came to football in the 1930s, the college sport was king. But in 1933, former boxer and minor league baseball player Art Rooney, who had quarterbacked the squad at Duquesne University, purchased a team for Pittsburgh for $2,500. Thus began the legacy we know as "Steeler Nation."At the time, no one could have imagined that the Pirates, as they were originally named, would become a treasured possession for Pittsburghers. For the first 40 years, the franchise was a national joke. With only one playoff performance—a 21–0 defeat at the hands of the Philadelphia Eagles for the eastern division title in 1947—highlights were minimal for a team that regularly found itself at the bottom of the standings.Then in 1969, Art Rooney's son Dan hired Chuck Noll from the Baltimore Colts to coach his team. Noll replaced undisciplined players with future hall of famers. By 1974 the team won its first world championship and went on to capture four Super Bowl titles in six years. Noll's legacy for excellence continued with four more Super Bowl appearances and two championships in 2005 and 2008, garnering the franchise a league record of six Super Bowl wins.Classic Steelers includes these six championship tilts and takes citizens of the Steeler Nation on a play-by-play tour of the most memorable games in the team's history. Author David Finoli recounts in vivid detail the thrilling gridiron performances that have made the Steelers so special to their legions of fans.

Read more less