Search results for ""Author Adam Selzer""

Exploring the History and Lore of the Windy City Discover the fascinating history of Chicago – home to Obama, Al Capone and the Chicago Cubs, politicians, mobsters, and more, told through 24 dramatic true stories. Known as an expert on Chicago's folklore and crime stories, Adam Selzer takes readers through Chicago's history from the 1800s to the present with tales of the politicians, eccentrics, and the famous and infamous who shaped the city. Essays explore historic events from the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 to the beginnings of the film era (Chicago was home to film long before Hollywood); speeches by Abraham Lincoln and Barack Obama; the historical contributions to the birth of rock 'n roll of Chess Records, who signed Howlin' Wolf, Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Etta James, Little Walter, and Willie Dixon; and baseball legends and curses. Learn about the city's legendary ghosts and haunted hotels. Also included are guided walking tours around many of the sites mentioned, illustrated with colour photographs and maps. . 'Chronicles of Old Chicago: Exploring the History and Lore of the Windy City' appeals to American history buffs, Chicago residents, baseball fans, political historians, and tourists, with: . Intriguing profiles of historic and cultural figures including Oprah Winfrey, Roger Ebert, Barack Obama, Mayor Richard Daley, and more . More than 200 photographs and illustrations . 6 Easy-to-follow walking tours with 7+ detailed maps . Complete Index AUTHOR: Adam Selzer, a historian and tour guide, was born in Des Moines and makes his home in Chicago, where he resides with his wife, stepson and cats in the west Loop. The passionate Chicago-lover appears regularly on TV and radio talking about Chicago history, and he has published 15 books, ranging from young adult novels to books on the history of the Windy City including the recent Ghosts of Chicago. He can often be found writing in coffee shops or poking around old buildings, empty alleyways, and dusty libraries around the city. REVIEWS: "While this is a nonfiction book, it reads like fiction, whereby the reader journeys through Paris at different times in its history, through the stories of famous people and places." -ForeWord Review "This lovely, gorgeous and intelligent book examines the Paris of old and not so old, with its many fascinating figures and tales." -Chicago Tribune "A fun, supplemental travel book for those seeking to go beyond the traditional tourist spots" - Library Journal "Excellent walking tours are accompanied by engaging anecdotes….." - France Magazine 200 illustrations and photographs MUSEYON GUIDES CHRONICLES SERIES 9780984633449 Chronicles of Old Rome: Exploring Italy's Eternal City 9780984633401 Chronicles of Old Boston: Exploring New England's Historic Capital 9780984633487 Chronicles of Old Chicago: Exploring the History and Lore of the Windy City 9780984633418 Chronicles of Old Las Vegas: Exposing Sin City's High-Stakes History 9780984633432 Chronicles of Old London: Exploring Historic Neighborhoods 9780982232064 Chronicles of Old New York: Exploring Manhatten's Landmark Neighbors 9780984633425 Chronicles of Old Paris: Exploring the Historic City of Light

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From Chicago historian Adam Selzer, expert on all of the Windy City’s quirks and oddities, comes a compelling heavily researched anthology of the stories behind its most fascinating unsolved mysteries.To create this unique volume, Selzer has collected forty unsolved mysteries from the 1800s to modern day. He has poured through all newspaper, magazine, and book references to them, and consulted expert historians. Topics covered include who really started the great Chicago fire, who was the first “automobile murderer,” and even if there was actually a vampire slaying at Rose Hill cemetery.The result is both a colorful read to get lost in, a window to a world of curiosity and wonder, as well as a volume that separates fact from fiction—true crime from urban legend.Complementing the gripping stories Selzer presents are original images of the crime and its suspects as developed by its original investigators. Readers will marvel at how each character and crime were presented, and happily journey with Selzer as he presents all facts and theories presented at the time of the “crime” and uses modern hindsight to assemble the pieces.

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Chosen for the 2024 Illinois Reads Program by the Illinois Reading Council One of Chicago’s landmark attractions, Graceland Cemetery chronicles the city’s sprawling history through the stories of its people. Local historian and Graceland tour guide Adam Selzer presents ten walking tours covering almost the entirety of the cemetery grounds. While nodding to famous Graceland figures from Marshall Field to Ernie Banks to Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Selzer also leads readers past the vaults, obelisks, and other markers that call attention to less recognized Chicagoans like: Jessie Williams de Priest, the Black wife of a congressman whose 1929 invitation to a White House tea party set off a storm of controversy; Engineer and architect Fazlur Khan, the Bangladeshi American who revived the city's skyscraper culture; The still-mysterious Kate Warn (listed as Warn on her tombstone), the United States’ first female private detective. Filled with photographs and including detailed maps of each tour route, Graceland Cemetery is an insider's guide to one of Chicago's great outdoor destinations for city lore and history.

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First time in paperback The first biography of the serial killer featured in Devil in the White City

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The most sensational and intriguing murders from across the USA are re-examined in this disquieting volume, which introduces readers to the most lethal killers from every state. Spanning the period from the end of the Civil War to the beginning of the Second World War, these are homicides from a seminal period of American criminal history, an era that saw the formation of the first state police agency, the first murderer convicted using fingerprints and the birth of the FBI laboratory. Every murder case is accompanied by an elegant contemporary map or bespoke floorplan on which the precise movements of both killer and victim are meticulously plotted, offering unrivalled insight into the vital components of the crime. The macabre picture is completed with early mugshots and unnerving crime scene photographs, bringing to life bloodsoaked Wild West saloons, inner city ganglands and the deadly machinations behind famous assassinations. The killers featured range from the ‘Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run’, who attacked and dismembered his victims in Cleveland’s most unsavoury suburb, to the black widow Belle Gunness, who lured numerous victims to her Illinois farm, and from the infamous Texan bank robbers Bonnie and Clyde to the devious Petrillo cousins in Philadelphia and their contract killing service. Crime expert Adam Selzer illuminates the details of each case, recounting both the outrageous details of the crimes themselves and the ingenious detective work and breakthrough forensics that solved them. His bloodthirsty tour of America’s criminal underworld uncovers the ruthless scheming of murderers both infamous and little-known, providing a hair-raising anthology to appeal to anyone with a taste for murder.With 764 illustrations in colour

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Flickering Empire tells the fascinating yet little-known story of how Chicago served as the unlikely capital of American film production in the years before the rise of Hollywood (1907-1913). As entertaining as it is informative, Flickering Empire straddles the worlds of academic and popular nonfiction in its vivid illustration of the rise and fall of the major Chicago movie studios in the mid-silent era (principally Essanay and Selig Polyscope). Colorful, larger-than-life historical figures, including Thomas Edison, Charlie Chaplin, Oscar Micheaux, and Orson Welles, are major players in the narrative-in addition to important though forgotten industry titans, such as "Colonel" William Selig, George Spoor, and Gilbert "Broncho Billy" Anderson.

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