Search results for ""University of Illinois Press""

100 Years of Women’s Suffrage commemorates the centennial of the Nineteenth Amendment by bringing together essential scholarship on the women's suffrage movement and women's voting previously published by the University of Illinois Press. With an original introduction by Nancy A. Hewitt, the volume illuminates the lives and work of key figures while uncovering the endeavors of all women—across lines of gender, race, class, religion, and ethnicity—to gain, and use, the vote. Beginning with works that focus on cultural and political suffrage battles, the chapters then look past 1920 at how women won, wielded, and continue to fight for access to the ballot. A curation of important scholarship on a pivotal historical moment, 100 Years of Women’s Suffrage captures the complex and enduring struggle for fair and equal voting rights.Contributors: Laura L. Behling, Erin Cassese, Mary Chapman, M. Margaret Conway, Carolyn Daniels, Bonnie Thornton Dill, Ellen Carol DuBois, Julie A. Gallagher, Barbara Green, Nancy A. Hewitt, Leonie Huddy, Kimberly Jensen, Mary-Kate Lizotte, Lady Constance Lytton, and Andrea G. Radke-Moss

Read more less

Women in the United States organized around their own sense of a distinct set of needs, skills, and concerns. And just as significant as women's acting on their own behalf was the fact that race, class, sexuality, and ethnicity shaped their strategies and methods. This authoritative anthology presents some of the powerful work and ideas about activism published in the acclaimed series Women, Gender, and Sexuality in American History. Assembled to commemorate the series' thirty-fifth anniversary, the collection looks at two hundred years of labor, activist, legal, political, and community organizing by women against racism, misogyny, white supremacy, and inequality. The authors confront how the multiple identities of an organization's members presented challenging dilemmas and share the histories of how women created change by working against inequitable social and structural systems. Insightful and provocative, Women’s Activist Organizing in US History draws on both classic texts and recent bestsellers to reveal the breadth of activism by women in the United States in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.Contributors: Daina Ramey Berry, Melinda Chateauvert, Tiffany M. Gill, Nancy A. Hewitt, Treva B. Lindsey, Anne Firor Scott, Charissa J. Threat, Anne M. Valk, Lara Vapnek, and Deborah Gray White

Read more less

Women in the United States organized around their own sense of a distinct set of needs, skills, and concerns. And just as significant as women's acting on their own behalf was the fact that race, class, sexuality, and ethnicity shaped their strategies and methods. This authoritative anthology presents some of the powerful work and ideas about activism published in the acclaimed series Women, Gender, and Sexuality in American History. Assembled to commemorate the series' thirty-fifth anniversary, the collection looks at two hundred years of labor, activist, legal, political, and community organizing by women against racism, misogyny, white supremacy, and inequality. The authors confront how the multiple identities of an organization's members presented challenging dilemmas and share the histories of how women created change by working against inequitable social and structural systems. Insightful and provocative, Women’s Activist Organizing in US History draws on both classic texts and recent bestsellers to reveal the breadth of activism by women in the United States in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.Contributors: Daina Ramey Berry, Melinda Chateauvert, Tiffany M. Gill, Nancy A. Hewitt, Treva B. Lindsey, Anne Firor Scott, Charissa J. Threat, Anne M. Valk, Lara Vapnek, and Deborah Gray White

Read more less

This first volume of Music in Black American Life collects research and analysis that originally appeared in the journals American Music and the Black Music Research Journal, and in the University of Illinois Press's acclaimed book series Music in American Life. In these selections, experts from a cross-section of disciplines engage with fundamental issues in ways that changed our perceptions of Black music. The topics includes the culturally and musically complex Black music-making of colonial America; string bands and other lesser-known genres practiced by Black artists; the jubilee industry and its audiences; and innovators in jazz, blues, and Black gospel. Eclectic and essential, Music in Black American Life, 1600–1945 offers specialists and students alike a gateway to the history and impact of Black music in the United States.Contributors: R. Reid Badger, Rae Linda Brown, Samuel A. Floyd Jr., Sandra Jean Graham, Jeffrey Magee, Robert M. Marovich, Harriet Ottenheimer, Eileen Southern, Katrina Dyonne Thompson, Stephen Wade, and Charles Wolfe

Read more less

100 Years of Women’s Suffrage commemorates the centennial of the Nineteenth Amendment by bringing together essential scholarship on the women's suffrage movement and women's voting previously published by the University of Illinois Press. With an original introduction by Nancy A. Hewitt, the volume illuminates the lives and work of key figures while uncovering the endeavors of all women—across lines of gender, race, class, religion, and ethnicity—to gain, and use, the vote. Beginning with works that focus on cultural and political suffrage battles, the chapters then look past 1920 at how women won, wielded, and continue to fight for access to the ballot. A curation of important scholarship on a pivotal historical moment, 100 Years of Women’s Suffrage captures the complex and enduring struggle for fair and equal voting rights.Contributors: Laura L. Behling, Erin Cassese, Mary Chapman, M. Margaret Conway, Carolyn Daniels, Bonnie Thornton Dill, Ellen Carol DuBois, Julie A. Gallagher, Barbara Green, Nancy A. Hewitt, Leonie Huddy, Kimberly Jensen, Mary-Kate Lizotte, Lady Constance Lytton, and Andrea G. Radke-Moss

Read more less

This second volume of Music in Black American Life offers research and analysis that originally appeared in the journals American Music and Black Music Research Journal, and in two book series published by the University of Illinois Press: Music in American Life, and African American Music in Global Perspective. In this collection, a group of predominately Black scholars explores a variety of topics with works that pioneered new methodologies and modes of inquiry for hearing and studying Black music. These extracts and articles examine the World War II jazz scene; look at female artists like gospel star Shirley Caesar and jazz musician-arranger Melba Liston; illuminate the South Bronx milieu that folded many forms of black expressive culture into rap; and explain Hamilton's massive success as part of the "tanning" of American culture that began when Black music entered the mainstream. Part sourcebook and part survey of historic music scholarship, Music in Black American Life, 1945–2020 collects groundbreaking work that redefines our view of Black music and its place in American music history.Contributors: Nelson George, Wayne Everett Goins, Claudrena N. Harold, Eileen M. Hayes, Loren Kajikawa, Robin D. G. Kelley, Tammy L. Kernodle, Cheryl L. Keyes, Gwendolyn Pough, Bernice Johnson Reagon, Mark Tucker, and Sherrie Tucker

Read more less

This second volume of Music in Black American Life offers research and analysis that originally appeared in the journals American Music and Black Music Research Journal, and in two book series published by the University of Illinois Press: Music in American Life, and African American Music in Global Perspective. In this collection, a group of predominately Black scholars explores a variety of topics with works that pioneered new methodologies and modes of inquiry for hearing and studying Black music. These extracts and articles examine the World War II jazz scene; look at female artists like gospel star Shirley Caesar and jazz musician-arranger Melba Liston; illuminate the South Bronx milieu that folded many forms of black expressive culture into rap; and explain Hamilton's massive success as part of the "tanning" of American culture that began when Black music entered the mainstream. Part sourcebook and part survey of historic music scholarship, Music in Black American Life, 1945–2020 collects groundbreaking work that redefines our view of Black music and its place in American music history.Contributors: Nelson George, Wayne Everett Goins, Claudrena N. Harold, Eileen M. Hayes, Loren Kajikawa, Robin D. G. Kelley, Tammy L. Kernodle, Cheryl L. Keyes, Gwendolyn Pough, Bernice Johnson Reagon, Mark Tucker, and Sherrie Tucker

Read more less

This first volume of Music in Black American Life collects research and analysis that originally appeared in the journals American Music and the Black Music Research Journal, and in the University of Illinois Press's acclaimed book series Music in American Life. In these selections, experts from a cross-section of disciplines engage with fundamental issues in ways that changed our perceptions of Black music. The topics includes the culturally and musically complex Black music-making of colonial America; string bands and other lesser-known genres practiced by Black artists; the jubilee industry and its audiences; and innovators in jazz, blues, and Black gospel. Eclectic and essential, Music in Black American Life, 1600–1945 offers specialists and students alike a gateway to the history and impact of Black music in the United States.Contributors: R. Reid Badger, Rae Linda Brown, Samuel A. Floyd Jr., Sandra Jean Graham, Jeffrey Magee, Robert M. Marovich, Harriet Ottenheimer, Eileen Southern, Katrina Dyonne Thompson, Stephen Wade, and Charles Wolfe

Read more less

In this new book, Robert W. Proctor curates a collection of celebrated and seminal articles from the past 125 years of the American Journal of Psychology . The debut volume in the University of Illinois Press ™s Common Threads series, Higher Mental Processes reprints a suite of ten articles on processes of higher-order thinking. Proctor, current editor of the AJP , begins the volume with a special introduction that provides historical and scientific context for the contributions. Contributors: P. Baratta, M. H. Birnbaum, M. E. Bulbrook, L. S. Buyer, R. A. Carlson, S. N. F. Chant, A. A. Cleveland, T. D. Cutsforth, R. L. Dominowski, E. Galanter, P. N. Johnson-Laird, M. G. Preston, Robert W. Proctor, and J. Tagart.

Read more less

Scientific knowledge grows at a phenomenal pace--but few books have had as lasting an impact or played as important a role in our modern world as The Mathematical Theory of Communication, published originally as a paper on communication theory more than fifty years ago. Republished in book form shortly thereafter, it has since gone through four hardcover and sixteen paperback printings. It is a revolutionary work, astounding in its foresight and contemporaneity. The University of Illinois Press is pleased and honored to issue this commemorative reprinting of a classic.

Read more less

Shattering the myth of the color-blind society, the essays in Skin Deep examine skin tone stratification in America, which affects relations not only among different races and ethnic groups but also among members of individual ethnicities. Written by some of the nation's leading thinkers on race and colorism, these essays ask whether skin tone differentiation is imposed upon communities of color from the outside or is an internally-driven process aided and abetted by community members themselves. They also question whether the stratification process is the same for African Americans, Hispanics, and Asian Americans. Skin Deep addresses such issues as the relationship between skin tone and self esteem, marital patterns, interracial relationships, socioeconomic attainment, and family racial identity and composition. The essays also grapple with emerging issues such as biracialism, color-blind racism, and 21st century notions of race.

Read more less

Activist, labor scholar, and organizer Ernesto Galarza (1905–1984) was a leading advocate for Mexican Americans and one of the most important Mexican American scholars and activists after World War II. This volume gathers Galarza's key writings, reflecting an intellectual rigor, conceptual clarity, and a constructive concern for the working class in the face of America's growing influence over Mexico's economic system. Throughout his life, Galarza confronted and analyzed some of the most momentous social transformations of the twentieth century. Inspired by his youthful experience as a farm laborer in Sacramento, he dedicated his life to the struggle for justice for farm workers and urban working-class Latinos and helped build the first multiracial farm workers union, setting the foundation for the emergence of the United Farm Workers Union. He worked to change existing educational philosophies and curricula in schools, and his civil rights legacy includes the founding of the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund (MALDEF) and the National Council of La Raza (NCLR). In 1979, Galarza was the first U.S. Latino to be nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature, for works such as Strangers in Our Fields, Merchants of Labor, Barrio Boy, and Tragedy at Chualar.

Read more less

Numbering over a third of California's population and thirteen percent of the U.S. population, people of Mexican ancestry represent a hugely complex group with a long history in the country. Contributors explore a broad range of issues regarding California's ethnic Mexican population, including their concentration among the working poor and as day laborers; their participation in various sectors of the educational system; social problems such as domestic violence; their contributions to the arts, especially music; media stereotyping; and political alliances and alignments.Contributors are Brenda D. Arellano, Leo R. Chavez, Yvette G. Flores, Ramón A. Gutiérrez, Aída Hurtado, Olga Nájera-Ramírez, Chon A. Noriega, Manuel Pastor Jr., Armida Ornelas, Russell W. Rumberger, Daniel Solórzano, Enriqueta Valdez Curiel, and Abel Valenzuela Jr.

Read more less

Rich with the insights of prominent Catholic and Jewish commentators and religious leaders, Catholics and Jews in Twentieth-Century America recounts the amazing transformation of a relationship of irreconcilable enmity to one of respectful coexistence and constructive dialogue. Focusing primarily on the Catholic doctrinal view of the Jews and its ramifications, Egal Feldman traces the historicalroots of anti-Semitism, examining tenacious Catholic beliefsincluding the idea that the Jews lost their place as the chosen people with the coming of Christianity, deicide, and the conviction that their purported responsibility for the Crucifixion justified subsequent Jewish misery.A new era of Catholic-Jewish relations opened in 1962 with Vatican II’s Declaration on the Jews, reversing the theology of contempt. Feldman explores the strides made in improving relations, such as the Vatican’s diplomatic recognition of the Jewish state, as well as a number of recent issues.

Read more less

The Tanner lectures, now firmly entrenched as an institution at the annual Mormon History Association meetings, were established in 1980 as a means of providing scholars of Mormonism with a valuable new perspective for their historical record. All twenty-

Read more less

Did Elvis Presley's brand of rock 'n' roll help revise racial attitudes in postwar America? Michael T. Bertrand delves into this question and many others to investigate popular music's revolutionary influence on black-white relations in the South. Youthful fans of rhythm and blues, rock 'n' roll, and other black-inspired music often broke from their segregationist elders and ignored the color line. Not coincidentally, these same young white people--the southern branch of a national and commercialized youth culture--led a general relaxation of racist attitudes. Bertrand argues that African American music facilitated a new recognition of black people as fellow human beings. African American audiences welcomed Elvis with enthusiasm while racially mixed audiences flocked to music venues at a time when adults expected separate performances for black and white audiences. Bertrand also describes the critical role of radio and recordings in making African American culture available to white fans on an unprecedented scale. Over time, southern working-class youth used the new music to define and express new values and build their own identities.

Read more less

Edna Ferber, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Show Boat and Giant, achieved her first great success with a series of stories she published in American Magazine between 1911 and 1913. The stories featured Emma McChesney: smart, savvy, stylish, divorced mother, and Midwest traveling sales representative for T. A. Buck's Featherloom skirts and petticoats. With one hand on her sample case and the other fending off advances from salesmen, hotel clerks, and other predators, Emma holds on tightly to her reputation: honest, hardworking, and able to outsell the slickest salesman. Like her compact bag of traveling necessities, Emma has her life boiled down to essentials: her work and her seventeen-year-old son, Jock. Her experience has taught her that it's best to stick to roast beef, medium--avoiding both physical and moral indigestion--rather than experiment with fancy sauces and exotic dishes. Yet she never shies away from a challenge, and her sharp instincts and common sense serve her well in dealing with the likes of Ed Meyer, a smooth-talking, piano-playing salesman; Blanche LeHay, prima donna of the Sam Levin Crackerjack Belles; and T. A. Buck Jr., the wet-behind-the-ears son of the founder of Featherloom. Roast Beef, Medium is the first of three volumes chronicling the travels and trials of Emma McChesney. The illustrations by James Montgomery Flagg, one of the most highly regarded book illustrators of the period, enhance both the humor and the vivid characterization in this wise and high-spirited tale.

Read more less

Contemporary Mormonism is the first collection of sociological essays to focus exclusively on Mormons. Featuring the work of the major scholars conducting social science research on Mormons today, this volume offers refreshing new perspectives not only on Mormonism but also on the nature of successful religious movements, secularization and assimilation, church growth, patriarchy and gender roles, and other topics. This first paperback edition includes a new introduction assessing the current state of Mormon scholarship and the effect of the globalization of the LDS Church on scholarly research about Mormonism.

Read more less

For years recognized as the world's best-known athlete, Muhammad Ali played a fascinating role in American culture, with an influence that reached far beyond sports and, in many ways, defined his times. Ali the boxer stood side by side with Ali the vocal Black Muslim, Ali the cultural force, Ali the anti-war protestor, Ali the celebrity, Ali the narcissist, and more. In Muhammad Ali, the People's Champ, experts unpack Ali's various incarnations to build a vivid portrait of an iconic figure in the ring of public history and reveal how he touched people's lives in ways unprecedented by any sports figure before or since.

Read more less

Marc Shell is Irving Babbitt Professor of Comparative Literature and professor of English at Harvard University. He is the author of many books, including The Economy of Literature, Money, Language, and Thought, and Art and Money.

Read more less

Now considered possibly Illinois' greatest poet, Carl Sandburg (1878-1967) saw himself as a bard of the working class. Chicago Poems brought him to national attention and is one of the few Chicago classics that can also be termed an American classic. It includes such famous poems as "Chicago" and "Fog," as well as many others whose subjects range from the lives of ordinary citizens to city scenes and World War I. Written in powerful free verse, the poems are notable for their realistic portrayal of the struggle of working people and their focus on the lyric beauty of the urban environment.

Read more less

One of the most important American novels of the twentieth century, The Jungle shocked a nation with its horrifying depiction of the meatpacking industry and the dangerous labor performed by its impoverished, exploited workers. In this first annotated edition of Upton Sinclair's muckraking classic, James Barrett provides students and scholars with a broader understanding of the events and the milieu that led Sinclair to write the book.

Read more less

The iconic leader of one of America’s most powerful unions, Harry Bridges put an indelible stamp on the twentieth century labor movement. Robert Cherny’s monumental biography tells the life story of the figure who built the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) into a labor powerhouse that still represents almost 30,000 workers. An Australian immigrant, Bridges worked the Pacific Coast docks. His militant unionism placed him at the center of the 1934 West Coast Waterfront Strike and spurred him to expand his organizing activities to warehouse laborers and Hawaiian sugar and pineapple workers. Cherny examines the overall effectiveness of Bridges as a union leader and the decisions and traits that made him effective. Cherny also details the price paid by Bridges as the US government repeatedly prosecuted him for his left-wing politics. Drawing on personal interviews with Bridges and years of exhaustive research, Harry Bridges places an extraordinary individual and the ILWU within the epic history of twentieth-century labor radicalism.

Read more less

How fan passion and technology merged into a new subculture Long before internet archives and the anytime, anywhere convenience of streaming, people collected, traded, and shared radio and television content via informal networks that crisscrossed transnational boundaries. Eleanor Patterson’s fascinating cultural history explores the distribution of radio and TV tapes from the 1960s through the 1980s. Looking at bootlegging against the backdrop of mass media’s formative years, Patterson delves into some of the major subcultures of the era. Old-time radio aficionados felt the impact of inexpensive audio recording equipment and the controversies surrounding programs like Amos ‘n’ Andy. Bootlegging communities devoted to buddy cop TV shows like Starsky and Hutch allowed women to articulate female pleasure and sexuality while Star Trek videos in Australia inspired a grassroots subculture built around community viewings of episodes. Tape trading also had a profound influence on creating an intellectual pro wrestling fandom that aided wrestling’s growth into an international sports entertainment industry.

Read more less

Lieder and the rise of song recital in the United States, 1850–1914 Though viewed as quintessentially German, lieder became a centerpiece of nineteenth century song recitals in the United States. By the 1890s, these songs, which were often sung in English, were a sensation among tutored and untutored music lovers alike. Heather Platt examines the varied supporters and singers who both established the lied as a concert repertoire and shaped a new kind of recital dedicated to art songs. Lieder were embraced and spread by performers like Max Heinrich and advocates like John Sullivan Dwight, as well as by the women’s clubs that flourished nationwide. At the same time as examining the critical reception of the artists and songs, Platt reveals ways in which US recital programs anticipated trends in European recitals. She also places lieder against the backdrop of the time, when factors like the growth in the sheet music industry, the evolution of American art song, and emerging anti-German feeling had a profound impact on the genre’s popularity.

Read more less

New approaches to a central area of Latter-day Saint belief The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and other Christians have always shared a fundamental belief in the connection between personal salvation and the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. While having faith in and experiencing the atonement of Christ remains a core tenet for Latter-day Saints, some thinkers have in recent decades reconsidered traditional understandings of atonement. Deidre Nicole Green and Eric D. Huntsman edit a collection that brings together multiple and diverse approaches to thinking about Latter-day Saint views on this foundational area of theology. The essayists draw on and go beyond a wide range of perspectives, classical atonement theories, and contemporary reformulations of atonement theory. The first section focuses on scriptural and historical foundations while the second concentrates on theological explorations. Together, the contributors evaluate what is efficacious and ethical in the Latter-day Saint outlook and offer ways to reconceive those views to provide a robust theological response to contemporary criticisms about atonement. Contributors: Nicholas J. Frederick, Fiona Givens, Deidre Nicole Green, Sharon J. Harris, J.B. Haws, Eric D. Huntsman, Benjamin Keogh, Ariel Bybee Laughton, Adam S. Miller, Jenny Reeder, T. Benjamin Spackman, and Joseph M. Spencer

Read more less

The intellectual and ethical achievements of the Latter-day Saint theologian Known in his lifetime for a tireless dedication to humanitarian causes, Lowell L. Bennion was also one of the most important theologians and ethicists to emerge in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the twentieth century. George B. Handley’s intellectual biography delves into Bennion’s thought and extraordinary intellectual life. Rejecting the idea that individual LDS practice might be at odds with lived experience, Bennion insisted the gospel favored the growth of individuals acting and living in the present. He also focused on the need for ongoing secular learning alongside religious practice and advocated for an idea of social morality that encouraged Latter-day Saints to seek out meaningful transformations of character and put their ethical commitments into practice. Handley examines Bennion’s work against the background of a changing institution that once welcomed his common-sense articulation of LDS ideas and values but became discomfited by how his thought cast doubt on the Church’s beliefs about race and other issues.

Read more less

The long relationship between America’s colonizing wars and virulent anticommunism The colonizing wars against Native Americans created the template for anticommunist repression in the United States. Tariq D. Khan’s analysis reveals bloodshed and class war as foundational aspects of capitalist domination and vital elements of the nation’s long history of internal repression and social control. Khan shows how the state wielded the tactics, weapons, myths, and ideology refined in America’s colonizing wars to repress anarchists, labor unions, and a host of others labeled as alien, multi-racial, multi-ethnic urban rabble. The ruling classes considered radicals of all stripes to be anticolonial insurgents. As Khan charts the decades of red scares that began in the 1840s, he reveals how capitalists and government used much-practiced counterinsurgency rhetoric and tactics against the movements they perceived and vilified as “anarchist.” Original and boldly argued, The Republic Shall Be Kept Clean offers an enlightening new history with relevance for our own time.

Read more less

Pleasure-based politics in Puerto Rican and Cuban pop culture Joy is a politicized form of pleasure that goes beyond gratification to challenge norms of gender, sexuality, race, and class. Kristie Soares focuses on the diasporic media of Puerto Rico and Cuba to examine how music, public activist demonstrations, social media, sitcoms, and other areas of culture resist the dominant stories told about Latinx joy. As she shows, Latinx creators compose versions of joy central to social and political struggle and at odds with colonialist and imperialist narratives that equate joy with political docility and a lack of intelligence. Soares builds her analysis around chapters that delve into gozando in salsa music, precise joy among the New Young Lords Party, choteo in the comedy ¿Qué Pasa U.S.A.?, azúcar in the life and death of Celia Cruz, dale as Pitbull’s signature affect, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s use of silliness to take seriously political violence. Daring and original, Playful Protest examines how Latinx creators resist the idea that joy only exists outside politics and activist struggle.

Read more less

Theater is an essential theoretical and practical site for forging Black radical thought, Africana feminisms, and womanism. Nicosia M. Shakes draws on ethnographic research in Jamaica and South Africa to analyze the vital relationship between activism and theater production. Concentrating on four performance events, Shakes situates the work of theater groups and projects within a trajectory of women-led social justice movements established in Jamaica, South Africa, and globally from the early 2000s to the present. Her analysis reveals movements driven by Black women’s artistic, intellectual, and organizational labor and focused on issues that range from sexual violence to reproductive justice to the spatial manifestations of racial, gender, and economic oppression. Shakes shows how theater’s political and pedagogical roles become entangled with histories and geographies of oppression and resistance; the identities and connections created by movements of people in the context of colonial and settler colonial histories; and ideas of womanism and feminism.

Read more less

The construction trades once provided unionized craftsmen a route to the middle class and a sense of pride and dignity often denied other blue-collar workers. Today, union members still earn wages and benefits that compare favorably to those of college graduates. But as union strength has declined over the last fifty years, a growing non-union sector offers lower compensation and more hazardous conditions, undermining the earlier tradition of upward mobility. Revitalization of the industry depends on unions shedding past racial and gender discriminatory practices, embracing organizing, diversity, and the new immigrant workforce, and preparing for technological changes. Mark Erlich blends long-view history with his personal experience inside the building trades to explain one of our economy’s least understood sectors. Erlich’s multifaceted account includes the dynamics of the industry, the backdrop of union policies, and powerful stories of everyday life inside the trades. He offers a much-needed overview of construction’s past and present while exploring roads to the future.

Read more less

Often viewed in isolation, the Jolliet and Marquette expedition in fact took place against a sprawling backdrop that encompassed everything from ancient Native American cities to French colonial machinations. Mark Walczynski draws on a wealth of original research to place the explorers and their journey within seventeenth-century North America. His account takes readers among the region’s diverse Native American peoples and into a vanished natural world of treacherous waterways and native flora and fauna. Walczynski also charts the little-known exploits of the French-Canadian officials, explorers, traders, soldiers, and missionaries who created the political and religious environment that formed Jolliet and Marquette and shaped European colonization of the heartland. A multifaceted voyage into the past, Jolliet and Marquette expands and updates the oft-told story of a pivotal event in American history.

Read more less

An essential high culture institution, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation has both supported and molded American musical culture. Denise Von Glahn examines the Foundation and its immense influence from the organization’s prehistory and origins through the onset of World War II. Funded by the Guggenheim mining fortune, the Foundation took early shape from the efforts of Carroll Wilson, Frank Aydelotte, and Henry Allen Moe--three Rhodes Scholars who initially struggled to envision and implement the organization’s ambitious goals. Von Glahn also examines the career of the longtime musical advisor Thomas Whitney Surette while profiling early awardees Aaron Copland, Ruth Crawford Seeger, William Grant Still, Roger Sessions, George Antheil, and Carlos Chàvez. She examines the processes behind their selection, their values and aesthetics, and their relationships with the insiders and others who championed their work.

Read more less

From The Lady Eve, to The Big Valley, Barbara Stanwyck played parts that showcased her multidimensional talents but also illustrated the limits imposed on women in film and television. Catherine Russell’s A to Z consideration of the iconic actress analyzes twenty-six facets of Stanwyck and the America of her times. Russell examines Stanwyck’s work onscreen against the backdrop of costuming and other aspects of filmmaking. But she also views the actress’s off-screen performance within the Hollywood networks that made her an industry favorite and longtime cornerstone of the entertainment community. Russell’s montage approach coalesces into an engrossing portrait of a singular artist whose intelligence and savvy placed her center-stage in the production of her films and in the debates around women, femininity, and motherhood that roiled mid-century America. Original and rich, The Cinema of Barbara Stanwyck is an essential and entertaining reexamination of an enduring Hollywood star.

Read more less

A BookRiot Most Anticipated Travel Book of 2023 Italian beef and hot dogs get the headlines. Cutting-edge cuisine and big-name chefs get the Michelin stars. But Chicago food shows its true depth in classic dishes conceived in the kitchens of immigrant innovators, neighborhood entrepreneurs, and mom-and-pop visionaries. Monica Eng and David Hammond draw on decades of exploring the city’s food landscape to serve up thirty can’t-miss eats found in all corners of Chicago. From Mild Sauce to the Jibarito and from Taffy Grapes to Steak and Lemonade, Eng and Hammond present stories of the people and places behind each dish while illuminating how these local favorites reflect the multifaceted history of the city and the people who live there. Each entry provides all the information you need to track down whatever sounds good and selected recipes even let you prepare your own Flaming Saganaki or Akutagawa. Generously illustrated with full-color photos, Made in Chicago provides locals and visitors alike with loving profiles of a great food city’s defining dishes.

Read more less

Unequal opportunity sparked Jim Brown’s endeavors to encourage Black development while Billie Jean King fought so that women tennis players could earn more money and enjoy greater freedom. Gregory J. Kaliss examines these events and others to guide readers through the unprecedented wave of protest that swept sports in the 1960s and 1970s. The little-known story of the University of Wyoming football players suspended for their activism highlights an analysis of protests by college athletes. The 1971 Muhammad Ali–Joe Frazier clash provides a high-profile example of the Black male athlete’s effort to redefine Black masculinity. An in-depth look at the American Basketball Association reveals a league that put Black culture front and center with its style of play and shows how the ABA influenced the development of hip-hop. As Kaliss describes the breakthroughs achieved by these athletes, he also explores the barriers that remained--and in some cases remain today.

Read more less

The Ozarks of the mid-1800s was a land of divisions. The uplands and its people inhabited a geographic and cultural borderland straddling Midwest and west, North and South, frontier and civilization, and secessionist and Unionist. As civil war raged across the region, neighbor turned against neighbor, unleashing a generation of animus and violence that lasted long after 1865. The second volume of Brooks Blevins's history begins with the region's distinctive relationship to slavery. Largely unsuitable for plantation farming, the Ozarks used enslaved persons on a smaller scale or, in some places, not at all. Blevins moves on to the devastating Civil War years where the dehumanizing, personal nature of Ozark conflict was made uglier by the predations of marching armies and criminal gangs. Blending personal stories with a wide narrative scope, he examines how civilians and soldiers alike experienced the war, from brutal partisan warfare to ill-advised refugee policies to women's struggles to safeguard farms and stay alive in an atmosphere of constant danger. The war stunted the region's growth, delaying the development of Ozarks society and the processes of physical, economic, and social reconstruction. More and more, striving uplanders dedicated to modernization fought an image of the Ozarks as a land of mountaineers and hillbillies hostile to the idea of progress. Yet the dawn of the twentieth century saw the uplands emerge as an increasingly uniform culture forged, for better and worse, in the tumult of a conflicted era.

Read more less

At the opening of the twentieth century, labor strife repeatedly racked the nation. Union organization and collective bargaining briefly looked like a promising avenue to stability. But both employers and many middle-class observers remained wary of unions exercising independent power. Vilja Hulden reveals how this tension provided the opening for pro-business organizations to shift public attention from concerns about inequality and dangerous working conditions to a belief that unions trampled on an individual's right to work. Inventing the term closed shop, employers mounted what they called an open-shop campaign to undermine union demands that workers at unionized workplaces join the union. Employer organizations lobbied Congress to resist labor's proposals as tyrannical, brought court cases to taint labor's tactics as illegal, and influenced newspaper coverage of unions. While employers were not a monolith nor all-powerful, they generally agreed that unions were a nuisance. Employers successfully leveraged money and connections to create perceptions of organized labor that still echo in our discussions of worker rights.

Read more less

Walt Disney Feature Animation Florida opened in Orlando at the dawn of the Disney Renaissance. As a member of the crew, Mary E. Lescher witnessed the small studio’s rise and fall during a transformative era in company and movie history. Her in-depth interviews with fellow artists, administrators, and support personnel reveal the human dimension of a technological revolution: the dramatic shift from hand-drawn cel animation to the digital format that eclipsed it in less than a decade. She also traces the Florida Studio’s parallel existence as a part of The Magic of Disney Animation, a living theme park attraction where Lescher and her colleagues worked in full view of Walt Disney World guests eager to experience the magic of the company’s legendary animation process. A ground-level look at the entertainment giant, The Disney Animation Renaissance profiles the people and purpose behind a little-known studio during a historic era.

Read more less

Winner of the 2022 Philip Taft Labor History Book Prize Often cast as villains in the Northwest's environmental battles, timber workers in fact have a connection to the forest that goes far beyond jobs and economic issues. Steven C. Beda explores the complex true story of how and why timber-working communities have concerned themselves with the health and future of the woods surrounding them. Life experiences like hunting, fishing, foraging, and hiking imbued timber country with meanings and values that nurtured a deep sense of place in workers, their families, and their communities. This sense of place in turn shaped ideas about protection that sometimes clashed with the views of environmentalists--or the desires of employers. Beda's sympathetic, in-depth look at the human beings whose lives are embedded in the woods helps us understand that timber communities fought not just to protect their livelihood, but because they saw the forest as a vital part of themselves.

Read more less

Connecting to nature with native plantsLandscaping with native plants has encouraged gardeners from the Midwest and beyond to embark on a profound scientific, ecological, and emotional partnership with nature. Benjamin Vogt shares his expertise with prairie plants in a richly photographed guide aimed at gardeners and homeowners, making big ideas about design approachable and actionable. Step-by-step blueprints point readers to plant communities that not only support wildlife and please the eye but that rethink traditional planting and maintenance. Additionally, Vogt provides insider information on plant sourcing, garden tools, and working with city ordinances. This book will be an invaluable reference in sustainable garden design for those wanting both beautiful and functional landscapes. Easy to use and illustrated with over 150 color photos, Prairie Up is a practical guide to artfully reviving diversity and wildness in our communities.

Read more less

The son of a Lithuanian blacksmith, Sidney R. Yates rose to the pinnacle of Washington power and influence. As chair of a House Appropriations Subcommittee, Yates was a preeminent national figure involved in issues that ranged from the environment and Native American rights to Israel and support for the arts. Speaker Tip O'Neill relied on the savvy Chicagoan in the trenches and advised anyone with controversial legislation to first "clear it with Sid!" Michael C. Dorf and George Van Dusen draw on scores of interviews and unprecedented access to private papers to illuminate the life of an Illinois political icon. Wise, energetic, charismatic, petty, stubborn--Sid Yates presented a complicated character to constituents and colleagues alike. Yet his get-it-done approach to legislation allowed him to bridge partisan divides in the often-polarized House of Representatives. Following Yates from the campaign trail to the negotiating table to the House floor, Dorf and Van Dusen offer a rich portrait of a dealmaker extraordinaire and tireless patriot on a fifty-year journey through postwar American politics.

Read more less

Chicago’s architecture attracts visitors from around the globe. The fourth edition of the AIA Guide to Chicago is the best portable resource for exploring this most breathtaking and dynamic of cityscapes. The editors offer entries on new destinations like the Riverwalk, the St. Regis Chicago, and The 606 as well as updated descriptions of Willis Tower and other refreshed landmarks. Thirty-four maps and over 500 photos make it easy to find each of the almost 2000 featured sites. A special insert, new to this edition, showcases the variety of Chicago architecture with over 80 full-color images arranged chronologically. A comprehensive index organizes entries by name and architect. Sumptuously detailed and user friendly, the AIA Guide to Chicago encourages travelers and residents alike to explore the many diverse neighborhoods of one of the world’s great architectural destinations.

Read more less

Starting in 1952, the United States Navy and Coast Guard actively recruited Filipino men to serve as stewards--domestic servants for officers. Oral histories and detailed archival research inform P. James Paligutan's story of the critical role played by Filipino sailors in putting an end to race-based military policies. Constrained by systemic exploitation, Filipino stewards responded with direct complaints to flag officers and chaplains, rating transfer requests that flooded the bureaucracy, and refusals to work. Their actions had a decisive impact on seagoing military’s elimination of the antiquated steward position. Paligutan looks at these Filipino sailors as agents of change while examining the military system through the lens of white supremacy, racist perceptions of Asian males, and the motives of Filipinos who joined the armed forces of the power that had colonized their nation. Insightful and dramatic, Lured by the American Dream is the untold story of how Filipino servicepersons overcame tradition and hierarchy in their quest for dignity.

Read more less

Individuals from all walks of life have devoted their time, energy, and money to restoring the state's lost wetlands. Clare Howard and David Zalaznik take readers into the marshes, bogs, waterways, and swamps brought back to life by these wetland pioneers. Howard’s storytelling introduces grassroots conservators dedicated to learning through trial and error, persistence, and listening to the lessons taught by wetlands. They undertake hard work inspired by ever-increasing floods and nutrient runoff, and they reconnect the Earth’s natural rhythms. Zalaznik's stunning black and white photos illuminate changes in the land and the people themselves. Seeds sprout after lying dormant for one hundred years. Water winds through ancient channels. Animals and native plants return. As the forgiving spirit of a wetland emerges, it nurtures a renewed landscape that alters our view of the environment and the planet. An inspiring document of passion and advocacy, In the Spirit of Wetlands reveals the transformative power of restoration.

Read more less

The mixed-race Hawaiian athlete George Freeth brought surfing to Venice, California, in 1907. Over the next twelve years, Freeth taught Southern Californians to surf and swim while creating a modern lifeguard service that transformed the beach into a destination for fun, leisure, and excitement. Patrick Moser places Freeth’s inspiring life story against the rise of the Southern California beach culture he helped shape and define. Freeth made headlines with his rescue of seven fishermen, an act of heroism that highlighted his innovative lifeguarding techniques. But he also founded California's first surf club and coached both male and female athletes, including Olympic swimming champion and “father of modern surfing” Duke Kahanamoku. Often in financial straits, Freeth persevered as a teacher and lifeguarding pioneer--building a legacy that endured long after his death during the 1919 influenza pandemic. A compelling merger of biography and sports history, Surf and Rescue brings to light the forgotten figure whose novel way of seeing the beach sparked the imaginations of people around the world.

Read more less

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.

Read more less

Images of Japanese and Japanese American women can teach us what it meant to be visible at specific moments in history. Elena Tajima Creef employs an Asian American feminist vantage point to examine ways of looking at indigenous Japanese Ainu women taking part in the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition; Japanese immigrant picture brides of the early twentieth century; interned Nisei women in World War II camps; and Japanese war brides who immigrated to the United States in the 1950s. Creef illustrates how an against-the-grain viewing of these images and other archival materials offers textual traces that invite us to reconsider the visual history of these women and other distinct historical groups. As she shows, using an archival collection’s range as a lens and frame helps us discover new intersections between race, class, gender, history, and photography. Innovative and engaging, Shadow Traces illuminates how photographs shape the history of marginalized people and outlines a method for using such materials in interdisciplinary research.

Read more less