Indianapolis Auto Racing and the Making of Modern America
How a speedway became a legendary sports site and sparked America's car culture The 1909 opening of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway marked a foundational moment in the history of automotive racing. Events at the famed track and others like it also helped launch America's love affair with cars and an embrace of road systems that transformed cities ......
A captivating story of environmental crisis and community on Smith Island in the Chesapeake Bay. Island environments are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of rapidly rising waters, accelerating ecological crisis. While we often think of this environmental reality in terms of the Global North and South, Alaska, or Micronesian or Indian ......
Stories of the First Female Physicians on the Frontier
A New York Times Bestseller! "No women need apply." Western towns looking for a local doctor during the frontier era often concluded their advertisements in just that manner. Yet apply they did. And in small towns all over the West, highly trained women from medical colleges in the East took on the post of local doctor to great acclaim. In this ......
How a Mid-Century Architecture Competition Reimagined the American Home
"Chicagoland Dream Houses is an engaging addition to the growing body of scholarship concerning Chicago's twentieth-century residential landscape characterized by a diverse group of architects and builders."--Michelangelo Sabatino, coauthor of Modern in the Middle: Chicago Houses 1929-1975
Political profiles of five mayors and their lasting impact on the city Chicago's transformation into a global city began at City Hall. Dick Simpson and Betty O'Shaughnessy edit in-depth analyses of the five mayors that guided the city through this transition beginning with Harold Washington's 1983 election: Washington, Eugene Sawyer, Richard M. ......
Known as the "Father of the Outdoor Movement," William HH Murray's writings have been appreciated by generations of readers looking to nature as an escape from our daily lives as well as a portal to our past, perhaps none more so than his classic Adventures in the Wilderness: Or, Camp-Life in the Adirondacks. Published in 1869 and widely hailed as ......
Postwar Baseball, the Spokane Indians, and a Tragic Bus Crash That Chang
The story of one of the most significant and overlooked seasons in professional baseball, told through the travails of the Spokane Indians. On June 24, 1946, a bus carrying the Spokane Indians minor league baseball team crashed to the bottom of a deep ravine in Washington state, killing nine players. To this day, it remains the deadliest ......
A History of Sarasota, Florida, and the Famous Ringling Brothers
Sarasota would not be what it is today without the influence of the Ringling family, particularly John and Mable Ringling and John's brother Charles. Unlike some other entertainers of the era, the Ringling family saw their enterprise as a business and as a way of entertaining the masses through good, clean fun. Three Ringling Circus will focus on ......