Book recommendations from Jefferson National Expansion Memorial Library
Posted: February 29, 2012 | posted by: Jennifer Clark!
Book Spotlight: March 2012
by Tom Dewey, Librarian
Sisters: The Lives of America's Suffragists. Jean H. Baker. New York: Hill and Wang, 2005.
Historian Jean H. Bakercombines the life stories of Lucy Stone, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Frances Willard, and Alice Paul into a compelling collective history titled Sisters: The Lives of America's Suffragists. Their private lives and public achievements are explored with great care and attention to detail, and as a result, readers will find much to learn from all the women's accomplishments.
Readers will be surprised to find that the modern suffrage movement had its genesis in the 1840s and that their struggle included much hardship, including arrest, and being
Posted: January 31, 2012 | posted by: Jennifer Clark!
Book Spotlight: February 2012
by Tom Dewey, Librarian
The St. Louis African American Community and the Exodusters. Jack, Bryan M. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2007.
After the Reconstruction era ended in the United States, life for many African-Americans remained intolerable. Many were threatened with violence and had little or no opportunity to earn a fair wage to support themselves or to raise a family. Bryan A. Jack explains in his book, The St. Louis African American Community and the Exodusters, that these conditions motivated African Americans to head west to Kansas during the years 1879-1880. Many were from Louisiana and other parts of the American south.
St. Louis was a natural
Posted: December 30, 2011 | posted by: Jennifer Clark!
Book Spotlight: January 2012
by Tom Dewey, Librarian
U. S. Grant: American Hero, American Myth. Waugh, Joan. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009.
Most Americans today are unaware of how revered U.S. Grant was in his lifetime.
Joan Waugh's book, U.S. Grant: American Hero, American Myth tackles the ups and downs of the public image and reputation of the war hero and U.S. President. The book, sometimes referred to as part biography and part cultural history, reminds readers that Grant was perhaps the most famous American at the time of his death. Many say his status was on par with Washington. The American people saw him as the ultimate war hero and savior of the nation. The author
Posted: December 01, 2011 | posted by: Jennifer Clark!
Book Spotlight: December 2011
by Tom Dewey, Librarian
Fur, Fortune and Empire: The Epic History of the Fur Trade in America, by Eric Jay Dolin. New York: W.W. Norton and Co., 2010.
Fur, Fortune and Empire: The Epic History of the Fur Trade in America is an exciting story of American history. Under author Eric Dolin's authority, the subject of hunting and marketing furs makes for a strong narrative. As the author's introduction suggests, movie-like characters populate frontier history and make its fur-hunting aspect a popular dramatic subject. He crafts a compelling book that shows men who left ordinary lives to plunge head-on into the woods with rifles and traps, and not much more. Relations with Indian
Posted: November 01, 2011 | posted by: Jennifer Clark!
Book Spotlight: November 2011
by Tom Dewey, Librarian
The People of the River's Mouth: In Search of the Missouria Indians, by Michael Dickey. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 2011
The People of the River's Mouth explores the Missouria people, the first American Indians encountered by European explorers venturing up the Pekitanoui River-the waterway we know as the Missouri. This Indian nation was a dominant force in the upper Midwest in the pre-colonial era.
The author uses rare printed sources, scattered documents, and oral tradition to tell his story. Dickey gathered a significant body of information about the Missouria and their interactions with French, Spanish, and early
Posted: September 30, 2011 | posted by: Jennifer Clark!
Book Spotlight: October 2011
by Tom Dewey, Librarian
From All Points: America's Immigrant West, 1870s-1952, by Elliot Robert Barkan. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2007.
By the end of the 20th century the American West was home to nearly half of America's immigrant population, including Asians and Armenians, Germans and Greeks, Mexicans, Italians, Swedes, Basques, and others. This book tells their rich and complex story.
The author describes how the immigrants and their children built communities, added to the region's culture, and contended with discrimination and the lure of Americanization. The book also describes, often through first- person accounts, the difficulties of living with isolation, adaption and
Posted: September 01, 2011 | posted by: Jennifer Clark!
Book Spotlight: September 2011
by Tom Dewey, Librarian
The Civil War Remembered (Official National Park Service Handbook); Virginia Beach: Donning Co. Publishers, 2011.
"The Civil War era saw not only our greatest military struggle, but also our greatest social revolution and our greatest evolution as a nation." -From the preface of The Civil War Remembered.
This National Park Service handbook provides an excellent overview of a very complex subject. Several noted historians, such as Edward L. Ayers, James Oliver Horton and Carol Reardon, contributed essays describing the Civil War and its many related themes. The book includes a war timeline, an introduction, and fifteen thought provoking essays. A partial
Posted: August 01, 2011 | posted by: Jennifer Clark!
Book Spotlight: August 2011
by Tom Dewey, Librarian
Founding St. Louis: First City of the New West by J. Frederick Fausz, History Press, 2011.
Founding St. Louis: First City of the New West helps fill many gaps in the history of St. Louis and the Mississippi River Valley. Author J. Frederick Fausz's extensive research yields a history that helps readers understand St. Louis as a true multicultural city.
Posted: August 01, 2011 | posted by: Jennifer Clark!
Introduction
by Tom Dewey, Librarian
The Jefferson National Expansion Memorial Library's book holdings generally reflect our park themes and include materials on the American West, St. Louis history, Dred Scott, Native Americans, Thomas Jefferson, Lewis & Clark, western art, the National Park Service, and other related subjects.
The library would like to highlight prominent books in our collection that offer something new or relevant to the ongoing discussion of history in our community. With this in mind, we would like to inaugurate a new feature on our website that provides a summary of a new or undiscovered book that might be of interest to readers. All the books featured in JNEM Library Book Spotlight are available in our park library, located
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