Best of
Local-History

1989

Poor but Proud: Alabama's Poor Whites


Wayne Flynt - 1989
    This new paperback version will make the classic work available for general readers, bookstores, and classrooms. Wayne Flynt addresses the life experiences of poor whites through their occupations, society, and culture. He explores their family structure, music, religion, folklore, crafts, and politics and describes their attempts to resolve their own problems through labor unions and political movements. He reveals that many of our stereotypes about poor whites are wildly exaggerated; few were derelicts or "white trash." Even though racism, emotionalism, and a penchant for violence were possible among poor whites, most bore their troubles with dignity and self-respect - working hard to eventually lift themselves out of poverty. The phrase "poor but proud" aptly describes many white Alabamians who settled the state and persisted through time. During the antebellum years, poor whites developed a distinctive culture on the periphery of the cotton belt. As herdsmen, subsistence farmers, mill workers, and miners, they flourished in a society more renowned for its two-class division of planters and slaves. The New Deal era and the advent of World War II broke the long downward spiral of poverty and afforded new opportunities for upward mobility.

Forest and Crag, 2nd: A History of Hiking, Trail Blazing, and Adventure in the Northeast Mountains


Laura Waterman - 1989
    Exhaustively researched and superbly written, and now featuring a new introduction by author Laura Waterman, Forest and Crag is a classic of outdoor literature. The late Guy Waterman and his wife Laura were pioneers in promoting preservation of wild places and backwoods ethics. They spent a decade researching and writing Forest and Crag, drawing together widely scattered sources on the history of the White Mountains, the Green Mountains, the Adirondacks, the Catskills, and beyond. The struggles of early pioneers in America's first frontier wilderness, the first ascent of every major peak in the Northeast, the creation of the Appalachian Trail, the golden era of the summit resort hotels, the unforeseen consequences of the backpacking boom of the 1970s and 1980s-it's all here in one comprehensive volume. Lovers of adventure and the outdoors will hail the return of this classic history of the mountains of the Northeast.

Let Them Call Me Rebel: Saul Alinsky: His Life and Legacy


Sanford D. Horwitt - 1989
    He enlisted allies--from Catholic clergymen to labor unionists and black activists, in battles waged against opponents from slumlords to the Eastman Kodak corporation. The range of Alinsky's activities, the intensity of his beliefs, and his exhilarating mixture of crudeness and calculation almost vibrate off the pages of this passionate and inspiring biography.This is an important account of a complex and idiosyncratic urban populist who insisted that power was the keystone of social change. Horwitt . . . produce[s] a comprehensive appraisal of Alinksy's colorful confrontational tactics; as a community organizer and his influence on a succeeding generation of social activists . . . An insightful and well-written study."--Library Journal

Highball: A Pageant of Trains


Lucius Beebe - 1989
    A genuine collector's book, featuring more than 190 superb photographs of famous locomotives with expert text and the whistle code.

Stories From The Six Worlds


Ruth Holmes Whitehead - 1989
    For in their tales, the People themselves speak about their world and give us glimpses of how their universe manifests, in all its fascinating otherness. Mi'kmaw stories have many levels: entertainment, instruction, warnings. They might subtly encode maps of the land's important resources, or of the wheeling skies at night. Telling stories, Elders wove humour and stark tragedy, terror and beauty, to teach their listeners how to survive. More importantly, they underlined, over and over again, how their listeners, as humans, must conduct themselves. Their tales resound with the universal themes included in any worldview—Order and Chaos, Courage and Fear, Change, Revenge and Mercy, Death, Rebirth, and Power—yet are powerfully rooted in Mi'kmaw tradition, Mi'kmaw land. Their voices still speak to us, down the centuries.Drawing on various sources, Ruth Holmes Whitehead retells the tales in a voice close to that of the original storytellers. This new edition includes an updated design and the original collection of twenty-nine stories. In "Stories from the Six Worlds", Mi’kmaw legends are offered to all people whose search for meaning draws them again to the ancient cultures.

The Jekyll Island Club: Southern Haven for America's Millionaires


William B. McCash - 1989
    Far from the hectic northern cities where the members tended their fortunes, this private island refuge off Georgia's coast offered the wealthy a tranquil change of pace.Bringing together more than 240 fascinating photographs, Barton and June McCash trace the sixty-two-year history of this exclusive retreat whose members at one time were reputed to represent one-seventh of the nation's wealth. From the time of the club's opening, members came to Jekyll Island each winter to seek elegant leisure, arriving on yachts or in private train cars from New York, Boston, Chicago, and Philadelphia. Capturing the lives and amusements of the very wealthy, this evocative photographic history presents descriptions of elaborate costume balls and playful outdoor parties; the Rockefeller clan gathering at water's edge and J. P. Morgan lounging by the pool; Victor Astor's "patented beach boat" and the Goulds' private indoor tennis court; the Vanderbilts' yacht anchored offshore and the imposing "cottages" built by individual members.During their stays, members amused themselves in a variety of pursuits. In the 1890s they organized bicycling clubs and held races on the beach. Hunting was also for a time a favorite activity and the island was regularly stocked with imported wildlife--pheasant, quail, turkey, and bucks. By 1919, however, the game committee had dwindled to one member, and prime hunting grounds had been cleared for golf courses and tennis courts. The hub of the island's social life, however, was the clubhouse, where members gathered in formal attire to converse, while drinking fine wine and dining on freshly caught game and local delicacies.The seclusion that Jekyll Island offered was not impenetrable. On the day after Christmas in 1900, the country's fascination with technology could no longer be resisted, and the sound of a gasoline automobile disturbed the island's quiet glades for the first time. Despite the immense wealth of the club, it was not immune to the stock market crash of 1893 and the Panic of 1907. The club managed to survive World War I intact and enjoyed a "golden age" from 1919 to 1927, during which time it held its own against the increasingly popular Florida resorts. The stock market crash of 1929, however, initiated a death spiral. Membership declined steadily throughout the 1930s, and when the United States entered World War II, the club closed its doors forever.Based on surviving club records, newspaper accounts, and letters and diaries of members and guests, The Jekyll Island Club chronicles an era when leisure was the preserve of the wealthy. For more than six decades the island, now a state park, served as a haven for millionaires. As one visitor described the Jekyll Island Club, it was "the only place of its kind in the world--and will never be again."

The Old-Time Cowhand


Ramon F. Adams - 1989
    Ramon F. Adams, a highly respected authority on the old West, talks straight about what the cowhand really did and thought. His cow-punching, broncobusting, trail driving; his rodeo riding, poker playing, socializing; his horse, guns, rope, clothing, sleeping bag; his eating and drinking habits; his attitude toward God, women, bosses; his unwritten code of conduct—everything about this vanished breed is told with absorbing authenticity, in the rich and varied lingo of the range.