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Country Doctor: The Story of Dr. Claire Louise Caudill
Claire Louise Caudill is one of those rare people who have become legends in their own time. She delivered more than 8,000 babies over the years, in and around her hometown of Morehead, Kentucky. In 1995 she was named Country Doctor of the Year, and she has been interviewed by CBS and featured in USA Today. Dr. Caudill stopped delivering babies when she turned seventy, but today, at the age of 86, she remains in practice- her patients won't let her retire! Her friend Susie Halbleib has served as nurse in Caudill's clinic since it opened in 1946. Caudill was ...Read More
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With Charity for All: Lincoln and the Restoration of the Union
Harris maintains that Lincoln held a fundamentally conservative position on the process of reintegrating the South, one that permitted a large measure of self-reconstruction, and that he did not modify his position late in the war. He examines the reasoning and ideology behind Lincoln's policies, describes what happened when military and civil agents tried to implement them at the local level, and evaluates Lincoln's successes and failures in bringing his restoration efforts to closure.
2nd place winner of the 1997 Lincoln Prize
William C. Harris was named an Alumni Distinguished Professor for Research at North Carolina State University on the ...Read More
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Lincoln on Lincoln
Though Abraham Lincoln has been the subject of numerous biographies, his personality remains an enigma. During his lifetime, Lincoln prepared two sketches of his life for the 1860 presidential race. These brief campaign portraits serve as the core around which Paul Zall weaves extracts from correspondence, speeches, and interviews to produce an in-depth biography. Lincoln's writing about himself offers a window into the soul and mind of one of America's greatest president. His words reveal an emotional evolution typically submerged in political biographies. Lincoln on Lincoln shows a man struggling to reconcile personal ambition and civic virtue, conscience and Constitution, ...Read More
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The Lynching of Cleo Wright
On January 20, 1942, black oil mill worker Cleo Wright assaulted a white woman in her home and nearly killed the first police officer who tried to arrest him. An angry mob then hauled Wright out of jail and dragged him through the streets of Sikeston, Missouri, before burning him alive.
Wright's death was, unfortunately, not unique in American history, but what his death meant in the larger context of life in the United States in the twentieth-century is an important and compelling story. After the lynching, the U.S. Justice Department was forced to become involved in civil rights concerns ...Read More
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A History of the Hemp Industry in Kentucky
It is hard to believe that at one time burley tobacco was not the chief cash crop in Kentucky. Yet for more than half a century hemp dominated the state's agricultural production.
James Hopkins surveys the hemp industry in Kentucky from its beginning through its complete demise at the end of World War II, describing the processes of seeding and harvesting the plant, and marketing manufactured goods made of the fiber.
With debate presently raging over the legalization of industrial hemp, it is essential that an accurate portrait of this controversial resource be available. Although originally published in 1951, Hopkins's ...Read More
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Holy Toledo: Religion and Politics in the Life of "Golden Rule" Jones
"Do unto others as ye would have them do unto you" are the words upon which Samuel M. Jones, self-made millionaire and mayor of Toledo, Ohio (1897-1904) organized his life, business, and political career.
Unlike most progressive reformers, Jones was in a position to initiate real change. His factory workers shared in the profits and took advantage of day-care facilities for their children. As mayor, he was a nationally revered public figure who supported municipal ownership of utilities, ended the practice of jailing the homeless, and made available free legal counsel to those who needed it.
Marnie Jones relies upon ...Read More
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Towns and Villages of the Lower Ohio
America. Enterprise. Metropolis. Cairo. Rome. These are a few of the grandly named villages and towns along the lower Ohio River. The optimism with which early settlers named these towns reveals much about the history of American expansion. Though none became the next great American city, it was not for lack of ambition or entrepreneurial spirit. Why didn’t a major city develop on the lower Ohio? What geographic, economic, and cultural factors caused one place to prosper and another to wither? How did Evansville become the largest and most influential city in the region? How did smaller cities such as ...Read More
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Warhogs: A History of War Profits in America
The Puritans condemned war profiteering as a "Provoking Evil," George Washington feared that it would ruin the Revolution, and Franklin D. Roosevelt promised many times that he would never permit the rise of another crop of "war millionaires." Yet on every occasion that American soldiers and sailors served and sacrificed in the field and on the sea, other Americans cheerfully enhanced their personal wealth by exploiting every opportunity that wartime circumstances presented.
In Warhogs, Stuart D. Brandes masterfully blends intellectual, economic, and military history into a fascinating discussion of a great moral question for generations of Americans: Can some individuals ...Read More
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Mission to Yenan: American Liaison with the Chinese Communists, 1944-1947
Conventional wisdom informs us that “only Nixon could go to China.” In fact, in 1944, nearly thirty years before his historic trip, the American military established the first liaison and intelligence-gathering mission with the Chinese Communists in Yenan. Commonly referred to as the Dixie Mission, the detached military unit sent to Yenan was responsible for transmitting weather information, assisting the Communists in their rescue of downed American flyers, and laying the groundwork for an eventual rapprochement between the Communists and Nationalists, the two sides struggling in the ongoing Chinese Civil War.
Following extensive use of archival sources and numerous interviews ...Read More
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Life on the Ohio
When young James Coomer was offered a job as deckhand on the tugboat Pat Murphy at a dollar an hour, he took his first smell of diesel fuel and knew he was hooked. Life on the Ohio puts the reader in the pilot’s seat as Coomer wrestles with runaway barges, navigates through ice and fog, pacifies angry crew members, and contends with the loneliness of working a thirty-day stretch. A modern counterpart to Twain’s account of life as a steamboat pilot, Life on the Ohio depicts the working river as it is today with its immense towboats, gigantic locks and ...Read More
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