front cover of The Narrative of Lucy Ann Lobdell
The Narrative of Lucy Ann Lobdell
A Woman's Case for Equality
Lisa Macchia Ohliger
Westholme Publishing, 2018
Privately Published in 1855, a Rare Autobiography of a Woman Who was Persecuted for Living in a Traditional Masculine Role
“Help, one and all, to aid woman, the weaker vessel. If she is willing to toil, give her wages equal with that of man. And as she bears her own curse, (nay, indeed, she helps to bear a man’s burden also,) secure to her her rights, or permit her to wear pants, and breathe the pure air of heaven.”—from The Narrative of Lucy Ann Lobdell 
Lucy Ann Lobdell (1829–1912) was an ordinary woman whose extraordinary life was shaped by personal strife and the hardship of life in early nineteenth-century upstate New York. Struggling with an abusive husband, a young child, ailing parents, and financial strain, Lucy did what was necessary to support her family. In a rural world defined by farming and lumbering, she dressed, labored, and lived in a traditional masculine role. Her prowess as a rifle shot and fiddle player were known locally, but because of her uncon­ventional, androgynous lifestyle, she became a target of public gossip and ridicule. Educated and eloquent, Lucy penned and published, Lucy Ann Lobdell, the Female Hunter of Delaware and Sullivan Counties, N.Y., in 1855. The narrative provides a unique look at the persecution of a woman whose only “offense” was disregard for contemporary societal norms. After her husband was killed during the Civil War, she received a widow’s pension. Ostracized and eventually hospitalized in 1880, she underwent torturous treatment until she confessed to a doctor that she was “a man in all that the name implies,” a self-serving report the doctor used to promote his career.
Whether Lucy was a lesbian, cross dresser, or transgender, we don’t know from the historical record, but as Lisa Macchia Ohliger demonstrates in The Narrative of Lucy Ann Lobdell: A Woman’s Case for Equality, Lucy embodied the nascent women’s rights movement. At the same time, and not far from where Lucy lived and went to school, Amelia Bloomer was advocating the right for women to wear pants and was publishing the feminist newspaper, The Lily, while Susan B. Anthony was pushing for land rights and equal pay for women. All of these issues are found in Lucy’s account. Lucy’s life is an illustration of the historical significance and destructive power of gender in society, and her narrative bears painful witness to the clash between taboo and survival. 
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A Nation Wholly Free
The Elimination of the National Debt in the Age of Jackson
Carl Lane
Westholme Publishing, 2014
The Only Time America Was Free of Debt—and How It Led to the Two-Party Political System
“An engaging treatment of a topic of perennial concern and frequent misunderstanding, this lucid tale of the brief moment when the United States was debt-free should be on every Congress member’s bedside table.”—Peter J.Woolley, Professor of Comparative Politics, Fairleigh Dickinson University
When President James Monroe announced in his 1824 message to Congress that, barring an emergency, the large public debt inherited from the War for Independence, the Louisiana Purchase, and the War of 1812 would be extinguished on January 1, 1835, Congress responded by crafting legislation to transform that prediction into reality. Yet John Quincy Adams,Monroe’s successor, seemed not to share the commitment to debt freedom, resulting in the rise of opposition to his administration and his defeat for reelection in the bitter presidential campaign of 1828. The new president, Andrew Jackson, was thoroughly committed to debt freedom, and when it was achieved, it became the only time in American history when the country carried no national debt. In A Nation Wholly Free: The Elimination of the National Debt in the Age of Jackson, award-winning economic historian Carl Lane shows that the great and disparate issues that confronted Jackson, such as internal improvements, the “war” against the Second Bank of the United States, and the crisis surrounding South Carolina’s refusal to pay federal tariffs, become unified when debt freedom is understood as a core element of Jacksonian Democracy.
The era of debt freedom lasted only two years and ten months. As the government accumulated a surplus, a fully developed opposition party emerged—the beginning of our familiar two-party system—over rancor about how to allocate the newfound money. Not only did government move into an oppositional party system at this time, the debate about the size and role of government distinguished the parties in a pattern that has become familiar to Americans. The partisan debate over national debt and expenditures led to poorly thought out legislation, forcing the government to resume borrowing. As a result, after Jackson left office in 1837, the country fell into a major depression. Today we confront a debt that exceeds $17 trillion. Indeed, we have been borrowing ever since that brief time we freed ourselves from an oversized debt. A thoughtful, engaging account with strong relevance to today, A Nation Wholly Free is the fascinating story of an achievement that now seems fanciful.
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Neither Hee Nor Any of His Companie Did Return Againe
Failed Colonies in the Caribbean and Latin America, 1492–1865
David MacDonald
Westholme Publishing, 2023
During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries European powers vied for control of the land and resources in the Caribbean and Latin America. Colonies made Spain rich through gold, silver, and gems looted from the Native cultures, along with rare and exotic goods such as tobacco, sugar, and dyewood, and even humble products such as hides. In rapid turn, other European monarchies and merchants sent out colonizing expeditions to the region to exploit the resources of the New World, but creating permanent footholds was perilous. All European settlements founded in the New World faced a variety of challenges, including food supply, inconsistent support from Europe, leadership, ignorance of the area colonized, irrational expectations, religious discord, relations with Native peoples, and violent national rivalries. Colonies that succeeded and those that failed faced the same challenges, although in differing degrees and circumstances. The margin between survival and disaster was always small—there were few chances to succeed and the risk of failure was never far away. 
   In Neither Hee Nor Any of His Companie Did Return Againe: Failed Colonies in the Caribbean and Latin America, 1492–1865, historians David MacDonald and Raine Waters examine the European, and later American, failures to establish permanent settlements in the region. Beginning with Columbus’s ill-conceived ventures, the authors discuss the efforts, from German claims in Venezuela and Scottish attempts in Panama to defeated Confederates fleeing to Mexico, Brazil, and elsewhere. For each colony, the primary source information is contextualized and evaluated. Along the way, the authors determine commonalities across these ill-fated colonies as well as underscore the fact that while Indigenous peoples of the region often vigorously resisted predatory European colonization, their numbers were decimated by relentless warfare, slave raids, and European diseases. As Indian populations declined, colonists imported African slaves in large numbers. The brutal treatment of slaves resulted in those who escaped creating their own settlements that existed in a state of endemic warfare with European colonists. An important contribution to Atlantic World studies, this volume reveals the fine line between colonies that thrived and those that failed.
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The New York City Slave Revolt of 1712
The First Enslaved Insurrection in British North America
Ben Huges
Westholme Publishing, 2024
The First Comprehensive Investigation into the First Uprising Against Slavery in British North America 
At 2 a.m. on April 7, 1712, a fire broke out in New York City’s North Ward. Unbeknown to the residents who roused themselves to combat the flames, the blaze had been started with murderous intent. A group of at least twenty-four enslaved West African men and women, mostly Akan from modern-day Ghana, had long plotted this moment. Armed with guns, daggers, swords, axes, and clubs, they fell upon their enslavers. In the next few frantic moments, eight Europeans were killed and seven were wounded. The perpetrators were rounded up, jailed, and put on public trial. Twenty enslaved men and one woman were executed or transported for carrying out the plot. As the first event of its kind to take place in the North American colonies, this revolt was the progenitor of those that followed—it inspired, the Stono Rebellion of 1739, the New York Conspiracy of 1741, and Nat Turner’s 1831 insurrection. 
    The New York City Slave Revolt of 1712 is the first comprehensive investigation into this major event in the history of slavery in North America. Consulting court records, correspondence, and the minutes of the various colonial councils, as well as a wide range of sources related to eighteenth-century slavery, historian Ben Hughes vividly recreates early colonial New York, the lives of its enslaved inhabitants, the factionalism among the city’s Dutch and English elites, and their precarious hold on Manhattan Island in the face of French and Native American threats. Hughes traces the origins of the New York rebels, details how they came to be enslaved, and recreates the shadowy dealings that took place between African polities, European and American slavers, and New York merchants. The forerunners of a movement which continues to this day, the deeds of these original African American rebels have now been all but forgotten. Here, Hughes attempts to redress this imbalance by recovering their story. 
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Nine Desperate Days
America's Rainbow Division in the Aisne-Marne Offensive
Robert Thompson
Westholme Publishing, 2022

American forces entered World War I combat in October 1917, but it was not until July 1918 that they went on the offensive for the first time. Among the units selected for this operation was the 42nd Division, or the “Rainbow Division” as it was known popularly. This division, which was composed of National Guard units from twenty-six states, including Joyce Kilmer’s 69th New York Infantry, would spend 164 days in combat, a number exceeded by only two other American divisions. However, it was the nine days from July 25 to August 2, 1918 that were the most terrible and heroic in the division’s history. General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, who served as the division’s chief of staff, later said of the Rainbow Division’s fighting during those pivotal days, “There was neither rest nor mercy.” During those nine days, the Rainbow Division would spearhead the Allied attack in the Aisne-Marne region, the final phase of the Second Battle of the Marne, which saw the last major German offensive on the Western Front defeated. Unfortunately, American leadership proved to be completely unprepared for a dynamic war of maneuver. Basing decisions on wildly inaccurate information about the Germans, senior commanders ordered the men of the Rainbow Division to make ill-advised assaults again and again with little support. Facing an enemy who was determined to hold itspositions, these National Guardsmen fought with courage and determination to gain what was often only yards of ground, and did so at a deadly cost. 

In Nine Desperate Days: America’s Rainbow Division in the Aisne-Marne Offensive, historian Robert Thompson chronicles the hardships and tenacity of the men from the 42nd Division during this pivotal campaign. The Americans did not break despite heavy losses, and were able to drive the Germans back from territory they initially gained. The efforts of the Rainbow Division during Aisne-Marne were key to the ultimate Allied victory and are a symbol of American valor and sacrifice during the “war to end all wars.”
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No Longer Subjects of the British King
The Political Transformation of Royal Subjects to Republican Citizens, 1774–1776
Shawn David McGhee
Westholme Publishing, 2024
When news reached Parliament of the Boston radicals’ destruction of the Royal East India Company’s tea, it passed the Coercive Acts, a collection of punitive measures designed to rein in that insubordinate seaport town. The Coercive Acts unleashed a political firestorm as communities from Massachusetts to Georgia drafted resistance resolutions condemning Parliament’s perceived encroachment upon American liberty. Local leaders also directed colonists to refrain from purchasing British merchandise and forego theater, horse racing, and other perceived debauched traditions. Local activists next convened the Continental Congress to coordinate a pancolonial resistance movement to pressure Parliament into repealing the Coercive Acts and settling American rights on a constitutional foundation. Once convened, Congress deftly drafted the Articles of Association. Traditionally understood as primarily an economic response by the colonies to Parliament’s actions, the Continental Association called for public demonstrations of commercial and cultural restraint, conduct delegates hoped would both heal the empire and restore colonial virtue. 
Historian Shawn McGhee offers a fresh perspective on the origins of American political identity. No Longer Subjects of the British King: The Political Transformation of Royal Subjects to Republican Citizens, 1774-1776reveals the crucial process by which the Continental Association organized American towns and counties into a protonational community of suffering to protect political identities they felt under threat. This work further demonstrates how those sacrificing for the common cause severed their bonds of allegiance to the British king and separated from the broader imperial nation. In this crucible of austerity, they formed an American political community, completing the political transformation from subject to citizen.
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Noble Volunteers
The British Soldiers Who Fought the American Revolution
Don N. Hagist
Westholme Publishing, 2020
Winner of the 2020 American Revolution Roundtable of Philadelphia Book of the Year
Redcoats. For Americans, the word brings to mind the occupying army that attempted to crush the Revolutionary War. There was more to these soldiers than their red uniforms, but the individuals who formed the ranks are seldom described in any detail in historical literature, leaving unanswered questions. Who were these men? Why did they join the army? Where did they go when the war was over?
    In Noble Volunteers: The British Soldiers Who Fought the American Revolution, Don N. Hagist brings life to these soldiers, describing the training, experiences, and outcomes of British soldiers who fought during the Revolution. Drawing on thousands of military records and other primary sources in British, American, and Canadian archives, and the writings of dozens of officers and soldiers, Noble Volunteers shows how a peacetime army responded to the onset of war, how professional soldiers adapted quickly and effectively to become tactically dominant, and what became of the thousands of career soldiers once the war was over. 
    In this historical tour de force, introduced by Pulitzer Prize winner Rick Atkinson, Hagist dispels long-held myths, revealing how remarkably diverse British soldiers were. They represented a variety of ages, nationalities, and socioeconomic backgrounds, and many had joined the army as a peacetime career, only to find themselves fighting a war on another continent in often brutal conditions. Against the sweeping backdrop of the war, Hagist directs his focus on the small picture, illuminating the moments in an individual soldier’s life—those hours spent nursing a fever while standing sentry in the bitter cold, or writing a letter to a wife back home. What emerges from these vignettes is the understanding that while these were “common” soldiers, each soldier was completely unique, for, as Hagist writes, “There was no ‘typical’ British soldier.” 
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The Notorious Edward Low
Pursuing the Last Great Villain of Piracy's Golden Age
Len Travers
Westholme Publishing, 2023
Following the War of the Spanish Succession (1702–1713)—generally known in the Americas as Queen Anne’s War—a dramatic, decade-long wave of sea-robbery plagued the Atlantic rim. Often glamorized as the “Golden Age of Piracy,” that period saw such colorful pirate leaders as Edward “Blackbeard” Teach, Charles Vane, and “Calico Jack” Rackham and his henchwomen Anne Bonney and Mary Read. Outdoing any of these, a Boston-based laborer, Edward Low, left his mark on pirate history as a “monster,” the most vicious and sadistic raider of them all. Low’s reputation, and those of the other pirates of the time, was crafted through newspaper accounts and popular literature, most notably The General History of the Pyrates, first published in 1724. Romanticized as anti-heroes and egalitarians in a monarchical world who had liberated themselves from the constraints of law and society ashore, these marauders came to enjoy an immortality bestowed upon them by generations of historians, novelists, and moviemakers. That persistent gloss masks a more sordid reality.
            In The Notorious Edward Low: Pursuing the Last Great Villain of Piracy’s Golden Age, historian Len Travers reexamines this critical period through the career of Low, a complicated pirate leader, and his nemesis, Peter Solgard, captain of the Royal Navy warship HMS Greyhound. By the time Solgard, aboard Greyhound, was tracking Low in 1723, the era’s other notable pirates were gone—dead, captured, or disappeared. Drawing on previously unpublished Admiralty records and consulting both contemporary and modern chroniclers, Travers directs readers to much powerful testimony minimized in or excluded from histories of piracy’s “Golden Age,” leveling a critical eye at familiar sources too long accepted at face value. Travers demonstrates that, feared asthey certainly were, pirates were largely ordinary seamen trapped in desperate circumstances who, in the end, had little to show for their efforts. Contrary to popular portrayals, for pirates the second decade of the eighteenth century was a time of radically diminishing returns, scant treasure, buried or otherwise, and increasingly successful suppression by state authorities. One by one, safe havens shut out the sea-rovers, who with their depredations in America quickly squandered the sympathy and support they had once enjoyed among common folk. The Notorious Edward Lowputs individual actors, from colonial governors to captains to common seamen, at center stage, and reveals how British authorities used new anti-piracy laws to reclaim a measure of authority over their fractious North American colonies—a compelling  and meaningful story with its own brand of true-life swashbuckling on the high seas.
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