front cover of Nameless Towns
Nameless Towns
Texas Sawmill Communities, 1880-1942
By Thad Sitton and James H. Conrad
University of Texas Press, 1998

Winner, T. H. Fehrenbach Award, Texas Historical Commission

Sawmill communities were once the thriving centers of East Texas life. Many sprang up almost overnight in a pine forest clearing, and many disappeared just as quickly after the company "cut out" its last trees. But during their heyday, these company towns made Texas the nation's third-largest lumber producer and created a colorful way of life that lingers in the memories of the remaining former residents and their children and grandchildren.

Drawing on oral history, company records, and other archival sources, Sitton and Conrad recreate the lifeways of the sawmill communities. They describe the companies that ran the mills and the different kinds of jobs involved in logging and milling. They depict the usually rough-hewn towns, with their central mill, unpainted houses, company store, and schools, churches, and community centers. And they characterize the lives of the people, from the hard, awesomely dangerous mill work to the dances, picnics, and other recreations that offered welcome diversions.

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Native American Place Names of Indiana
Michael McCafferty
University of Illinois Press, 2007

A linguistic history of Native American place-names in Indiana

In tracing the roots of Indiana place names, Michael McCafferty focuses on those created and used by local Native Americans. Drawing from exciting new sources that include three Illinois dictionaries from the eighteenth century, the author documents the language used to describe landmarks essential to fur traders in Les Pays d’en Haut and settlers of the Old Northwest territory. Impeccably researched, this study details who created each name, as well as when, where, how and why they were used. The result is a detailed linguistic history of lakes, streams, cities, counties, and other Indiana names. Each entry includes native language forms, translations, and pronunciation guides, offering fresh historical insight into the state of Indiana.

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Nevada's Historic Buildings
A Cultural Legacy
Ronald M. James
University of Nevada Press, 2009
In 1991, Nevada’s Commission for Cultural Affairs was formed to oversee the preservation of the state’s historic buildings and the conversion of the best of them for use as cultural centers. This program has rehabilitated dozens of historic structures valued by their communities for the ways they represent the development of the state and its culture.

Nevada’s Historic Buildings highlights ninety of these buildings, describing them in the context of the state’s history and the character of the people who created and used them. Here are reminders of mining boomtowns, historic ranches, transportation, the divorce and gaming industries, the New Deal, and the innovation of Las Vegas’s post-modern aesthetic. These buildings provide a cross-section of Nevada’s rich historic and cultural heritage and their survival offers everyone the experience of touching the past. 
 
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The New Desert Reader
Wild, Peter
University of Utah Press, 2006
The New Desert Reader brings together a historical cross section of writing about the American Southwest in selections that demonstrate how thinking about American deserts has changed from the earliest times to the present day. Beginning with the centuries-old legends of the Tohono O’Odham Indians, it moves through the foresighted observations of John Wesley Powell, one-armed explorer of the Grand Canyon; continues with the delicate appreciations of Mary Austin and Joseph Wood Krutch; includes examples of the keen activist writings of Wallace Stegner and Edward Abbey; and finishes with such contemporary desert writers as Tony Hillerman and others.
A slow change in outlook dominates the book, as attitudes shift from viewing the desert as a place to be despised or exploited to an appreciation of it as a special place, an arena of highly complex natural communities, and a wild refuge for the human body and soul. Comprehensive and brightly informative, The New Desert Reader will be invaluable to anyone interested in the history, literature, and beauty of North America’s treasured desert places. 
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front cover of New Jersey Cemeteries and Tombstones
New Jersey Cemeteries and Tombstones
History in the Landscape
Veit, Richard F
Rutgers University Press, 2008

From the earliest memorials used by Native Americans to the elaborate structures of the present day, Richard Veit and Mark Nonestied use grave markers to take an off-beat look at New Jersey’s history that is both fascinating and unique.

New Jersey Cemeteries and Tombstones presents a culturally diverse account of New Jersey’s historic burial places from High Point to Cape May and from the banks of the Delaware to the ocean-washed Shore, to explain what cemeteries tell us about people and the communities in which they lived. The evidence ranges from somber seventeenth-century decorations such as hourglasses and skulls that denoted the brevity of colonial life, to modern times where memorials, such as a life-size granite Mercedes Benz, reflect the materialism of the new millennium. Also considered are contemporary novelties such as pet cemeteries and what they reveal about today’s culture. To tell their story the authors visited more than 1,000 burial grounds and interviewed numerous monument dealers and cemetarians.

This richly illustrated book is essential reading for history buffs and indeed anyone who has ever wandered inquisitively through their local cemeteries.

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front cover of New Jersey Fan Club
New Jersey Fan Club
Artists and Writers Celebrate the Garden State
Kerri Sullivan
Rutgers University Press, 2022
Despite the many jokes and stereotypes about New Jersey and its residents, in reality the state is a wildly diverse place, home to a vast variety of landscapes, cultures, and people. There is no singular New Jersey experience, and the stories that its residents have to share about the state will surprise you.
 
New Jersey Fan Club: Artists and Writers Celebrate the Garden State is an eclectic anthology featuring personal essays, interviews, and comics from a broad group of established and emerging writers and artists who have something to say about New Jersey. It offers a multifaceted look at the state’s history and significance, told through narrative nonfiction, photographs, and illustrations.
 
New Jersey Fan Club is edited by Kerri Sullivan, founder of the popular Instagram account Jersey Collective (@jerseycollective), which features weekly takeovers by different New Jerseyans. This book functions the same way: it gives dozens of different contributors the chance to share what New Jersey looks like to them. The book is an exploration of how the same locale can shape people in different ways, and it will inspire readers to look at the Garden State with fresh eyes and appreciate its bounty of beautiful places and vibrant spaces.
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