BiblioVault - Books about Statehood

Alabama and the Borderlands

From Prehistory To Statehood

Edited by R. Reid Badger and Lawrence A. Clayton

University of Alabama Press, 1985

Brings together the nation's leading scholars on the prehistory and early history of Alabama and the southeastern US

This fascinating collection was born of a concern with Alabama's past and the need to explore and explain that legacy, so often hidden by the veils of time, ignorance, or misunderstanding. In 1981 The University of Alabama celebrated its 150th anniversary, and each College contributed to the celebration by sponsoring a special symposium. The College of Arts and Sciences brought together the nation's leading scholars on the prehistory and early history of Alabama and the Southeastern United States, and for two memorable days in September 1981 several hundred interested listeners heard those scholars present their interpretations of Alabama's remarkable past.

The organizers of the symposium deliberately chose to focus on Alabama's history before statehood. Alabama as a constituent state of the Old South is well known. Alabama as a home of Indian cultures and civilizations of a high order, as an object of desire, exploration, and conquest in the sixteenth century, and as a borderland disputed by rival European nationalities for almost 300 years is less well known. The resulting essays in this collection prove as interesting, enlightening, and provocative to the casual reader as to the professional scholar, for they are intended to bring to the general reader artifacts and documents that reveal the realities and romance of that older Alabama.

Topics in the collection range from the Mississippian Period in archaeology and the de Soto expedition (and other early European explorations and settlements of Alabama) to the 1780 Siege of Mobile.

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Alaska at 50

The Past, Present, and Future of Alaska Statehood

Edited by Gregory W. Kimura

University of Alaska Press, 2009

In 2009 Alaska celebrates its fiftieth anniversary of U.S. statehood. To commemorate that milestone, Alaska at 50 brings together some of today’s most noteworthy and recognizable writers and researchers to address the past, present, and future of Alaska. Divided into three overarching sections—art, culture, and humanities; law, economy, and politics; and environment, people, and place—Alaska at 50 is written in highly accessible prose. Illustrations and photographs of significant artefacts of Alaska history enliven the text. Each contributor brings a strong voice and prescription for the next fifty years, and the resulting work presents Alaskans and the nation with an overview of Alaska statehood and ideas for future development.

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An Arizona Chronology

Statehood, 1913–1936

Douglas D. Martin; Edited by Patricia Paylore

University of Arizona Press, 1966

The lively role of the newspaper in “telling history’s story” comes across in An Arizona Chronology, Volume Two, the continued selection by the late veteran journalist, Douglas D. Martin, of reported highlights in Arizona’s first two and a half decades as a state.

Here were the years in which Arizona’s “bad men” virtually dropped out of sight, and the trigger-blast was displaced by the gavel-thumping sound of law and order as a Territory grew up and became a state. The problem of the Apache was no more, and the problem of water began to loom large. Depression and prohibition were the counter-themes. And Arizona’s three C's—Copper, Cattle, and Cotton—were about to strike for their place in the national limelight.

It was a time of conversion. The vital currents of frontier energy were turned into the channels of modern agriculture, finance, and urban growth. As this volume’s editor, Patricia Paylore, points out, the transformation reaffirms Douglas Martin’s view of Arizona history as the “persistence of the pioneer spirit of the nineteenth century” in terms of “the strength and optimism of a young people determined to take its place in the Union.”

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Deep in the Piney Woods

Southeastern Alabama from Statehood to the Civil War, 1800–1865

Tommy Craig Brown

University of Alabama Press, 2018

A chronicle of the Civil War era in one of Alabama’s most overlooked and least studied regions

Much of Alabama’s written history concentrates on the Tennessee Valley, the hill counties, and the Black Belt, while the piney woods of south central and southeastern Alabama, commonly known as the wiregrass region today, is one of the most understudied areas in Alabama history. Deep in the Piney Woods: Southeastern Alabama from Statehood to the Civil War, 1800–1865 offers a comprehensive and long overdue account of a historically rich region of the state, challenging many commonly held assumptions about the area’s formation and settlement, economy, politics, race relations, and its role in both the secession of the state and the Civil War.

Historians routinely depict this part of the state as an isolated, economically backward wilderness filled with poor whites who showed little interest in supporting the Confederacy once civil war erupted in 1861. Tommy Craig Brown challenges those traditional interpretations, arguing instead that many white Alabamians in this territory participated in the market economy, supported slavery, favored secession, and supported the Confederate war effort for the bulk of the conflict, sending thousands of soldiers to fight in some of the bloodiest campaigns of the war.

This thorough and expansive account of southeastern Alabama’s role in the Civil War also discusses its advocacy for state secession in January 1861; the effects of Confederate conscription on the home front; the economic devastation wrought on the area; and the participation of local military companies in key campaigns in both the eastern and western theaters, including Shiloh, the Peninsula Campaign, the Overland Campaign, Atlanta, and Franklin-Nashville. Brown argues that the lasting effects of the war on the region’s politics, identity, economy, and culture define it in ways that are still evident today.

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The Genesis of Missouri

From Wilderness Outpost to Statehood

William E. Foley

University of Missouri Press, 1989

The story of the blending of diverse cultures in a land rich in resources and beauty is an extraordinary one. In this account, the pioneer hunters, trappers, and traders who roamed the Ozark hills and the boatmen who traded on the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers take their place beside the small coterie of St. Louisans whose wealth and influence enabled them to dominate the region politically and economically. Especially appealing for many readers will be the attention Foley gives to common Missourians, to the status of women and blacks, and to Indian-white relations.

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The History of Wisconsin, Volume I

From Exploration to Statehood

Alice E. Smith

Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 1973

Published in 1973, this first volume in the History of Wisconsin series remains the definitive work on Wisconsin's beginnings, from the arrival of the French explorer Jean Nicolet in 1634, to the attainment of statehood in 1848. This volume explores how Wisconsin's Native American inhabitants, early trappers, traders, explorers, and many immigrant groups paved the way for the territory to become a more permanent society. Including nearly two dozen maps as well as illustrations of territorial Wisconsin and portraits of early residents, this volume provides an in-depth history of the beginnings of the state.

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Making Maine

Statehood and the War of 1812

Joshua M. Smith

University of Massachusetts Press, 2022

Honorable mention for U.S. Maritime History, John Lyman Book Awards

After the Revolutionary War ended, the new American nation grappled with a question about its identity: Were the states sovereign entities or subordinates to a powerful federal government? The War of 1812 brought this vexing issue into sharp relief, as a national government intent on waging an unpopular war confronted a populace in Massachusetts that was vigorously opposed to it. Maine, which at the time was part of Massachusetts, served as the battleground in this political struggle.

Joshua M. Smith recounts an innovative history of the war, focusing on how it specifically affected what was then called the District of Maine. Drawing on archival materials from the United States, Britain, and Canada, Smith exposes the bitter experience of Maine’s citizens during that conflict as they endured multiple hardships, including starvation, burdensome taxation, smuggling, treason, and enemy occupation. War’s inherent miseries, along with a changing relationship between regional and national identities, gave rise to a statehood movement that rejected a Boston-centric worldview in favor of a broadly American identity.

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Sewing the Fabric of Statehood

Garment Unions, American Labor, and the Establishment of the State of Israel

Adam Howard

University of Illinois Press, 2017

Long a bastion of Jewish labor power, garment unions provided financial and political aid essential to founding and building the nation of Israel. Throughout the project, Jewish labor often operated outside of official channels as non-governmental organizations. Adam Howard explores the untold story of how three influential garment unions worked alone and with other Jewish labor organizations in support of a new Jewish state. Sewing the Fabric of Statehood reveals a coalition at work on multiple fronts. Sustained efforts convinced the AFL and CIO to support Jewish development in Palestine through land purchases for Jewish workers and encouraged the construction of trade schools and cultural centers. Other activists, meanwhile, directed massive economic aid to Histadrut, the General Federation of Jewish Workers in Palestine, or pressured the British and American governments to recognize Israel's independence. What emerges is a powerful account of the motivations and ideals that led American labor to forge its own foreign policy and reshape both the postwar world and Jewish history.

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