18284 books match the query 'United States' and 850 start with p

cover of Performing Chance: The Art of Alison Knowles In/Out of Fluxus

Performing Chance

The Art of Alison Knowles In/Out of Fluxus

Nicole L. Woods

University of Chicago Press, 2026

The first monographic study of American artist Alison Knowles, a significant yet overlooked cofounder of the Fluxus movement.
 
Alison Knowles stands out as the sole female artist among the founders of Fluxus, yet she has remained an enigmatic, underrecognized figure in the history of art. Performing Chance fills a gap in the record, bringing to light Knowles’s transformative body of work as it evolved from abstract painting in the late 1950s, to silkscreens, print media, and performance in the early 1960s, to groundbreaking works in digital poetry, acoustical art, and large-scale installations in the late 1960s-70s.
 
Through her access to previously unpublished archival materials and direct interviews with the artist, Nicole L. Woods provides close readings of pivotal works, disclosing the ways Knowles instituted formal tactics that moved beyond modernist painting, championed principles of indeterminacy and chance, and fostered sociopolitical consciousness. Situating Knowles’s innovations in various media within the distinct cultural contexts of Wiesbaden, London, Paris, New York City, and Los Angeles, Performing Chance brings this key artist back to her rightful place as a leader of the postwar avant-garde and provides a nuanced history of the role of women artists in Fluxus and beyond.
 
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cover of Performing Math: A History of Communication and Anxiety in the American Mathematics Classroom

Performing Math

A History of Communication and Anxiety in the American Mathematics Classroom

Andrew Fiss

Rutgers University Press, 2021

Performing Math tells the history of expectations for math communication—and the conversations about math hatred and math anxiety that occurred in response. Focusing on nineteenth-century American colleges, this book analyzes foundational tools and techniques of math communication: the textbooks that supported reading aloud, the burnings that mimicked pedagogical speech, the blackboards that accompanied oral presentations, the plays that proclaimed performers’ identities as math students, and the written tests that redefined “student performance.” Math communication and math anxiety went hand in hand as new rules for oral communication at the blackboard inspired student revolt and as frameworks for testing student performance inspired performance anxiety. With unusual primary sources from over a dozen educational archives, Performing Math argues for a new, performance-oriented history of American math education, one that can explain contemporary math attitudes and provide a way forward to reframing the problem of math anxiety.
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cover of Performing Queer Latinidad: Dance, Sexuality, Politics

Performing Queer Latinidad

Dance, Sexuality, Politics

Ramón H. Rivera-Servera

University of Michigan Press, 2012

Performing Queer Latinidad highlights the critical role that performance played in the development of Latina/o queer public culture in the United States during the 1990s and early 2000s, a period when the size and influence of the Latina/o population was increasing alongside a growing scrutiny of the public spaces where latinidad could circulate. Performances---from concert dance and street protest to the choreographic strategies deployed by dancers at nightclubs---served as critical meeting points and practices through which LGBT and other nonnormative sex practitioners of Latin American descent (individuals with greatly differing cultures, histories of migration or annexation to the United States, and contemporary living conditions) encountered each other and forged social, cultural, and political bonds. At a time when latinidad ascended to the national public sphere in mainstream commercial and political venues and Latina/o public space was increasingly threatened by the redevelopment of urban centers and a revived anti-immigrant campaign, queer Latinas/os in places such as the Bronx, San Antonio, Austin, Phoenix, and Rochester, NY, returned to performance to claim spaces and ways of being that allowed their queerness and latinidad to coexist. These social events of performance and their attendant aesthetic communication strategies served as critical sites and tactics for creating and sustaining queer latinidad.

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cover of Performing The Word: African American Poetry As Vernacular Culture

Performing The Word

African American Poetry As Vernacular Culture

Brown, Fahamisha Patricia

Rutgers University Press, 1999

Performing the Word offers readers of African American poetry a way of understanding and appreciating body of work that has received little critical attention. While African American literary tradition begins with eighteenth-century poets like Lucy Terry, Jupiter Hammon, and Phillis Wheatley, critical discussions of African American Poetry have been sparse. Aside from a few studies of "major" poets, such as Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks, Robert Hayden, Rita Dove, or period histories of phenomena such as the Harlem Renaissance, there has been little sustained critical inquiry into African American poetry as a body of literature- until now.

Fahamista Patricia Brown examines elements of African American expressive culture- its language practices, both fold and popular. Her book is an excellent introduction to a diverse group of poets and the common basis of their work in language practices and performativity, in the expressive culture of a people. Performing the Word is an important contribution to the understanding of African American culture and American poetry as a whole.
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cover of Performing the News: Identity, Authority, and the Myth of Neutrality

Performing the News

Identity, Authority, and the Myth of Neutrality

Elia Powers

Rutgers University Press, 2024

Performing the News: Identity, Authority, and the Myth of Neutrality explores how journalists from historically marginalized groups have long felt pressure to conform when performing for audiences. Many speak with a flat, “neutral” accent, modify their delivery to hide distinctive vocal attributes, dress conventionally to appeal to the “average” viewer, and maintain a consistent appearance to avoid unwanted attention. Their aim is what author Elia Powers refers to as performance neutrality—presentation that is deemed unobjectionable, reveals little about journalists’ social identity, and supposedly does not detract from their message. Increasingly, journalists are challenging restrictive, purportedly neutral forms of self-presentation. This book argues that performance neutrality is a myth that reinforces the status quo, limits on-air diversity, and hinders efforts to make newsrooms more inclusive. Through in-depth interviews with journalists in broadcasting and podcasting, and those who shape their performance, the author suggests ways to make journalism more inclusive and representative of diverse audiences.

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cover of Performing the Progressive Era: Immigration, Urban Life, and Nationalism on Stage

Performing the Progressive Era

Immigration, Urban Life, and Nationalism on Stage

Max Shulman and J. Chris Westgate

University of Iowa Press, 2019

The American Progressive Era, which spanned from the 1880s to the 1920s, is generally regarded as a dynamic period of political reform and social activism. In Performing the Progressive Era, editors Max Shulman and Chris Westgate bring together top scholars in nineteenth- and twentieth-century theatre studies to examine the burst of diverse performance venues and styles of the time, revealing how they shaped national narratives surrounding immigration and urban life. Contributors analyze performances in urban centers (New York, Chicago, Cleveland) in comedy shows, melodramas, Broadway shows, operas, and others. They pay special attention to performances by and for those outside mainstream society: immigrants, the working-class, and bohemians, to name a few. Showcasing both lesser-known and famous productions, the essayists argue that the explosion of performance helped bring the Progressive Era into being, and defined its legacy in terms of gender, ethnicity, immigration, and even medical ethics.
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cover of Peripheral Nerve: Health and Medicine in Cold War Latin America

Peripheral Nerve

Health and Medicine in Cold War Latin America

Anne-Emanuelle Birn and Raúl Necochea López

Duke University Press, 2020

Buenos Aires psychoanalysts resisting imperialism. Brazilian parasitologists embracing communism as an antidote to rural misery. Nicaraguan revolutionaries welcoming Cuban health cooperation. Chilean public health reformers gauging domestic approaches against their Soviet and Western counterparts. As explored in Peripheral Nerve, these and accompanying accounts problematize existing understandings of how the Cold War unfolded in Latin America generally and in the health and medical realms more specifically. Bringing together scholars from across the Americas, this volume chronicles the experiences of Latin American physicians, nurses, medical scientists, and reformers who interacted with dominant U.S. and European players and sought alternative channels of health and medical solidarity with the Soviet Union and via South-South cooperation. Throughout, Peripheral Nerve highlights how Latin American health professionals accepted, rejected, and adapted foreign involvement; manipulated the rivalry between the United States and the USSR; and forged local variants that they projected internationally. In so doing, this collection reveals the multivalent nature of Latin American health politics, offering a significant contribution to Cold War history.

Contributors. Cheasty Anderson, Anne-Emanuelle Birn, Katherine E. Bliss, Gilberto Hochman, Jennifer L. Lambe, Nicole Pacino, Carlos Henrique Assunção Paiva, Jadwiga E. Pieper Mooney, Raúl Necochea López, Marco A. Ramos, Gabriela Soto Laveaga
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cover of Peripheral Visions: Deterrence Theory and American Foreign Policy in the Third World, 1965-1990

Peripheral Visions

Deterrence Theory and American Foreign Policy in the Third World, 1965-1990

Ted Hopf

University of Michigan Press, 1994

This book challenges the classical Cold War assumption that aggressive military force was necessary to project resolve against Soviet expansionism. By analyzing historical data from geopolitical flashpoints, Hopf demonstrates that military interventions were frequently counterproductive, whereas non-military mechanisms like diplomacy and economic statecraft were far more effective.
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cover of Permanent Crisis: The Humanities in a Disenchanted Age

Permanent Crisis

The Humanities in a Disenchanted Age

Paul Reitter and Chad Wellmon

University of Chicago Press, 2021

Leads scholars and anyone who cares about the humanities into more effectively analyzing the fate of the humanities and digging into the very idea of the humanities as a way to find meaning and coherence in the world.

The humanities, considered by many as irrelevant for modern careers and hopelessly devoid of funding, seem to be in a perpetual state of crisis, at the mercy of modernizing and technological forces that are driving universities towards academic pursuits that pull in grant money and direct students to lucrative careers. But as Paul Reitter and Chad Wellmon show, this crisis isn’t new—in fact, it’s as old as the humanities themselves. 

Today’s humanities scholars experience and react to basic pressures in ways that are strikingly similar to their nineteenth-century German counterparts. The humanities came into their own as scholars framed their work as a unique resource for resolving crises of meaning and value that threatened other cultural or social goods. The self-understanding of the modern humanities didn’t merely take shape in response to a perceived crisis; it also made crisis a core part of its project. Through this critical, historical perspective, Permanent Crisis can take scholars and anyone who cares about the humanities beyond the usual scolding, exhorting, and hand-wringing into clearer, more effective thinking about the fate of the humanities. Building on ideas from Max Weber and Friedrich Nietzsche to Helen Small and Danielle Allen, Reitter and Wellmon dig into the very idea of the humanities as a way to find meaning and coherence in the world. 

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cover of Permissions, A Survival Guide: Blunt Talk about Art as Intellectual Property

Permissions, A Survival Guide

Blunt Talk about Art as Intellectual Property

Susan M. Bielstein

University of Chicago Press, 2006

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then it's a good bet that at least half of those words relate to the picture's copyright status. Art historians, artists, and anyone who wants to use the images of others will find themselves awash in byzantine legal terms, constantly evolving copyright law, varying interpretations by museums and estates, and despair over the complexity of the whole situation. Here, on a white—not a high—horse, Susan Bielstein offers her decades of experience as an editor working with illustrated books. In doing so, she unsnarls the threads of permissions that have ensnared scholars, critics, and artists for years.

Organized as a series of “takes” that range from short sidebars to extended discussions, Permissions, A Survival Guide explores intellectual property law as it pertains to visual imagery. How can you determine whether an artwork is copyrighted? How do you procure a high-quality reproduction of an image? What does “fair use” really mean? Is it ever legitimate to use the work of an artist without permission? Bielstein discusses the many uncertainties that plague writers who work with images in this highly visual age, and she does so based on her years navigating precisely these issues. As an editor who has hired a photographer to shoot an incredibly obscure work in the Italian mountains (a plan that backfired hilariously), who has tried to reason with artists' estates in languages she doesn't speak, and who has spent her time in the archival trenches, she offers a snappy and humane guide to this difficult terrain.

Filled with anecdotes, asides, and real courage, Permissions, A Survival Guide is a unique handbook that anyone working in the visual arts will find invaluable, if not indispensable.
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cover of Persian Diary, 1939-1941

Persian Diary, 1939-1941

Walter N. Koelz

University of Michigan Press, 1983

Naturalist and zoologist Walter Koelz traveled to Iran on a project of plant exploration (sponsored by the U.S. Department of Agriculture) from late 1939 to early 1941. With him were three companions: Rup Chand, Wangyel, and Rinchen Gialtsen. Together they brought back 3000 seed samples, 4000 herbarium specimens, and a collection of bird skins. Koelz’s diary of that journey is presented in this volume, with an introduction by Henry T. Wright. Includes dozens of black and white photos.
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cover of Persistent Callings: Seasons of Work and Identity on the Oregon Coast

Persistent Callings

Seasons of Work and Identity on the Oregon Coast

Joseph E. Taylor

Oregon State University Press, 2019

The Nestucca Valley is a small watershed, tucked away in one corner of a county in far western Oregon. There are no incorporated towns, and cows outnumber humans. It has long been a place without a written history, yet its past offers many surprising twists on received wisdom about rural economies. In crisp prose and succinct chapters, Persistent Callings carries readers from aboriginal times to the present, illustrating the wisdom of seasonal labor, the complex relationships between work and identity, and the resilience of rural economics across more than a century of almost continual change.

Life in this watershed, known to locals as “South County,” has always been demanding. Farming, fishing, and logging were difficult occupations, but work had deeper meanings. Challenges arrived in many forms, including climate shifts, market crashes, regulatory changes, and industry consolidations. Residents’ ability to innovate was their greatest resource, and their persistence helps us to recognize the callings they pursued.

During the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, disruptions came more quickly, and they coincided with infusions of capital that dramatically altered the structure of employment, with devastating results for the valley’s hardest working residents. Unemployment and poverty skyrocketed while health and life expectancy dropped to alarming levels. Moreover, the arrival of retirees and rise of environmental amenities actually exacerbated some ecological problems. Little in this history plays out as expected, and much of it will make readers reconsider how they think about the social, economic, and environmental contours of rural life in the American West.

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cover of Persistent Progressives: The Rocky Mountain Farmers Union

Persistent Progressives

The Rocky Mountain Farmers Union

John F. Freeman

University Press of Colorado, 2015

Persistent Progressives tells the story of the Rocky Mountain Farmers Union’s evolution from an early movement against monopolists and wholesalers to a regional trailblazer for agriculture ideologies built on social democracy, the family farmer, and cooperative enterprises. As a continuing advocate for saving the family farm, the Farmers Union legacy provides a unique window into the transformation of the agriculture and rural communities in Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico.

Using data spanning decades, author John Freeman covers the founding of the RMFU in 1907 until the present, demonstrating how members continually sought to control the means of production and marketing by forming cooperatives, providing consumer services, and engaging in politics. Powering this evolution was a group of “practical idealists”—the Farmers Union leaders and titular persistent progressives who shaped the organization’s growth and expansion. Initiated by Jim Patton, who brought the organization out of its oppositional roots and into its cooperative advocacy, the RMFU passed to John Stencel and then David Carter, joining hands with agricultural conservationists and small organic producers along the way to carry the torch for progressive agrarianism in today’s urbanized world. Shaken but undeterred by some notable failures, its leadership remains convinced of the efficacy of cooperatives as a means to achieve justice for all.

Discussing the broader social, economic, political, and environmental issues related to farming, ranching, and urbanization, Persistent Progressives seamlessly blends regional history with ongoing issues of agricultural and economic development.
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cover of Person-Centered Management in Academic Libraries

Person-Centered Management in Academic Libraries

Edited by Dani Brecher Cook, Maoria J. Kirker, and Diann Smothers

American Library Association, 2024

A recent study published in the Journal of Library Administration draws a sobering conclusion: the accelerated exodus of library workers from the profession in the last several years is partially due to strained relationships between staff and their managers. Often, administrators and managers operate within structures that may encourage or enable poor managerial practices. This volume shines a light on a different path forward for the field, one that focuses on the people who work in libraries and how their managers can support them with empathy and skill.  Stemming from insights presented at the Conference on Academic Library Management (CALM), the contributors illustrate what person-centered management looks like in practice and point the way toward implementing this approach at readers’ institutions. This book

  • incorporates a variety of institutional perspectives, including community colleges, technical and special colleges, liberal arts institutions, and large research universities;
  • defines the concept of person-centered management in the context of libraries and explains why it offers such a valuable framework for improving workplace conditions;
  • demonstrates why lack of workplace satisfaction and the low morale experience of library staff is often tied to the culture created by management;
  • discusses building person-centered systems, interacting with student employees, setting healthy boundaries, and practicing reflection and self-care;
  • shares positive, proactive management practices that create space for criticism, sharing of lived experiences, and a willingness to investigate and, if needed, make changes to the status quo; and
  • explores such key topics as communication, working virtually, mentorship, intellectual humility, shared leadership, and many others.
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cover of Personal Librarian: From Resources to Relationships

Personal Librarian

From Resources to Relationships

Richard Moniz

American Library Association, 2014

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cover of Personal Memoirs of John H. Brinton: Civil War Surgeon, 1861-1865

Personal Memoirs of John H. Brinton

Civil War Surgeon, 1861-1865

John H. Brinton. Preface by John S. Haller, Jr. Foreword by John Y. Simon

Southern Illinois University Press, 1996

John Hill Brinton (1832–1907) met, observed, and commented on practically the entire hierarchy of the Union army; serving as medical director for Ulysses S. Grant, he came into contact with Philip H. Sheridan, John C. Frémont, Henry W. Halleck, William A. Hammond, D. C. Buell, John A. Rawlins, James Birdseye McPherson, C. F. Smith, John A. McClernand, William S. Rosecrans, and his first cousin George Brinton McClellan. John Y. Simon points out in his foreword that Brinton was one of the first to write about a relatively obscure Grant early in the war:

"Brinton found a quiet and unassuming man smoking a pipe—he could not yet afford cigars— and soon recognized a commander with mysterious strength of intellect and character."

Positioned perfectly to observe the luminaries of the military, Brinton also occupied a unique perspective from which to comment on the wretched state of health and medicine in the Union army and on the questionable quality of medical training he found among surgeons. With both A.B. and A.M. degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and postgraduate training in Paris and Vienna at a time when most medical schools required only a grammar school education, Brinton was exceptional among Civil War doctors. He found, as John S. Haller, Jr., notes in his preface, "the quality of candidates for surgeon’s appointments was meager at best." As president of the Medical Examining Board, Brinton had to lower his standards at the insistence of Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. Haller points out that one "self-educated candidate for an appointment as brigade surgeon explained to the board that he could do ‘almost anything, from scalping an Indian, up and down.’" Brinton assigned this singular candidate to duty in Kansas "where Brinton hoped he would do the least amount of damage." Throughout the war, the dearth of qualified surgeons created problems.

Brinton’s memoirs reveal a remarkable Civil War surgeon, a witness to conditions in Cairo, the Battle of Belmont, and the Siege of Fort Donelson who encountered almost every Union military leader of note.

Brinton wrote his memoirs for the edification of his family, not for public consumption. Yet he was, as Haller notes, a "keen observer of character." And with the exception of Brinton’s acceptance of late nineteenth-century gossip favorable to his cousin General McClellan, Simon finds the memoirs "remarkable for accuracy and frankness." His portrait of Grant is vivid, and his comments on the state of medicine during the war help explain, in Haller’s terms, why the "Civil War was such a medical and human tragedy."

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cover of Personal Places: Perspectives on Informal Art Environments

Personal Places

Perspectives on Informal Art Environments

University of Wisconsin Press, 1984

The human-constructed modifications of the environment and landscape examined in the essays collected here have been referred to as everything from piles of junk to the greatest accomplishments of humankind.
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cover of Personal Writings Of Eliza Roxcy Snow

Personal Writings Of Eliza Roxcy Snow

Maureen Beecher

Utah State University Press, 2000

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cover of Perspectives of Black Popular Culture

Perspectives of Black Popular Culture

Harry B. Shaw

University of Wisconsin Press, 1990

While blacks have made perhaps their most obvious and substantial contributions to Western popular culture through music and dance, they have developed a rich popular culture in a number of other areas, including the visual arts, mass media, health practices, recreation, and literature. Glimpsed through any medium, black popular culture is the DNA that runs throughout the various kinds of black—and American—artistic achievement and shared experience, helping to identify, explain, and retain Africanisms and the essential blackness that emanate from the everyday lives of black people.
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cover of Perspectives on Food-Safety Issues of Animal-Derived Foods

Perspectives on Food-Safety Issues of Animal-Derived Foods

Steven C. Ricke

University of Arkansas Press, 2010

As recent stories in the news have shown, maintaining the integrity of the food supply is of critical importance to the consumer. Thousands of Americans die each year from food-borne illnesses, and millions more get sick. Tremendous strides have been made to reduce the incidence of food-borne diseases originating from animal-derived foods, but food safety and food-borne pathogens continue to remain problematic throughout the world. Food-safety scientists from around the nation continue to conduct groundbreaking research not only to understand causative factors in food-borne pathogen prevalence but to develop novel intervention strategies for limiting contamination in all phases of food animal production. The twenty-four essays in this book highlight research efforts of researchers from the tristate Food Safety Consortium established in 1988 by Congress as a research alliance of food-safety scientists at the University of Arkansas, Iowa State University, and Kansas State University. Members of the consortium conduct research through an annual grant approved by Congress and administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Its mission is to conduct extensive investigation into all areas of poultry, beef, and pork meat production, from the farm to the consumer’s table. In addition to the consortium researchers, collaborative university researchers, government officials, and industry personnel provide timely reviews of their latest findings with regard to five significant subject areas: preharvest food-borne pathogen ecology and intervention strategies, postharvest food-borne pathogen ecology, rapid methods and detection strategies for food-borne pathogens, antibiotics and antimicrobials in food safety, and emerging issues in food safety. Progress in these research areas provides opportunities to further enhance protection of animal-derived foods from farm to fork.
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cover of Perspectives on Milwaukee's Past

Perspectives on Milwaukee's Past

Edited by Margo Anderson and Victor Greene

University of Illinois Press, 2008

In this volume, a diverse group of scholars explores key themes in the distinctive history of Milwaukee, from settlement to the present, both in terms of the area's internal development and its comparative standing with other Great Lakes cities. Contributors discuss the importance of socialism and labor in local politics; Milwaukee's ethnic diversity, including long-standing African American, Latino, and Asian communities as well as an unusually large and significant German American population; the function and origins of the city's residential architecture; and the role of religious and ethnic culture in forming the city's identity. Rich in detail, the essays also challenge readers and researchers to pursue additional research on the city and the region by identifying critical areas and methods for future investigations into Milwaukee's past.

Contributors are Margo Anderson, Steven M. Avella, John D. Buenker, Jack Dougherty, Eric Fure-Slocum, Victor Greene, Thomas C. Hubka, Judith T. Kenny, Genevieve G. McBride, Aims McGuinness, Anke Ortlepp, Joseph A. Rodriguez, and N. Mark Shelley.

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cover of Perspectives on War and Peace in Central America: Mis Lam#19

Perspectives on War and Peace in Central America

Mis Lam#19

Sung Ho Kim

Ohio University Press, 1992

This volume records the perspectives of a highly diverse group of prominent individuals who met late in 1988 in an important international symposium concerned with the continuing conflicts in Central America. Included are presentations by leading conservative and liberal scholar-authors; high ranking diplomats from the governments of Mexico, the United States, and Nicaragua; directors of conservative and liberal think tanks; a spokesperson for a state governor opposed to Ronald Reagan’s policy of sending National Guard troops to “train” in Central America; a centrally involved media practitioner; and a media critic. It also includes an unofficial translation of the final report of the International Verification and Follow-up Commission established by the Arias Peace Agreement. A preface and an introduction by the editors set this lively and historic debate in context.
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cover of Perspectives on the Economics of Aging

Perspectives on the Economics of Aging

Edited by David A. Wise

University of Chicago Press, 2004

This book investigates several important issues in the economics of aging, including the accumulation of wealth and the relationship between health and financial prosperity.

Examining the changes in savings behavior and investment priorities in the United States over the past few decades, contributors to the volume point to a dramatic shift from employer-managed, defined benefit pensions to employee-controlled retirement savings plans. Further, the legislative reforms of the 1980s and the booming stock market of the 1990s did their share to influence individual wealth accumulation patterns of Americans.

These studies also explore the relationship between health status and economic status. Considering issues like pension income and health, mortality, and medical care, contributors present evidence from the United States, Britain, South Africa, and Russia. The volume culminates with wide-ranging discussions on a number of key topics in the field including the innovations that have contributed to a decline in mortality rates; the various medical advances that have benefited populations over time; and the determinants of expenditures on health. The findings with regard to cross-sectional differences in health outcomes and health care utilization also pose troubling questions for policymakers seeking to democratize health care across regions and races.
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cover of Peruvians in Paterson: Building Businesses and Community

Peruvians in Paterson

Building Businesses and Community

Gianncarlo Muschi

Rutgers University Press, 2027

Peruvians were among the first Latinos to arrive in Paterson and other cities in New Jersey during the post-WW II period. Over successive generations, they established a prosperous ethnic enclave that contributed to Paterson’s socioeconomic renewal. Yet their migration experience has remained relatively unexamined by scholars. This book examines the role of entrepreneurship and informality in the emergence and evolution of the Peruvian community of Paterson. It highlights the historical significance of the establishment of small businesses and social organizations as important cultural elements that validated their physical presence in the area. By uncovering the diverse strategies that Peruvians utilized for building a community, Muschi contends that their culture of informality and resourcefulness paved the way for their economic advancement and the consolidation of the Peruvian community. This book also shows that the informal economic practices introduced by Peruvians altered the social and economic landscape of Paterson and contributed to the revitalization of the local economy. Through the examination of oral histories, archival material from local newspapers, and memoirs declassified by the Peruvian consulate, the author challenges the oversimplified portrayal of Latinos as blue- collar workers with few opportunities for socioeconomic advancement. Peruvians in Paterson demonstrates that Latino migrants achieve wealth and ethnic empowerment in the process of adjustment and community building, suggesting new lines for future research.

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cover of Pervasive Prejudice?: Unconventional Evidence of Race and Gender Discrimination

Pervasive Prejudice?

Unconventional Evidence of Race and Gender Discrimination

Ian Ayres

University of Chicago Press, 2001

If you're a woman and you shop for a new car, will you really get the best deal? If you're a man, will you fare better? If you're a black man waiting to receive an organ transplant, will you have to wait longer than a white man?

In Pervasive Prejudice? Ian Ayres confronts these questions and more. In a series of important studies he finds overwhelming evidence that in a variety of markets—retail car sales, bail bonding, kidney transplantation, and FCC licensing—blacks and females are consistently at a disadvantage. For example, when Ayres sent out agents of different races and genders posing as potential buyers to more than 200 car dealerships in Chicago, he found that dealers regularly charged blacks and women more than they charged white men. Other tests revealed that it is commonly more difficult for blacks than whites to receive a kidney transplant because of federal regulations. Moreover, Ayres found that minority male defendants are frequently required to post higher bail bonds than their Caucasian counterparts.

Traditional economic theory predicts that free markets should drive out discrimination, but Ayres's startling findings challenge that position. Along with empirical research, Ayres offers game—theoretic and other economic methodologies to show how prejudice can enter the bargaining process even when participants are supposedly acting as rational economic agents. He also responds to critics of his previously published studies included here. These studies suggest that race and gender discrimination is neither a thing of the past nor merely limited to the handful of markets that have been the traditional focus of civil rights laws.
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cover of Peter Cartwright, Legendary Frontier Preacher

Peter Cartwright, Legendary Frontier Preacher

Robert Bray

University of Illinois Press, 2005

Believing deeply that the gospel touched every aspect of a person's life, Peter Cartwright was a man who held fast to his principles, resulting in a life of itinerant preaching and thirty years of political quarrels with Abraham Lincoln. Peter Cartwright, Legendary Frontier Preacher is the first full-length biography of this most famous of the early nineteenth-century Methodist circuit-riding preachers.
 
Robert Bray tells the full story of the long relationship between Cartwright and Lincoln, including their political campaigns against each other, their social antagonisms, and their radical disagreements on the Christian religion, as well as their shared views on slavery and the central fact of their being "self-made."
 
In addition, the biography examines in close detail Cartwright's instrumental role in Methodism's bitter "divorce" of 1844, in which the southern conferences seceded in a remarkable prefigurement of the United States a decade later. Finally, Peter Cartwright attempts to place the man in his appropriate national context: as a potent "man of words" on the frontier, a self-authorizing "legend in his own time," and, surprisingly, an enduring western literary figure.
 
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cover of Peter Fidler: From York Factory to the Rocky Mountains

Peter Fidler

From York Factory to the Rocky Mountains

Barbara Belyea

University Press of Colorado, 2026

In 1792–93 Peter Fidler surveyed the Hudson’s Bay Company’s river and overland routes west from York Factory. He traveled with a fur brigade up the Hayes and Saskatchewan Rivers and then spent the winter months with a Piikani band who hunted buffalo in the Rocky Mountain foothills. Fidler kept precise journals that make it possible to follow the traders’ passage over a lake-strewn landscape and across the plains. The journal texts combine astronomical observations, notation of distances and directions, small sketch maps, and verbal descriptions. Peter Fidler: From York Factory to the Rocky Mountains presents two of Fidler’s survey journals edited and extensively annotated by historian Barbara Belyea from manuscripts in the Hudson’s Bay Company Archives.
 
The two journals—“From York Factory to Buckingham House” and “From Buckingham House to the Rocky Mountains”—detail Fidler’s travels over a period of nine months. They include remarks on fur trade history, organization of the inland brigade, three distinct geographical regions, and the daily life of a Plains nation. Belyea’s introduction and ample notes provide insight into the way geographic, specifically cartographic, information was noted in the journals, with additional information on industry trading techniques, traders’ economic decisions, broad changes in regional social and economic conditions, and interactions with indigenous peoples.
 
Fidler’s journals are an exceptional record of the fur trade’s western expansion and the daily life of a Plains nation at the height of its power and prosperity. With its rich analysis of primary source documents and painstaking reproduction of historical trade routes, Peter Fidler: From York Factory to the Rocky Mountains will be of great value to students and scholars in the fields of fur trade studies, cartography, travel literature, and Canadian history, as well as general readers interested in westward expansion, exploration, commerce, and indigenous-colonial relations.
 
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cover of Petrified Forest National Park: A Wilderness Bound in Time

Petrified Forest National Park

A Wilderness Bound in Time

George M. Lubick

University of Arizona Press, 1996

Yellowstone, Yosemite, the Grand Canyon—a few American national parks enjoy amusement-park status, eclipsing many other beautiful and significant parks due to their heavy political support and spectacular sights. Visitors to Petrified Forest National Park in northeastern Arizona can escape from the litter, snack bars, and crowds of the recreational parks to a 200-million-year-old ecosystem locked in stone. Enhanced by the unrivaled, colorful beauty of the adjacent Painted Desert, Petrified Forest National Park has captivated visitors since the area was discovered by early explorers. The history of the huge fossilized forest parallels that of Arizona. It was discovered and looted by adventurers and largely ignored by the government until President Theodore Roosevelt made it a national monument in 1906. The forest's location along Route 66 brought a large number of visitors during the time it enjoyed only monument status, but lack of funding for protection allowed much damage and theft of fossilized wood.

Petrified Forest National Park: A Wilderness Bound in Time speeds the reader on an ancient ecological journey, from the time of dinosaurs to the discovery of their Triassic fossils and on through a century of political maneuvering to create a place for the forest in American history. George Lubick describes how a dedicated few understood the environmental importance as well as the unique beauty of the park's Triassic Chinle Formation and the Painted Desert. Nearly a million people "visit the Triassic" annually; this environmental history of the ancient forest is important for those who know the park as well as those interested in natural America. Petrified Forest National Park is one of the few complete histories of any national park, a well-told, balanced treatment of the environmental, political, and historical factors that shape America's natural history.
[more]
cover of Petrochemical Fantasies: The Art and Energy of American Comics

Petrochemical Fantasies

The Art and Energy of American Comics

Daniel Worden

The Ohio State University Press, 2024

Finalist, Comics Studies Society Charles Hatfield Book Prize 2025
Nominee, Eisner Award for Best Academic/Scholarly Work 2025


In Petrochemical Fantasies, Daniel Worden reveals the entwined history of comics and fossil fuels in the United States. From the 1840s to the present, comics have depicted the power, pollution, and rapid expansion of energy systems—especially the explosive growth of coal and oil. In the 1930s, some of the first comic books were the gas station giveaways Gulf Funny Weekly and Standard Oil Comics. And in recent years, comics have become one of the major sites for visualizing life after oil, a striking reversal of the medium’s early boosterism.

Surveying the work of acclaimed artists such as Nell Brinkley, George Herriman, Jack Kirby, Winsor McCay, and R. F. Outcault and recovering little-known works, Worden advances a new history of American comics in the Anthropocene. From late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century editorial cartoons and superhero comics that visualize our modern energy culture to contemporary comics grappling with climate crises, Petrochemical Fantasies places comics, environmental humanities, and energy studies in conversation with each other to unearth the crucial but overlooked history of comics’ place in US energy culture.

[more]
cover of Petroleum Politics and the Texas Railroad Commission

Petroleum Politics and the Texas Railroad Commission

By David F. Prindle

University of Texas Press, 1981

The single most important domestic source of oil and gas is managed by the Texas Railroad Commission. As a result, the Commission has for decades exerted a profound influence on United States and world energy policy. This influence may even increase with the recent decision to remove price controls on oil and gas. Commission decisions determine where and when oil and gas wells are drilled, how much can be produced from them, and how the products can be transported. Since the 1930s the Commission has heavily influenced both the supply and the price of petroleum in the rest of the country simply because Texas provides such a large proportion of the United States' petroleum.

As might be expected with the management of resources worth billions of dollars, the Railroad Commission has been an arena of intense political maneuvering. David Prindle examines in detail seven policymaking episodes, covering five decades of the Commission's history. He recounts the economic and political cleavages arising from clashes of interest, the efforts of individuals and organizations to exert influence, the motives and methods underlying the policy choices of the Commissioners, and the political and economic consequences of those choices, both for Texas and for the rest of the country.

This detailed look at the Railroad Commission and the politics of petroleum in Texas will be of interest to the general public and all those involved in the oil and gas industry. Scholars and students in the field of policy studies, especially energy policy, will find this book to be an invaluable guide to an important sector of the American petroleum industry.

[more]
cover of Pfeiffer Country: The Tenant Farms and Business Activities of Paul Pfeiffer in Clay County, Arkansas, 1902-1954

Pfeiffer Country

The Tenant Farms and Business Activities of Paul Pfeiffer in Clay County, Arkansas, 1902-1954

Sherry Laymon

Butler Center for Arkansas Studies, 2009

Clay County, Arkansas, was a flatland with little improvements at the outset of the twentieth century. Into this primitive society came a St. Louis entrepreneur with a liking for agriculture. Paul Pfeiffer bought large tracts of land, set up tenant farmers, and reigned for nearly fifty years as a beneficent landlord. Laymon records the gratitude of many a family who remember with appreciation loans made to acquire equipment. When farming was interrupted by the coming of the railroad, both Pfeiffer and his tenants adapted to a lumbering economy—so long as the hardwood forest lasted. Interestingly, Laymon’s account includes the fate of tenants following the break-up of “Pfeiffer Country.”
[more]
cover of Phantom Ladies: Hollywood Horror and the Home Front

Phantom Ladies

Hollywood Horror and the Home Front

Snelson, Tim

Rutgers University Press, 2014

Defying industry logic and gender expectations, women started flocking to see horror films in the early 1940s. The departure of the young male audience and the surprise success of the film Cat People convinced studios that there was an untapped female audience for horror movies, and they adjusted their production and marketing strategies accordingly.
 
Phantom Ladies reveals the untold story of how the Hollywood horror film changed dramatically in the early 1940s, including both female heroines and female monsters while incorporating elements of “women’s genres” like the gothic mystery. Drawing from a wealth of newly unearthed archival material, from production records to audience surveys, Tim Snelson challenges long-held assumptions about gender and horror film viewership. 
 
Examining a wide range of classic horror movies, Snelson offers us a new appreciation of how dynamic this genre could be, as it underwent seismic shifts in a matter of months. Phantom Ladies, therefore, not only includes horror films made in the early 1940s, but also those produced immediately after the war ended, films in which the female monster was replaced by neurotic, psychotic, or hysterical women who could be cured and domesticated. Phantom Ladies is a spine-tingling, eye-opening read about gender and horror, and the complex relationship between industry and audiences in the classical Hollywood era. 
[more]
cover of Phantom in the Sky: A Marine's Back Seat View of the Vietnam War

Phantom in the Sky

A Marine's Back Seat View of the Vietnam War

Terry L. Thorsen

University of North Texas Press, 2019

[more]
cover of Phantoms of a Blood-Stained Period: The Complete Civil War Writings of Ambrose Bierce

Phantoms of a Blood-Stained Period

The Complete Civil War Writings of Ambrose Bierce

James Russell Duncan

University of Massachusetts Press, 2002

Alone among important American writers, Ambrose Bierce fought for four years in the Civil War. The writings he produced about that conflict comprise a body of work unique in American literature. This volume gathers virtually everything Bierce wrote about the war.
[more]
cover of Phantoms of the Prairie: The Return of Cougars to the Midwest

Phantoms of the Prairie

The Return of Cougars to the Midwest

John W. Laundré

University of Wisconsin Press, 2012

Last seen in the 1880s, cougars (also known as pumas or mountain lions) are making a return to the plains regions of the Midwest. Their comeback, heralded by wildlife enthusiasts, has brought concern and questions to many. Will the people of the region make room for cougars? Can they survive the highly altered landscape of the Midwest? Is there a future for these intrepid pioneers if they head even farther east?
    Using GIS technology, and historical data, among many other methods, Phantoms of the Prairie takes readers on a virtual journey, showing how the cougar might move over the landscape with minimal human contact. Drawing on his years of research on cougars, John W. Laundré offers an overview of what has been, what is, and what might be regarding the return of cougars to their ancestral prairie homeland.

[more]
cover of Phenomenal Blackness: Black Power, Philosophy, and Theory

Phenomenal Blackness

Black Power, Philosophy, and Theory

Mark Christian Thompson

University of Chicago Press, 2022

This unorthodox account of 1960s Black thought rigorously details the field’s debts to German critical theory and explores a forgotten tradition of Black singularity. 
 
Phenomenal Blackness examines the changing interdisciplinary investments of key mid-century Black writers and thinkers, including the growing interest in German philosophy and critical theory. Mark Christian Thompson analyzes this shift in intellectual focus across the post-war decades, placing Black Power thought in a philosophical context.

Prior to the 1960s, sociologically oriented thinkers such as W. E. B. Du Bois had understood Blackness as a singular set of socio-historical characteristics. In contrast, writers such as Amiri Baraka, James Baldwin, Angela Y. Davis, Eldridge Cleaver, and Malcolm X were drawn to notions of an African essence, an ontology of Black being. With these perspectives, literary language came to be seen as the primary social expression of Blackness. For this new way of thinking, the works of philosophers such as Adorno, Habermas, and Marcuse were a vital resource, allowing for continued cultural-materialist analysis while accommodating the hermeneutical aspects of Black religious thought. Thompson argues that these efforts to reimagine Black singularity led to a phenomenological understanding of Blackness—a “Black aesthetic dimension” wherein aspirational models for Black liberation might emerge.
[more]
cover of Phil Jasner "On the Case": His Best Writing on the Sixers, the Dream Team, and Beyond

Phil Jasner "On the Case"

His Best Writing on the Sixers, the Dream Team, and Beyond

Andy Jasner

Temple University Press, 2017

Allen Iverson loved Philadelphia Daily News basketball beat reporter Phil Jasner, calling him “the best” in the world of sports journalism. From 1981 until his death in 2010, Jasner was always “on the case,” going to great lengths to track athletes down for a quote or a story. He was most known for covering the team’s famous players, including World B. Free and Bobby Jones, Julius Erving and Moses Malone, Charles Barkley, and, of course, Iverson. His tremendous output was beloved by players and fans alike, earning him many honors, including inductions into six Halls of Fame.

Phil Jasner “On the Case” collects the best of Jasner’s writing throughout his illustrious career. Jasner wrote about baseball, the Eagles, and the Philadelphia Atoms’ soccer with the same insight and aplomb he showed in his coverage of The Big 5, the 76ers’ championship season in 1983, and the Dream Team. Lovingly assembled—each chapter is introduced by some of the most prominent figures Jasner covered, from Vince Papale, Doug Collins, and Billy Cunningham to Iverson and Barkley—this collection recounts a distinguished sportswriter’s remarkable career.

[more]
cover of Philadelphia Freedom: Memoir of a Civil Rights Lawyer

Philadelphia Freedom

Memoir of a Civil Rights Lawyer

David Kairys

University of Michigan Press, 2008

"David Kairys is one of the grand long-distance runners in the struggle for justice in America. His brilliant legal mind and superb lawyerly skills are legendary. This marvelous book is his gift to us!"
---Cornel West, Professor of Religion and African American Studies, Princeton University, and award-winning author of Race Matters

Philadelphia Freedom is the spellbinding tale of an idealistic young lawyer coming of age in the political cauldron of the 1960s and 1970s. From his immersion in the civil rights movement to his determined court battles to quell criminal violence by Philadelphia police, Kairys recounts how he helped make history in the city of brotherly love."
---William K. Marimow, Editor and Executive Vice President, Philadelphia Inquirer, and recipient of two Pulitzer Prizes

"In the current climate of political deception and the trampling of our civil rights, Kairys's compelling book is a clenched fist, a prayer for social justice and a call to conscience."
---Steve Lopez, Los Angeles Times columnist and former Philadelphia Inquirer columnist

"With engaging, insider stories of innovative legal strategies of a truly creative lawyer, this book evokes the ebullient spirit of progressive social change launched in the 1960s and should be read by aspiring and practicing lawyers as well as anyone interested in American social history. Philadelphia Freedom reads like a suspense novel and reveals how novel legal and political thinking can and does make a real difference to individuals and to the quality of justice."
---Martha L. Minow, Jeremiah Smith, Jr. Professor of Law, Harvard University

"David Kairys's compelling book properly explains the vital role that civil rights attorneys play in our system of justice."
---Judge John E. Jones III, United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, and presiding judge in the landmark Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District case

A memoir that is also a compelling page-turner, Philadelphia Freedom is the poignant, informative, often inspiring account of renowned civil-rights lawyer David Kairys's personal quest for achieving social justice during the turbulent 1960s and 70s.

Philadelphia Freedom brings us intimately and directly into Kairys's burgeoning law career and the struggles of the 60s as his professional and private life navigated the turmoil and promise of the civil rights and antiwar movements.

Many of the cases Kairys took on involved discrimination and equal protection, freedom of speech, and government malfeasance. Kairys is perhaps most well known for his victory in the Camden 28 draft board case, in which the FBI set up a sting of the Catholic anti-war left at the behest of the highest levels of government.

The stories and cases range from nationally important and recognizable---the family of the scientist the CIA unwittingly gave LSD in the 1950s; the leading race discrimination case against the FBI; Dr. Benjamin Spock's First Amendment case before the Supreme Court; the city handgun lawsuits Kairys conceived---to those he encountered in his early work as a public defender. The characters include public figures such as FBI Directors J. Edgar Hoover and Louis Freeh; CIA Director William Colby; Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter; New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer; U.S. Attorneys General Edward Levi and John Mitchell; Georgia Governor Lester Maddox; Pennsylvania Governor, former Philadelphia Mayor, and Democratic National Committee chair Ed Rendell; Philadelphia Mayor and Police Commissioner Frank Rizzo. But some of the most memorable are not well known, involving regular people caught up in the often heartless machinery of the courts and legal system.

Though it reads like a novel, with all the elements of character, plot, and suspense, Philadelphia Freedom also has historical significance as a firsthand account of the 1960s and 70s and contains social commentary about race as well as insights and major perspectives on the nature and social role of law.

David Kairys is Professor of Law at Beasley School of Law, Temple University. He was a full-time civil rights lawyer from 1968 to 1990.

[more]
cover of Philadelphia Mural Arts @ 30

Philadelphia Mural Arts @ 30

Jane Golden

Temple University Press, 2014

The Mural Arts Program of Philadelphia began in 1984 as a summer youth program with modest support from city government. Under the guidance of Jane Golden, however, it gradually grew into one of the largest and most successful public art organizations in the country, garnering support from local corporations, foundations, and individuals to extend the reach and effectiveness of its innovative programs. 

 

Now three decades later, the Mural Arts Program has created more than 3,800 murals and public art projects that have made lasting imprints in every Philadelphia neighborhood. In the process, Mural Arts has engaged thousands of people of all ages from across the city, helped hundreds of ex-offenders train for new jobs, transformed the face of struggling commercial corridors, and developed funding partners in both public and private sectors. 

  

While the Mural Arts Program has significantly changed the appearance of the city, it has also demonstrated how participatory public art can empower individuals and promote communal healing around difficult issues. Philadelphia Mural Arts @ 30 is a celebration of and guide to the program's success. Unlike Philadelphia Murals and the Stories They Tell and its sequel, More Philadelphia Murals and the Stories They Tell, Philadelphia Murals @ 30 showcases the results of 21 projects completed since 2009 and features essays by policy makers, curators, scholars, and educators that offer valuable lessons for artists, activists, and communities to emulate.

 

Philadelphia Mural Arts @ 30 traces the program's history and evolution, acknowledging the challenges and rewards of growth and change while maintaining a core commitment to social, personal, and community transformation.  

 

Contributors include: Dr. Arthur C. Evans, Jr., Arlene Goldbard, Thora Jacobson, Rick Lowe, Dr. Samantha L. Matlin, Paulette Moore, Jeremy Nowak, Maureen H. O'Connell, Elisabeth Perez Luna, Robin Rice, Dr. Jacob Kraemer Tebes, Elizabeth Thomas, Cynthia Weiss, Howard Zehr, and the editors.

 
[more]
cover of Philadelphia and the Development of Americanist Archaeology

Philadelphia and the Development of Americanist Archaeology

Edited by Don Fowler and David R. Wilcox

University of Alabama Press, 2003

For two and a half centuries, Philadelphians have been actively involved in archaeological research. In particular, three vital and venerable cultural institutions—the American Philosophical Society (founded 1743), the Academy of Natural Sciences (founded 1812), and the University Museum of the University of Pennsylvania (founded 1893)—have nurtured the "systematic study of antiquities." 

The ten essays in this volume focus on Philadelphians who were concerned with Americanist archaeology, or the "archaeology of the New World." As Europeans, and later, Euroamericans, spread across North, Central, and South America in the 16th through the 19th centuries, they encountered a bewildering variety of native peoples, customs, and languages, as well as tens of thousands of ancient ruins attesting to a long endemic culture history of obvious complexity. 

The essays examine most of the key players in the development of the methods to study these phenomena. Enlightenment scholars such as Benjamin Smith Barton, Peter S. Duponceau, Thomas Jefferson, Daniel Garrison Brinton, John Wesley Powell, and Benjamin Rush all contributed to the surge of scientific study of America's prehistoric cultures. So did two pioneering women who have received scant attention to date—Sara Yorke Stevenson and Lucy W. Wilson—but whose work is well treated in this study. Other essays detail the varied contributions of C. C. Abbott, Frank Hamilton Cushing, Clarence B. Moore, Edgar Lee Hewett, and John L. Cotter. This volume should stimulate continued interest in the origins and history of archaeology and the relationship of Philadelphia patrons and institutions to scientific inquiry.


 

[more]
cover of Philadelphia in the Civil War, 1861–1865

Philadelphia in the Civil War, 1861–1865

Frank H. Taylor

Westholme Publishing, 2014

A Treasure Trove of Primary Source Material Chronicling the Role of a Pivotal City in America’s Most Important Conflict
The city of Philadelphia played a major role in the Civil War as a manufacturing base, naval port, arsenal, financial and transportation center, and supplier of thousands of troops for the Union cause. Philadelphia provided the most uniforms for the Union army, built warships, was the site of the two largest military hospitals in the North, and recruited more than fifty infantry and cavalry regiments. Philadelphia was the closest free-state metropolitan area to the Confederacy and in fact had close contact with the South before the war. However, once the war began, Philadelphians embraced the Union cause.
            First published one hundred years ago, Philadelphia in the Civil War presents the complete story of the city during America’s greatest conflict. Richly illustrated with rare images, the book describes every detail of the region’s response to the war, ranging from accounts of each of the military units that served, medicine and medical staffs, and the city’s defense measures to lists of information, such as regiments losing fifty or more men, officers who gained the rank of general, recruiting stations, and famous songs.
[more]
cover of Philadelphia, Corrupt and Consenting: A City’s Struggle against an Epithet

Philadelphia, Corrupt and Consenting

A City’s Struggle against an Epithet

Brett H. Mandel

Temple University Press, 2023

More than a century after muckraking journalist Lincoln Steffens derided the city of Philadelphia as being “corrupt and contented,” Philadelphia struggles to rise above this unfortunate characterization. Philadelphia, Corrupt and Consentingis the story of a city’s confrontation with a history that threatens its future. Author Brett Mandel, who has been a reform-oriented government official and political insider, provides a detailed account of the corruption investigation of John Dougherty, one of the city’s most powerful political figures, in order to expose and explore networks of corruption. 
 
He examines the costs of corruption, both financial and nonpecuniary, and considers the opportunity cost that corruption imposes. Mandel explores the nature and development of Philadelphia’s unique culture of corruption, emphasizing how machine politics and self-dealing are entwined with city history, creating a culture that allows corruption to thrive. In addition, he provides practical, achievable policies and actions that can produce positive change in Philadelphia and elsewhere.
 
Mandel seeks to provide insight into how our collective actions or inattention give consent to the corruption, as well as its roots and effects, and the reasons for its persistence. Philadelphia, Corrupt and Consenting is a critique, but above all, it is a call to action.
 
[more]
cover of Philadelphia: A Brief History

Philadelphia

A Brief History

Roger D. Simon

Temple University Press, 2017

Understanding Philadelphia’s history requires that we understand that nothing is inevitable; history is not made by abstract forces, but by the decisions of real individuals as they conduct their lives. With its insightful analysis and engaging prose, Philadelphia provides an accessible and readable overview of the history of the Quaker City from its founding by William Penn to the deindustrialization and gentrification of the early twenty-first century. Roger Simon asserts that the history of Philadelphia is a story of the efforts to sustain economic prosperity while fulfilling community needs, and the continued tension between those priorities.

Philadelphia devotes considerable attention to the evolving physical development of the city and to the social conditions and class structure of the people. Three dozen maps and illustrations enrich this edition, which has been fully updated and revised to reflect new scholarship on Philadelphia’s role in the post-industrial present and the diverse communities that incorporated women and minorities into the economic and social fabric of the city. 

Published in association with the Pennsylvania Historical Association

[more]
cover of Philadelphia: Finding the Hidden City

Philadelphia

Finding the Hidden City

Joseph E. B. Elliott

Temple University Press, 2017

Philadelphia possesses an exceptionally large number of places that have almost disappeared—from workshops and factories to sporting clubs and societies, synagogues, churches, theaters, and railroad lines. In Philadelphia: Finding the Hidden City, urban observers Nathaniel Popkin and Peter Woodall uncover the contemporary essence of one of America’s oldest cities. Working with accomplished architectural photographer Joseph Elliott, they explore secret places in familiar locations, such as the Metropolitan Opera House on North Broad Street, the Divine Lorraine Hotel, Reading Railroad, Disston Saw Works in Tacony, and mysterious parts of City Hall.

Much of the real Philadelphia is concealed behind facades. Philadelphia artfully reveals its urban secrets. Rather than a nostalgic elegy to loss and urban decline, Philadelphia exposes the city’s vivid layers and living ruins. The authors connect Philadelphia’s idiosyncratic history, culture, and people to develop an alternative theory of American urbanism, and place the city in American urban history. The journey here is as much visual as it is literary; Joseph Elliott’s sumptuous photographs reveal the city's elemental beauty.

[more]
cover of Philanthropy and the Business Corporation

Philanthropy and the Business Corporation

Marion R. Fremont-Smith

Russell Sage Foundation, 1972

Attempts to study corporation philanthropy inevitably prove frustrating, for it is a subject surrounded by rhetoric and almost entirely devoid of hard facts. Marion R. Fremont-Smith's concise appraisal of corporation philanthropy takes a close look at the donative policies of corporations and their methods of giving. Concentrating on the legal and historical setting, as well as corporation philanthropy in practice, the author analyzes recent expansion in the field of traditional philanthropy and the accompanying shift in public attitude toward the responsibility of business corporations. The book shows how this new attitude has brought with it a reappraisal of the philosophical and legal bases for corporate action in the social sphere. In conclusion, Mrs. Fremont-Smith calls for a more imaginative and independent definition of the objectives of corporate philanthropic policies and not merely a continuing series of ill-considered defensive reactions.
[more]
cover of Philip Freneau: Champion of Democracy

Philip Freneau

Champion of Democracy

By Jacob Axelrad

University of Texas Press, 1967

Philip Freneau was a poet, editor, and mariner. A graduate of Princeton, he was the roommate of James Madison and a classmate of Hugh Henry Brackenridge and Aaron Burr. When the colonies rebelled against England, he supported his newly born nation as a privateer, spending some time in a British prison as a result. He also served, more effectively, as “the poet of the Revolution.” Later he became the journalistic voice of the democrats.

Ardently devoted to liberty, he believed himself to be a defender of the common man, for whom he fought selflessly and often vitriolicly throughout his life. In newspapers such as The Freeman’s Journal, The New York Daily Advertiser, The National Gazette, The Jersey Chronicle, and The Time-Piece, he published articles, letters, and poems, instructing the citizens of the new Republic about their rights, and attacking those who, he believed, were infringing on those rights. In the midst of the controversy in which he was so often involved, he also found time to write a small body of poetry whose sensitivity and beauty mark him as the poetic equal of his European contemporaries, and, in fact, as a precursor of the new Romantic movement

In Philip Freneau: Champion of Democracy Jacob Axelrad provides a detailed biography of this pensman of the Revolution and early Republic. He gives a sympathetic, imaginative, perceptive, yet objective interpretation of Freneau and his place in history, and at the same time he presents a delightfully readable and clear picture of the period during which the poet lived.

These pages not only re-create the battles between Whig and Tory, federalist and democrat, but they also are alive with the activities and philosophies of the men who made American history. James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, George Washington, John Adams, James Monroe go about the business of creating and shaping a new country, and as they do, they move into and out of the life of the poet of Monmouth, influencing him in a variety of ways.

Above all, Axelrad brings to life for the reader the man Freneau: simple, direct, often uncritical in his devotion to the cause he believed in; courageous in sustaining his stand against strong opposition; disillusioned and pessimistic about human nature, yet boldly optimistic about the future of humanity and of his country. And always behind the furor the reader is aware of the man struggling to provide a living for himself and his family, and never quite succeeding.

[more]
cover of Philip Hart: the conscience of the Senate

Philip Hart

the conscience of the Senate

Michael O'Brien

Michigan State University Press, 1995

Never a fiery orator nor a seeker of headlines, Phil Hart earned after eighteen years in congress the title of "The Conscience of the Senate" from colleauges on both sides of the aisle. Author and sponsor of critical legislation, particulalry in the areas of civil rights, antitrust enforcement, and consumer and and environmental protection, Hart took great pride in the fact that he was a leader in the Senate fight for the Voting Rights Act of 1965. He was intelligent and committed, idealistic and courageous, honest and humble, taking stands on contraversial issues. A role model for many, an inspiration for others, the extent of his influence was demonstrated in the fall of 1976 as he was retiring from the Senate and dying of cancer. In a tribute to his distinguished career, Senator Edward Kennedy suggested that the new Senate building be named after Hart. A bill sponsored by 85 senators passed, and the new structure became the Phil A. Hart Senate Office Building. "Naming it for Phil Hart was a nice gesture," wrote columnist Mary McGrory, "and if they could build his qualities...into the walls, we would have a Senate that would astound the world with its civility and enlightenment."
[more]
cover of Philip Johnson: Life and Work

Philip Johnson

Life and Work

Franz Schulze

University of Chicago Press, 1996

In this critically acclaimed biography, Franz Schulze probes the private and professional life of one of the most famous architects and architectural critics of the twentieth century.

The only child of a wealthy Midwestern family, Philip Johnson was a millionaire by the time he graduated from Harvard, and in 1932 he helped stage the historic International Style exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art. A patron of the arts and a political activists who flirted with the politics of Hitler, Huey Long, and Father Coughlin, he went on to create controversial and historical structures such as the Glass House, the Roofless Church, the AT & T Building, the Crystal Cathedral, and many more. Johnson's personal charms paired with his manipulative ploys—like his "borrowing" of designs—shine through in this biography.

Drawing on Johnson's correspondence, personal photographs, and speeches, and on interviews with his friends and contemporaries, Schulze fills the biography with fascinating information on the architect's family, travels, friends and lovers, and his many buildings and spaces themselves.

Franz Schulze is a professor of art at Lake Forest College. He is the author of Fantastic Images: Chicago Art since 1945, One Hundred Years of Chicago Architecture, and Mies van der Rohe: A Critical Biography.

[more]
cover of Philip Pendleton Barbour in Jacksonian America: An Old Republican in King Andrew’s Court

Philip Pendleton Barbour in Jacksonian America

An Old Republican in King Andrew’s Court

William S. Belko

University of Alabama Press, 2016

William S. Belko’s Philip Pendleton Barbour in Jacksonian America provides the first comprehensive biography of a pivotal yet nearly forgotten statesman who made numerous key contributions to a transformative period of early American history.
 
Barbour, a Virginia lawyer, participated in America’s transition from a mostly republican government to a truer majority democracy, notably while serving as the twelfth Speaker of the United States House of Representatives and later as an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court. After being elected to the US Congress during the War of 1812, Barbour also emerged as one of the foremost champions of states’ rights, consistently and energetically fighting against expansions of federal powers. He, along with other Jeffersonian Old Republicans, opposed federal plans for a national tariff and internal improvements. Later, Barbour became one of the first Jeffersonian politicians to join the Jacksonian Democrats in Jackson’s war against a national bank.
 
Barbour continued to make crucial strides in support of states’ rights after taking his seat on the United States Supreme Court in 1836 under Chief Justice Roger Taney. He contributed to the Charles River Bridge v. Warren Bridge and Briscoe v. Bank of Kentucky decisions, which bolstered states’ rights. He also delivered the opinion of the court in New York v. Miln, which provided the basis for the State Police Powers Doctrine.
 
Expertly interweaving biography, history, political science, and jurisprudence, Philip Pendleton Barbour in Jacksonian America remembers the man whose personal life and career were emblematic of the decades in which the United States moved from the Age of Jefferson to the Age of Jackson, contributing to developments that continue to animate American politics today. 
[more]
cover of Philip Sparrow Tells All: Lost Essays by Samuel Steward, Writer, Professor, Tattoo Artist

Philip Sparrow Tells All

Lost Essays by Samuel Steward, Writer, Professor, Tattoo Artist

Samuel Steward

University of Chicago Press, 2015

Samuel Steward (1909–93) was an English professor, a tattoo artist for the Hells Angels, a sexual adventurer who shared the considerable scope of his experiences with Alfred Kinsey, and a prolific writer whose publications ranged from scholarly articles to gay erotica (the latter appearing under the pen name Phil Andros). Perhaps his oddest authorial role was as a monthly contributor between 1944 and 1949 to the Illinois Dental Journal, an obscure trade publication for dentists, where writing as Philip Sparrow he produced a series of charming, richly allusive, and often quirky essays on a wildly eclectic assortment of topics.

In Philip Sparrow Tells All, Jeremy Mulderig has collected thirty of these engaging but forgotten columns, prefacing them with revealing introductions that relate the essays to people and events in Steward’s life and to the intellectual and cultural contexts in which he wrote during the 1940s. In these essays we encounter such famous friends of Steward as Gertrude Stein, André Gide, and Thornton Wilder. We hear of his stint as a holiday sales clerk at Marshall Field’s (where he met and seduced fellow employee Rock Hudson), of his roles as an opera and ballet extra in hilariously shoddy costumes, of his hoarding tendencies, his disappointment with the drabness of men’s fashions, and his dread of turning forty. We go along with him to a bodybuilding competition and a pet cemetery, and together we wander the boulevards of Paris and the alleys of Algiers. Throughout, Mulderig’s entertaining annotations explain the essays’ wide-ranging allusions and also highlight their gay subtext, which constituted a kind of private game that Steward played with his mostly oblivious audience of Midwestern dentists.

The first collection of any of Samuel Steward’s writings to be republished since his death in 1993, Philip Sparrow Tells All makes these lost essays available to a broad readership that Steward imagined but never actually enjoyed when he wrote them. In doing so, it takes a major step toward documenting his important place in twentieth-century gay literature and history.
[more]