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Charting the legacy of mid-America's shipyards and iconic steamboats

Before the railroad stitched together the American landscape, the dominant mode of transportation in the United States was by steamboat. These grand vessels, their iconic paddlewheels churning the country’s rivers, have long captured the national imagination as symbols of innovation and adventure.

In the heart of America, four major rivers converge—the Cumberland and Tennessee with the Ohio; then the Ohio with the Mississippi. These three confluences, which author Robert Swenson christens the Four Rivers Reach, played a unique role in the development of the steamboats that dominated American continental transport for almost 100 years. Between 1825 and 1936, the river towns of Smithland, Paducah, Metropolis, Mound City, and Cairo launched 295 wood-hulled, steam-powered vessels. Drawing from a wealth of archival sources, Swenson presents detailed histories of these steamboats over a span of 110 years, accompanied by nearly one hundred illustrations and photographs.

The book focuses on distinct events in steamboat history, tracing the impact of these shipyards on the economies and communities of the river towns where they were built. It reveals how the availability of steamboats along this sixty-mile Reach affected migration, politics, and the US economy of the nineteenth century. Steamboats built at the Four Rivers Reach played pivotal roles in the forced relocation of Native Americans from southern Appalachia to Oklahoma, the outcome of the Civil War, and the Montana gold rush. From the Center of America demonstrates how steamboat building shaped the culture, people, and economy of this region—and how, in turn, the area and its steamships influenced the growth of the young United States.

• be introduced to foundational principles and frameworks for navigating the so-called “Age of Intelligence” that provide useful guiderails no matter how AI technology actively evolves;
• delve into the complex ethical considerations of AI, including bias, equity, privacy, misinformation, and the potential impact on human agency and dignity;
• receive guidance related to stakeholder engagement, resource allocation, and the need for continuous learning and adaptation;
• discover practical models for evaluating and implementing AI tools thoughtfully and effectively in ways that align with libraries’ values and mission;
• become familiar with STACKS, an approach for learning, problem solving, and innovation with generative AI;
• explore AI literacy as an expression of metaliteracy using seven frames for instruction and learning; and
• walk away with a sense of how libraries can actively define their essential role as leaders and shapers of the AI landscape, ensuring their continued value and preventing marginalization.

Taking Professor Natalie Zemon Davis’ fascinating biographical studies of three Women on the Margins in the seventeenth century as an inspiration, the author of this book offers three portraits of men who were at the very center of governance in thirteenth-century France, men who strove in the shadow of King Louis IX (Saint Louis) to impose a redemptive regime on the realm. Professor Jordan treats them as individuals, but in a sense they are also types: Robert of Sorbon, a churchman; Etienne Boileau, a bourgeois; and Simon de Nesle, an aristocrat. Robert was the founder of the Sorbonne; Boileau was the prévôt or royal administrator of Paris; and Simon was twice co-regent of the kingdom. Thinking about them and their relations with Louis IX opens up a new and altogether sobering vista for exploring the nature of the king’s rule and the impact of his rule on his subjects.

A definitive guide to the Confederate army’s primary engagements at the epic Battle of Antietam

With a tally of more than five thousand killed, twenty thousand wounded, and three thousand missing, the Battle of Antietam made September 17, 1862, the deadliest day of combat in American history. In Opposing the Second Corps at Antietam, Antietam scholar Marion V. Armstrong Jr. completes his magisterial study of Antietam begun in Unfurl Those Colors! by examining Robert E. Lee’s leadership at the climactic battle in the Confederate invasion of Union territory.

Eminent Civil War historians consider Antietam the turning point of the war. Hoping to maintain the initiative they had gained at the Second Battle of Bull Run, Confederate leaders looked to a stunning victory on Northern soil to sour Northern sentiment on the war as well as to coax European powers to recognize the fledgling Confederacy. Having examined McClellan’s command and role at Antietam in Unfurl Those Colors!, Armstrong now recounts in riveting detail Lee’s command decisions and their execution in the field, drawing on a superlative collection of first-person accounts by Confederate veterans to narrate the cataclysmic struggle between Lee and McClellan.

Armstrong sets the stage with a lively recap of the political and military events leading up to the early fall of 1862 and foreshadowing the conflagration to come on September 17. Each chapter then traces a critical section of the battle, the fight for the West Woods and the bloody engagement of the Sunken Road. Armstrong augments this collection with an exceptional set of maps, which will be valued by scholars, readers, and visitors to the battlefield. These unique maps delineate troop movements in intervals as brief as fifteen minutes, bringing to life the fluid, mutable lines that characterize the glory and horror of Antietam.

Either together with Unfurl Those Colors! or as a stand-alone account of the Confederate side of the battle, Opposing the Second Corps at Antietam provides the fullest possible understanding of the experience of Confederate soldiers at Antietam.

An illuminating volume of critical essays charting the diverse territory of digital humanities scholarship

The digital humanities have traditionally been considered to be the domain of only a small number of prominent and well-funded institutions. However, through a diverse range of critical essays, this volume serves to challenge and enlarge existing notions of how digital humanities research is being undertaken while also serving as a kind of alternative guide for how it can thrive within a wide variety of institutional spaces. 

Focusing on the complex infrastructure that undergirds the field of digital humanities, People, Practice, Power examines the various economic, social, and political factors that shape such academic endeavors. The multitude of perspectives comprising this collection offers both a much-needed critique of the existing structures for digital scholarship and the means to generate broader representation within the field. 

This collection provides a vital contribution to the realm of digital scholarly research and pedagogy in acknowledging the role that small liberal arts colleges, community colleges, historically black colleges and universities, and other underresourced institutions play in its advancement. Gathering together a range of voices both established and emergent, People, Practice, Power offers practitioners a self-reflexive examination of the current conditions under which the digital humanities are evolving, while helping to open up new sustainable pathways for its future.  

Contributors: Matthew Applegate, Molloy College; Taylor Arnold, U of Richmond; Eduard Arriaga, U of Indianapolis; Lydia Bello, Seattle U; Kathi Inman Berens, Portland State U; Christina Boyles, Michigan State U; Laura R. Braunstein, Dartmouth College; Abby R. Broughton; Maria Sachiko Cecire, Bard College; Brennan Collins, Georgia State U; Kelsey Corlett-Rivera, U of Maryland; Brittany de Gail, U of Maryland; Madelynn Dickerson, UC Irvine Libraries; Nathan H. Dize, Vanderbilt U; Quinn Dombrowski, Stanford U; Ashley Sanders Garcia, UCLA; Laura Gerlitz; Erin Rose Glass; Kaitlyn Grant; Margaret Hogarth, Claremont Colleges; Maryse Ndilu Kiese, U of Alberta; Pamella R. Lach, San Diego State U; James Malazita, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; Susan Merriam, Bard College; Chelsea Miya, U of Alberta; Jamila Moore Pewu, California State U, Fullerton; Urszula Pawlicka-Deger, Aalto U, Finland; Jessica Pressman, San Diego State U; Jana Remy, Chapman U; Roopika Risam, Salem State U; Elizabeth Rodrigues, Grinnell College; Dylan Ruediger, American Historical Association; Rachel Schnepper, Wesleyan U; Anelise Hanson Shrout, Bates College; Margaret Simon, North Carolina State U; Mengchi Sun, U of Alberta; Lauren Tilton, U of Richmond; Michelle R. Warren, Dartmouth College. 

The redesign and revitalization of traditional urban centers is the cutting edge of contemporary urban planning, as evidenced by the intense public and professional attention to the rebuilding of city cores from Berlin to New York City's "Ground Zero." Spanish and Latin American cities have never received the recognition they deserve in the urban revitalization debate, yet they offer a very relevant model for this "return to the center." These cultures have consistently embraced the notion of a city whose identity is grounded in its organic public spaces: plazas, promenades, commercial streets, and parks that invite pedestrian traffic and support a rich civic life. This groundbreaking book explores Spanish, Mexican, and Mexican-American border cities to learn what these urban areas can teach us about effectively using central public spaces to foster civic interaction, neighborhood identity, and a sense of place.

Herzog weaves the book around case studies of Madrid and Barcelona, Spain; Mexico City and Querétaro, Mexico; and the Tijuana-San Diego border metropolis. He examines how each of these urban areas was formed and grew through time, with attention to the design lessons of key public spaces. The book offers original and incisive discussions that challenge current urban thinking about politics and public space, globalization, and the future of privatized communities, from gated suburbs to cyberspace. Herzog argues that well-designed, human-scaled city centers are still vitally necessary for maintaining community and civic life. Applicable to urban renewal projects around the globe, Herzog's book will be important reading for planners, architects, designers, and all citizens interested in creating more livable cities.

Exploring the theological, social, and cultural dimensions of one of America’s most ambitious prophetic movements 

The Shakers’ Era of Manifestations ranks among the most astounding events in American religious history. During the 1840s, members of the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing embarked on an audacious project of receiving visions, revelations, and other manifestations from the spirit world and convincing both themselves and the world’s people of their reality. Gifted Shakers known as “instruments” surrendered their bodies to possessing spirits and celestial beings who, in turn, provided the Believers with an unimaginable number of revelatory communications that collapsed time and space, rewrote the Bible, and vastly expanded traditional Protestant beliefs and practices. The fruits of Shaker spiritualism would gain a permanent place in America’s public consciousness. 

Hundreds of volumes and thousands of pages of inspired writings, music, and art from the New Era or period of Mother's Work, as the Shakers called it, crowd the shelves of a half dozen major research libraries. The archive is so vast, so extraordinary, so seemingly bizarre that few scholars have dared tackle it in its totality. The authors of this volume, specialists in nineteenth-century American religious studies, have collaborated to produce an extensive analysis of Mother Ann’s Work. They examine a fascinating range of topics: speaking with the dead; the spectacle of Shaker rituals; race, gender, and family life; and the material culture of physical and spiritual things; as well as manuscripts, books, songs, objects, and art produced during the New Era. 

Shakers at the Center brings the sprawling elements of the Era of Manifestations together in a single volume. Written for students, scholars, and general readers alike, it will stand for years as the definitive history of the Shakers’ most fascinating and vexing historical period. 

Contributors include the volume editor as well as Emily Suzanne Clark, Brett Malcolm Grainger, Sonia Hazard, Dana Logan, Carol Medlicott, Sally M. Promey, Erik R. Seeman, Ryan K. Smith, and David Walker.