Six months at the White House with Abraham Lincoln

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Ellen Stern and Emily Gwathmey

"The telephone rings. It jingles our psyches, jangles our nerves. We are seduced and soothed, rattled and betrayed by it. Wherever it is--on the desk or street corner, the high seas or highway, in our bathrooms or briefcases--it has, for a machine, an allure like no other. Once Upon a Telephone is a visual history of this indispensable and inescapable apparatus--with an emphasis on the days before 800s, 900s, voice mail, and FAX. Lavishly illustrated in full color with a wealth of twentieth-century ephemera--everything from movie stills to matchbooks--and including excerpts from a variety of literary sources, Once Upon a Telephone is a spirited tribute to operators, directories, phone booths, and, of course, the appliance itself. The evolution of telephony irreversibly altered conventions of modern romance and constructions of power; Once Upon a Telephone is the only work in existence to chronicle these changes in such a comprehensive and entertaining fashion."--Jacket.

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Lois Wille

Two-time Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Lois Wille tells how a small group of Chicago business leaders created a thriving and viable neighborhood on the carcass of old rail yards and, in tbe process, managed to reinvigorate the central city. Alarmed at the fate of other cities after decay had ravaged central business districts, Chicago's business leaders - several with substantial corporate investments in the South Loop - took action to protect not only their own property but also the entire downtown. The best way to shore up Chicago's downtown, they decided, was to entice middle-class families to form an integrated community and live there. The quest for a new neighborhood in the Loop began early in 1972 in the office of Mayor Richard J. Daley, with the heads of the Midwest's biggest utility company, the city's biggest bank, and the world's biggest retail firm in attendance. Mayor Daley loved the idea but would commit no city money in the early stages. It seemed, in fact, as if this small group would not even be able to buy the rail property. Reluctantly, however, George "Papa Bear" Halas agreed to part with fifty-one acres of rail yards, even though he had envisioned the property as a perfect site for a new football stadium for the Bears. Against all odds, the project withstood a twenty-year roller coaster ride propelled by political and economic turbulence. Dearborn Park is now one of the most successful urban renewal efforts in the country. This peaceful little community of green parks and tree-lined walkways in the shadow of Sears Tower is that rarity in the city - a genuine neighborhood. Wille tells the fascinating and heartening story of how it came to pass.

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Phil Patton

Trace the evolution of objects, products and related ideas in American ; things such as bridges, land yachts, the Pullman parlor car, Airstream trailor, selectric tylpewriter, Model T, DC-3, self-service, the jukebox, Lee jeans and many others.

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Irving Stone

A politically-minded young lady and an awkward lawyer marry and eventually become President Abraham Lincoln and First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln.