by David Taylor (2009)
Soul of a People is about a handful of people who were on the Federal Writer's Project in the 1930s and a glimpse of America at a turning point. This particular handful of characters went from poverty to great things later, and included John Cheever, Ralph Ellison, Zora Neale Hurston, Richard Wright, and Studs Terkel. In the 1930s they were all caught up in an effort to describe America in a series of WPA guides. Through striking images and firsthand accounts, the book reveals their experiences and the most vivid excerpts from selected guides and interviews: Harlem schoolchildren, truckers, Chicago fishmongers, Cuban cigar makers, a Florida midwife, Nebraskan meatpackers, and blind musicians. Drawing on new discoveries from personal collections, archives, and recent biographies, a new picture has emerged in the last decade of how the participants' individual dramas intersected with the larger picture of their subjects. This book illuminates what it felt like to live that experience, how going from joblessness to reporting on their own communities affected artists with varied visions, as well as what feelings such a passage involved: shame humiliation, anger, excitement, nostalgia, and adventure. Also revealed is how the WPA writers anticipated, and perhaps paved the way for, the political movements of the following decades, including the Civil Rights movement, the Women's Right movement, and the Native American rights movement.
Margaret Beattie Bogue
This superbly organized guide to the 1,600-mile shoreline of Lake Michigan describes 182 historical sites and points of interest. Generously illustrated, it includes historical sketches, keys to recreation, and a large fold-out planner map.
Robert Smith Bader
An interpretative study of the image of Kansas, focusing primarily on the twentieth-century, and looking at how the national reputation of the state has wavered from being renowned for cultural aggressiveness and societal confidence to being perceived as drab and backward.
Robert J. Werner
A travel guide to Bolivia that focuses on the country's complex political and social history and describes its government, culture, society, religion, landmarks, and historical sites.
Eric Ross
"Eric Ross uses his fictional character, Ian Alexander Bell Robertson, to recount the story of life in the Canadas during 1841. ... Throughout the book, Ross has interspersed snippets of information and illustrations to supplement Robertson's writings. Scrupulously researched and easily accessible, Full of Hope and Promise will interest anyone wishing to know more about everyday life in Upper and Lower Canada at the time of the 1841 Union."--Jacket.