American History Book List · 
Featured Titles
Congress and the Crisis of the 1850s
Edited by Paul Finkelman and Donald R. KennonDuring the long decade from 1848 to 1861 America was like a train speeding down the track, without an engineer or brakes. The new territories acquired from Mexico had vastly increased the size of the nation, but debate over their status—and more importantly the status of slavery within them—paralyzed the nation.…
In the Shadow of Freedom
The Politics of Slavery in the National Capital
Edited by Paul Finkelman and Donald R. KennonFew images of early America were more striking, and jarring, than that of slaves in the capital city of the world’s most important free republic. Black slaves served and sustained the legislators, bureaucrats, jurists, cabinet officials, military leaders, and even the presidents who lived and worked there.…
The Jury in Lincoln’s America
By Stacy Pratt McDermottIn the antebellum Midwest, Americans looked to the law, and specifically to the jury, to navigate the uncertain terrain of a rapidly changing society. During this formative era of American law, the jury served as the most visible connector between law and society.…
Flash Effect
Science and the Rhetorical Origins of Cold War America
By David J. TietgeThe ways science and technology are portrayed in advertising, in the news, in our politics, and in the culture at large inform the way we respond to these particular facts of life. The better we are at recognizing the rhetorical intentions of the purveyors of information and promoters of mass culture, the more adept we become at responding intelligently to them.…
The Collected Works of William Howard Taft, Volume IV
Presidential Messages to Congress
Edited by David H. Burton“A time when panics seem far removed is the best time to prepare our financial system to withstand a storm. The most crying need this country has is a proper banking and currency system. The existing one is inadequate, and everyone who has studied the question admits it.…
American Coverlets and Their Weavers
Coverlets from the Collection of Foster and Muriel McCarl
By Clarita S. AndersonCoverlets woven in vibrant colors of red, blue, white, and green are as popular today as they were in the nineteenth century.American Coverlets and Their Weavers is a lavishly illustrated guide to one of the premier collections of coverlets in the nation.…
The House and Senate in the 1790s
Petitioning, Lobbying, and Institutional Development
Edited by Kenneth R. Bowling and Donald R. KennonAmid the turbulent swirl of foreign intrigue, external and internal threats to the young nation’s existence, and the domestic partisan wrangling of the 1790s, the United States Congress solidified its role as the national legislature.…
Montgomery C. Meigs and the Building of the Nation’s Capital
Edited by William C. Dickinson, Donald R. Kennon and Dean A. HerrinAt the age of thirty-six, in 1852, Lt. Montgomery Cunningham Meigs of the Army Corps of Engineers reported to Washington, D.C., for duty as a special assistant to the chief army engineer, Gen. Joseph G.…
Art As Image
Prints and Promotion in Cincinnati, Ohio
Edited by Alice M. CornellCincinnati was a major printing and publishing center from the earliest days of the Old Northwest Territory. The spectacular technological and artistic developments in the 19th-century printing trade nationally were reflected in the Cincinnati printmakers' achievements, many of which were promotional in nature.…
Headquarters in the Brush
Blazer’s Independent Union Scouts
By Darl L. StephensonContrary to accepted myths, guerrilla tactics in the Civil War were not confined to the army of the Confederacy. In the fall of 1863, Union Colonel Carr B. White formed a group of scouts and sharpshooters, headed by Capt.…
Buckeye Women
The History of Ohio's Daughters
By Stephane Elise BoothBy the last two decades of the twentieth century, Ohio women had held positions as university presidents, chief executive officers, judges, superintendents of schools, and lieutenant governor. They had won Pulitzer Prizes and, in one case, the Nobel Prize for Literature.…
Memphis Tennessee Garrison
The Remarkable Story of a Black Appalachian Woman
Edited by Ancella R. Bickley and Lynda Ann EwenAs a black Appalachian woman, Memphis Tennessee Garrison belonged to a demographic category triply ignored by historians. The daughter of former slaves, she moved to McDowell County, West Virginia, at an early age and died at ninety-eight in Huntington.…
Dust Bowl, USA
Depression America and the Ecological Imagination, 1929–1941
By Brad D. LookingbillWhether romantic or tragic, accounts of the dramatic events surrounding the North American Dust Bowl of the “dirty thirties” unearthed anxieties buried deep in America's ecological imagination. Moreover, the images of a landscape of fear remain embedded in the national consciousness today.…
Rookwood and the Industry of Art
Women, Culture, and Commerce, 1880-1913
By Nancy E. OwenRookwood Pottery of Cincinnati--the largest, longest-lasting, and arguably most important American Art Pottery--reflected the country's cultural and commercial milieux in the production, marketing, and consumption of its own products.…
Art and Empire
The Politics of Ethnicity in the United States Capitol, 1815–1860
By Vivien Green FrydThe subject matter and iconography of much of the art in the U.S. Capitol forms a remarkably coherent program of the early course of North American empire, from discovery and settlement to the national development and westward expansion that necessitated the subjugation of the indigenous peoples.…
The Documentary Heritage of Ohio
Edited by Phillip R. Shriver and Clarence E. Wunderlin Jr.Key to the successful teaching and learning of history is its personalization. In presenting documents that help Ohio's rich history come alive in the minds of its readers, this book has purposely sought to provide eyewitness, first-person narratives that will make the reader want to turn the page and keep on reading.…
Neither Separate Nor Equal
Congress in the 1790s
Edited by Kenneth R. Bowling and Donald R. KennonScholars today take for granted the existence of a “wall of separation” dividing the three branches of the federal government. Neither Separate nor Equal: Congress in the 1790s demonstrates that such lines of separation among the legislative, executive, and judicial branches, however, were neither so clearly delineated nor observed in the first decade of the federal government's history.…
Sowing the American Dream
How Consumer Culture Took Root in the Rural Midwest
By David BlankeFrom 1840 to 1900, midwestern Americans experienced firsthand the profound economic, cultural, and structural changes that transformed the nation from a premodern, agrarian state to one that was urban, industrial, and economically interdependent.…
West Virginia Quilts and Quiltmakers
Echoes from the Hills
By Fawn ValentineTucked away in the Appalachian Mountains of West Virginia, preserved for generations, handmade bed quilts are windows into the past. In 1983, three West Virginia county extension agents discussed the need to locate and document their state's historic quilts.…
My Sisters Telegraphic
Women in the Telegraph Office, 1846–1950
By Thomas C. JepsenThe role of the telegraph operator in the mid-nineteenth century was like that of today’s software programmer/analyst, according to independent scholar Tom Jepsen, who notes that in the “cyberspace” of long ago, male operators were often surprised to learn that the “first-class man” on the other end of the wire was a woman.…
The United States Capitol
Designing and Decorating a National Icon
Edited by Donald R. KennonThe United States Capitol is a national cultural icon, and among the most visually recognized seats of government in the world. The past quarter century has witnessed an explosion of scholarly interest in the art and architectural history of the Capitol.…
Revisiting U.S. Trade Policy
Decisions in Perspective
Edited by Alfred E. Eckes Jr.In trade policy, as in many other areas of public policy, decision makers often confront present and future problems with little understanding of how similar disputes were resolved in the past. Too often, busy public officials had no time to write or record negotiating histories.…
Staking Her Claim
The Life of Belinda Mulrooney, Klondike and Alaska Entrepreneur
By Melanie J. Mayer and Robert N. DeArmondIf Horatio Alger had imagined a female heroine in the same mold as one of the young male heroes in his rags-to-riches stories, she would have looked like Belinda Mulrooney. Smart, ambitious, competitive, and courageous, Belinda Mulrooney was destined through her legendary pioneering in the wilds of the Yukon basin to found towns and many businesses.…
