Frontier Travel Accounts
By Ellen Eslinger, Editor
Description:
The crossing of America's first great divide--the Appalachian Mountains--has been a source of much fascination but has received little attention from modern historians. In the eighteenth century, the Wilderness Road and Ohio River routes into Kentucky presented daunting natural barriers and the threat of Indian attack.
Running Mad for Kentucky brings this adventure to life. Primarily a collection of travel diaries, it includes day-to-day accounts that illustrate the dangers thousands of Americans, adult and child, black and white, endured to establish roots in the wilderness. Ellen Eslinger's vivid and extensive introductory essay draws on numerous diaries, letters, and oral histories of trans-Appalachian travelers to examine the historic consequences of the journey, a pivotal point in the saga of the continent's indigenous people. The book demonstrates how the fabled soil of Kentucky captured the imagination of a young nation.
Ellen Eslinger, professor of history at DePaul University, is the author of Citizens of Zion: The Social Origins of Camp Meeting Revivalism.
Price: $35.00How the Honey Bee Shaped a Nation
By Tammy Horn
Description:
Honey bees--and the qualities associated with them--have quietly influenced American values for four centuries. During every major period in the country's history, bees and beekeepers have represented order and stability in a country without a national religion, political party, or language.
Bees in America is an enlightening cultural history of bees and beekeeping in the United States. Tammy Horn, herself a beekeeper, offers a varied social and technological history from the colonial period, when the British first introduced bees to the New World, to the present, when bees are being used by the American military to detect bombs. Early European colonists introduced bees to the New World as part of an agrarian philosophy borrowed from the Greeks and Romans. Their legacy was intended to provide sustenance and a livelihood for immigrants in search of new opportunities, and the honey bee became a sign of colonization, alerting Native Americans to settlers' westward advance. Colonists imagined their own endeavors in terms of bees' hallmark traits of industry and thrift and the image of the busy and growing hive soon shaped American ideals about work, family, community, and leisure.
The image of the hive continued to be popular in the eighteenth century, symbolizing a society working together for the common good and reflecting Enlightenment principles of order and balance. Less than a half-century later, Mormons settling Utah (where the bee is the state symbol) adopted the hive as a metaphor for their protected and close-knit culture that revolved around industry, harmony, frugality, and cooperation. In the Great Depression, beehives provided food and bartering goods for many farm families, and during World War II, the War Food Administration urged beekeepers to conserve every ounce of beeswax their bees provided, as more than a million pounds a year were being used in the manufacture of war products ranging from waterproofing products to tape.
The bee remains a bellwether in modern America. Like so many other insects and animals, the bee population was decimated by the growing use of chemical pesticides in the 1970s. Nevertheless, beekeeping has experienced a revival as natural products containing honey and beeswax have increased the visibility and desirability of the honey bee. Still a powerful representation of success, the industrious honey bee continues to serve both as a source of income and a metaphor for globalization as America emerges as a leader in the Information Age.
Tammy Horn teaches at Berea College. She learned beekeeping from her grandfather, who grew up hunting bee trees in eastern Kentucky.
Price: $27.50FRANKLIN ON FRANKLIN
By Paul M. Zall
Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography ends in 1758, some thirty years before he died, yet those three decades included some of the statesman's greatest triumphs. Paul Zall has created a new autobiographical account of Franklin's entire life. By returning to a newly recovered early draft of the Autobiography, he strips away later layers of moralizing to reveal the story as Franklin first wrote it: how a poor boy from Boston used words and hard work to become America's first world-class citizen. To cover Franklin's career as a diplomat and as the only signatory of all three key documents of the American Revolution, Zall interweaves autobiographical comments from Franklin's personal letters and private journals. Franklin emerges as different from the common perception. His raw words reveal the bitter infighting among both British and American politicians and his personal struggle with his son's choice of the opposite side in the fight for the future of two countries. Without the veneer of second thoughts, his lifelong struggle to control his temper carries greater poignancy, as do his later years spent nursing his wounded pride. Susceptible to both fallibility and frustration, the honest Franklin depicted in his own words nevertheless remains an uncommon common man, perhaps even more so than previously thought.
Paul M. Zall, emeritus professor and research scholar at the Huntington Library, is the author of many books, including Franklin on Franklin and Lincoln on Lincoln. He lives in South Pasadena, CA.
Price: $18.00
Format: paper
ISBN: 0-8131-9131-9
Pages: 328
Year Published: 2005
Daniel B. Smith is professor of history at the University of Kentucky.
Price: $18.00
Format: paper
ISBN: 0-8131-9119-X
Subjects: Kentucky and Regional Studies
Pages: 224
December 2004
ADAMS
ON ADAMS
By Paul M. Zall
Description:
After more than two hundred years in the shadows of Washington and Jefferson,
John Adams enjoys fame as one of our top presidents. Of unprepossessing appearance
and feisty temperament, he expressed his personal feelings in copious correspondence
and public documents along with two unfinished autobiographies.
Paul M. Zall draws from Adams’s own letters, diaries, notes and autobiographies
to create a fresh portrait. Adams’s writings, both public and private, trace
his rise from country lawyer to the nation's highest office by the sheer force
of his personality. Lacking the advantages of money, connections, class, or patronage,
Adams used “the severest and most incessant labor” to promote American
independence. Zall’s commentary illuminates Adams’s words, focusing
on how Adams’s inner strengths—in conflict with a sense of inferiority
and an obsession with fame—helped win government under law at home and national
respect abroad. Borne along by an irresistible sense of Spartan duty and refusing
to compromise high principles for cheap popularity, he sacrificed family, fortune,
and even fame. In Adams on Adams we are at last able to hear Adams describe his
extraordinary journey in his own words.
Paul M. Zall, professor emeritus and senior researcher at the Huntington Library,
is the author and editor of many books, including Jefferson on Jefferson, Franklin
on Franklin, Washington on Washington, and Lincoln on Lincoln. He lives in South
Pasadena, California.
Price: $26.00
Format: cloth
ISBN: 0-8131-2307-0
Subjects: History: American, Biography/Memoir
Pages: 200
Year Published: 2003
By Michael A. Lofaro
Description:
The embodiment of the American hero, the man of action, the pathfinder, Daniel
Boone represents the great adventure of his age—the westward movement of
the American people. The prototype for the frontiersman, he is an intriguing
and multifaceted individual who both shapes and is driven by the complex forces
of this dynamic period in history. Daniel Boone: An American Life brings together
over thirty years of research in an extraordinary biography of the quintessential
pioneer. Based on primary sources, the book depicts Boone through the eyes of
those who knew him and within the historical contexts of his eighty-six years.
The story of Daniel Boone offers new insights into the turbulent birth and growth
of the nation and demonstrates why the frontier forms such a significant part
of the American experience.
Michael
A. Lofaro, Professor of American Studies and American Literature at the University
of Tennessee, has published numerous books on the American frontier hero.
Price: $25.00
Format: cloth
ISBN: 0-8131-2278-3
Pages: 192
Year Published: not yet published--available August
Trim Size: 6x9
Illustrations: 12 illustrations
Amelia M. Trevelyan
Description:
Miskwabik, Metal of Ritual examines the thousands of beautiful and intricate
ritual works of art—from ceremonial weaponry to delicate copper pendants
and ear ornaments—created in eastern North America before the arrival of
Europeans. The first comprehensive examination of this 3,000-year-old metallurgical
tradition, the book provides unique insight into the motivation of the artisans
and the significance of these objects, and highlights the brilliance and sophistication
of the early civilizations of the Americas. Comparing the ritual architecture
and metallurgy of the original Americans with the ethnological record, Amelia
M. Trevelyan begins to unravel the mystery of the significance of the objects
as well as their special functions within the societies that created them. The
book includes dozens of striking color and black and white photographs.
Amelia M. Trevelyan
is Professor and Chair of Art History at Principia College in Elsah, Illinois.
Price: $50.00
Format: cloth
ISBN: 0-8131-2272-4
Pages: 368
May 2003
Paul M. Zall
Description:
We remember George Washington as an austere figure standing in a rowboat crossing
the icy Delaware River, and we tend to forget that he was ever a reluctant leader.
It is even harder to imagine him wallowing in sentiment or advising teenagers
on love and marriage. Yet despite his legendary stature, Washington did display
raw emotion, seldom in public but often in the privacy of his diary.
Paul M. Zall uses Washington’s own words to restore him as an uncommon
man subject to common human weakness. From an early age, Washington was determined
to earn the respect of both peers and followers. No orator, he sought to secure
his place in history through meticulously kept records. His words reveal how
he forged his character on the frontier of his youth, tested it in the Revolution,
and cemented it in the nation’s founding. Combining Washington’s personal
diaries, journals, letters, and other sources, Washington on Washington offers
a fresh perspective on one of the most enigmatic figures in American history.
Paul M. Zall, Emeritus
Professor of English at California State University at Los Angeles, is a research
scholar at the Huntington Library. He is the author and editor of many books,
including Jefferson on Jefferson, Franklin on Franklin, and Lincoln on Lincoln.
He lives in South Pasadena, California.
Reviews:
"An intimate look at Washington…. Offers a compelling look at Washington’s
life told in his own words, an inside view of what motivated him and how he
thought, and a rare glimpse of how he saw himself and wanted to be seen.”—John
Ferling, author of The First of Men: A Life of George Washington and Setting
the World Ablaze: Washington, Adams, Jefferson and the American Revolution
"Zall's well-chosen passages, seamlessly knit with brief explanatory notes,
capture the complex and fascinating living man. Here we find the Washington
who instincltely understood the hopes and fears of his generation better than
any statesman ever has.”—Stuart Leibeiger, La Salle University
Price: $26.00
Format: cloth
ISBN: 0-8131-2269-4
Pages: 224
April 2003
C. Edward
Skeen
Description:
The year 1816 found America on the cusp of political, social, cultural, and
economic modernity. Celebrating its fortieth year of independence, the country’s
sense of self was maturing. Americans, who had emerged from the War of 1812
with their political systems intact, embraced new opportunities. For the first
time, citizens viewed themselves not as members of a loose coalition of states
but as part of a larger union. This optimism was colored, however, by bizarre
weather. Periods of extreme cold and severe drought swept the northern states
and the upper south throughout 1816, sometimes referred to as “The Year
Without a Summer.” Faced with thirty-degree summer temperatures, many farmers
migrated west in search of better weather and more fertile farmlands.
In 1816, historian C. Edward Skeen illuminates this unique year of national
transition. Politically, the “era of good feelings” allowed Congress
to devise programs that fostered prosperity. Social reform movements flourished.
This election year found the Federalist party in its death throes, seeking cooperation
with the nationalistic forces of the Republican party. Movement west, maturation
of political parties, and increasingly contentious debates over such issues
as slavery characterized this pivotal year. 1816 marked a watershed in American
history. This provocative new book vividly highlights the stresses that threatened
to pull the nation apart and the bonds that ultimately held it together.
C. Edward Skeen, professor
of history at the University of Memphis, is the author of Citizen Soldiers in
the War of 1812. He lives in Germantown, Tennessee.
Reviews:
"A very impressive exposition of political culture in the early republic.”—Andrew
Burstein, author of America’s Jubilee: How in 1826 a Generation Remembered
Fifty Years of Independence
"Well conceived and well executed.”–Donald Hickey, author of
The War of 1812: A Forgotten Conflict
Price: $35.00
Format: cloth
ISBN: 0-8131-2271-6
Pages: 320
June 2003
Edited by Emily Foster
"Ordinary
people engaged in ordinary living makes for extraordinary reading. . . .
A sterling example of current practices representing nineteenth-century American
women."—Rita Kohn
A volume in the OHIO RIVER VALLEY SERIESIn 1826 thirty-year-old Anna Briggs
Bentley, her husband, and their six children left their close Quaker community
and the worn-out tobacco farms of Sandy Spring, Maryland, for frontier Ohio.
Along the way, Anna sent back home the first of scores of letters she wrote
her mother and sisters over the next fifty years as she strove to keep herself
and her children in their memories.
With Anna’s natural talent for storytelling and her unique, female perspective,
the letters provide a sustained and vivid account of everyday domestic life
on the Ohio frontier. She writes of carving a farm out of the forest, bearing
many children, darning and patching the family clothes, standing her ground
in religious controversy, nursing wounds and fevers, and burying beloved family
and friends.
Emily Foster presents these revealing letters of a pioneer woman in a framework
of insightful commentary and historical context, with genealogical appendices.
Emily Foster is the editor of The Ohio Frontier: An Anthology of Early Writings.
AVAILABLE DECEMBER 2002
$45.00s cloth * ISBN: 0-8131-2265-1
368 pages * 2002
Paul M. Zall
One of America’s greatest statesmen reflects on his own life and career
Not trusting
biographers with his story and frustrated by his friends’ failure to justify
his
role in the American Revolution, Thomas Jefferson wrote his autobiography on
his
own terms at the age of seventy-seven. Yet he revealed little about himself
and his
family, choosing instead to address the various political concerns of the day.
The
resulting book ends, well before his death, with his return from France at the
age of forty-six.
Asked for additional details concerning his life, Jefferson often claimed to
have a
“decayed memory.” Fortunately, this shrewd politician, philosopher,
architect, inventor,
farmer, and scientist penned nearly eighteen thousand letters in his lifetime,
saving
almost every scrap he wrote.
In Jefferson on Jefferson, researcher Paul Zall returns to original manuscripts
and
correspondence for a new view of the statesman’s life. He extends the story
where
Jefferson left off, weaving excerpts from other writings—notes, rough drafts,
and
private correspondence—with passages from the original autobiography. Jefferson
reveals his grief over the death of his daughter, details his hotly contested
election
against John Adams (decided by the House of Representatives), expresses his
thoughts on religion, and tells of life at Monticello.
The result is a new and more complex portrait of a man who was often bitter
about
the past and insecure about his place in history. With notes and a helpful
introduction, Jefferson on Jefferson offers readers a new glimpse into the life
of
Thomas Jefferson, as told by Jefferson himself.
Paul M. Zall is a senior researcher at the Huntington Library. He is the author
and
editor of many books, including Franklin on Franklin and Lincoln on Lincoln.
He lives
in South Pasadena, CA.
$25.00 cloth
* ISBN: 0-8131-2235-X
216 pages * 2002