This striking volume presents the military history of Fort Drum and the missions it continues to support in defense of the United States. Northern New York State has boasted a prominent military presence since the War of 1812. Beginning in 1816 with the establishment of Fort Drum's predecessor, Madison Barracks, troops have trained there throughout the summer months and the harsh winters. Today, Fort Drum is the largest military facility in the northeastern United States, home to the 10th ...

Sackets Harbor presents the unique history of a notable community that has achieved prominence as the northern headquarters in the War of 1812, as the home of the celebrated Madison Barracks, and as a revitalized tourist center. Ideally situated on the eastern shore of Lake Ontario in upstate New York, Sackets Harbor attracted the Iroquois, the Algonquin, early white settlers, and military strategists with its bounty. The village took its name from Augustus Sacket, who purchased tracts alo...

One of These Things First is a wry and poignant reminiscence of a 15 year old gay Jewish boy in Brooklyn in the early sixties, and his unexpected trajectory from a life behind a rack of dresses in his grandmother’s bra and girdle store, to Manhattan’s fabled Payne Whitney Psychiatric Clinic, a fashionable Charenton for wealthy neurotics and Ivy League alcoholics, whose famous alumni include writers, poets, madmen, Marilyn Monroe, and bestselling author Steven Gaines.

One of The New Yorker's "Books We Loved in 2017"" Arbitrary Stupid Goal is a completely riveting world —when I looked up from its pages regular life seemed boring and safe and modern like one big iPhone. This book captures not just a lost New York but a whole lost way of life." —Miranda JulyIn Arbitrary Stupid Goal, Tamara Shopsin takes the reader on a pointillist time-travel trip to the Greenwich ...

When preserving our history, what do we choose to value, why, and who decides?Honorable Mention for the National Council on Public History Book Award of the National Council on Public HistoryIn 1994, when the National Air and Space Museum announced plans to display the Enola Gay, the B-29 sent to destroy Hiroshima with an atomic bomb, the ensuing political uproar caught the museum's parent Smithsonian Institution entirely unprepared. As the largest...

The true story of the New York society couple portrayed in the John Singer Sargent painting—an architect and an heiress who became passionate reformers.Contemporaries of the Astors and Vanderbilts, they grew up together along the shores of bucolic Staten Island, linked by privilege—her grandparents built the world's fastest clipper ship, while his family owned most of Murray Hill. Theirs was a world filled with mansions, balls, summer homes, and extended European v...

The Riveting Story of the Federal City and the Men Who Built ItIn 1814, British troops invaded Washington, consuming President Madison’s hastily abandoned dinner before setting his home and the rest of the city ablaze. The White House still bears scorch and soot marks on its foundation stones. It was only after this British lesson in “hard war,” designed to terrorize, that Americans overcame their resistance to the idea of Washington as the nation’s capital and embraced it as a sym...

During the Gilded Age, Dupont Circle was Washington's undisputed center of wealth, power and status. Over twenty years, it evolved from small farms and an overrun city cemetery to a community of grand homes for society's elite. Residents included future president William Taft, inventor Alexander Graham Bell, newspaper publisher Cissy Patterson and many more. From the intimate dinners and receptions of the Cave Dwellers to the lavish balls of Mary Townsend and others in the "smart set," Dup...

A firsthand account of the swift transformation of Williamsburg, from factory backwater to artists' district to trendy hub and high-rise colonyWilliamsburg, Brooklyn, is now so synonymous with hipster culture and the very idea of urban revitalization—so well-known from Chicago to Cambodia as the playground for the game of ironized status-seeking and lifestyle one-upmanship—that it's easy to forget how just a few years ago it was a very different neighborhoo...

In the heart of the Cumberland Valley, between the Blue Ridge and Allegheny Mountains, lies Washington County�site of one of the nation�s oldest settlements dating back to 1737. Its location betweenPennsylvania and West Virginia places this county at the crossroads of history and commerce. Washington County celebrates the birth and survival of a place and its people over centuries and mirrors the growthof our nation. American history comes alive in this region created independent of Freder...

A vivid history of life in Princeton, New Jersey, told through the voices of its African American residentsI Hear My People Singing shines a light on a small but historic black neighborhood at the heart of one of the most elite and world-renowned Ivy-League towns—Princeton, New Jersey. The vivid first-person accounts of more than fifty black residents detail aspects of their lives throughout the twentieth century. Their stories show that the roots of Princ...

Philadelphia Neighborhoods is a compendium of historic views of the major residential sections of Philadelphia. This book presents a snapshot into the past when old neighborhoods were not so old and when currently established ones were as yet new construction. Through the medium of postcards, readers are invited back to an era before automobiles dominated the streets, before many city roads were paved, and when the local grocery store was not located in a mall. Using chapters divided into ...