From Jean Baptiste Point DuSable to Oprah Winfrey, black entrepreneurship has helped define Chicago. Robert E. Weems Jr. and Jason P. Chambers curate a collection of essays that place the city as the center of the black business world in the United States. Ranging from titans like Anthony Overton and Jesse Binga to McDonald’s operators to black organized crime, the scholars shed light on the long-overlooked history of African American work and entrepreneurship since the Great Migration. To...

In Moving Up, Moving Out**, Will Cooley discusses the damage racism and discrimination have exacted on black Chicagoans in the twentieth century, while accentuating the resilience of upwardly-mobile African Americans.** Cooley examines how class differences created fissures in the black community and produced quandaries for black Chicagoans interested in racial welfare. While black Chicagoans engaged in collective struggles, they also used individ...

The instant New York Times bestseller!Dodge City, Kansas, is a place of legend. The town that started as a small military site exploded with the coming of the railroad, cattle drives, eager miners, settlers, and various entrepreneurs passing through to populate the expanding West. Before long, Dodge City’s streets were lined with saloons and brothels and its populace was thick with gunmen, horse thieves, and desperadoes of every sort. By the 1870s, Dodge C...

"Traces the footsteps of poisoner Arthur Waite from his marriage to Clara Peck . . . in 1915 to his death by electrocution at Sing Sing Prison in 1917" (MLive.com).With his boyish good looks, Arthur Warren Waite charmed into marriage the daughter of wealthy Grand Rapids business tycoon John E. Peck in 1916. He then wasted no time executing what he believed to be a flawless scheme to hijack his wife's inheritance. The plot went awry when a mysterious telegram set of...

Engineers, inventors, and dreamers in the state of Michigan had been searching for the secret of heavier-than-air flight well before the Wright brothers� successful flights in 1903. In 1911, the first aircraft manufacturer opened for business in Michigan. During the 1920s and 1930s, the Detroit area was known as the �Aviation Capital of America.� The All-American Aircraft Show, held annually in Detroit from 1928 to 1933, was the major showcase for introducing new airplanes to the aviation ...

Ogden Dunes, incorporated in 1925, is the largest and most residential of the three Porter County lake-front communities established in the 1920s. Although it began as a highly restricted resort community with the largest man-made ski jump in North America, it became a middle-class residential community after 1945. Because of its proximity to Gary and Chicago, Ogden Dunes was also a battleground between the forces that wished to conserve the dunes and those that pushed for industrializing ...

Downtown Madison, the largest contiguous National Historic Landmark in the United States, provides the perfect haunts for poltergeists and playful spirits.Beautifully preserved mid-nineteenth-century buildings grace the streets of Madison, Indiana, providing a concrete connection to the past. But a more ethereal, ghostly link flits about these streets when night descends. Restive spirits linger here, like the extra that may join you mid-slumber at...

"Gathers the oral traditions of the loggers who settled Michigan's Upper Peninsula . . . Stott preserves the tall tales for generations to come." — Grandpa Shorter's, "Seven Michigan Authors to Put in Your Beach Bag This Summer"The loggers who settled Michigan's Upper Peninsula whiled away winter evenings with tales of extreme weather, strange geography, legendary beasts and improbable feats. One mythic figure strode confidently from one story to the next,...

In 1831, the settlement of Princeton, Illinois, began as families from New England, and later the Mid-Atlantic states, traveled West seeking good land. These early settlers built the Hampshire Colony Congregational Church. Rev. Owen Lovejoy, one of its earliest pastors, became a well-known abolitionist and used his Princeton home to harbor runaway slaves. Before the Civil War, Princeton citizens convinced Burlington Railroad to lay rails within a mile of their town. The community expanded ...

Everyone loves to have fun! Over the years, Cantonians have enjoyed a wide variety of amusements, from traveling theatrical shows to community-wide celebrations. Louis Schaefer opened the town�s first opera house in 1868, attracting some of the 19th century�s biggest stars to Canton. The tradition of first-rate entertainment continued in the 20th century, with stars like Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, and Guy Lombardo gracing the stage of the Moonlight Ballroom. During the Great Depression i...

While the history of most American cities is rather commonplace, there are a few which furnish a story of facts more fascinating than any romance. In the development of a new country the civilization, which in time leavens the great mass of barbarism, works from a few central points. In North America Boston became the nucleus of the New England colony, although it was not the first settlement. Jamestown was the first settlement of the Virginia colony, but the town never attained great impo...

Arriving in 1815 by boat at Howell's Landing off the Missouri River was Chesterfield's founder, Col. Justus Post. Chesterfield, Missouri, is a distinct city because it did not grow from a single "named community" like most. It was once six separate towns, each with its own post office. The history of these communities and families that lived in them interweave to make a remarkable story that still lives on in the city of Chesterfield. Since the beginning, the town has strived to serve its ...