American Biographies - History Books

The most famous Civil War name in Northern Virginia, other than General Lee, belongs to Colonel John Singleton Mosby, the Gray Ghost.

The most famous Civil War name in Northern Virginia, other than General Lee, belongs to Colonel John Singleton Mosby, the Gray Ghost. His early life characterized by abuse of childhood bullies, a less-than-outstanding academic career, and even a brief incarceration, Mosby stands out among nearly one thousand generals who served in the war. Even though Mosby was opposed to secession, he joined the Confederate army as a private in Virginia, he quickly rose through the ranks and became celebrated for his raids that captured Union general Edwin Stoughton in Fairfax and Colonel Daniel French Dulany in Rose Hill. By 1864, he was a feared partisan guerrilla in the North and a nightmare for Union troops protecting Washington City. After the war, his support for presidential candidate Ulysses S. Grant forced Mosby to leave his native Virginia for Hong Kong as U.S. consul. A mentor to young George S. Patton, Mosby's military legacy extended far beyond the War Between the States and into World War II. William S. Connery brings alive the many dimensions of this American hero.

Discover the lasting legacy of Southern Women during the Revolutionary War whether they were on the sidelines or on the battlefield.

Each of the Southern Revolutionary battlefields holds the history of soldiers and legends of women. From the wooded slopes of Kings Mountain to the fields of Cowpens, to the lesser-known sites like Fishing Creek and Hanging Rock, author Robert M. Dunkerly uncovers the stories and legends surrounding the women who were caught up in the struggle. This book serves not only as a study of the battles, but also as a chronicle of the experiences of women in the eighteenth century. Some were camp followers attached to the armies, while others were civilians caught in the line of fire. Women were present on nearly every battlefield, and their stories are told here for the first time.

Author Robert Thompson recounts the harrowing story of Phebe Tucker Cunningham, from her marriage at Prickett's Fort to her return to the shores of the Monongahela.

Life on the West Virginia frontier was a daily struggle for survival, and for Phebe Tucker Cunningham, that meant the loss of her four children at the hands of the Wyandot tribe and being held captive for three years until legendary renegades Simon Girty and Alexander McKee arranged her freedom. Thompson describes in vivid detail early colonial life in the Alleghenies and the ways of the Wyandot, providing historical context for this unforgettable saga.

Author Amy Petulla uncovers the curious case that left two men dead and the incredible story still surrounded by controversy, speculation and myth.

In 1982, Tony West and Avery Brock made a visit to notorious Corpsewood Manor under the pretense of a celebration. They brutally murdered their hosts. Dr. Charles Scudder and companion Joey Odom built the castle in the woods in the Trion forest after Scudder left his position as professor at Loyola. He brought with him twelve thousand doses of LSD. Rumors of drug use and Satanism swirled around the two men. Scudder even claimed to have summoned a demon to protect the estate. The murders set the stage for a trial vibrant with local lore.

Florida is largely influenced by the illicit and fascinating activites of pirates. Authors James and Sarah Kaserman recount the stories, legends, and myths of piracy in Florida.

The coast of southwest Florida, with its shallow waters, inlets, and mangrove islands provides the setting and backdrop for a variety of pirates, privateers, and independents. Piracy has a long and rich tradition in this area dating from before the formation of America through the infamous prohibition era. Telling the tales of Anne Bonny, Calico Jack Rackham, Civil War smugglers and prohibition rum runners, the authors provide a compelling narrative of the historically dangerous waters around Southwest Florida and beyond.

Join William Gilmore Simms in this unparalleled look at the life of Francis Marion aka "The Swamp Fox'?.

South Carolina's ""Swamp Fox,"" Francis Marion, is one of the most celebrated figures of the American Revolution. Marion's cunning exploits in the Southern theater of the Revolution earned him national renown and a place in history as an American hero and master of modern guerilla warfare. Although dozens of works have been written about Marion's life over the years, this biography -- written by William Gilmore Simms, South Carolina's greatest author -- remains the best. First published in 1844, The Life of Francis Marion was Simms's most commercially successful work of nonfiction. It offers a treatment of Marion's life that is unparalleled in its scope and accuracy, all in Simms's inimitable style.

The post's current size, more than 180,000 acres, has long made it recognized as one of the largest infantry bases in the world. Named for Gen. Henry L. Benning of Columbus, the installation has had a major impact on the economic and social life of nearby Columbus. Images of America: Fort Benning features vintage photographs and postcards, mostly from 1918 to 1978, showcasing the first 60 years of the base's 85-year history. Included are scenes of the temporary encampment on Macon Road and the early wooden encampment on the Main Post. The permanent buildup from the late 1920s to the early 1940s is shown in photographs of The Infantry School, the Officers' Club, Main Post Chapel, Doughboy Stadium, Gowdy Field, the Jump Towers, Lawson Field, the Cuartel Barracks, and the officers' quarters, as well as Riverside, the Commandant's Home, formerly the Bussey Plantation. Activities and events include military reviews, visits of presidents, and the National Infantry Museum's dedication. Generals who served there and are featured include Bradley, Eisenhower, Marshall, and Patton. This centennial edition features a new foreword by Don Sando, deputy to the commanding general.

The first Europeans to arrive in the Ohio Valley were intrigued and puzzled by the many conical earthen mounds they encountered there. They created wild theories about who the mysterious “mound builders” might be.

It was not until the 1880s that Smithsonian Institution investigations revealed that the mound builders were the ancestors of living Native Americans. More than four hundred mounds have been recorded in West Virginia, including the Grave Creek Mound in Marshall County, once the largest conical mound in North America. Join archaeologist Darla Spencer and learn about the Grave Creek Mound and sixteen additional Adena mounds and groups of mounds from the fascinating Woodland period in West Virginia.

Join author and Miami native Avi Bash as he exposes the life and activities of Organized Crime in Miami in the 20th century.

While other cities are credited for birthing and honing the legendary crime figures who inevitably influenced and shaped their susceptible surroundings and culture, Miami is where the Mob, like many American citizens, often turned when seeking vacation, vice, or a new beginning. Dating back to the first quarter of the 20th century, resourceful gangsters from across the nation recognized the profitable business opportunities Miami could provide with its booming population, perfect year-round climate, cooperative law enforcement, and mutual understanding among otherwise rival gangs. The promise of an open city, free from familiar encumbrances and restrictions, prompted eager mobsters from around the country to migrate south and trade in their suits and fedoras for swim trunks and flip-flops. Organized Crime in Miami examines the considerable yet heavily underpublicized involvement of the American Mafia in South Florida and its lasting impact on the community through their business activities, both illegal and within the confines of the law.

Prolific inventor Thomas Edison and automobile pioneer Henry Ford shaped the modern world like few others in history.

The lives of these close friends intersected at their winter homes in southwest Florida. Edison first visited the tiny cattle-ranching community of Fort Myers in 1885, building a home and laboratory soon after. There, he wintered with his wife, Mina, and their children, Madeleine, Charles, and Theodore. Ford purchased the adjacent estate in 1916, wintering in the area with his wife, Clara, and son, Edsel. Here in southwest Florida, these famous neighbors relaxed and found time to explore new projects.

From its earliest days, Charleston was a vital port of call and center of trade, which left it vulnerable to seafaring criminals.

The Golden Age of Piracy, encompassing roughly the first quarter of the eighteenth century, produced some of the most outrageous characters in maritime history. The daring exploits of these infamous plunderers made thievery widespread along Charleston's waterfront, but determined citizens would meet the pirate threat head-on. From the Gentleman Pirate, Stede Bonnet, to Edward Blackbeard Teach and famed pirate hunter and statesman William Rhett, the waters surrounding the Holy City have a history as rocky and wild as the high seas. Join author and tour guide Christopher Byrd Downey as he tells the tales of Charleston during piracy's greatest reign.

Historians Victoria Cosner Love and author Lorelei Shannon uncover the truth behind one of New Orleans' most famous stories and one of America's most haunted houses.

On April 10, 1834 Firefighters smashed through a padlocked attic door in the burning home of Creole society couple Delphine and Louis Lalaurie. The horrible discovery of chained and mutilated slaves spawned a legend that has endured for over 150 years. But what really happened in the Lalaurie home? Who was Mad Madame Lalaurie, and what motivated her to commit such ghastly atrocities, if in fact she really did?

Each year, thousands of visitors visit Colonial Williamsburg to learn about the past and walk where the Founding Fathers walked.

The fact that the same ground was later soaked with the tears and blood of their children and grandchildren during our tragic Civil War is frequently forgotten. In this expanded and revised version of Yankees in the Streets: Forgotten People and Stories of Civil War Williamsburg, local historian Carson Hudson tells the stories of this hallowed ground and the people who walked it.

Discover how Jazz shaped the history and enhanced the life of the citizens of New Orleans.

From the days when Buddy Bolden would blow his cornet to attract an audience from one New Orleans park to another, to the brass bands in clubs and on the streets today, jazz in New Orleans has been about simple things: getting people to snap their fingers, tap their toes, get up and clap their hands, and most importantly dance! From the 1890s to World War I, from uptown to Faubourg Treme and out to the lakefront, New Orleans embraced this uniquely American form of music. Local musicians nurtured jazz, matured it, and passed it on to others. Some left the city to make their names elsewhere, while others stayed, playing the clubs, marching in the parades, and sending loved ones home with jazz funerals. Older musicians mentored younger ones, preserving the traditions that give New Orleans such an exciting jazz scene today.

Florida native Zora Neale Hurston's early twentieth-century ethnographic research and writing emphasizes the essentials of food in Florida through simple dishes and recipes.

It considers foods prepared for everyday meals as well as special occasions and looks at what shaped people's eating traditions in early twentieth-century Florida. Hurston did for Florida what William Faulkner did for Mississippi - provided insight into a state's history and culture through various styles of writing. Her collected food stories, folklore and remedies, and the related recipes food professor Fred Opie pairs with them, are essential reading for those who love to cook and eat.

At the close of the nineteenth century, Louisiana's ports hosted an influx of Italian immigrants. Like so many immigrant communities before, acclimating to their new home was not easy.

Though the Italian contribution to Louisiana's culture is palpable and celebrated, at one time ethnic Italians were constantly embroiled in scandal, sometimes deserved and sometimes as scapegoats. The new immigrants hoped that they would be welcomed and see for themselves the streets paved with gold. Their new lives, however, were difficult. Italians in Louisiana faced prejudice, violence and political exile for their refusal to accept the southern racial mores. Author and historian Alan Gauthreaux documents the experience of those Italians who arrived in Louisiana over one hundred years ago..

Tour Thomas Jefferson’s Virginia, from Monticello to the Blue Ridge Mountains and beyond, with a guide that “mixes historical background with how-tos” (Daily Press).

Few prominent Americans are as associated with a place as Thomas Jefferson is with Virginia. The heart of “Jefferson Country” is his house and plantation at Monticello, but Jefferson traveled the breadth of his home state, from his time at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg to the new state capital at Richmond and his retreat and plantation at Poplar Forest, near Lynchburg.

While spending time in the beauty of the Blue Ridge Mountains, Jefferson was inspired to write his only book, Notes on the State of Virginia. Historian Laura Macaluso illustrates Jefferson’s life story, and his many endeavors as a scholar and statesman, in this guide to the state he held dear.

Author Laura A. Macaluso details Jefferson’s place not just as the third president of the United States. She shares what you need to know to tour the rich sites associated with Jefferson in a newly-released book, “A Guide to Thomas Jefferson’s Virginia. Bristol Courier

Author and former Miller & Rhoads Snow Queen Donna Strother Deekens recounts the amazing history of the Real Santa.

After the turn of the 20th century, young Bill Strother left the tobacco farms of North Carolina to make a living climbing buildings. He became known as the Human Spider, scaling countless structures across the nation. Yet this was just a prelude to his true calling as the Santa Claus at Richmond's famed Miller & Rhoads department store. As department stores everywhere reached their golden age, Strother became one of the most beloved and sought-after Santas in the nation.

Clarence Saunders’ vision for a better shopping experience for day-to-day needs has made Piggly Wiggly a staple of southern living for over 100 years.

The grocery business began as a complicated service industry. Random pricing, inconsistent quantities and prescriptive salesmen made grocery shopping burdensome. It took one brash Memphian with uncommon vision and unbridled ambition to change everything. Clarence Saunders worked his way out of poverty and obscurity to found Piggly Wiggly in 1916. With an unprecedented approach, he virtually invented the concept of the modern self-service grocery store. Stores flourished, franchises spread and Saunders made millions. Yet just as the final bricks of Pink Palace—his garish marble mansion—were being laid, Saunders went bankrupt, and he was forced to sell Piggly Wiggly. A variety of new ventures helped Saunders out of bankruptcy, but he never duplicated his prior success. Memphis historian Mike Freeman tracks the remarkable life of this retail visionary.

Diana Bahnson Overbey, executive director of Historic Bethabara Park, uses archival maps, drawings, portraits, and photographs to tell Bethabara’s story, from 18th-century backcountry settlement to 21st-century historic site.

In 1753, the Moravian Church purchased 98,985 acres of land in the Piedmont of North Carolina and established the town of Bethabara. It grew into a bustling trades town by the 1760s but transitioned into a small farming community in the 19th century, with fields of crops planted next to the 1788 church. Ministers remarked on the muddy, rutted roads and the wayward behaviors of their congregation. Bethabara’s significance as the first Moravian town in North Carolina was not forgotten, however, and in 1903, thousands turned out for the 150th anniversary celebration. That celebratory spirit was kindled again in the 1950s when Edwin Stockton decided Bethabara needed to be preserved for future generations. Acreage containing the original settlement was purchased, and archaeologist Stanley South conducted a groundbreaking archaeological dig during the 1960s to uncover the foundations of the original structures, which had been left undisturbed beneath farmland for over a century. Historic Bethabara Park opened to the public in 1966. Today, the site covers 183 acres and includes four restored historic buildings as well as a reconstructed village and gardens.

The Historic Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta, Georgia is the final home to more than 70,000 residents in elaborate mausoleums and humble headstones alike. Explore the celebrated public figures who are interred here and the burial grounds in this unique book.

The first person buried at Oakland was laid to rest in May 1850, a month before the land was purchased by Atlanta to become its city cemetery. The fast-growing municipality eventually expanded the burial grounds to include 48 acres. Since then, what is now known as Historic Oakland Cemetery has become the final home to more than 70,000 residents. Among those are celebrated politicians, authors, and athletes and those whose impact has been felt but who are not as well recognized. A few of those residents include Gordon Burton Smith, who helped build the Panama Canal; Andre Steiner, who created the master plan for Stone Mountain; and Sally Connally Hardie, who helped run the National Trust of Scotland. They rest among gardened paths in elaborate mausoleums, exceptional funerary art, humble headstones, and sometimes unmarked graves.

Author Janice McDonald has spent countless hours strolling Historic Oakland Cemetery and delving into the stories behind its tombs. She believes that each of Oakland’s residents has a tale that should be told. In her seventh book for Arcadia, McDonald helps readers get to know some of the residents whose past helped shape our future.

Author Christopher A. Kennedy shares the story of the Voice of the Bulldogs. Dave Nitz was the voice of Louisiana Tech University sports for half a century, his distinctive voice emanating from Tech fans’ radios. A West Virginia native, Nitz dreamed of broadcasting in the big leagues. Little did he know that his Hall of Fame broadcasting career would take him to Ruston, Louisiana. Along the way, Nitz worked with country music icon Tom T. Hall in West Virginia and covered William & Mary University football under Lou Holtz. At Tech, Nitz gave voice to the basketball greatness of Karl “The Mailman” Malone and the national champion Lady Techsters. He called gridiron action from Maxie Lambright through unforgettable upsets of Alabama and Michigan State. Author Christopher A. Kennedy shares the story of the Voice of the Bulldogs. As Nitz would say, “You gotta love it!”

From farmers to pastors, teachers to sailors, and everything in between, the Black history of Hanover County reflects the dedication and values of the community.

Freedwoman Betsy Hogg Tinsley, in time, became one of the largest landowners in Ashland. Founded in 1870, Brown Grove Baptist Church has been the center of its neighborhood for more than 150 years.

During the time of segregation, Lucian Hunter of Mechanicsville worked to make sure that Black students could get to school. The Barksdale Theatre in the Hanover Tavern produced Virginia’s first professional play based on the African American experience. Tracing their history back to 1796, the Brooks family boasts military service across five generations.

Author and local social studies teacher Joe Gorman celebrates the rich history and proud heritage of Hanover County African Americans.

These pictorial images of Greek heritage illustrate the people and events that have shaped the culture and history of Tarpon Springs.

Beginning in 1905, large numbers of Greeks from the Dodecanese and Saronic Gulf islands settled in Tarpon Springs to work in the sponge business. They significantly expanded the industry and changed Tarpon Springs forever. Greektown flourished with residences, stores, churches, restaurants, and recreational facilities stretching from the sponge docks to downtown. Sponge fishing and related activities served as the economic base for the community. By 1913, as many as half of Tarpon Springs residents were reputedly Greek, and many businesses displayed both Greek and American flags. Today, Tarpon Springs' Greek community preserves a strong ethnic and maritime heritage. While some major US cities have a larger Greek population, no other has a greater percentage with Greek heritage than Tarpon Springs.

Controlled by the heavy hand of the mob and fueled by government corruption, Newport evolved through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries into a notoriously robust center of criminal activity.

With top political and law enforcement officials often on the take, the seedy status quo became so excessive that a May 1961 issue of Time magazine declared, "Newport has developed such a gaudy brand of gambling and prostitution that it stands today as one of the nation's most blatant sin centers." Eastern Kentucky University Professors Gary Potter and Thomas Barker, both experts on organized crime, along with Jenna Meglen, offer up a captivating chronicle of Newport's criminal development, complete with thought-provoking assessments of the possible advantages that organized crime brought to the city commonly considered to be Las Vegas's predecessor.

Enter the forest with author F. Carroll McMahan as he tells dramatic, fascinating and sometimes humorous stories of a man who lived truly on his own terms.

Born in 1889 in the Smoky Mountains, Lem Ownby became one of the region's most recognized figures. Sight-impaired from an early age, Lem spent his life logging, bear hunting, farming and tending his beehives. He welcomed the arrival of logging operations into the pristine wilderness but became an eyewitness to the devastation it brought to land, streams and wildlife. As the last leaseholder living within the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Lem became a legend, selling his honey and offering pearls of wisdom to hikers, writers and even the governor. Lem's principles remained solid, his opinions so unwavering that he once refused to entertain two Supreme Court justices.

Join author Denise Parkinson for an intimate look at a Depression-era tragedy.

The once-thriving houseboat communities along Arkansas' White River are long gone, and few remember the sensational murder story that set local darling Helen Spence on a tragic path. In 1931, Spence shocked Arkansas when she avenged her father's murder in a DeWitt courtroom. The state soon discovered that no prison could hold her. For the first time, prison records are unveiled to provide an essential portrait. The legend of Helen Spence refuses to be forgotten--despite her unmarked grave.

After the Civil War, Black landownership in Fairfax County increased by leaps and bounds.

By the 1870s, retired Union officers were purchasing land that they sold to African Americans like Joshua Ball, Joshua Pearson, Robert Bradley and John Coates. Merrifield, the Pines and Williamstown soon emerged as vibrant communities founded by born-free Blacks, the formerly enslaved and their descendants. These African Americans quickly established farms to provide for their families and engaged in truck farming to stimulate trade. They formed charitable organizations and a church. Unfortunately, from the 1960s through the 1980s, these towns disappeared due to eminent domain practices, modern progress and gentrification. Historian Marion Ransell Dobbins unearths the legacy of these vanished communities.

Discover the rich history of Moravians in North Carolina through the lens of over 200 vintage images.

Members of the Moravian Church who settled in North Carolina were meticulous record keepers, documenting almost every aspect of their day-to-day lives. A significant part of those records is preserved in the form of photographs. Moravian photographers-both professional and amateur-created an enduring legacy by capturing their society and surroundings in faithful detail. Their photographs, which record the towns of Bethabara, Bethania, Salem, Friedberg, Hope, and Friedland, as well as other communities throughout the state, provide a rare glimpse into the historic world of Moravian life in North Carolina.

More than four decades after it occurred, the murder of Athalia Ponsell Lindsley remains notorious… and unsolved.

The only eyewitness said a man attacked Lindsley with a machete in broad daylight on the front steps of her white mansion. Gossip swirled that neighbor Frances Bemis knew who killed Lindsley and would notify authorities. Bemis was later murdered on her nightly walk. Author Elizabeth Randall puts the rumors to rest through research culled from over one thousand pages of depositions, records, official county documentation and interviews.

This book documents the history of Thalhimers department stores, through stories and vintage photographs.

Thalhimers was founded in Richmond in 1842 by German Jewish immigrant William Thalhimer as a humble dry goods store. It expanded over the years to become a 26-store chain across the Southeast under the leadership of William's great-grandson, William B. Thalhimer Jr. It boasted the latest in clothing, shoes, and accessories for the entire family, the most modern of housewares, and gourmet foods and baked goods, including the iconic six-layer chocolate cake. Through decades of dramatic political and social change, Thalhimers stood strong, guided by the overarching philosophies of honesty, integrity, quality, and service. Loyal and devoted employees were the heart of Thalhimers, becoming part of the extended Thalhimer family. Sadly, in 1992, as a result of retail consolidation, the Thalhimer name was dropped and the flagship downtown Richmond store closed. A 150-year legacy ended, leaving behind cherished memories, stories, and images.

In this unique look at historic crimes of the Piedmont, Frances Casstevens offers readers a glimpse into the criminal mind and the consequences of criminal actions. No matter what piques your interest - be it Civil War stories or young love torn apart by tragedy - Casstevens provides sure-fire ammunition to keep the pages turning. Discover the true-life tales of the outlaw Jesse Dobbins, or of Daisy Hunt, a pregnant twenty-year-old who watches helplessly as her beloved bleeds to death in the snow. Read the story of the infamous Charles Lawson, a man who did the unthinkable - kill himself, his wife and his six children on Christmas Day, 1929. These are but a few examples of the featured tragedies that have shocked the North Carolina Piedmont in the last 150 years.

Frances Casstevens, historian, genealogist, and former professor at Wake Forest University, delivers facts in a spellbinding manner. Death in North Carolina's Piedmont: Tales of Murder, Suicide and Causes Unknown meticulously presents the details of each case and leaves it to you, the reader, to draw your own conclusions.

Travel the Old Dominion and visit the museums and historic homes that tell the stories of Virginia’s presidents.

George Washington. Thomas Jefferson. James Madison. James Monroe. William Henry Harrison. John Tyler. Zachary Taylor. Woodrow Wilson. More US Presidents were born in Virginia than in any other state in the union. From Mount Vernon, Monticello and Montpelier to the Wilson Presidential Library, read the stories of the sites that shaped the lives of presidents.

Historian and author Heather S. Cole is a guide to the places they called home.

George Washington was first and foremost a Virginian. Born in the state's Tidewater region, he was reared near Fredericksburg and took up residence at Mount Vernon along the Potomac River.

As a young surveyor, he worked in Virginia's backcountry. He began his military career as a Virginia militia officer on the colony's frontier. The majority of his widespread landholdings were in his native state, and his entrepreneurial endeavors ranged from the swamplands of the Southeast to the upper Potomac River Valley. Historian John Maass explores the numerous sites all over the Commonwealth associated with Washington and demonstrates their lasting importance.

Most people have heard the song: Tis Irish I am and ‘tis proud I am of it. But, what does it mean to be Irish?

When the Irish first came to Savannah, it meant they were either lace curtain or old fort. Lace curtain inferred that the family was prosperous, usually Protestant, and had come to Savannah with letters of introduction, money, and a plan. Old fort meant that the family had come to America in desperation and to Savannah with little but the clothes on their back, the desire to work, and hope for a better future. Old fort Irish were generally Catholic, attending Catholic schools and depending on the Church for far more than just Sunday worship. Today, the Irish have spread all over Savannah like shamrocks, making these designations a thing of the past. The Irish are involved in every facet of Savannah life, from politics, to business, to education. Catholicism remains the predominant religion and churches abound, as do Catholic schools. When the Season of St. Patrick begins, the Savannah Irish begin celebrating.   

This history details the tumultuous lives of Miami Beach’s mid-twentieth century jet set, and features archival photos.

From roughly 1930 to 1960, Miami Beach attracted an exclusive colony of socialites, who mixed with Hollywood celebrities and dignitaries, such as Winston Churchill, as effortlessly as tonic mixes with gin.

Elizabeth Taylor announced her ill-fated engagement to the son of a former ambassador in Miami Beach. Other movie stars, such as Veronica Lake, were filmed in the enclave. Beautiful model Bab Beckwith, the first Orange Bowl Parade queen, dated John F. Kennedy while he was in Miami in 1944. Speedboat king Gar Wood bought his mistress a $100,000 bayfront home and then sued to force her to vacate the property. A tumultuous affair between John Jacob Astor VI and Lucille Stiglich led to the young model serving time in the Miami Beach jail.

Deborah C. Pollack delves into an era filled with excitement, style, humor and panache.

Authors Rory O'Neill Schmitt and Rosary O'Neill share the NOLA life of Kate Chopin, the first great American woman novelist. In this epic story, Chopin becomes a Phoenix rising amidst the disgrace, death, and abandonment in the romantic desperate setting of post-Civil War Louisiana. This book, a follow up to Edgar Degas in New Orleans, presents Chopin, who lived in the same neighborhood as the Degas family during that time. Chopin celebrated in New Orleans’ great homes and mansions up River Road with their wonderland of oaks, columns, balconies. She had lived in the Garden District, watched New Orleans trolleys with their big windows roll past the Gothic mansions and Greco-Roman houses on St. Charles Avenue, strolled languidly through Audubon Park with its oak tree wonderland full of swamps and lush Louisiana foliage.

See the Conch Republic through Hemingway’s eyes.

For a dozen years, perhaps the prime of his writing life, Ernest Hemingway resided in Key West, producing a consistent stream of important work that elevated his literary fame and cleared a path for the arrival and refinement of the Hemingway Myth. Travel in his footsteps and bask in the island magnetism that fueled the author while he wrote classics such as Death in the Afternoon and “The Snows of Kilimanjaro.” Tour through more than seventy island locations that paint the perfect portrait of Papa’s consequential time on the island with author Mark Allen Baker as your guide. Step back in time to Hemingway’s Key West and stroll the town like an honorary member of the famed Hemingway Mob.

Louisville's Germantown and Schnitzelburg documents community's historic transformations, from agricultural center to industrial powerhouse.

Believed to have been named for the citizens who settled the area as early as the 1840s, Germantown and Schnitzelburg are located just east of downtown Louisville. The first parcels purchased and settled were part of the 1,000-acre land grant that was awarded to Col. Arthur Campbell in 1790 for his service to Virginia in the Indian Wars. Spanning more than 160 years of growth, the area developed from farms and dairies in the 1850s, to the industrialization of the 1880s, and then the halcyon era of the 1950s as a safe haven of family, community, and church. Remarkable historic landmarks include a Victorian-era cotton mill, DuPont Manual High School's football stadium, and the eclectic collection of residential architecture classified as shotgun and camelback. Numerous neighborhood taverns and bakeries are both historic landmarks and popular eateries in this community. Look inside and enjoy the history and beauty of a bygone era and the development of a thriving community.

Even beyond Atlanta, this amazing, Moorish-style icon is known by most not by its legal name, the Fox Theatre, but as the Fabulous Fox.

Constructed in the late 1920s as a temple for the Yaarab Shrine, the imposing yellow-brick building was designed to out Baghdad Baghdad in its elaborate Middle Eastern appearance. But the onion-domed exterior with its faux prayer towers is nothing compared to the elaborate interior. Movie mogul William Fox leased the auditorium from the Shriners in 1929, transforming it into a movie palace like no other. The theater became a place of spectacular premieres and world-class performances until changing times threatened its very existence in the 1970s. The campaign to Save the Fox proved more dramatic than some of the performances that graced Fox's own stage. Today, the Fabulous Fox is one of Atlanta's best-known and most cherished landmarks.

“A thoughtful narrative that gives greater context to the contributions of Native Americans to the success of Spanish, French and English colonists.” —Savannah Morning News

Savannah’s storied history begins with Native Americans. The Guales lived along the Georgia coast for hundreds of years and were the first to encounter Spanish missionaries from St. Augustine in the 1500s. Tomochichi of the Yamacraw tribe is lauded as the cofounder of Georgia for his efforts in helping James Oglethorpe establish the Savannah colony in the eighteenth century.

In 1830, President Andrew Jackson forced southeastern Native American tribes to resettle in the West, including descendants of the Savannah Creek, who had fought by Jackson’s side at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend.

Michael Freeman explores the legacy of coastal Georgia’s Native Americans and the role they played in founding Savannah.

A news media frenzy hurled the quiet resort community of Pinehurst into the national spotlight in 1935 when hotel magnate Ellsworth Statler's adopted daughter was discovered dead early one February morning, only weeks after her wedding day.

A politically charged coroner's inquest failed to determine a definitive cause of death, and the following civil action continued to expose sordid details of the couple's lives. More than half a century later, the story was all but forgotten when local resident Diane McLellan spied an old photograph at a yard sale and became obsessed with solving the mystery. Her enthusiastic sleuthing captured the attention of Southern Pines resident and journalist Steve Bouser, who takes readers back to those blustery winter days so long ago in the search to reveal what really happened to Elva Statler Davidson.

Dreamers, Risk Takers, Innovators…

The chain of barrier islands that skirt the coast of North Carolina from the Virginia border to Cape Lookout were once remote. Today the Outer Banks is one of America’s most popular vacation destinations, welcoming millions of visitors each year. Like Walt Disney World or Las Vegas, the initial ideas around what is today a glittering vacation capital were, at one point, nothing more than a shared vision of what was possible. A series of dreamers fired the engines of the popular attraction to this scattering of sandy islands that resonates across much of the Eastern United States today.

Author and Outer Banks native Clark Twiddy chronicles the region’s journey from isolation to popularity through the stories of these innovators and risk-takers.

According to the Bureau of Governmental Research, “Few people alive today have had as great an impact on New Orleans’s physical environment as Bob Becker.”

In Going South, Becker recounts a lifetime of personal experiences with humor, self-deprecation, and appreciation for lessons learned. Turning back the clock to the 1950s and beginning with his early days as a newspaper boy in Buffalo, New York., Bob reveals the early interactions and experiences that helped to form his journey from the windswept snow of his hometown to the Big Easy, with adventures in the remote island of New Guinea and the plains of Africa.

The many additional stories come from Bob’s fascinating career, which has included being New Orleans city planning director, zoo manager, college educator, consultant, author, and chief executive of one of the nation’s largest urban parks. His many adventures and challenges include planning the 1984 World’s Fair, navigating the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, and confronting venomous snakes. Going South celebrates the legacy of an everyman from a working-class family who rose to prominence as a “mover and shaker” in New Orleans.

Explore the social, family, political and religious history of the Italians - one of New Orleans' most remarkable ethnic groups.

Between 1850 and 1870, New Orleans boasted the largest Italian-born population of any city in the United States. Its early Italian immigrants included musicians, business leaders, and diplomats. Sadly, in 1891, 11 members of the large Sicilian settlement in New Orleans were victims of the largest mass lynching in American history. However, by 1910, the city's French Quarter was a Little Palermo with Italian entrepreneurs, laborers, and restauranteurs dominating the scene.

A gay love triangle, drug deals, and a murder. Just another night in West Palm Beach in 1984?

Jeffrey Heagerty was like most young gay nineteen-year-olds in South Florida in the 1980s, commonly finding himself and his friends at the popular Kevin’s Cabaret in West Palm Beach on Saturday nights. On one of those Saturday nights in 1984, Jeff vanished from the club, leaving his friends behind even though he was their ride home. His body was found in a canal the next morning and his car was missing, only to be found a month later, abandoned on the other side of town. Rumors of a love triangle, drug dealings and sexual encounters snarled police efforts at solving the case. The investigation stagnated and the case grew cold until the solution came from two unexpected sources: overlooked details in police photographs of Jeff’s car and a mysterious letter from an inmate in the Palm Beach County Jail.

Although many bluesmen began leaving the Magnolia State in the early twentieth century to pursue fortune and fame up north, many others stayed home.

These musicians remained rooted to the traditions of their land, which came to define a distinctive playing style unique to Mississippi. They didn't simply play the blues, they lived it. Travel through the hallowed juke joints and cotton fields with author Roger Stolle as he recounts the history of Mississippi blues and the musicians who have kept it alive. Some of these bluesmen remain to carry on this proud legacy, while others have passed on, but Hidden History of Mississippi Blues ensures none will be forgotten.

Once considered just an insect-ridden swampland, Florida is now a top destination for tourism, business, agriculture and innovation thanks to these 25 individuals.

Florida is in many ways both the oldest and newest of the megastates. The ideas and actions of a colorful cast of characters - from beloved cultural icons to political heroes and even a socialist dictator - transformed the peninsula. A Barbados native rescued Florida's orange industry after the catastrophic 1835 freeze. Known as the Grande Dame of the Everglades, Marjory Stoneman Douglas worked tirelessly to save the state's vast, incomparable wetlands from annihilation in the early twentieth century. In the mid-1800s, a Florida doctor developed a precursor to modern air conditioning. Join former U.S. senator George LeMieux and journalist Laura Mize as they profile and rank, according to impact, the 25 trailblazers who have changed the Sunshine State forever.

Unsung heroes of the Old Dominion

Historians have spilled plenty of ink on the leaders of the Continental Army and French forces at the 1781 Siege of Yorktown. But less is known about the top leadership of the Virginia militia forces who were also at that decisive engagement. Several—including Brigadier General George Weedon, Colonel James Innes and Lieutenant Colonel William Darke—were former Continental Army officers with extensive battlefield experience. Others—such as Colonel Sampson Mathews, Colonel John Page and Colonel Sir John Peyton—were prominent civic leaders who took to the field to defend their native state.

Using a wide array of sources and compelling images, Sean M. Heuvel explores the lives and service of the regimental and brigade-level Virginia militia commanders who served at Yorktown.

Witch? Sorceress? Daughter of Satan? Murderer? Thief? Saint? Which label best fits Marie Laveau?

Queen of the voodoos, she is considered to have been the most important voodooienne ever to have reigned on this continent.

Robert Tallant, well known for his fine stories of the South, including Voodoo in New Orleans and Gumbo Ya-Ya, attempted to make use of all available facts and information in re-creating the life of this infamous woman. Marie Laveau, the last and most storied American sorceress, continues to weave her spell as those who read this fascinating portrait will discover.

Starting as an ice-cream truck in 1929; Carvel has became the standard of ice-cream franchises across America.

When an unassuming, wide-eyed, young Greek immigrant arrived in America in 1910, the world did not yet know that this boy named Tom Carvel would grow up to be an inventor, an innovator, and, ultimately, an American icon. Holding a host of jobs, from drummer to mechanic, Carvel's relentless entrepreneurial spirit led him down a path less traveled. At 26 years old, Carvel met his future wife, Agnes Stewart. He borrowed $15 from her and began selling ice cream out of the back of his truck. What started as an old truck plugged into a pottery store is now more than 500 franchised locations throughout the nation and abroad and is one of the best loved and most recognized names in the industry. Fulfilling the American dream, Carvel is credited for patenting machinery, coining the ""buy one get one"" coupon, starring in his own commercials, and being the ""father of franchising.""

Even in paradise, evil sometimes creeps in.

Thoughts of Alabama invite images of Confederate jasmine and fertile cotton fields, sweet iced tea and Southern hospitality, but there's a darker side to the state's history. Some of the stories captured within the pages of this book are well known to the good folks of North Alabama; others are less familiar. The scandals of Lincoln's brother-in-law, the reign of terror created by Huntsville's Southwest Molester, the Decatur man who buried his wife's dismembered body under the fish pond and the beautiful Black Widow of Hazel Green--all of these stories are well researched and masterfully written by Huntsville author Jacquelyn Procter Reeves. True-crime fans will appreciate this treasury of stories spanning nearly two hundred years of North Alabama history.