American Biographies - History Books

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.

The University of Georgia Redcoat Marching Band has grown from 20 military cadets in 1905 to more than 350 musicians and auxiliary members performing complex and entertaining halftime shows all over the Southeast today. Throughout the past century the Redcoats have been invited to participate in every major bowl game in the country and in the inaugural parade of Jimmy Carter in 1977. The University of Georgia Redcoat Band: 1905-2005 covers the first 100 years of one of the finest musical organizations in America.

Long before folks had a television set and radio in every room, they sought entertainment by stepping out for a night on the town. The choices around Cincinnati were nearly limitless: live theater at the Cox; spectacular musicals at the Shubert; hotels featuring fine dining and dance orchestras; talking pictures at everyone's favorite movie palace--the Albee; burlesque and vaudeville shows at the Empress Theater on Vine Street; and gambling casinos were just a short drive across the river in Newport. All of the major entertainment venues in the Queen City during the first half of the 20th century are explored in Stepping out in Cincinnati. From saloons to ornate movie palaces and from the Cotton Club to the Capitol, you join those pleasure seekers, getting a real sense of what they saw: wonderful events and their countless images--the things of which fond memories were made. Today, those memories have faded and virtually all of the once-glittering showplaces have been bulldozed into history. But within these pages, we get to experience first hand what it was like to be there. Unique among the many photographs featuring unforgettable movie houses and nightclub orchestras are never-before-published images of actual live vaudeville performances onstage at the Shubert, plus rare, clandestine pictures snapped inside the casinos in Newport. Also revealed are the locations of the better-known speakeasies during Prohibition; where the best halls to dance to live orchestras were; what the earliest movie houses were like; and what black Cincinnatians did for entertainment.

By 1890, Italian immigrants began settling in Bridgeport to work in the mills and factories along the Schuylkill River. With more than 5,000 residents by 1923, the need for an Italian parish was evident. Rev. John Colantonio was sent to establish the parish, and in 1924, construction began on the lower church. Shortly thereafter, Bridgeport's oldest and longest-running event was created in Our Lady of Mount Carmel Feast. Since its beginning the feast has continued to be a family tradition. The vintage images in Our Lady of Mount Carmel Italian Feast feature that tradition and the thousands of visitors who have made a pilgrimage to Bridgeport each year to celebrate the feast.