Biography & Autobiography

As Florida Southern College embarked upon an ambitious building program in the 1930s, the serendipitous arrival of Frank Lloyd Wright transformed the future of the school.

Pres. Ludd Myrl Spivey was a leader with limitless imagination, and he realized the virtue in bringing an architect of Wright's renown to Lakeland. Wright's first visit to the lakeside campus was in 1938. He envisioned a grand 18-unit Child of the Sun campus, where buildings would grow from the Florida sand into the light. The buildings are especially suited to the landscape and are connected thematically by a series of covered walkways Wright called the Esplanade. Over the next 20 years, 12 of these unique structures were constructed at Florida Southern, and today they comprise the world's largest single-site collection of Frank Lloyd Wright's work. The campus attracts thousands of visitors annually, and preservation and restoration projects are ongoing. The Florida Southern College Architectural District was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975. Enjoy the rich legacy of Frank Lloyd Wright’s work at Florida Southern College in this collection of 15 historic black-and-white postcards.

Jacksonville, Florida’s Gullah Geechee heritage is an integral part of the city’s story.

Gullah Geechee people, descendants of west and central Africans forcibly brought to the southeastern coast of the United States, have retained many of their indigenous African traditions through architecture, food, culture, religion, and occupations. This legacy, combined with northeast Florida’s unique blend of Indigenous, French, Spanish, and English colonial history, has contributed to the African American journey in Jacksonville. Today, Jacksonville is the largest city in the federally designated Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor, which stretches from Wilmington, North Carolina, to St. Augustine, Florida.

Ennis Davis is a Gullah Geechee descendant, urban planner, heritage advocate, and writer. Adrienne Burke is a historian, urban planner, and heritage advocate. Together they own Community Planning Collaborative, a firm working to assist communities with heritage-based urban planning solutions. Drawing from archival photographs housed in the Library of Congress, State Archives of Florida, National Archives, Jacksonville Public Library, University of Florida, University of North Florida, the Ritz Theatre & Museum, and the Jaxson magazine, each image illuminates the unique stories of the past that continue to shape Jacksonville’s character today. The foreword is provided by Saundra Morene with the Jacksonville Gullah/Geechee Nation Community Development Corporation.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!”

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.

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.

No fictional swashbuckler could ever rival Jean Lafitte's dramatic life. From his hidden base in the Louisiana swamps at Barataria Bay, Lafitte mounted daring raids on ships in the Gulf of Mexico. His battles with the law were the stuff of legend: when Governor Claiborne of Louisiana offered a reward for the buccaneer's capture, Lafitte responded with a bigger reward for the governor! But when the British asked for his help in their invasion of Louisiana during the War of 1812, the pirate instead joined forces with Andrew Jackson to win the Battle of New Orleans. Later, the brigand moved his operation to Galveston and harried Mexican vessels in support of the Texans seeking independence.

Lyle Saxon's superbly written account examines Lafitte's fascinating career, and frees the truth of the pirate's life from the web of fantastic myths which grew up around him. Did Lafitte participate in the French Revolution as a lad? What was his role in the plot to rescue Napoleon from his exile on St. Helena? And where is Lafitte's treasure hidden? Lafitte the Pirate is a classic work which will appeal to both adventure lovers and students of Louisiana history.

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.""

Author Dwayne W. Pickett details the life of William Hilton, his exploration of the Carolina coast and the founding of an iconic island.

Behind the pristine beaches and world renown of Hilton Head Island lies a history that dates back to the early exploration of the nation. In 1663, William Hilton, a mariner born in England, was hired by a group in Barbados to find new lands for them to settle. Hilton led an exploration of the Port Royal Sound area, where he named a high bluff of land Hiltons Head as a navigational marker for future sailors. The island began as a sparsely populated area on the fringe of English settlement in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, when it was called Trench’s Island on some maps.

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.

Local legend says that Marquis Charles Cornwallis, Revolutionary War hero, rode into this area and declared, How fair are these hills and thus, Fairfield County was born.

Fairfield County is a unique blend of tradition, culture, and history. Freedom-seekers, farmers, and religious folks came from the northern trails, while many aristocrats and plantation owners traveled from the coast. These citizens bred a unique and proud folk ranging from sturdy military men who protected their land during the American Revolution and the Civil War to educators who started well-known educational institutions and produced prominent military men and politicians who forever changed the world. Fairfield County is also known for its culture and music. Many recognized beauty queens, artists, musicians, and sports figures hail from this midland region of South Carolina.

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.

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.   

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.

“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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

As Florida Southern College embarked upon an ambitious building program in the 1930s, the serendipitous arrival of Frank Lloyd Wright transformed the future of the school.

Pres. Ludd Myrl Spivey was a leader with limitless imagination, and he realized the virtue in bringing an architect of Wright's renown to Lakeland. Wright's first visit to the lakeside campus was in 1938. He envisioned a grand 18-unit Child of the Sun campus, where buildings would grow from the Florida sand into the light. The buildings are especially suited to the landscape and are connected thematically by a series of covered walkways Wright called the Esplanade. Over the next 20 years, 12 of these unique structures were constructed at Florida Southern, and today they comprise the world's largest single-site collection of Frank Lloyd Wright's work. The campus attracts thousands of visitors annually, and preservation and restoration projects are ongoing. The Florida Southern College Architectural District was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975.

From a hot springs attraction to a central location for gangsters, gambling, moonshine and organized crime, trace the evolution of this loose buckle in the Bible belt, now a resort and major tourist destination.

In the late 1800s, Hot Springs, Arkansas, was a small town with a big attraction: hot thermal water. The federal government took possession of the downtown-area springs, and bathhouse row was born, along with the first property that would be considered a national park. Following not too far behind were great entrepreneurs who brought in gambling and prostitution to go with the area's leading industry: moonshining. By the time the 20th century rolled in, Hot Springs was booming with tourists and became America's first resort. In the early 1930s, former New York gangster Owen Madden took up residence in the spa city, and things became very organized. Gangland luminaries from Al Capone to Frank Costello made regular pilgrimages over the next few decades to what was referred to as the loose buckle in the Bible Belt.   

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.

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.

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.

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.

Go inside the making of the 2018 Clemson Tigers football team, the one that vaulted to the top and became the biggest thing in college football.

From the beginning of the season, head coach Dabo Swinney’s rallying cry was “joy.” Each week for opponents, though, was another joyless occasion against a big orange machine that found its high gear midseason. The results shook the foundation of college football. In 2015 and 2016, the Tigers needed to bring their own guts to achieve great things. In Swinney’s 10th season, they brought their own sledgehammers. Author Larry Williams, who has covered Clemson and Swinney since 2004, unearths revealing anecdotes from Dabo’s tenure like you've never seen before and shares how a season dominated by Alabama hype ended up overwhelmed by a Clemson tide and a new college football dynasty.

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.

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.