Images of America Sale

A collection of images celebrating the extravagant and historic mansions of Pittsburgh, PA.

In the 19th century, the positioning of Pittsburgh as a major manufacturing center and the subsequent rise of the area's steel industry created a wave of prosperity that prompted the beneficiaries of that wealth to construct extravagant residences. Wealthy enclaves sprang up in the city's East End, across the river in neighboring Allegheny City, and into the countryside. Pittsburgh's Mansions explores the stately homes of the area's prominent residents from the 1830s through the 1920s. Businessmen such as H.J. Heinz, Henry Clay Frick, and members of the Mellon family commissioned elaborate homes from the preeminent architects of their day. Firms such as Alden & Harlow, Janssen & Abbott, and Rutan & Russell left their marks on the city's landscape, often contributing iconic public buildings as well as expansive private homes. Though many of the residences have since been lost, Pittsburgh's Mansions offers a look back at the peak of the city's prominence.

Route 66 goes through the heart of Illinois: between the great cities of Chicago and St. Louis, there are 300 miles of adventure, history, culinary delights, and quirky attractions.

This is the Land of Lincoln and roadside giants. There are cozy motels, cozy diners, and Cozy Dogs. Interstate 55 will speed travelers to their destination, but Route 66 offers something more. It goes through the hearts of the towns, wandering onto old brick pavement far from the roar of the interstate. Historic restaurants like Lou Mitchell's in Chicago, the Palms Grill in Atlanta, and the Ariston Cafe in Litchfield still keep their coffee pots warm. Waitresses, pump jockeys, gangsters, cops, and politicians all gave the Main Street of America its distinctive personality, and their stories are within these pages. So slow down, take the next exit, and head toward the beckoning neon in the distance. Come explore Route 66 in Illinois - where the road began.

The breathtaking Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina, has captured the fascination of people everywhere for over 100 years.

Created in the 1890s by George Washington Vanderbilt, a member of one of America's wealthiest families, the estate combined a 250-room French Renaissance-style chateau with 125,000 acres of gardens, forests, and working farms. Biltmore House served as Vanderbilt's primary residence for almost 20 years. After Mr. Vanderbilt's death in 1914, life at Biltmore continued for his wife Edith and daughter Cornelia. In 1930, Cornelia Vanderbilt Cecil and her husband, Hon. John Francis Amherst Cecil, opened Biltmore House - the largest private home in the United States - to the public, firmly establishing the Asheville area as a major tourist destination.

Enjoy the walk and let the city of Charleston tell you its story.

Charleston: A Historic Walking Tour will help natives and visitors alike appreciate the history and residents of this beautiful city. With its architecture, palm trees, and cobblestone streets, Charleston is one of the South's great cultural destinations. Its ballrooms and benevolent society halls attest to grand periods of opulence and high living. The theater, libraries, museum, and college show an appreciation for culture and sophistication. But don't let the city's beauty hide its turbulent history. The horrors of bombardment and occupation by conquering armies have left their marks. The city has experienced bleak times and disasters, including fires, a devastating earthquake, and hurricanes, not to mention the challenges of Reconstruction. Yet Charleston has survived its darker days, and now may be the city's finest hour. Neighborhoods from Calhoun Street to the Battery are in better condition today than they have ever been before. This book offers three tours to explore the historic downtown: the Meeting Street loop, the Legare Street loop, and the Ansonborough tour.

See how the Pennsylvania Turnpike proved the doubters wrong and came to be known as the World's Greatest Highway.

The Pennsylvania Turnpike is one of the best-known highways in the United States. Most Pennsylvania Turnpike travelers are unaware that its construction was inspired by the route of the never-completed South Pennsylvania Railroad. In the 1930s, men of great vision conceived, planned, and built the nation's first long-distance superhighway using the abandoned railroad's partially finished tunnels as its foundation.

The Pennsylvania Turnpike draws from the extensive photograph collection in the Pennsylvania State Archives. Many were taken by photographers hired by both the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission and its contractors, and most have never been published previously. Originally predicted to be a financial failure, the project wound up being a tremendous success and, eventually was expanded and improved, laying the groundwork for the nation's Interstate Highway System.

Manhattan has long been renowned for the diversity of its offering of hotels--from some of the best in the world to some of the worst.

Around 1880, the entire nature of the hotel experience began to change. Formerly, hotels had been just a place to stop between here and there for a hot meal and a warm bed. Suddenly, the hotel itself became the destination. New affluence, new technologies, and new fashion all came together in the decades between 1880 and 1920 to influence the demands of hotel guests, eventually changing the hotel themselves. This book gives a glimpse into the hotels of the super rich, the not-so-rich, the middle class, the Bohemians, and the workers. In a city as dynamic as New York, it should come as no surprise that so many hotels have a juicy tidbit or two of historical gossip attached to them. Manhattan Hotels: 1880‚-1920 may well be the most extensive work in print on the subject of the city's hotels in this period. Far From being a book for specialists, however, it is designed to bring Manhattan and its hotels of this era to life for all those who have been captivated by the electric excitement of the place.

Feel the power of Lady Liberty!

The Statue of Liberty is an awesome visual journey that begins with the fantastic proposal of a French professor to give the United States a monument to commemorate the Revolutionary War alliance between the 13 colonies and France. It documents the gift's taking symbolic form of the ancient goddess of liberty and its designation as the tallest metal statue in the world. Highlights include Liberty's construction history, her changing symbolism over the years, and her use in popular advertising and political activism. Her upraised arm has saluted scores of ships as they have passed by. See how her dignity has welcomed Americans returning home from foreign parts and has given hope to newcomers seeking a fresh beginning in the land of liberty.

Throughout Chicago, historic mansions built by legendary architects were the homes to characters just as great and whose impact is still felt today.

Chicago is known throughout the world for its architecture. Although many people are familiar with the city's skyscrapers and public buildings, they often overlook or are unaware of Chicago's mansions that are located throughout the city. These mansions represent Chicago's past and its future, and it can even be said that they are the very embodiment of Chicago and its architecture. These fashionable residences were built to make a statement, and what better way to have done this than to employ the leading architects of the time to design them. These architects included men such as Louis Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright, Henry Hobson Richardson, Daniel Burnham, and John Wellborn Root. While the city's mansions are significant because of who built them, they are just as important because of who lived in them.  Many of these mansions were built for Chicago's elite businessmen and captains of industry-men who represented old money, new money and big money.  Just as important were the families of these men and the other residents who came to live in these mansions-for they left a legacy of their own that contributed to the city's history.

Valley Forge offers a variety of historical views and background into the site that became Pennsylvania's first state park. Highlights include Washington's Headquarters and the patriotic and inspiring Washington Memorial Chapel, as well as Revolutionary War artifacts that have found a home in Valley Forge. Thousands of books exist on the history of the American War for Independence, but few describe the events and people who have struggled to preserve that story of independence for people everywhere, as Valley Forge does.

The Long Island Motor Parkway was constructed at a pivotal time in American history, and it often considered a precursor to the modern highway system.

A forerunner of the modern highway system, the Long Island Motor Parkway was constructed during the advent of the automobile and at a pivotal time in American history. Following a spectator death during the 1906 Vanderbilt Cup Race, the concept for a privately owned speedway on Long Island was developed by William K. Vanderbilt Jr. and his business associates. It would be the first highway built exclusively for the automobile. Vanderbilt's dream was to build a safe, smooth, police-free road without speed limits where he could conduct his beloved automobile races without spectators running onto the course. Features such as the use of reinforced concrete, bridges to eliminate grade crossings, banked curves, guardrails, and landscaping were all pioneered for the parkway. Reflecting its poor profitability and the availability of free state-built public parkways, the historic 48-mile Long Island Motor Parkway closed on Easter Sunday, April 17, 1938.

Building the Mass Pike details the urban history and construction of old Boston, with previously unpublished images from the Turnpike Authority archives.

By 1950, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and its capital city had fallen on hard times. The solution came in 1952 from one man and the road he devoted the last decade of his life to building. With the region's railroads in decline and the roads in appalling disrepair, the difficulty of moving people and goods around the state and into its largest port was taking a heavy toll on the economy. The man was William Callahan, and the road was the Massachusetts Turnpike. Building the Mass Pike tells the story of the road's planning, construction, and impact on the communities through which it passed. The book includes previously unpublished images from the Turnpike Authority archives and provides a vivid document of the largest public works project in the state's history and the firestorm of controversy that surrounded it. Written by an engineer-historian, Building the Mass Pike will appeal not only to those fascinated by the history of the Commonwealth and its capital but also to those with an interest in construction, urban history, and the politics of old Boston.

Approximately 110,000 soldiers of the Union and Confederate armies fought along the banks of Antietam Creek in the bloodiest single-day battle in American history.

In 12 hours of fighting, approximately 23,000 men fell, either killed, wounded, or missing, forever scarring the landscape around the town of Sharpsburg. Established as the Antietam Battlefield Site in 1890, Antietam National Battlefield became a National Park Service landmark in 1933. The park grew from 33 acres in the 1890s to encompassing over 3,000 acres today. Some of the Civil War’s most recognizable landmarks now sit within its boundaries, including Dunker Church, Bloody Lane, and Burnside Bridge. The events that occurred across the fields and woodlots around Sharpsburg and along Antietam Creek bring hundreds of thousands of visitors to Antietam National Battlefield every year.

Kevin Pawlak serves as a certified battlefield guide at Antietam National Battlefield. Antietam National Battlefield is filled with historic photographs of the battlefield and its development from the collections of Antietam National Battlefield Library, the Library of Congress, the New York Public Library, the United States Army Heritage and Education Center, private collections, and more.

The Philadelphia Naval Shipyard has a long history, from its beginnings pre-Civil War to its decommissioning in the late 1990's.

The first government-owned navy yard in Philadelphia, the birthplace of the nation and the largest city in the young republic, was started with two docks in 1798. Workers at the yard numbered seventy thousand at its peak. The area was enlarged and shipbuilding at this site increased, notably during the War of 1812 and the Civil War. The yard's area was not dramatically increased, however, until the federal government purchased the 800-acre League Island and closed the former facility in 1868. The golden age of the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard came during World War II, when it built fifty-three ships and converted or overhauled some twelve hundred more. After the 1970s, however, shipbuilding was discontinued. The yard continued to serve its country through the modernization of existing craft, but it was closed by the government in 1990 and officially decommissioned in 1996.

Since 1938, when the Merritt's first 7-mile section was opened to traffic, millions have shared a fascination for Connecticut's Merritt Parkway and its bridges.

A survey made in 1928 called for a two-lane macadam highway to run from Stratford to Greenwich; with $1 million of state money, construction started on the Merritt Highway in 1932. Opened for 38 miles on September 2, 1940, it became known throughout Fairfield County as the ""Queen of Parkways."" Discover the beginnings of this groundbreaking advance in American travel in Traveling the Merritt Parkway. This pictorial history preserves and pays tribute to the history of the Merritt, and explores the construction of the parkway, as well as the little-known parent highway for which the earliest bridges were constructed, including White Plains Road in the town of Trumbull.

The story of this important military installation is told here in a series of historic photographs, from the collections of Fort Lewis Military Museum dating from the early 20th century to the present. The photographs capture not only the natural beauty of the area and prominent buildings, but also many of the men and women who have served their nation at Fort Lewis.

Proud Marines and military aficionados know some of the tales of Parris Island military base, and now you can experience its history first-hand through this pictorial history of the infamous island.

Located near the Palmetto State's historic city of Beaufort, the United States Marine Corps Recruit Depot, Parris Island, South Carolina is one of the world's most famous military bases. Having trained Marine recruits since World War I, the base is the oldest major post of the Marine Corps. It is also the first base commissioned exclusively to train United States Marines, and therefore may truly be called ""The Cradle of the Corps."" Parris Island takes the reader on a visual journey through documented photographs that highlight the base's touchstones. Before the American Revolution, the island was partially owned by Col. Alexander Parris, who became the island's namesake. Plantations flourished on Parris Island until the end of the War between the States. A small detachment of Marines first arrived in the late 1800s. It was not until 1915, however, that the Marines arrived for good. Since then, the base has rapidly expanded, first during World War I and more so during World War II. Over the years, much of the physical appearance of the base has changed; yet, through this collection of photographs, former Parris Island Marines will have a chance to relive some of their memories while new recruits can watch the progression of their base unfold.

Located on the waterfront in historic Fall River, Massachusetts, Battleship Cove, a nonprofit maritime museum and war memorial, is home to the largest and most diverse collection of preserved US Navy ships in the world.

It is the commonwealth's official memorial for the events of September 11, 2001, and the official veterans' memorial for World War II and the Korean, Vietnam, and Persian Gulf Wars. Beginning with the opening of the battleship USS Massachusetts in 1965, the Fall River Navy has continued to grow. The vessels include the submarine Lionfish, destroyer Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., and PT boats 617 and 796. Having hosted nearly six million visitors from all over the world, Battleship Cove is one of the most popular attractions in southeastern Massachusetts. It now stands at the threshold of a new era in its ambitions to modernize for the 21st century.

Prairie Avenue evolved into Chicago's most exclusive residential street during the last three decades of the 19th century.

Chicago's wealthiest citizens--Marshall Field, Philip Armour, and George Pullman--were soon joined by dozens of Chicago's business, social, and civic leaders, establishing a neighborhood that the Chicago Heraldproclaimed, "a cluster of millionaires not to be matched for numbers anywhere else in the country."

Substantial homes were designed by the leading architects of the day, including William Le Baron Jenney, Burnham and Root, Solon S. Beman, and Richard Morris Hunt. By the early 1900s, however, the neighborhood began a noticeable transformation as many homes were converted to rooming houses and offices, while others were razed for construction of large plants for the printing and publishing industry. The rescue of the landmark Glessner House in 1966 brought renewed attention to the area, and in 1979, the Prairie Avenue Historic District was designated. The late 1990s saw the rebirth of the area as a highly desirable residential neighborhood known as the South Loop.

William H. Tyre is executive director of the Glessner House Museum, H. H. Richardson's masterpiece of residential design that features an extraordinary collection of original English and American arts and crafts furnishings.

Images of America: Barksdale Air Force Base covers the history of the base from 1924 to the present with over 200 moving black-and-white photographs, many that have never been published before. This vivid history of United States military aviation includes everything from World War II to the Korean War, from the skies over Vietnam to alerts in the Cold War, from the sands of the Persian Gulf to the mountains of Kosovo, and on into the present-day War on Terrorism.

Discover within these pages little-known facts about the USS Albany, the U.S. Navy's oldest commissioned warship, USS Constitution, and the WWII destroyer, USS Cassin Young.

The photographs in this exciting new volume illustrate the history of the Charlestown Navy Yard from the late nineteenth century through the twentieth century. Founded in 1800, the yard was oneof the first military shipyards in the United States.Charlestown Navy Yard celebrates the life of the yardthrough one hundred years of photographs, showing thedramatic changes that took place during the transition from wood to steel ships. Charlestown Navy Yard's history is preserved in these images, which include rare views of buildings past and present and snapshots of shipyard workers in the Ropewalk, on the ships, and in the Forge Shop where die-lock chain was developed.

The Ocala National Forest, founded on November 24, 1908, by Pres. Theodore Roosevelt, is the oldest national forest in the eastern continental United States.

The forest is one of Central Florida's last remaining expanses of forested lands with magnificent palms, towering live oaks, and the largest sand pine scrub population in the world, as well as containing a number of major natural springs, including Salt Springs, Silver Glen, Alexander, and Juniper Run. In addition to wilderness areas for visitors seeking simplicity and solitude, the forest has visitor centers, nature trails, and a section of the Florida Trail.Images of America: Ocala National Forestis filled with fascinating stories and exciting facts on the history of the steamboats, logging, trails, movie sets, Cracker cowboys, modern conservation efforts, and more.

Once known as the "Main Street of America," the Lincoln Highway route was established across northern Indiana in 1913, linking larger cities--Fort Wayne, Elkhart, Goshen, South Bend, LaPorte, and Valparaiso--to smaller communities. Most Lincoln Highway towns renamed their main streets Lincolnway in recognition of the nation's first coast-to-coast auto road. When the Lincoln Highway Association shortened the route in 1926, the route linked Fort Wayne to Columbia City, Warsaw, and Plymouth, giving the state two Lincoln Highway routes. From Fort Wayne to the famous Ideal Section, between Dyer and Schererville, Indiana's Lincolnway towns remain proudly connected to Lincoln Highway history. Through vintage photographs, postcards, advertisements, and other historical records, this armchair tour of the highway visits sites favored by early tourists, documents the people and places that made the highway a vital corridor, and celebrates Hoosier Carl Fisher's leadership in the formation of the Lincoln Highway Association, as well as the people who work to preserve its legacy today.

Fort Devens is the first book to trace the military activity in this area. Throughout the twentieth century, troops were trained and deployed from Fort Devens for every major conflict the United States was involved in. During World War II, Fort Devens inducted more than six hundred thousand men into the army from the New England area. The list of individuals who have served here included Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Bill Mauldin, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, and Senator Edward M. Kennedy. Even NASA can trace its birth to Fort Devens by way of Dr. Robert Goddard's liquid-fueled rocket experiments.

Discover the history of Barnegat Light and journey through time with Author and Curator for the Barnegat Light Historical Society & Museum, Reilly Platten Sharp.

At the mouth of Barnegat Inlet, Native Americans, whalers, pirates, fishermen, and revolutionaries once lazed, fished, fought, and died on Barnegat Light's sands before modern progress and big-city developers tried to build the next Atlantic City. Treacherous shoals just offshore claimed the lives of thousands of immigrants seeking new starts in America before the current lighthouse was designed in 1856 by the later victorious general of Gettysburg, George Meade. The Ashley House, one of the first shore resort hotels in the country, went up in 1821. In the 1880s, Benjamin Archer and William Bailey of Camden built bigger hotels, cottages, and roads in town, even bringing the railroad. Barnegat Light never became a bustling tourist town like her developers dreamed, but a close-knit community of fishermen, lifesavers and their families have endured for generations to call the still small town of Barnegat Light home.

Chronicling the history of life central New Jersey's Fort Dix army camp from 1917 to the present day.

Located in central New Jersey, Fort Dix has been training soldiers since its founding in 1917. More than three million men and women have passed through its gates since it was built as one of the original 16 army camps to train and mobilize soldiers for World War I. The fort, once known as Camp Dix, has experienced many changes over the years.

This unprecedented photographic history traces the evolution from a wooden cantonment to the installation of brick and fiber optics, from a horse-dominated transportation system to a motor vehicle system, and from training recruits to serving Army Reserve and National Guard soldiers. Along the way, Fort Dix depicts the influence of the 78th Division, the Civilian Conservation Corps, the Women's Army Corps, Desert Storm, and the humanitarian work of resettling the Kosovo refugees.

Join author Susan Roark Hoyt as she explores the history of these remarkable structures, the courageous people who maintained them, and the harbors they safeguarded.

After the first settlers reached northwestern Michigan, the region's immense pine forests were quickly cultivated into a thriving lumber industry. Coastal towns sprang up to support sawmills, and soon lumber schooners arrived to carry large loads of timber to ports across Lake Michigan. Their journeys were not without dangers, however. Rudimentary harbors made docking and loading hazardous while shoals and reefs, hidden beneath the water's surface, threatened to ravage the unsuspecting vessels. The need for lighthouses to mark these dangerous waters and harbor entrances was crucial to prevent the loss of lives and valuable cargo. Through a unique collection of archival images, Lighthouses of Northwest Michigan takes readers on a stirring journey through the development of 27 lighthouses that secured the waters from Little Point Sable to the Straits of Mackinac.

Pres. George Washington authorized Springfield Armory to begin manufacturing small arms for the US military in 1794.

Over nearly two centuries until its closure in 1968, the government armory at Springfield, Massachusetts, became legendary, not only for the arms provided to soldiers during conflicts such as the War of 1812, the Civil War, and World War II, but also for the way in which those arms were crafted. The drive to produce firearms of high quality and quantity for the nation's military created a need to improve manufacturing methods and machinery. Armory advancements, such as the interchangeability of parts, helped lay the groundwork of the American Industrial Revolution. Because of these efforts, Springfield Armory is recognized not only as a first-rate government arms manufacturer, but also as a hub of industry, attracting thousands of skilled men and women from around the world.

This pictorial history of Natchez Trace illustrates the people, places, and events that have shaped the area's cultural and natural history.

The Natchez Trace is one of the oldest trails in North America. In 1801, President Jefferson ordered the Army to build a road along the trail to provide a route for moving troops and delivering mail. Jefferson dispatched soldiers down the road in 1803 to protect the Louisiana Purchase, and Andrew Jackson and his troops followed it to battle the British in the War of 1812. As an 1800-era link between Nashville, Tennessee, and Natchez, Mississippi, the road served as a pathway for settling much of what we now know as the South. Twentieth-century writers such as Eudora Welty later embellished its lore of heroes, bandits, and spies, inspiring Southern leaders to revive the Natchez Trace.

Revisit the former U.S. Naval Training Center at Bainbridge, MD by viewing photos of long closed PX, and silent drill fields... up to 350,000 sailors trained here once!

After the federal government purchased the Tome School for Boys in the northeasternmost county of Maryland in 1941, more than 1,200 acres were cleared for the United States Naval Training Center, Bainbridge. Preparing 350,000 sailors for battle in World War II, Bainbridge became a city in itself, with a PX, officer's club, chapel, post office, drill fields, indoor pools, and hospital. Because of the training center, Cecil County's population more than doubled. After 1976, when the center fell into disuse, the buildings were demolished. They live on, though, through the vintage photographs in this volume, collected from the archives of the Paw Paw Museum, the USNTC Bainbridge Museum, the U.S. Navy, and historic yearbooks and guidebooks. Images of America: United States Naval Training Center, Bainbridge aids in the efforts to preserve the center's memory for veterans and their families.

Wilbur and Orville Wright made the world’s first successful controlled, heavier-than-air powered flight on December 17, 1903, after four years of glider experiments and scientific study.

At what is now the Wright Brothers National Memorial, the brothers discovered and developed the fundamental principles of mechanical flight, setting in motion a series of events that allowed the first generation of flight to travel from Kitty Hawk to the moon in the lifetime of a human being. Located in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, and administered by the National Park Service, the Wright Brothers National Memorial features a full-scale reproduction of the 1903 flying machine, an engine block from the original 1903 flyer, and a precise reproduction of the wind tunnel that the Wrights used to conduct their early experiments. Today, the park’s mission is to commemorate the Wrights’ success and to interpret the continuing worldwide significance of their dream, vision, and achievement.

Douglas Stover served as cultural resource manager and historian at Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Wright Brothers National Memorial, and Fort Raleigh National Historic Site and is now retired from the National Park Service. Darrell Collins worked with the National Park Service for almost 39 years, spending most of his time at the Wright Brothers National Memorial. Collins is ranked as one of the top five historians in the world on early aviation and the Wright brothers.

200 images from the archives of the Appalachian Trail Conservancy and the National Park Service that tell the history of the Appalachian Trail in NY, NJ and CT.

Crossing through 14 states from Maine to Georgia, the Appalachian Trail enters New Jersey through the Delaware Water Gap, crosses New York's Hudson River, and rises over Connecticut's Lion's Head. The area is considered by some to be the pathways birthplace, for in 1923, just two years after Benton MacKaye originally proposed the trail, the first few miles specifically constructed for the Appalachian Trail were built by volunteers in New York's Harriman and Bear Mountain State Parks. These photographs and the corresponding narrative present a historical perspective on what it took to create the trail, including the thousands of volunteers and the arduous tasks they performed, those who lived along the trail before and during its creation, the many people who have enjoyed the trail through the years, and the original routes that are no longer part of the present-day Appalachian Trail.

Lighthouses were built on the Hudson River in New York between 1826 to 1921 to help guide freight and passenger traffic. One of the most famous was the iconic Statue of Liberty. This fascinating history with photos will bring the time of traffic along the river alive.

Set against the backdrop of purple mountains, lush hillsides, and tidal wetlands, the lighthouses of the Hudson River were built between 1826 and 1921 to improve navigational safety on a river teeming with freight and passenger traffic. Unlike the towering beacons of the seacoasts, these river lighthouses were architecturally diverse, ranging from short conical towers to elaborate Victorian houses. Operated by men and women who at times risked and lost their lives in service of safe navigation, these beacons have overseen more than a century of extraordinary technological and social change. Of the dozens of historic lighthouses and beacons that once dotted the Hudson River, just eight remain, including the iconic Statue of Liberty, New York Harbor's great monument to freedom and immigration, which served as an official lighthouse between 1886 and 1902. Hudson River Lighthouses invites readers to explore these unique icons and their fascinating stories.