Images of America

A town with a significant place in American history as the Birthplace of the Atomic Bomb, this pictorial history takes a visual journey pre-war and post.

Nestled in the foothills of East Tennessee, 25 miles west of Knoxville, is a small town bordered on three sides by the Clinch River. The land first existed under other names - Elza, Robertsville, Scarboro, and Wheat - but in 1942, 59,000 acres of this unassuming rural land were transformed in a matter of weeks into a "secret city" that became known as the mysterious Manhattan District. As a direct result of the letter written by Albert Einstein to President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1939, the Manhattan District was created to develop new atomic weapons. Finally named Oak Ridge in 1943 and now thriving with a population of over 27,000, the town continues to be a significant center for the advancement of science and technology used throughout the world. In this pictorial history, photographs and personal descriptions guide readers on a visual journey of the construction of a city and the creation of the atomic bomb, to the post-war transformation of Oak Ridge into a major scientific community in the South.

Ithaca, New York has often been called ""the Hollywood of the East,"" growing from farms to factories to Cornell University--Ithaca's history is an interesting and broad one.

Nestled in the heart of the Finger Lakes, Ithaca was planned by surveyor Simeon DeWitt and incorporated in 1821 when steamboats signaled Cayuga Lake's heyday of commerce and recreation. Spectacular creeks and waterfalls powered grist, plaster, carding, and other mills. From farms, merchants, and mills, Ithaca's industries grew to include the famous Thomas-Morse Aviation Company and Morse Chain Works. By 1914, Wharton Studios was producing silent films in this ""Hollywood of the East."" Such notable residents as actress Irene Castle, the Tremans, and community leader James L. Gibbs called Ithaca home. Ithacans became known for community involvement early on. St. James AME Zion Church served as a stop on the Underground Railroad, and Elizabeth Beebe built a mission for needy Rhiners. Ezra Cornell and Andrew D. White realized their ideal of education when Cornell University opened in 1868, followed in 1892 by the Ithaca Conservatory of Music, which became Ithaca College in 1931. Students protested segregation in front of Woolworth's 30 years later, and echoes of this idealism can still be found here today.

Bordered by the Delaware River and dotted by dozens of delightful 18th-century towns and villages, Bucks County retains a wistful air of long ago.

Covered bridges, colonial homes, classic farmsteads, and a breathtaking countryside are only part of this beautiful county's story. In 1683, Pennsylvania's founder, William Penn, established his manor here and helped build a nation by inviting industrious immigrants to its fertile soil. In 1776, Gen. George Washington launched one of the most important battles of the Revolutionary War from its shores. Farmers harnessed the land for centuries, followed by writers, artists, and innovators who weaved its charms into their work for the world. Bucks County features photographs from area historical societies and collectors that capture the spirit of the everyday life, as well as the extraordinary people and events, that helped shape one of the most distinctive places in America.

Tracing its roots back to 1840 on the banks of Roaring brook, Scranton, Pennsylvania is now considered an important industrial and cultural center in the United States.

In 1840, George and Selden Scranton, with William Henry, established their iron furnaces on the banks of Roaring Brook in the wilderness of northeastern Pennsylvania. Anthracite, locomotives, silk, and lace soon followed. In 1847, they successfully mass-produced iron T rails and later emerged as the nation's third largest steel manufacturer. Scranton traces the growth of Slocum Hollow through its rising industrialization into its emergence as the bustling Electric City. In all its urban complexity, Scranton attracted European immigrants and cosmopolitan investors as well as labor leader John Mitchell and entertainer Buffalo Bill. Joseph Albright Jr., a Scranton-born philanthropist, endowed a public library, and Raymond Hood, the architect of Rockefeller Center, designed the Masonic Temple. The footprints of these achievements remain an enduring testament to this important industrial and cultural center.

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.

Explore the life and early times of Stuart, Florida through the lens of vintage images.

On the southeast coast of Florida in the 1880s, a quaint little community was nestled along the tranquil waters of the St. Lucie River in a wilderness of tropical beauty, one of the region's last frontiers. As lucrative pineapple crops and the commercial fishing industry began to flourish, trade boats brought necessary supplies, and new settlers arrived on river steamers. With land available for homesteading or for sale at $1.25 an acre, the small village soon to be known as Stuart would become a mecca for innovative, hardworking young men seeking business and financial opportunities. By the dawn of the 20th century, the railroad had been established, and the town, forged by the fortitude of early pioneers, thrived, eventually becoming a beautiful, friendly incorporated city.

Stunning images reveal the beauty and history of New York's Lake George located in the Adirondack Mountains.

Pioneer photographers Seneca Ray Stoddard and Jesse Sumner Wooley, along with other local professional and amateur photographers, visually recorded life at Lake George around the beginning of the twentieth century. With artistic clarity and astuteness, they created a pictorial diary of this well-known resort area, as our grandparents and great-grandparents would have known it. Many of the nearly two hundred images in Lake George have rarely been seen before and serve as more than a road map through the area's past. They capture life at natural moments. The clothing, the modes of transportation, and the recreation that were once quite common appear in page after page of breathtaking photographs and brilliant narrative. This pictorial history explores the bays and byways of the lake, its year-round residents, and the vacationers who made it their temporary home every summer. Replete with images of moments, hideaways, and people that no longer exist, Lake George is a new experience in an old familiar place.

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.

Through vintage photographs, McKeesport documents the history of this once booming steel town from the development and subsequent loss of its major industry to its recent revitalization.

Located at the confluence of the Youghiogheny and Monongahela Rivers, McKeesport was settled by David McKee in 1755. In 1769, McKee acquired land from the Colonial government and one of his sons, John, laid out a village that became known as McKee's Port because a ferry was operating there. Early industries included coal mining and the building of flatboats, and in 1851, an iron rolling mill was started. Industry continued to boom as steamboats and railroads soon appeared, and in 1872, National Tube was founded and joined by other steel industries and foundries. The growing industries created an abundance of jobs, and immigrants from throughout Europe flocked to the area. McKeesport still maintains a strong ethnic heritage.

This isolated Tennessee valley has been home for generations of early settlers and Native Americans alike, today welcoming millions of tourists annually as the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Though the land has existed for millenia, the village known as Cades Cove came into existence in 1821, when William "Fighting Billy" Tipton was granted 1,280 acres of fine fertile land in the first recorded legal land title to Cades Cove following the Calhoun Treaty of 1819. At its peak in 1900, the census showed that there were 125 families living in the cove and over 700 individuals. The Cades Cove people were self-sufficient and had many conveniences that others did not. Some residents made their own water system, and there were blacksmiths, coffin makers, farmers, storekeepers, postmasters, and many more occupations - there was no need to go out of their beloved cove for anything. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, with a good deal of opposition from the Cades Cove residents, the area was incorporated into the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Take a fascinating journey through the history of Allentown, Pennsylvania with more than 200 vintage photographs and anecdotes from the locals who experienced it.

Allentown, the Queen City of the Lehigh Valley, is the youngest but largest of the three cities in the valley. Founded in 1762 by William Allen, it was little more than a crossroads and small market town along the Lehigh Riveruntil it became the county seat in 1812. Heavy industries based on iron developed in the mid-eighteenth century along the Lehigh Riverand, by the 1860s, Allentown had become the largest community in the Lehigh Valley. In 1867, Allentown became a city.

In Allentown, readers nostalgic for times past will find photographs showing the places they remember from years ago, the Pennsylvania Power & Lighttower, and the effects of the devastating floods on the Lehigh River. Equally, newcomers who have heard about the great department stores of Hamilton Street, the trolley systems, Central Park, the breweries, and the iron and silk industries will treasure the images in this volume. Many places that still exist are shown in Allentown as they appeared in their earlier days.

Local historian and author Ann Bartholomew has compiled a riveting photographic record of the vibrant city of Allentown. Perusing these pages will evoke memories and will provide opportunities for parents and grandparents to introduce a younger generation to the city as it was in their youth.

A destination for many tourists eager for sun, sand, and a simpler way of life, and a far distant cry from the glitter and neon of more traditional, commercial oriented beaches, the Outer Banks of North Carolina is a natural wonder sheltering and buffering Eastern North Carolina from the volatile temperament of the Atlantic Ocean.

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.

Wander through the pages of this book and meet the mermaids of Weeki Wachee in their magical underwater theater.

Mermaids are like leprechauns: it's very hard to sneak up and catch a glimpse of one. But in a hamlet on the Gulf Coast of Florida, people have been able to do just that since 1947, when Newton Perry opened a small roadside attraction with an underwater theater. For nearly 60 years, live mermaids have been the unique focal point of Weeki Wachee Springs. Mysterious and enchanting, these young performers have done everything from teaching a class to typing a letter underwater. They are carefully trained, completely enthusiastic, and delightful to see.