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Rye, New Hampshire is a small coastal town whose identity is closely tied to the land and sea. Originally inhabited by Indigenous peoples, it developed from a 1600s colonial fishing outpost into a modest, tight-knit community shaped by maritime trades and farming in the 18th and 19th centuries. With improved transportation and the rise of seaside tourism in the late 1800s, Rye began attracting visitors drawn to its beaches and ocean views, gradually shifting its character. In the 20th century, residential growth increased as people sought quieter coastal living. Prominent families included Parsons, Caswell, Philbrick, and Foss. Photography has played a vital role in preserving Rye’s history by capturing everyday life— fishermen at work, family gatherings, schoolchildren, and farmers in the fields. Coastal scenes, lifesaving stations, and Rye Harbor activity emphasize the town’s enduring relationship with the sea, while images of Jenness Beach, Wallis Sands, and summer “cottages” reflect the rise of tourism.

Lew Karabatsos, chair of the Rye, NH Historical Society’s Collections Committee, has selected images from 1880 to 1985 that document a century of people and places, preserving Rye’s character and offering a strong sense of place for residents and visitors alike.

Today, Ely and Winton are known as the end of the road in northeastern Minnesota. Originally settled by the Obijwe and mapped by the voyageurs, these two towns sat among some of the best timber and iron ore in America. 

Incorporated in 1888, the mines along the north end of Ely required hundreds of workers to extract the iron ore that the country needed for steel. At the same time, three miles away, the town of Winton grew around the shore of Fall Lake. By the end of the 19th century, the area was booming and neighborhoods were built around the mines and sawmills. Located in Ely and Winton’s backyard are the Boundary Waters, over 1,000 lakes on the border of Canada. Visitors soon discovered the appeal of a place in the woods on a lake or a canoe trip in the wilderness. Industry and recreation existed side by side, attracting different people from all over—outdoorsmen, nature lovers, businessmen, and students. 

Reed Petersen is a history instructor at Minnesota North College–Vermilion and gives tours at Soudan Underground Mine State Park. Born and raised in Ely, he lives there with his family and is active in the Ely-Winton Historical Society. The Ely-Winton Historical Society was officially formed in 1961 to preserve the legacy of the history of the area, centering on the area and its people. 

Utilizing images from Jewish archives and collections in Israel and America, Samuel Heed brings to light hundreds of rarely seen Exodus 1947 photographs for the first time.

Launched in 1928 in Wilmington, Delaware, the legendary Exodus 1947 was originally built as the flagship for the Baltimore Steam Packet Company—better known as the Chesapeake’s Old Bay Line—and named President Warfield in honor of the company’s recently deceased president. During World War II, the USS President Warfield would serve as a troopship for the British Army in England and see action as a headquarters ship for the US Navy at the Normandy beachhead. But the venerated cruise liner, with an all-American volunteer crew, would become world famous in the summer of 1947 as the Exodus 1947, an illegal immigrant ship for the Jewish underground that carried 4,500 refugee Holocaust survivors from Europe to Palestine. The heroism of the Exodus 1947’s passengers and crew would astonish the world and give rise to the founding of the State of Israel in 1948.

Samuel W. Heed is an award-winning maritime historian, author, educator, exhibit designer, and documentary film producer, and he serves as the immediate past president of the Council of American Maritime Museums. His research as the longtime senior historian for the Kalmar Nyckel Foundation in Wilmington, Delaware, led to groundbreaking work about the Exodus 1947, which was built barely half a mile from his former office on the Christina River. 

The history of New York is inseparable from the history of sailing on the Hudson River. Beginning with Henry Hudson in 1609 the Dutch and English extended their empires into the Hudson Valley and extracted its bounty via sail. 

Control of the Hudson River was a lynchpin for American victory in the Revolutionary War and New York City's 19th-century rise to global prominence was powered by the sailing vessels on its waterways. Upriver, sloops and schooners delivered goods from the nation's interior and international whaling businesses operated from Hudson and Poughkeepsie and Kingston and Newburgh became noted shipbuilding centers. Yacht racing and ice yachting emerged as popular sports among wealthy families like the Astors and Roosevelts. Sailing clubs preserved these traditions into the 20th century. Since the 1960s, activists including Pete Seeger have used sailboats to galvanize a movement to revive the river ecosystem. Today, the river is home to new generations of sailors continuing these traditions into a fifth century.

Steve Schwartz has sailed and captained numerous sailing and motor vessels on the Hudson River since the 1970s. He and James Malchow are both captains on the Hudson River ferry sloop Woody Guthrie. Images in this book, collected from local libraries, historical societies, the New York State Archives, Library of Congress, and private collections, capture the people, places, and ships that have made the Hudson River an important sailing center for over four centuries.

Readers interested in the beginnings and development of Mexican and Mexican American culture and education in Texas will delight in this pictorial history. The Blackwell School, established in 1909 in Marfa, Texas, served as a segregated school for Marfa’s Mexican and Mexican American students. Operating until 1965, eleven years after the ruling of Brown v. Board of Education, the Blackwell School shaped the lives of its students while reflecting the struggles of Hispanic segregation in the West Texas community. Despite the challenges, the Blackwell School fostered a sense of community through sports, extracurricular activities, and community-oriented pageants. Today, the Blackwell School stands as a national historic site under the management of the National Park Service, reflecting Marfa’s legacy of resilience and commitment to preserving its history.

Cristobal Lopez has a master of arts in history from the University of Texas at San Antonio. As a field representative for the National Parks Conservation Association, he helped establish the Blackwell School as a unit of the National Park Service. Dr. Kirsten Gardner is a Distinguished Teaching Professor in the University of Texas San Antonio Department of History. Dr. Gardner teaches courses on US history, women and gender studies, history of medicine, modern US history, and public history. The images for this book were selected from the Blackwell School Alliance Virtual Museum, Marfa Public Library, the Presidio County Museum, and the Library of Congress.

Millions visit Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market each year—drawn by the food, the shops, and the rich sense of history. But behind the brick and granite walls are stories that most visitors (and even many locals) have never heard.

Faneuil Hall, opened in 1742 as a gift from wealthy merchant Peter Faneuil, was a marketplace and meetinghouse. While vendors sold meat, fish, and produce from first-floor stalls, the upstairs Great Hall hosted fiery debates and spirited gatherings on the issues that helped shape Boston and the nation—from the fight for independence to the struggle for civil rights. By the 1820s, Faneuil Hall could not keep pace with the needs of a booming Boston. Enter Quincy Market, three grand market houses that brought new life to the waterfront. Yet the market was nearly lost in the mid-20th century—until a bold reinvention in the 1970s turned the historic buildings into a national model for urban revival. Packed with colorful characters and forgotten chapters of Boston’s history, this book is perfect for everyone who wants to see the city with fresh eyes.

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.

St. Cloud, Minnesota, sits at the crossroads of urban and rural life, blending the modern city with agrarian landscapes. As the heart of central Minnesota, St. Cloud’s strategic location at the intersection of major highways, railroads, and the Mississippi River made it a hub of transportation, commerce, and industry.

Workers established St. Cloud’s reputation for high-quality goods and strong infrastructure. These industries also influenced local neighborhoods, as many laborers settled near their work and formed tight-knit communities where traditions, languages, and cultural practices were preserved and expanded upon. Individuals like Jane Grey Swisshelm, A.G. Whitney, and Samuel Pandolfo also helped shape the distinctive history of St. Cloud. The seat of Stearns County, a center of industry, and a haven for immigrants and refugees, St. Cloud has played a pivotal role in the history of central Minnesota since its founding.

The roots of the Stearns History Museum are found in the Old Settlers Association of the 1890s. Out of these early efforts to preserve the history of Stearns County came the organization of the Stearns County Historical Society in 1936. The Stearns County Heritage Center was constructed in 1984 to securely house and preserve the county’s historic artifacts and records. Now known as the Stearns History Museum, it remains central Minnesota’s premier destination for experiencing history. Miranda Stueckrath is its public program librarian, and Grant Wilson is its archivist.