Social Science

Yuletide in the Motor City

No city seems to love Christmas as much as Detroit. Whether at Hudson’s, or sitting at the Fox Theatre, or seeing the hundreds of dolls and live reindeer at the famous Rotunda, the city can’t get enough of the holiday season. Detroiters have been celebrating Christmas for over 300 years, when the city was French and children waited for Pere Noel. As holiday traditions evolve, some endure, like Christmas trees and children writing letters to Santa. Some, such as meat pie and saying 1,000 Hail Marys for good luck, fade, and new ones—Santa at the Thanksgiving Day Parade—take their place.

Local history writer Bill Loomis leads a very merry jaunt through the happiest days of Christmas in Detroit.

Vivian Gibson's bestselling memoir of growing up in the 1950s in a segregated St. Louis neighborhood has been hailed by critics as a spare, elegant jewel of a work and a love letter to Gibson's childhood.

Vivian Gibson grew up in Mill Creek Valley, a segregated working-class neighborhood in St. Louis that was razed in 1959 to build a highway, an act of racism disguised under urban renewal as progress. A moving memoir of family life at a time very different from the present, The Last Children of Mill Creek chronicles the everyday lived experiences of Gibson's large family―her seven siblings, her crafty, college-educated mother, and her hard-working father―and the friends, shop owners, church ladies, teachers, and others who made Mill Creek into a warm, tight-knit African American community. In Gibson's words, This memoir is about survival, as told from the viewpoint of a watchful young girl―a collection of decidedly universal stories that chronicle the extraordinary lives of ordinary people.

Winner of a Missouri Humanities award for literary achievement, The Last Children of Mill Creek is an important book for anyone interested in urban development, race, and community history―or for anyone who was once a child.

Dive into Cleveland’s deep past and return with a new vision for how we should think about the region today.

The land we call “northeast Ohio” was originally forged through eons of glacial pressure, geologic shifts, and the relentless movement of the Cuyahoga River. Since the last Ice Age, however, it has also been transformed countless times by the many people who have called it home.

In An Alternative History of Cleveland, Jon Wlasiuk uncovers the mysteries, devastations, and human incursions that have shaped the region. Here, you’ll encounter the giant megafauna that roamed the area until their mysterious extinction, Indigenous civilizations who first shaped the land and harnessed its natural resources, industrial pioneers like John D. Rockefeller and Charles Brush who corralled electricity and crude oil in the service of capitalist progress, the environmental devastation that polluted the Cuyahoga and caused toxic algae blooms in Lake Erie, and the numerous Clevelanders today who want to reshape the city’s relationship with the natural environment. Though separated by thousands of years, these stories contain a common theme: the city of Cleveland remains bound to nature, despite our best efforts to liberate ourselves from its limits.

Part natural history, part archeological essay, and part a contemporary call to arms to reclaim and rewild Cleveland’s future, this unforgettable trek into the heart of “the Land” will change the way you see the city forever.

An inside look at the music born, bred, and perfected in Chicago.

Chicago house music originated in the city’s Black, gay underground in the late seventies and became one of the most popular musical genres in the world by the end of the century. In Chicago House Music: Culture and Community, Marguerite Harrold tells the story of the genre’s rise and the prolific creators who have sustained it for decades. You’ll learn about house music’s early innovators, like Ron Hardy and Frankie Knuckles, who transformed the social and political turmoil around them into a revolution in dance music. You’ll also hear remembrances from contemporary figures in the house community, like DJ Lady D, Avery R. Young, Czboogie and Edgar “Artek” Sinio, who have forged new paths as the genre has evolved. It’s a story about much more than music—it’s about a community struggling for acceptance, love, liberation, and freedom, and about the creative pioneers whose resilience helped turn house music into a worldwide phenomenon.

Full of interviews and first-hand accounts from the people who stood behind the turntables, carried crates of records, or danced until dawn, Chicago House Music is the history of an art form that continues to be a force for social interaction, spiritual liberation, and community today. 

Author Janis Thornton reveals the stories of a day in Indiana like no other.

Palm Sunday 1965 started as the nicest day of the year, the kind of weather that encouraged Hoosiers to get out in the sun, fire up the grill, hit the golf course, or roll down their car windows and take a leisurely drive. That evening, however, throughout northern and central Indiana, the sky turned an ominous black, and storms moved in, quickly manifesting as Indiana's worst tornado outbreak. Within three hours, twisters, some a half-mile wide, ripped through seventeen counties, devastating communities and leaving death and destruction in their wake. When the tornadoes were finished with Indiana, 137 people were dead, hundreds were injured, and thousands more were forever changed.

Ferguson, Missouri, became the epicenter of America’s racial tensions after the 2014 murder of Michael Brown and the protests that followed in its wake.

Though this suburb just outside St. Louis might have seemed like an average midwestern town, the activism that exploded there after Brown’s killing laid bare how longstanding municipal planning policies had led to racial segregation, fragmentation, poverty, and police targeting.

In over one hundred maps, Patty Heyda charts the systemic forces that have defined Ferguson, and the first-ring suburb in America more broadly. Through an in-depth look at the contradictions undergirding city planning and design, it illuminates how tax incentives, housing codes, urban design, policing, philanthropy, and even landscaping often work against the betterment of residents’ lives. At its heart lies a key question: Just who are our cities being built for?

A profound rethinking of what maps can be, Radical Atlas of Ferguson USA will challenge city planners, designers, and everyday citizens to change their perspective of public space.

Foreword by Teddy Cruz and Fonna Forman.

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.

Chicago Heights was long the seat of one of the major street crews of the Chicago Outfit, but its importance has often been overlooked and misunderstood.

The crew's origins predate Prohibition, when Chicago Heights was a developing manufacturing center with a large Italian immigrant population. Its earliest bosses struggled for control until a violent gang war left the crew solidified under the auspices of Al Capone. For the remainder of the twentieth century, the boys from Chicago Heights generated large streams of revenue for the Outfit through its vast gambling enterprises, union infiltration and stolen auto rackets. For the first time, the history of the Chicago Heights street crew is traced from its inception through its last known boss.

Centuries ago, Europeans desperate for gold and a route to the East found a lush, green paradise populated by native tribes in the New World.

Subsequent violence and disease all but wiped out the native population. The land nurtured Charlton Heston and Ernest Hemingway in their youths and spawned the assassin of President William McKinley. Northern Michigan also bore witness to the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald, one of the worst shipwrecks in Great Lakes history, and to the bizarre kidnapping of Gayle Cook, an ill-fated attempt to save the Perry Hotel in Petoskey from bankruptcy. Author and storyteller Dave Rogers recounts these and other historical tales from Up North.

The Ohio State Reformatory has a century long history of housing thousands of the most dangerous criminals, and the angry ghosts of the past still roam the corridors.

First opened in 1896, the Ohio State Reformatory intended to do what their name implied, to reform young offenders, but eventually came to house the most dangerous criminals in society. Built on a former Civil War camp ravaged by disease, one can only imagine the unease creeping through the cells and down the dark corridors, made famous as the backdrop for the The Shawshank Redemption. The prison grew to hold more than a thousand prisoners, suffering what were described as brutalizing and inhumane conditions. Ghost tour guide Sherri Brake escorts the reader on a tour of the dark and violent history of one of America's most notorious prisons, the spirits of these men still haunting these halls, forever searching for justice... or revenge.

Social scientist and crime writer James A. Buccellato explores Detroit's struggle with gang violence, public corruption and the politics of vice during the tumultuous first half of the twentieth century.

Though detectives denied it, the Italian mafia was operating in Detroit as early as 1900, and the city was forever changed. Bootleggers controlled the Detroit River and created a national distribution network for illegal booze during Prohibition. Gangsters, cops and even celebrities fell victim to the violence. Some politicians and prominent businessmen like Henry Ford's right-hand man, Harry Bennett, collaborated closely with the mafia, while others, such as popular radio host Gerald Buckley, fought back and lost their lives.

Uncover the full extent of mayhem and madness locked away in one of history's most notorious maximum-security prisons.

As animal factories go, the Ohio Penitentiary was one of the worst. For 150 years, it housed some of the most dangerous criminals in the United States, including murderers, madmen and mobsters. Peer in on America's first vampire, accused of sucking his victims' blood five years before Bram Stoker's fictional villain was even born; peek into the cage of the original Prison Demon; and witness the daring escape of John Hunt Morgan's band of Confederate prisoners.

Few people know the story of how the Invisible Empire once invaded the Heart of America.

The Ku Klux Klan kicked off a nationwide revival in 1921 and took Kansas City, Kansas, by storm. The majority white population—alarmed by the influx of immigrants, Catholics and Jews—joined the Klan in thousands. The Klan held picnics drawing crowds of twenty-five thousand and parades up Minnesota Avenue with thousands of Klansmen, electric lights and robed horses. They also intimidated African Americans, vandalized Catholic cemeteries and censored “offensive” books from public library shelves. Its members fed a political machine, electing more than one hundred Klansmen to local offices, from district attorney to mayor. Author Tim Rives shares this troubled and little-known story, where the men of the Klan’s inner circle ruled the city for nearly thirty years.

Today, there are more than 100,000 Lithuanians in Chicago, making the city home to the greatest concentration of Lithuanians outside of the country itself.

Their presence in Chicago began in 1834 and drastically increased during the 20th century as immigrants and their descendants sought work in the stockyards and other industries. Lithuanians in Chicago were dedicated to celebrating and preserving their unique culture, evident in its churches, schools, museums, and community centers in neighborhoods such as Bridgeport and Marquette Park. They also maintained ties to the homeland and played an important role in Lithuania's struggles for independence throughout the 20th century. Many prominent Lithuanian Americans are from the "City of the Big Shoulders," including football great Dick Butkus, actor John C. Reilly, and director Robert Zemeckis. The former president of Lithuania, Valdas Adamkus, was a resident of Chicagoland for nearly 50 years.

Cleveland’s neighborhood taverns are more than just places to grab a drink—they’re snapshots of the city’s history, rich with tales of community, celebration and even scandal.

Built by hardworking immigrants chasing the American Dream, these taverns were where workers cashed their paychecks, swapped stories, celebrated victories and sometimes witnessed late-night crimes. Family-run bars were often passed down through generations, becoming intertwined with the ever-changing face of the city. Although many did not survive the 1960s and ’70s, their memory lives on.

Native Clevelander and founder of My Cleveland History Tom Kaschalk honors the legendary watering holes that shaped Cleveland’s communities, hosted vibrant music scenes and served as the backdrop to both good times and life-changing events.

Part of Belt's Neighborhood Guidebook Series, The Cincinnati Neighborhood Guidebook is an in-depth look at the City of Seven Hills, written by the people who live and work there every day.Cincinnati, Ohio, is a complex mix of many different things: its present and its past, its transitions and its legacies; what defines it and distinguishes it; what makes people love it and what makes some eventually leave it. This collection, written by both lifelong Cincinnatians and recent transplants, offers a sampling of life there today--the tensions, debates, the life-and-death battles, and, not least of all, the joys that make this city so alive. It's a genuinely felt collection that offers a unique perspective on an evolving and energized city, a homegrown portrait showcasing the voices of people who know something about the way life feels--and why it feels that way--in their communities. It's about all the ways Cincinnati's differences are the very things that make the city so alive.

Here, you'll find stories that look at: How Mount Auburn changed in the aftermath of the police shooting of Samuel DuBose - The Catholic legacy in Mount Adams - A busy intersection in gentrifying Over-the-Rhine - The fading rural landscape of Camp Dennison - How life by the Ohio River defines and shapes life in Ludlow Edited by Nick Swartsell and with short essays by Gail Finke, Pauletta Hansel, Dani McClain, Ronny Salerno, Katie Vogel, and many others, this collection offers an intimate tour of the city's seven hills, its fifty-two neighborhoods, and its countless stories. Natives of Cincinnati will recognize both their streets and their histories, and readers from outside the city will get an unfiltered look at the locale known as The Queen City.

The Deadliest Twister in U.S. History

The weather forecast for much of the Midwest on March 18, 1925, predicted “Wind and rain.” This prediction was right, but lethally inadequate. Around 1 p.m., a tornado touched down near Ellington, Missouri, and charged relentlessly for three and a half hours across Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana. The destructive storm left schools and workplaces leveled, over 600 dead and 1,600 injured in its two-hundred-nineteen-mile wake—earning it the name, the Great American Tornado. A nation united, doctors and nurses rushed aboard express trains. The Red Cross orchestrated an enduring six-month relief campaign, and people contributed funds and condolences from around the world. Amidst the staggering ruin, volunteers, the Red Cross, and ordinary heroes like Isaac Levy spearheaded awe-inspiring recovery efforts that rivaled the powerful storm.

Phil Christman is one of the best cultural critics working today. Or, as a reviewer of his previous book, Midwest Futures, put it, one of the most underappreciated writers of [his] generation.You may also know Phil from his columns in Commonweal and Plough, or his viral essay What Is It Like To Be A Man?, the latter adapted in his new book, How to Be Normal.

Christman's second book includes essays on How To Be White, How to Be Religious, How To Be Married, and more, in addition to new versions of the above. Find in it also brilliant analyses of middlebrow culture, bad movies, Mark Fisher, Christian fundamentalism, and more.

With exquisite attention to syntax and prose, the astoundingly well-read Christman pairs a deceptively breezy style with radical openness. In his witty, original hands, seemingly normal subjects are rendered exceptional, and exceptionally.

Explore the lasting influence of the Finnish people in the Upper Peninsula.

At the time, Hancock consisted of nothing more than a small cluster of humble buildings, but it was here, on the outskirts of mid-19th-century civilization, that Finnish settlement in Michigan's Upper Peninsula (UP) took root. Much to the surprise of these new Americans, Midsummer was not a religious holiday marked by feasts in celebration of the season's prolonged sunlight. Rather, the newcomers were immediately hastened into the bowels of the earth to extract copper in pursuit of the American Dream. In short order, hardworking Finnish immigrants became reputable miners, lumberjacks, farmers, maids, and commercial fishermen. A century and a half later, the UP boasts the largest Finnish population outside of the motherland and sustains the determined spirit the Finns call sisu - an influence that remains palpable in all 15 UP counties.

A dictionary wrapped in some serious dialectology inside a gift book trailing a serious whiff of Relevance -The New York Times

In this book on Midwestern accents, and sayings, Edward McClelland explains what Midwesterners say and how and why they say it. He examines the causes of the Northern Cities Vowel Shift, explains the nasality of Minnesota speech, and details why Chicagoans talk more like people from Buffalo than their next-door neighbors in Wisconsin. He provides humorous definitions of jargon from the region, including:

-squeaky cheese -city chicken -shampoo banana -the Pittsburgh toilet -FIB -bubbler -Chevy in the Hole -jagoff

The book also includes detailed glossaries of slang from Buffalo, the Great Lakes, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, and Wisconsin slang and sayings.

This delightful romp through the region is the perfect gift for Midwesterners, and the perfect book for anyone wanting to learn more about the region's dialects.

Illustrating the first 75 years of Chicago's influential Polish neighborhood.

Polish Downtown is Chicago's oldest Polish settlement and was the capital of American Polonia from the 1870s through the first half of the 20th century. Nearly all Polish undertakings of any consequence in the U.S. during that time either started or were directed from this part of Chicago's near northwest side. Chicago's Polish Downtown features some of the most beautiful churches in Chicago - St. Stanislaus Kostka, Holy Trinity and St. John Cantius - stunning examples of Renaissance and Baroque Revival architecture that form part of the largest concentration of Polish parishes in Chicago. The headquarters for almost every major Polish organization in America were clustered within blocks of each other and four Polish-language daily newspapers were published here. The heart of the photographic collection in this book is from the extensive library and archives of the Polish Museum of America, still located in the neighborhood today.

What started as an institution to reform young and non-violent criminals became one of the most infamous prisons in American history.

Before 1884, most first-time offenders between the ages of 16 and 30 were housed in the Ohio Penitentiary, where they were likely to be influenced by hardened criminals. That changed when the Ohio Legislature approved the building of a reformatory, a new type of institution that would educate and train these young men. Since its opening in 1896, the reformatory expanded its training programs and became a self-sustaining institution - the largest of its kind in the United States. By 1970, the reformatory had become a maximum-security prison filled with the most dangerous criminals in the U.S., with a death row but no death chamber. It closed on December 31, 1990, but preservation and restoration efforts are ongoing, and it continues to be as infamous today as in its heyday, appearing in numerous television shows and feature films, including The Shawshank Redemption.

Sodaro's book reveals the deadly 1967 tornado that struck towns of Belvidere and Oak Lawn in northern Illinois and left a 16 mile long path of destruction.

The morning of April 21, 1967, was crisp and clear, marking the arrival of spring. As the day progressed, dark clouds covered the skies over Oak Lawn, and a deadly tornado touched down in the village just before 5:30 p.m. Cutting through the intersection of 95th Street and Southwest Highway and striking elsewhere, the storm left mountains of debris and over 30 people dead in its wake. Oak Lawn Community High School, St. Gerald Catholic Church, and the Fairway Super Mart were among the structures damaged or destroyed by the high winds. After the disaster, rescue workers and volunteers poured into Oak Lawn to search for survivors, while Christ Community Hospital and other institutions treated more than 400 injured people. The immense cleanup, which took weeks to complete, saw debris hauled out or disposed of in controlled fires. Despite the scope of the devastation, many of the affected structures were repaired or rebuilt within 12 months.

Bucolic Door County has a rich haunted history of spooky shipwrecks, bizarre tales and ghost stories.

Because Door County received its name from Death's Door, the perilous strait with more freshwater shipwrecks than anywhere else in the world, it should be no surprise that the idyllic county has plenty of ghostly history. In the company of storyteller Gayle Soucek, meet lighthouse keepers whose sense of duty extends beyond the grave. Catch a glimpse of the phantom ship Le Griffon, never seen for more than a moment since it sailed through a crack in the ice in 1679. And it is not just the waters of Door County that carry the freight of haunted tales--Country Road T has its share of spooks, bizarre beasts have caused disturbances in the woods and there are whispered rumors that infamous gangster Al Capone added to the county's stock of ghosts through a handful of brutal murders, including an ex-girlfriend and two unacknowledged children.

Cincinnati played a large part in creatng a refuge for escaped salaves and in the Underground Railroad movement.

Nearly a century after the American Revolution, the waters of the Ohio River provided a real and complex barrier for the United States to navigate. While this waterway was a symbol of freedom and equality for thousands of enslaved black Americans who had escaped from the horrible institution of enslavement, the Ohio River was also used to transport thousands of slaves down the river to the Deep South. Due to Cincinnati's location on the banks of the river, the city's economy was tied to the slave society in the South. However, a special cadre of individuals became very active in the quest for freedom undertaken by African American fugitives on their journeys to the North. Thanks to spearheading by this group of Cincinnatian trailblazers, the ""Queen City"" became a primary destination on the Underground Railroad, the first multiethnic, multiracial, multiclass human-rights movement in the history of the United States.

Chicago's legacy of organized crime is legendary. Through a vivid and visually stunning collection of images author John Binder tells the story of the people and places of the world of organized crime in the center of the midwest.

No business, legitimate or otherwise, has had a more raucous influence on the history of a city than that of the Outfit in Chicago. From the roots of organized crime in the late 19th century to the present day, The Chicago Outfit examines the evolution of the city's underworld, focusing on their business activities and leadership along with the violence and political protection they employed to become the most successful of the Cosa Nostra crime families. Through a vivid and visually stunning collection of images, many of which are published here for the first time, author John Binder tells the story of the people and places of the world of organized crime from a fresh and informed point of view.

Circle City Catastrophes/

Disaster was a fact of everyday life in 1800s and early 1900s Indianapolis. During the 1860s, more than 1,700 people died in what is now the Herron-Morton Place neighborhood. In 1882, ten people drowned under the Union Railroad Depot. Ropes were considered an adequate fire escape in the 1890s, but when the National Surgical Institute caught fire, they proved unequal to the task. The owners of the Prest-O-Lite Company created the world-famous Indianapolis Motor Speedway, but their company also had four major incidents that caused eleven deaths and destruction in the city. In 1917, Hollywood was responsible for the deaths of six people in an Indianapolis apartment building. Join Jack Finney as he explores these and other Indianapolis fires and disasters./ 

Join Jack Finney as he explores these and other Indianapolis fires and disasters./ 

A part of Belt's City Anthology Series. A lively grab bag of essays, fiction and poetry that reads at times like a who's who of contemporary Chicago writers/residents.--The Chicago Tribune

Chicago is a city built on meat, railroads, and steel, on opportunity and exploitation. But its identity has long involved so much more than manufacturing. Today, the city continues to lure new residents from around the world, and from across a region rocked by recession and deindustrialization.

The problems that plague the region don't disappear once you pass the Indiana border, though. In fact, they're often amplified. And Chicago is a complicated city because of that, defined by movement that's the anchor of the Midwest, but bound to its neighbors by a shared ecosystem and economy.

Rust Belt Chicago collects essays, fiction, and poetry from more than fifty writers who speak directly to the concerns the city shares with the region at large, and the elements that set it apart. With contributions from writers like Aleksandar Hemon, Kathleen Rooney, and Zoe Zolbrod, and here you'll find stories about:

- Buying Bread on Devon Street

- The Cantinas of Pilsen

- Bike commutes through the North Side

- Adventures on the El.

Writing with affection, frustration, anger, and joy, the writers in this collection capture all the harmony and dissonance that define one cacophonous place.

A wide-ranging insider's look at one of the world's most iconic cities.

A brief, cogent analysis of gentrification in Chicago ... an incisive and useful narrative on the puzzle of urban development.--Kirkus Reviews

In the years after World War II, a movement began to bring the middle class back from the Chicago suburbs to the Lincoln Park neighborhood on the city's North Side. In place of the old, poorly maintained apartments and dense streetscapes of taverns and butchers, rehabbers imagined a new kind of neighborhood--a renovated, modern community that held on to the convenience, diversity, and character of a historic urban quarter, but also enjoyed the prosperity and privileges of a new subdivision.

But as the old buildings came down, cheap studios were combined to create ever more spacious, luxurious homes. Property values swiftly rose, and the people who were being evicted to make room for progress began to assert their own ideas about the future of Lincoln Park. Over the course of the 1960s, divisions within the community deepened. Letters and picket lines gave way to increasingly violent strikes and counterstrikes as each camp tried to settle the same existential questions that beguile so many cities today: Who is a neighborhood for? And who gets to decide?

A riveting historical look at gentrification and urban renewal projects that still resonates across every American city today.

Based on Corey Geiger's popular Homesteader's Hope column, On a Wisconsin Family Farm flings the barn doors wide open to a cast of characters who built America's Dairyland.

In 1905, twenty-eight-year-old Anna Satorie, granddaughter of Bohemian immigrants, went against cultural norms and became the sole owner of her family's homestead when she purchased the farm from her father. The next year, Anna married neighboring farmer John Burich, also of Bohemian extraction, and the couple went about building a thrifty family farm. But pioneer life was fraught with trials and tribulations. Polio and tuberculosis claimed loved ones, and the difficulties of Prohibition forced the family to fabricate the death of John's bootlegging brother to keep gangsters away from the farm. Neighbors pitched in as fellow immigrant families helped construct farmsteads and support one another through unsanctioned bank loans, daring dynamite work, and barn raisings. Leaving work aside, this vibrant community also threw parties met by the rooster's early-dawn crow.

Pairing his rural roots with lively storytelling, Geiger captures six generations of farming, family, and faith.

Chicago was once the second-largest Bohemian city outside the Czech lands. The Czechs first settled, serendipitously, behind the notorious O'Leary barn.

Spared the Great Fire of 1871, they were displaced several blocks south by the ensuing land crush. There they built more permanent quarters in the community that became known as Pilsen, a neighborhood whose name and architecture survive to recall its Bohemian origins. The thriving Czechs soon began a century-long move westward from Lawndale to Cicero to Berwyn, and today they flourish across the western suburbs. From the desolation of the 1915 Eastland disaster, in which hundreds of victims were of Czech descent, to the triumphant Depression-era election of Czech-born mayor Antonín Cˇermák, Czechs of Chicagoland depicts how the Czech community and its great leaders, benevolent societies, and charitable and social organizations have shaped and continue to shape the course of Chicago's history.

Part of Belt's city anthology series, a reconsideration of one of America's most misunderstood cities.

Is Indianapolis just another midwestern city to fly over on the way to bigger and better destinations? Or is it, as locals know, a place where different peoples and ideals converge to create a rich cultural center? The Indianapolis Anthology showcases Naptown's vibrancy and diversity with pieces from journalists, poets, historians, established community voices, and first-time writers. The Circle City is more than the home of the Indianapolis 500, John Dillinger, Kenneth Babyface Edmonds, Kurt Vonnegut, Prozac, and Wonder Bread. In these pages, you'll find:

- lawn chairs in the beds of pick-ups

- Punk rock in Naptown

- suffragists and entrepreneurs

- cement pietàs

- dog bakeries and yoga studios

- red brick bungalows and war memorials

- steakburgers and Mexican seafood; pho and sauerbraten.

In other words, you'll find images from a city that is truly a cross section of today's America. Edited by Norman Buzz Minnick and with contributions from Etheridge Knight, Terrance Hayes, Michael Martone, and Karen Kovacik.

An insiders' look that will make you see a great midwestern city in a brand-new light.

The food that fuels hardworking Chicagoans needs to be hearty, portable and inexpensive. Featuring select stories and recipes, author Amy Bizzarri surveys the delectable landscape of Chicago's homegrown culinary hits.

Enterprising locals transform standard fare into Chicago classics, including Spinning Salad, Flaming Saganaki, Jumpballs, Jim Shoes, Pizza Puffs and Pullman Bread. The restaurants, bakeries, taverns and pushcarts cherished from one generation to the next offer satisfying warmth in winter and sweet refreshment in summer. This timeless balancing act produced icons like the Cape Cod Room's Bookbinder Soup and the Original Rainbow Cone, as well as Andersonville Coffee Cake and Taylor Street's Italian Lemonade.

During World War II, no American city suffered a worse housing shortage than Detroit, and no one suffered that shortage more than the city's African American citizens.

In 1941, the federal government began constructing the Sojourner Truth Housing Project in northeast Detroit to house 200 black war production workers and their families. Almost immediately, whites in the neighborhood vehemently protested. On February 28, 1942, a confrontation between black tenants and white protesters erupted in a riot that sent at least 40 to the hospital and more than 220 to jail. This confrontation was the precursor to the bloodiest race riot of the war just sixteen months later.

Gerald Van Dusen, author of 2020 Michigan Notable Books nominee Detroit's Birwood Wall, unfolds the background and events of this overlooked moment in Motor City history.

Prior to the Civil War, thousands escaped slavery via the Underground Railroad. Untold others failed in the attempt.

These unfortunate souls were dragged into bondage via the Reverse Underground Railroad, as it came to be called. With more lines on both roads than any other state, the Free State of Ohio became a hunting ground for slavecatchers and kidnappers who roamed the North with impunity, seeking “fugitives” or any person of color who could be sold into slavery. And when they found one, they would kidnap their victim and head south to reap the reward.

David Meyers and Elise Meyers Walker, authors of Historic Black Settlements of Ohio, reveal not only the terror and injustice but also the bravery and determination born of this dark time in American history.

Learn the story behind one of Detroit's most infamous mobs with rare photographs documenting their rise and fall.

Motor City Mafia: A Century of Organized Crime in Detroit chronicles the storied and hallowed gangland history of the notorious Detroit underworld. Scott M. Burnstein takes the reader inside the belly of the beast, tracking the bloodshed, exploits, and leadership of the southeast Michigan crime syndicate as never before seen in print. Through a stunning array of rare archival photographs and images, Motor City Mafia captures Detroit's most infamous past, from its inception in the early part of the 20th century, through the years when the iconic Purple Gang ruled the city's streets during Prohibition, through the 1930s and the formation of the local Italian mafia, and the Detroit crime family's glory days in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, all the way to the downfall of the area's mob reign in the 1980s and 1990s.

Cleveland's Little Italy's people, history and rebirth today can be found in these pages.

Developed in the late 19th century, Cleveland's Little Italy neighborhood, on the city's east side, was peopled with Italian artisans and craftsmen, many of whom were drawn to jobs carving monuments for the nearby Lake View Cemetery. The compact area relied on the local parish, Holy Rosary; charitable institutions, such as Alta House; and the cohesiveness of the neighborhood to sustain itself. It also produced a number of interesting favorite sons, including Angelo Vitantonio, the inventor of the pasta machine; championship boxer Tony Brush; and Anthony Celebrezze, Cleveland mayor, federal judge, and secretary of health, education, and welfare under Pres. John F. Kennedy and Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson. The area continued to grow until after World War II, when residents graduated from the old neighborhood to Cleveland's eastern suburbs. During the last 20 years, however, Little Italy has experienced a rebirth, and today the area combines Old World charm with a vibrant art scene, new housing, and a host of popular restaurants.

A part of Belt's City Anthology Series, A Detroit Anthology offers a unique take on the Motor City told by longtime residents and newcomers, including activists, teachers, artists, and students--a 2015 Michigan Notable Book.

People have long told stories about Detroit, but too often those stories are from outsiders looking in, telling the city what it's all about. In A Detroit Anthology, Anna Clark, a Detroit-based journalist for ProPublica, collects the kinds of stories about the Motor City that people tell at the bar, waiting at the bus stop, sitting on their porch, or at church social hours. Featuring essays, photographs, art, and poetry by Tyehimba Jess, Grace Lee Boggs, Aaron Foley, John Carlisle, Desiree Cooper, Dream Hampton, Tracie McMillan, and many others. The Millions describes it as a book that gives voice to people who now live or once lived in this fascinating, tortured place, the survivors, good people who know what pain is, people who understand that the city exerts an undying pull on them. The Detroit stories here might not all be glowing or gloomy, but they're 100% real.

A wide-ranging and diverse portrait of a city, perfect for those who want to get to know Detroit for the first time or for those native Detroiters who want a more candid look at the city they call home.

Door County is the home to numerous shipwrecks of pleasure craft and steamers, on a photographic journey of the treacherous waters and those they have claimed.

Door County is the final resting place of many shipwrecks, from the first Euro American ship to sail the western Great Lakes, LaSalle's fabled Griffin that left Washington Island in 1679 never to be heard of again, to modern-day pleasure crafts that find the shallow inlets and bays hard to navigate. Door Peninsula Shipwrecks takes the reader on a photographic journey around the peninsula and back to a time of wooden ships and iron men. From Sturgeon Bay to the east coast of the peninsula to the northern islands and Green Bay, the journey encompasses early wooden sail craft to steel steamers, the brave sailors who sailed the treacherous waters, and the heroic lifesavers who rescued them.

Phil Christman is one of the best cultural critics working today. Or, as a reviewer of his previous book, Midwest Futures, put it, one of the most underappreciated writers of [his] generation.You may also know Phil from his columns in Commonweal and Plough, or his viral essay What Is It Like To Be A Man?, the latter adapted in his new book, How to Be Normal.

Christman's second book includes essays on How To Be White, How to Be Religious, How To Be Married, and more, in addition to new versions of the above. Find in it also brilliant analyses of middlebrow culture, bad movies, Mark Fisher, Christian fundamentalism, and more.

With exquisite attention to syntax and prose, the astoundingly well-read Christman pairs a deceptively breezy style with radical openness. In his witty, original hands, seemingly normal subjects are rendered exceptional, and exceptionally.

By 1900, one in four Chicagoans was either German born or had a German-born parent.

No other ethnic group's thumbprint has been larger in helping establish Chicago as a major economic and cultural center nor has any group's influence been more erased by the passage and vicissitudes of time. Lost German Chicago traces the mosaic of German life through the tumultuous events of the Beer Riots, Haymarket Affair, Prohibition, and America's entry into two world wars. The book is a companion piece to the Lost German Chicago exhibition debuting in the newly created DANK-Haus German American Cultural Center museum, located in what is still known today as the ""German town"" of the north side of Chicago. Entrusted as the caretaker of many archives, artifacts, and historical documents from many now defunct German organizations, the DANK-Haus German American Cultural Center has been committed to preserving history, traditions, and contributions of Germans and German Americans for over 50 years.

Human action made one of the worst natural disasters in Indiana history even worse. Indiana and the Great Flood of 1913 reveals how this happened and how to avoid a similar fate in the future.

Indiana suffered enormous losses in the Great Flood of 1913, yet this disaster is largely forgotten. The combined tornado and flood barreled through Terre Haute, killing more than twenty. One hundred fourteen miles away in Peru, the circus lost most of its animals in the storm. At the southwestern corner of the state, a "sea of water,'? as local papers put it, washed over Evansville turning streets into canals. In the capital, levee failures left hundreds homeless and vulnerable to disease and famine. Pulling from archival photographs, newspapers, and local accounts, Dr. Nancy M. Germano shares stories from across the state to reveal how Indiana's history of settlement and development contributed to one of the state's worst disasters.

A collection of chilling tales from the most haunted places in Western Michigan.

Western Michigan is home to some of the state's most picturesque places - and also some of its most chilling tales. Ghost story researcher and enthusiast Amberrose Hammond exposes the mysterious and spirit-ridden world of many beloved Michigan destinations as she skillfully weaves narratives of a world unseen by most. From the lingering spirit forever working in the Grand Theatre and the band of melon-headed children prowling the Saugatuck State Park to the lights of the Lake Forest Cemetery staircase waiting to reveal one's place in the afterlife, these tales are sure to give pause to anyone daring enough to experience these hauntingly beautiful spots...after dark.

Home to Chicago's Polish Village, impressive examples of architecture, and the legendary Olson Waterfall, Avondale is often called "the neighborhood that built Chicago."

Images of America: Avondale and Chicago's Polish Village sheds light on the little known history of the community, including its fascinating industrial past. From its beginnings as a sleepy subdivision started by a Michigan senator, it became a cultural mecca for Chicago's Polish community, playing a crucial role in Poland's struggles for independence. Many people from all over the world also called Avondale home, such as Scottish proprietors, African American freedmen, Irish activists, Swedish shopkeepers, German tradesmen, Jewish merchants, Filipino laborers, and Italian entrepreneurs; a diversity further enriched as many from the former Soviet Bloc and Latin America settled here. Avondale would be unrecognizable today from its humble origins, but the strong sense of community these neighbors have will never change.

It is impossible to explore the history of Cincinnati without looking at the influence of German-Americans.

German Cincinnati is a pictorial history of the German-American experience in the Greater Cincinnati area: the people, places, and things that influenced that influenced this culturally rich city and made it what it is today. This book is a must-read for anyone with an interest in German-American or people Cincinnati history.

German immigrants first came to the region in the late 18th century and then arrived in great waves beginning in the early 19th century. These German American immigrants and their descendants have greatly influenced the social, political, cultural, religious, and economic growth and development of the area, earning Cincinnati a reputation for its German heritage. Today, nearly every other person in Cincinnati can trace some German lineage in their family tree. It is known as one of the corners in the famed German Triangle, along with St. Louis and Milwaukee. German Cincinnatians survived the hard times of the world wars of the last century, even experiencing an ethnic heritage revival that has reaffirmed the area's reputation as one of the major centers of German heritage in the United States today.

Join author Don Heinrich Tolzmann, curator of the German-Americana Collection and director of the German-American Studies Program at the University of Cincinnati, as he looks at the complex and prosperous history of German-Americans in Cincinnati.

They made our cigars and our cars, but they also made Detroit their own. This is the history of Detroit's Polish community, Polonia.

More than a century has passed since the first Polish immigrants settled in Detroit. These pioneers left Poland for freedom of language and religion, and to own property, the American Dream that had talked about all over Europe. They replicated village life in the big city, living in close-knit neighborhoods anchored by the parish church. Polish immigrants made cigars, built railroad cars, molded stoves, established businesses and breweries, and eventually moved into the political arena. The struggles and triumphs of these early settlers are on display in the pages of Detroit Polonia, a photographic history that links future generations with their Polish heritage.

Between 1914 and 1951, Black Bottom's black community emerged out of the need for black migrants to find a place for themselves.

Because of the stringent racism and discrimination in housing, blacks migrating from the South seeking employment in Detroit's burgeoning industrial metropolis were forced to live in this former European immigrant community. During World War I through World War II, Black Bottom became a social, cultural, and economic center of struggle and triumph, as well as a testament to the tradition of black self-help and community-building strategies that have been the benchmark of black struggle. Black Bottom also had its troubles and woes. However, it would be these types of challenges confronting Black Bottom residents that would become part of the cohesive element that turned Black Bottom into a strong and viable community.

Explore America's Dairyland and the American Spirit

At the dawn of World War II, Wisconsin was home to nearly 200,000 dairy farms. Today, barely 6,000 remain. The ghosts of the missing can still be seen in withering old farms along lonely highways, some restored, many abandoned or decayed, but all with a story to tell. Immigrants dreamed of owning their own farms, only to be fleeced by the promotion of "cutover'? lands in the Northwoods. Freedmen and women arrived in southwestern Wisconsin and became farmers and renowned barn-builders in one of the earliest integrated communities in the nation.

Through hundreds of hours of site visits, interviews, and research, historian and photographer, Scott Wittman extracts the forgotten truths from legend to tell the real stories of those who created The Dairy State.

Milwaukee is best known for its beer - and rightfully so. But in the days of Prohibition, the big alcohol suppliers were not Miller, Blatz, Schlitz, and Pabst.

The Mafia had control, and it made its money by running alcohol as far away as Canada and Indiana, as well as with counterfeiting, the numbers racket, and two of the biggest heists in American history. From then on, the sky was the limit, as the Mafia indulged in extortion, protection rackets, and skimming from Las Vegas casinos. The Cream City had its crooked lawyers, corrupt cops, and even a mayor on the take. There was the blood of those who dared to stand in the syndicate's way, who were found dead in ditches or as victims of car bombs. The members of the Mafia included doctors, real estate men, restaurateurs, tavern owners, funeral directors, union presidents, and the most famous Milwaukee gangster of all, Frank Balistrieri. While now considered extinct, the Milwaukee Family was once a dominant force in the Midwest.

Croatians of Chicagolandexamines how the Croatian community, its leaders, clergy, laborers, politicians, athletes, benevolent societies, and social organizations helped build and shape Chicago's history.

Chicago was once known as the Second Croatian Capital. Lured by economic, political, and social freedoms, Croatians, like other immigrants, came to Chicago in search of the American dream.

The first documented groups settled mainly in Pilsen, Bridgeport, and theSouth Side in the late 1800s. By the turn of the century, these immigrants toiled in Chicago's steel mills, meatpacking plants, and construction sites. They soon formed social groups, churches, schools, Croatian-language newspapers, and other infrastructure needed to support the expanding community. Today there are more than 150,000 descendants of Croatian heritage in the Chicagolandarea, and many of the foundations built by the forefathers continue to service the community. Ivan Meštrovic´'s Indiansculptures still adorn Congress Parkwayand Michael Bilandic´ remains in the history books as the only Croatian mayor of Chicago.

Author Maria Dugandžic´-Pašic´ was born, and still lives, in Chicago. Her mother was a first-generation Croatian whose parents emigrated in 1951. Her father arrived in the early 1960s from Bosnia-Herzegovina. As a producer with CNN, she has covered major news events in Chicago, Rome, London, Jerusalem, and the Balkans.

The riveting story of Slovenian heritage in Cleveland, Ohio and how the culture remains relevant even today.

The Newburgh, St. Clair and Collinwood neighborhoods formed the core of Greater Cleveland's enormous Slovenian population, still the largest in America. The city's Slovenian heritage is replete with gripping tales of World War II prison camp escapes and bizarre bank robbers who threatened the St. Clair Savings institution. The catastrophic East Ohio Gas explosion and tragic Collinwood school fire are etched into local consciousness. The rise of neighborhood residents to professional sports stardom and national political prominence contribute to a proud legacy. And the century-old Cleveland style Slovenian polka remains an important cultural expression. Author Alan Dutka offers the first comprehensive history of the struggles and triumphs of Cleveland's Slovenians.

Once considered the most famous African-American resort community in the country, Idlewild was referred to as the Black Eden of Michigan in the 1920s and '30s, and as the Summer Apollo of Michigan in the 1950s and '60s.

Showcasing classy revues and interactive performances of some of the leading black entertainers of the period, Idlewild was an oasis in the shadows of legal segregation. Idlewild: Black Eden of Michigan focuses on this illustrative history, as well as the decline and the community's contemporary renaissance, in over 200 rare photographs. The lively legacy of Lela G. and Herman O. Wilson, and Paradise Path is included, featuring images of the Paradise Club and Wilson's Grocery. Idlewild continued its role as a distinctive American resort throughout the 1950s, with photographs ranging from Phil Giles' Flamingo Club and Arthur Braggs's Idlewild Revue.

Here is the black Chicago family album, of African Americans leaving the violent, racist South and ""goin' to Chicago"" to find the American Dream.

The story of black Chicago is so rich that few know it all. It began long before the city itself. Wells, the Eighth Regiment, Jesse Jackson, Oprah, and much more . . . including a guy named Obama. ""The first white man here was a black man,"" Potowatami natives reportedly said about Jean Baptiste Point DuSable, the brown-skinned man recognized as Chicago's first non-Indian settler. It's all here: from the site of DuSable's cabin--now smack-dab in the middle of Chicago's Magnificent Mile--to images of famous and infamous residents like boxers Jack Johnson, Muhammad Ali, and Joe Louis. Here are leaders and cultural touchstones like Jesse Binga's bank, Robert S. Abbott's Chicago Defender, legendary filmmaker Oscar Micheaux, Ida B. Here is the black Chicago family album, of folks who made and never made the headlines, and pictures and stories of kinship and fellowship of African Americans leaving the violent, racist South and ""goin' to Chicago"" to find their piece of the American Dream. Chicago has been called the ""Second City,"" but black Chicago is second to none.

After an extremely hot and dry summer, Chicago got a spark that grew into something unimiginable and unforgettable on Oct. 8, 1871.

On Oct. 8, 1871, what became known as "the Great Chicago Fire" was a massive firestorm that moved faster than most men could run, fueled by southwest winds of at least 30 miles per hour. The heat was so intense it melted stone and brick buildings in minutes and turned sand on the lakeshore into glass. A total of 18,000 buildings were destroyed. About 100,000 were left homeless, and over 300 lost their lives. The very same day, and nearly the same hour, both the Lower Peninsula of Michigan and Peshtigo, Wisconsin, suffered similar firestorms. Peshtigo's was even worse, creating an event that came to be known as "the Peshtigo Paradigm." Many people believe the three fires forming a huge triangle of destruction were related as one with cosmic causes, and it remains a mystery to this day. Authors and native Chicagoans John Boda and Ray Johnson take you inside this historic happening.

Relive and discover the remarkable evolution and contribution of Jewish people of Chicago, from the 1840s to present day.

For many years Chicago had the third largest Jewishpopulation of any city in the world. Through the medium of historic photographs, this book captures the remarkable evolution of the Jewish people of Chicago, from their immigrant beginnings in the 1840s to their present-day communities. It is a story of the cultural, religious, economic, and everyday life of Chicago's Jews. These pages bring to life the people, events, neighborhoods, and institutions that helped shape and transform today's Jewish community. The photos and maps, culled from the author's and other collections, paint a vivid and informative picture of Chicago Jewry. In addition to recalling the early immigrant German and later Eastern European Jews, this book delves into Jewish neighborhoods including the West Side, South Side, North Side, suburban communities, and Maxwell Street, a neighborhood which produced such prominent Jews as musician Benny Goodman, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg, Admiral Hyman Rickover, community organizer Saul Alinsky, and CBS founder William Paley. Chicago Jews have also made contributions to the city and the nation in the arts,commerce and industry, government service, entertainment, and labor, including seven Nobel prize winners. The images show Jews as peddlers and sweatshop workers as well as successful business entrepreneurs and professionals.

Believe in the Magic

The most wonderful time of the year has its own special meaning for those who grew up in the Queen City. The elves at Shillito’s and Pogie and Patter the talking reindeer were as integral to holiday merriment as caroling and eggnog. The Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden really knows how to throw a Christmas party for people and animals, and WinterFest at Kings Island provides much-needed warmth in the winter chill. Many city squares display Christmas trees bathed in lights and offer horse-drawn carriages or a skating rink. But only Cincinnati offers Santa rappelling down the face of a building and an ice skating rink with bumper cars.

Join local author Wendy Hart Beckman for a merry jaunt through Yuletide years gone by.