Local History

The images of the burning towers, the heartbroken friends building memorials, the minute-by-minute accounts of the horrors of that day - all are indelibly etched on our collective consciousness. But what of those left behind after 9/11? What have they, and we, learned from the gift of time? In Project Rebirth, a psychologist and a journalist examine the lives of eight people who were directly affected by the events of September 11, 2001.

Rising from the waters of the Pacific off the Southern California coast, Santa Cruz Island captures the imagination. Once home to a large Chumash population, in the 19th century it became a self-sufficient island rancho. As with all islands of beauty and size, it attracted people from the coastline.

In The Northern Cheyenne Exodus in History and Memory, James N. Leiker and Ramon Powers explore how the event has been remembered, told, and retold. They examine the recollections of Indians and settlers and their descendants, and they consider local history, mass-media treatments, and literature to draw thought-provoking conclusions about how this story has changed over time.

Trains, planes, and automobiles arrive and forever change the lives of Alaskans throughout Aunt Phil’s Trunk, Volume Three. Hardy souls with hammers and drills, axes and mattocks, mauls and gauges found it took muscle and endurance to lay railroad tracks in Alaska’s untamed wilderness. Other adventurers brought automobiles and airplanes north that transformed the way we mined resources, explored the country and traveled the Great Land.

The naturalist, author, and advocate for preservation, John Muir (1838-1914) was also known as "John of the Mountains" and "Father of the National Parks". In the spring of 1869, John Muir was looking for ways to fund his explorations of California’s Central Valley region, when a ranch owner offered him a job herding sheep in the Sierra Nevada. In The Yosemite, Muir chronicled his experiences of the beautiful wilderness in appealingly descriptive prose. The audiobook is a treasure trove of portrayals of the shifting phases of the year in Yosemite.

Only an extraordinary Texas Ranger could have cleaned up bandit-plagued Southwest Texas, between the Nueces River and the Rio Grande, in the years following the Civil War. Thousands of raiders on horseback, some of them Anglo-Americans, regularly crossed the river from Mexico to pillage, murder, and rape. In desperation, the governor of Texas called on an extraordinary man, Captain Leander M. McNelly, to take command of a Ranger company and stop these border bandits. One of McNelly's recruits for this task was George Durham, a Georgia farmboy.

Educated in Amherst, Massachusetts, Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe (1819-1906) accompanied her physician-husband to California in 1849. The Shirley Letters (1922) is the book edition of a series of letters written by Mrs. Clappe to her sister in 1851 and 1852. They were first published under the pseudonym of Dame Shirley in the Pioneer magazine, 1854-55. In these letters, Louise Clappe writes of life in San Francisco and the Feather River mining communities of Rich Bar and Indian Bar.

The past 60 years have shaped and reshaped the group of French-speaking Louisiana people known as the Cajuns. During this period they have become much like other Americans and yet have remained strikingly distinct. The Cajuns: Americanization of a People explores these six decades and analyzes the forces that had an impact on Louisiana's Acadiana.

Journey to Texas, 1833 offers the first English translation of Reise nach Texas. It brings to vivid life the personalities, scenic landscapes, and customs that Dunt encountered in colonial Texas on the eve of revolution, along with his many practical suggestions for Germans who intended to emigrate.

During the bitter winter of 1786-87, Daniel Shays, a modest farmer and Revolutionary War veteran, and his compatriot Luke Day led an unsuccessful armed rebellion against the state of Massachusetts. Their desperate struggle was fueled by the injustice of a regressive tax system and a conservative state government that seemed no better than British colonial rule.

The Last Soul of Witherspoon takes a "global" approach in its history of a settlement school in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky known as Witherspoon College. Listeners will find this audiobook to be autobiographical as well as a social history told on three levels.

During World War II, American soldiers from every city and walk of life rolled through North Platte, Nebraska, on troop trains, en route to Europe and the Pacific. The tiny town transformed its modest railroad depot into the North Platte Canteen, a place where soldiers could enjoy coffee, music, home-cooked food, magazines, and friendly conversation during a stopover that lasted only a few minutes.

According to the Elliot Ness myth, which has been widely disseminated through books, television shows, and movies, Ness and the Untouchables defeated Al Capone by marshaling superior firepower. In Scarface Al and the Crime Crusaders, Dennis Hoffman presents a fresh new perspective on the downfall of Al Capone.

In the fall of 1969, Gary Bray landed in South Vietnam as a recently married, freshly minted second lieutenant in the U.S. Army. His assignment was not enviable: leading the platoon whose former members had committed the My Lai massacre--the murder of hundreds of Vietnamese civilians--18 months earlier. In this compelling memoir, he shares his experiences of Vietnam in the direct wake of that terrible event.

Prairie Gothic is full of Texas lore. Erickson tells the story of people in the context of a specific place. This place, instrumental in shaping their lives, is the flatland prairie of northwestern Texas that has gone by various names (High Plains, South Plains, Staked Plains, and Llano Estacado). One branch of Erickson's family arrived in Texas in 1858. Erickson's family interacts with significant historical figures, such as Cynthia Ann Parker, and includes members of the Estacado Quaker colony.

When Dawn House purchased a teetering cabin in Southern Utah, she didn't have it torn down for scrap but began to examine the layers of its wallpaper, encrusted with paste and the yellow of time. She found an extraordinary story within: of pioneer misfortune, lost loves, struggles against nature, ordinary homesteading, and the formation of modern Utah.

An ancient fishing ground, vital shipping passage and final resting place for those unable to navigate its rocky shoals, Nantucket Sound - bordered by Martha's Vineyard, Cape Cod and, of course, Nantucket - remains one of New England's most historic waterways. Here, the first rays of morning sunlight touch the United States before sweeping westward. In fact, the area's early inhabitants were called Wampanoag: 'People of the Dawn.'

A must-listen for all who enjoy Alaska history! Adventurers, crooks, and lawmen flooded into Alaska following the Klondike Gold Rush of 1898. Towns like Nome, Fairbanks, and Valdez blossomed on the tundra and soon filled with merchants, madams, miners, and more.

In 2008, three years after Hurricane Katrina cut a deadly path along the northern coast of the Gulf of Mexico, researchers J. Steven Picou and Keith Nicholls conducted a survey of the survivors in Louisiana and Mississippi, receiving more than 2500 responses, and followed up two years later with more than 500 of the initial respondents. Showcasing these landmark findings, Caught in the Path of Katrina: A Survey of the Hurricane's Human Effects yields a more complete understanding of the traumas endured as a result of the Storm of the Century.

The End of the Golden Gate is a penetrating journey that illuminates both what makes San Francisco so magnetizing and how it has changed vastly over time. With essays chronicling the impact of the tech-industry invasion and the evolution, gentrification, and radical cost of living that has transformed San Francisco's most beloved neighborhoods, these prescient essayists capture the lasting imprint of the 1960s counterculture movement, as well as the fight to preserve the art, music, and other creative movements that make this forever the city of love.