Greater Gotham
Greater Gotham

Author: Mike Wallace

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 1195

ISBN-13: 0195116356

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Volume two of the world famous trilogy on the history of New York

Garbage In The Cities
Garbage In The Cities

Author: Martin V. Melosi

Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Pre

Published: 2004-11-26

Total Pages: 343

ISBN-13: 0822972689

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As recently as the 1880s, most American cities had no effective means of collecting and removing the mountains of garbage, refuse, and manure-over a thousand tons a day in New York City alone-that clogged streets and overwhelmed the senses of residents. In his landmark study, Garbage in the Cities, Martin Melosi offered the first history of efforts begun in the Progressive Era to clean up this mess.Since it was first published, Garbage in the Cities has remained one of the best historical treatments of the subject. This thoroughly revised and updated edition includes two new chapters that expand the discussion of developments since World War I. It also offers a discussion of the reception of the first edition, and an examination of the ways solid waste management has become more federally regulated in the last quarter of the twentieth century.Melosi traces the rise of sanitation engineering, accurately describes the scope and changing nature of the refuse problem in U.S. cities, reveals the sometimes hidden connections between industrialization and pollution, and discusses the social agendas behind many early cleanliness programs. Absolutely essential reading for historians, policy analysts, and sociologists, Garbage in the Cities offers a vibrant and insightful analysis of this fascinating topic.

Political Manhood
Political Manhood

Author: Kevin P. Murphy

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2010-08-06

Total Pages: 319

ISBN-13: 0231129971

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In a 1907 lecture to Harvard undergraduates, Theodore Roosevelt claimed that colleges should never "turn out mollycoddles instead of vigorous men," warning that "the weakling and the coward are out of place in a strong and free community." A paradigm of ineffectuality and weakness, the mollycoddle was "all inner life," whereas his opposite, the "red blood," was a man of action. Kevin P. Murphy reveals how the popular ideals of American masculinity coalesced around these two distinct categories. Because of its similarity to the emergent "homosexual" type, the mollycoddle became a powerful rhetorical figure, often used to marginalize and stigmatize certain political actors. Murphy's history follows the redefinition of manhood across a variety of classes, especially in the work of late nineteenth-century reformers who trumpeted the virility of the laboring classes. Challenging the characterization of the relationship between political "machines" and social and municipal reformers at the turn of the twentieth century, he revolutionizes our understanding of the gendered and sexual meanings attached to political and ideological positions of the Progressive Era.

Huck’s Raft
Huck’s Raft

Author: Steven Mintz

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2006-04-30

Total Pages: 472

ISBN-13: 0674736478

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Like Huck’s raft, the experience of American childhood has been both adventurous and terrifying. For more than three centuries, adults have agonized over raising children while children have followed their own paths to development and expression. Now, Steven Mintz gives us the first comprehensive history of American childhood encompassing both the child’s and the adult’s tumultuous early years of life. Underscoring diversity through time and across regions, Mintz traces the transformation of children from the sinful creatures perceived by Puritans to the productive workers of nineteenth-century farms and factories, from the cosseted cherubs of the Victorian era to the confident consumers of our own. He explores their role in revolutionary upheaval, westward expansion, industrial growth, wartime mobilization, and the modern welfare state. Revealing the harsh realities of children’s lives through history—the rigors of physical labor, the fear of chronic ailments, the heartbreak of premature death—he also acknowledges the freedom children once possessed to discover their world as well as themselves. Whether at work or play, at home or school, the transition from childhood to adulthood has required generations of Americans to tackle tremendously difficult challenges. Today, adults impose ever-increasing demands on the young for self-discipline, cognitive development, and academic achievement, even as the influence of the mass media and consumer culture has grown. With a nod to the past, Mintz revisits an alternative to the goal-driven realities of contemporary childhood. An odyssey of psychological self-discovery and growth, this book suggests a vision of childhood that embraces risk and freedom—like the daring adventure on Huck’s raft.

New York's Poop Scoop Law
New York's Poop Scoop Law

Author: Michael Brandow

Publisher: Purdue University Press

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 362

ISBN-13: 9781557534927

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The story of how New York City adopted laws to force pet owners to clean up after their pets. Michael Brandow shows how a combination of science and politics, fact and fear, altruism and self-interest led to the adoption and enforcement of legislation that became a shining - and perhaps surprising - success.

Colored Memories
Colored Memories

Author: Susan Curtis

Publisher: University of Missouri Press

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 307

ISBN-13: 0826266290

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Lester A. Walton was a well known public figure in his day. An African American journalist, cultural critic, diplomat, and political activist, he was an adviser to presidents and industrialists in a career that spanned the first six decades of the twentieth century. He was a steadfast champion of democracy and lived to see the passage of major civil rights legislation. But one word best describes Walton today: forgotten. Exploring the contours of this extraordinary life, Susan Curtis seeks to discover why our collective memory of Walton has failed. In a unique narrative of historical research, she recounts a fifteen year journey, from the streets of Harlem and "The Ville" in St. Louis to scattered archives and obscure public records, as she uncovers the mysterious circumstances surrounding Walton's disappearance from national consciousness. And despite numerous roadblocks and dead ends in her quest, she tells how she came to know this emblematic citizen of the American Century in surprising ways. In this unconventional book¿a postmodern ghost story, an unprecedented experiment in life writing¿Curtis shares her discoveries as a researcher. Relating her frustrating search through long overlooked documents to discover this forgotten man, she offers insight into how America's obsession with race has made Walton's story unwelcome. She explores the treachery, duplicity, and archival accidents that transformed a man dedicated to the fulfillment of American democracy into a shadowy figure. Combining anecdotal memories with the investigative instincts of the historian, Curtis embraces the subjectivity of her research to show that what a society forgets or suppresses is just as important as what it includes in its history. Colored Memories is a highly original work that not only introduces readers to a once influential figure but also invites us to reconsider how we view, understand, and preserve the past.