Describes the story of a group of people from the Philippines who were transported to Coney Island in 1905 to be portrayed as “headhunting, dog-eating savages” in a Luna Park freak show.
In Pursuit of the Speckled Gumball is a heartrending and hilarious recounting of the quest for recognition and acceptance by a young boy amid the chaos of alcoholism, abuse, and deceit. Henry, a gentle old Black man, takes the boy into his heart and with words inspires him to overcome the forces trying to destroy him. His father, a handsome philandered, is transformed into a demon by alcohol. The mother’s weakness allows abuse and violence to dominate the boy’s life. His sister, six years older, is assigned responsibility for his care at too early an age; her resentment explodes into rage. Finally he faces the obstacles initiated by a tyrannical school administrator. “ . . . I found Myers’ story telling as compelling as the hard fiction of Walter Mosley . . . and Barbara Hambly . .. And even equal to Maya Angelou’s I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings . . . I laughed and I cried as he masterfully unfolded the twists and turns of his life. . . .” —Deborah Wright, Port Saint Joe, Florida. “I loved the book . . . . (In Pursuit of the Speckled Gumball) . . . reminded me of Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes . . . . hooked me from the start . . . How profound that just a few simple words can keep a child going.” —Gwen Hewitt, Canton, Oklahoma. “Those of us who from time to time deal with troubled children particularly ought to read this book . . . a reading experience in which I could hardly wait to get back to . . .” —Briefcase, Book Notes, Oklahoma City “What a magnificent book it (In Pursuit of the Speckled Gumball) was. . . . “ —Kathryn Rager, Waco, Texas. . “I read the whole book before I put it down . . . loved it! . . .” —Linda Royal Bridges, Harrah, Oklahoma.
Published on the occasion of an exhibition of the same name organized by the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, Connecticut, and held there January 31-May 31, 2015; at the San Diego Museum of Art, Calif., July 11-October 13, 2015; at the Brooklyn Museum, N.Y., November 20, 2015-March 13, 2016; and at the McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Tex., May 11-September 11, 2016.
The technological, economic and social landscape of the consumer society was formed between the 1880s and 1920s. The author of this study shows how cinema played a key role in changing the urban landscape, using Chicago as a model and linking cinema theory with women's studies.
A wide-ranging history of assisted reproductive technologies and their ethical implications. Finalist of the PROSE Award for Best Book in History of Science, Medicine and Technology by the Association of American Publishers Since the 1978 birth of the first IVF baby, Louise Brown, in England, more than eight million children have been born with the help of assisted reproductive technologies. From the start, they have stirred controversy and raised profound questions: Should there be limits to the lengths to which people can go to make their idea of family a reality? Who should pay for treatment? How can we ensure the ethical use of these technologies? And what can be done to address the racial and economic disparities in access to care that enable some to have children while others go without? In The Pursuit of Parenthood, historian Margaret Marsh and gynecologist Wanda Ronner seek to answer these challenging questions. Bringing their unique expertise in gender history and women's health to the subject, Marsh and Ronner examine the unprecedented means—liberating for some and deeply unsettling for others—by which families can now be created. Beginning with the early efforts to create embryos outside a woman's body and ending with such new developments as mitochondrial replacement techniques and uterus transplants, the authors assess the impact of contemporary reproductive technology in the United States. In this volume, we meet the scientists and physicians who have developed these technologies and the women and men who have used them. Along the way, the book dispels a number of fertility myths, offers policy recommendations that are intended to bring clarity and judgment to this complicated medical history, and reveals why the United States is still known as the "Wild West" of reproductive medicine.
Seventeen-year-old Ava Hall continues to learn more about herself and her heritage through her work in a New York City settlement house as well as through her social obligations with the Blythewood girls.
Jane has traveled the world with her father and brother, but it's not until her fractured family-still silently suffering from the loss of Jane's mother many years before-inherits a house and a history in Coney Island that she finally begins to find a home. With the help of a new community of friends, a mermaid's secrets, and a tattooed love interest with traffic-stopping good looks, the once plain Jane begins to blossom and gains the courage to explore the secrets of her mother's past. Colorful characters, beautiful writing, and a vibrant, embattled beachfront backdrop make this the perfect summer read for anyone who has ever tried to find true love or a place to call home. Watch a Video
Amusement parks were the playgrounds of the working class in the early twentieth century, combining numerous, mechanically-based spectacles into one unique, modern cultural phenomenon. Lauren Rabinovitz describes the urban modernity engendered by these parks and their media, encouraging ordinary individuals to sense, interpret, and embody a burgeoning national identity. As industrialization, urbanization, and immigration upended society, amusement parks tempered the shocks of racial, ethnic, and cultural conflict while shrinking the distinctions between gender and class. Following the rise of American parks from 1896 to 1918, Rabinovitz seizes on a simultaneous increase in cinema and spectacle audiences and connects both to the success of leisure activities in stabilizing society. Critics of the time often condemned parks and movies for inciting moral decline, yet in fact they fostered women's independence, racial uplift, and assimilation. The rhythmic, mechanical movements of spectacle also conditioned audiences to process multiple stimuli. Featuring illustrations from private collections and accounts from unaccessed archives, Electric Dreamland joins film and historical analyses in a rare portrait of mass entertainment and the modern eye.