In this classic book, Carl Carmer describes the social life and customs of his native New York. Wandering from Buffalo to the Adirondacks across upstate New York, he heard folk tales, tall tales, stories of religious fervor and scandal. A born storyteller himself, Carmer writes about the beautiful Genesee, the Seneca and Tuscarora, the Cardiff Giant and the Loomis Gang, and the story of the Murdered Bride of Rensselaer County.
Oneida Utopia is a fresh and holistic treatment of a long-standing social experiment born of revival fervor and communitarian enthusiasm. The Oneida Community of upstate New York was dedicated to living as one family and to the sharing of all property, work, and love. Anthony Wonderley is a sensitive guide to the things and settings of Oneida life from its basis in John H. Noyes’s complicated theology, through experiments in free love and gender equality, to the moment when the commune transformed itself into an industrial enterprise based on the production of silverware. Rather than drawing a sharp boundary between spiritual concerns and worldly matters, Wonderley argues that commune and company together comprise a century-long narrative of economic success, innovative thinking, and abiding concern for the welfare of others. Oneida Utopia seamlessly combines the evidence of social life and intellectual endeavor with the testimony of built environment and material culture. Wonderley shares with readers his intimate knowledge of evidence from the Oneida Community: maps and photographs, quilts and furniture, domestic objects and industrial products, and the biggest artifact of all, their communal home. Wonderley also takes a novel approach to the thought of the commune’s founder, examining individually and in context Noyes’s reactions to interests and passions of the day, including revivalism, millennialism, utopianism, and spiritualism.
Mount Allegro is an extraordinary memoir, a celebration of Sicilian life, an engaging sociological portrait, a moving reminiscence of a fledgling writer’s escape from the restrictive culture in which he grew up. Jerre Mangione’s autobiographical chronicle of his youth in a Sicilian community in Rochester is one of the truly enduring books about the immigrant experience in this country. Family squabbles, soul-nourishing food, and the casting of evil eyes are only some of the ingredients of this richly textured book, although they must all take second place to its unforgettable characters. As Eugene Paul Nassar writes in the book’s Foreword, “Mount Allegro . . . gave a literary visibility and identity, amiable and appealing, to a poorly understood ethnic group in America, and did so at a very high level of artistry.”
In simple, darkly faceted stories, Philander Deming writes as a person whose childhood knowledge of the Adirondacks has been honed to a fine sense for its potential human tragedy. In this, the first collection of his best work, a haunting vision of the Adirondacks comes through that is hard to forget. Deming's themes revolve around deception and self-deception, loneliness, and good intentions gone awry. Most of his stories occur just before or after the Civil War. In almost every story, however, Deming shows his characters looking back towards the mountains, from the Mohawk or St. Lawrence Valley or from lonely settlements on the edge of the forest, or across Lake Champlain. Few Adirondack writers have been so convincing in conveying the keen isolation of life in the northern forest and its peculiar effects on the human mind. The wilderness community is cruel, fostered by ignorance and isolation. In the end, the mountains, seemingly a neutral back drop against which individuals confront a collective morality, are the real source of his inspiration.
William N. Fenton?s contributions to the understanding of the cultures and histories of the Iroquois are formidable. Fenton grounded his studies in decades of fieldwork among the Senecas, an encyclopedic knowledge of pertinent historical accounts, a keen appreciation for interpretive theory and practice in ethnohistory and anthropology, and an enduring, generous character. ø William Fenton: Selected Writings brings together for the first time Fenton?s most influential writings on the Iroquois and anthropology, written across nearly six decades. This volume includes Fenton?s classic studies of such key issues as Iroquois folklore, factionalism, and the repatriation of material culture; discussions of theory and practice and the methodology of ?upstreaming?; obituaries of colleagues and reviews of other studies of the Iroquois; and summaries of the early Conferences on Iroquois Research. This collection reveals much about the world of the Iroquois, past and present, as well as the career and accomplishments of Fenton himself.
A Country Strange and Far considers how and why the Methodist Church failed in the Pacific Northwest and how place can affect religious transplantation and growth.
“[The author] tells this remarkable story with honesty and compassion. Readers will find a wealth of new information not only about Kelley’s outstanding contribution to abolitionism but about the movements to bring about the end of slavery and to advance the cause of women.” —Mari Jo Buhle, Brown University In the tumultuous years before the Civil War, a young white woman from a Quaker background came to embody commitment to the cause of antislavery and equal rights for black people. Abby Kelley became the abolitionist movement’s chief money-raiser and organizer and its most radial member. She traveled hundreds of miles to awaken the country to the evils of slavery, braving hardship and prejudice as well as opening the way for other women, black and white, to take leadership roles. Now the full story of this principled woman has been told in Dorothy Sterling’s compelling biography.
