**** BCCL3 cites the 4-volume classic (Macmillan, 1952) of which this is an abridgement. Strong, an attorney, reveals much about the practice of law in New York City. He was also a trustee of Columbia University, a vestryman of Trinity Episcopal Church, a close follower of local, state, and national politics, and a lover of music. His diary reflects these interests during the period from 1835 to 1875. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
At the turn of the eighteenth century when New York City mushroomed into a major cultural and financial center, Hone and Strong recorded every event in a pithy and relentless style. Here are the most interesting sections of their journals paired with Currier & Ives prints from the era. 100 illustrations with 50 in full color.
The American companion to A History of the World in 100 Objects, a fresh, visual perspective on the Civil War From a soldier’s diary with the pencil still attached to John Brown’s pike, the Emancipation Proclamation, and the leaves from Abraham Lincoln’s bier, here is a unique and surprisingly intimate look at the Civil War. Lincoln scholar Harold Holzer sheds new light on the war by examining fifty objects from the New-York Historical Society’s acclaimed collection. A daguerreotype of an elderly, dignified ex-slave; a soldier’s footlocker still packed with its contents; Grant’s handwritten terms of surrender at Appomattox—the stories these objects tell are rich, poignant, sometimes painful, and always fascinating. They illuminate the conflict from all perspectives—Union and Confederate, military and civilian, black and white, male and female—and give readers a deeply human sense of the war.
Emilie Davis was a free African American woman who lived in Philadelphia during the Civil War. She worked as a seamstress, attended the Institute for Colored Youth, and was an active member of her community. She lived an average life in her day, but what sets her apart is that she kept a diary. Her daily entries from 1863 to 1865 touch on the momentous and the mundane: she discusses her own and her community’s reactions to events of the war, such as the Battle of Gettysburg, the Emancipation Proclamation, and the assassination of President Lincoln, as well as the minutiae of social life in Philadelphia’s black community. Her diaries allow the reader to experience the Civil War in “real time” and are a counterpoint to more widely known diaries of the period. Judith Giesberg has written an accessible introduction, situating Davis and her diaries within the historical, cultural, and political context of wartime Philadelphia. In addition to furnishing a new window through which to view the war’s major events, Davis’s diaries give us a rare look at how the war was experienced as a part of everyday life—how its dramatic turns and lulls and its pervasive, agonizing uncertainty affected a northern city with a vibrant black community.
New York is a city like no other. Through the centuries, she’s been embraced and reviled, worshipped and feared, praised and battered—all the while standing at the crossroads of American politics, business, society, and culture. Pulitzer Prize winner Teresa Carpenter, a lifelong diary enthusiast, scoured the archives of libraries, historical societies, and private estates to assemble here an almost holographic view of this iconic metropolis. Starting on January 1 and continuing day by day through the year, these journal entries are selected from four centuries of writing—revealing vivid and compelling snapshots of life in the Capital of the World. “Today I arrived by train in New York City . . . and instantly fell in love with it. Silently, inside myself, I yelled: I should have been born here!”—Edward Robb Ellis, May 22, 1947 Includes diary excerpts from Sherwood Anderson • Albert Camus • Noël Coward • Dorothy Day • John Dos Passos • Thomas Edison • Allen Ginsberg • Keith Haring • Henry Hudson • Anne Morrow Lindbergh • H. L. Mencken • John Cameron Mitchell • Julia Rosa Newberry • Eugene O’Neill • Edgar Allan Poe • Theodore Roosevelt • Elizabeth Cady Stanton • Alexis de Tocqueville • Mark Twain • Gertrude Vanderbilt • Andy Warhol • George Washington • Walt Whitman • and many others “The most convivial and unorthodox history of New York City one is likely to come across.”—The New York Times “A must-read for anyone who has fallen in love with the Big Apple.”—New York Journal of Books “An absolute masterpiece.”—The Atlantic
