In 1900, John Apperson, a young man from Virginia, began working for General Electric in Schenectady, New York. An avid hiker and outdoor enthusiast, Apperson soon found others interested in Adirondack sports such as ice-fishing and skate-sailing, and they started taking camping trips into the north country. He discovered Lake George one summer while attending a boat race, and thus began his lifelong love affair with the magnificent scenery. Apperson devoted his energy and resources to saving the land from various threats, including commercial development, logging, illegal squatters, and erosion. Apperson launched a two-pronged strategy, promoting Lake George for its recreational potential while recruiting people to help repair the shores of islands. He earned the respect of leading politicians, philanthropists, and journalists, including George Foster Peabody, New York governor Al Smith, and Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. His actions brought him into open conflict with powerful adversaries, too.
The Quintessence of Irving Langmuir is a biography on the life of Irving Langmuir. The book was created to complement the volume entitled "The Collected Works of Irving Langmuir. This selection was created to introduce the person and his works. Special attention has been given to Langmuir's early life and family background. The text begins with an account of the person's child seen from the mother's perspective. Such an account was taken from the family's documents. These documents are in the form of letters, diaries, photograph albums, newspaper clippings, and genealogical studies. A brief history about the formation of General Electric Company is also covered. A great part of the book relates the life of Langmuir as a father and as a scientist. Among his inventions is using dry ice for cloud seeding. One of his greatest achievements is receiving a Nobel Prize in Chemistry. The book is directed to the general public.
The Collected Works of Irving Langmuir: Volume 12, Langmuir, the Man and the Scientist presents the biography of Irving Langmuir, General Electric's foremost research scientist, which also includes a chronological summary of his contributions to science. Irving Langmuir, born on January 31, 1881 in New York, attends Public School No. 11 when he is seven. When he reaches 15, he attends Chestnut Hill Academy in Philadelphia. His eye troubles become worse making him wear glasses; later in life, he has cataracts removed from both eyes. He graduates with a Bachelor of Science degree in metallurgical engineering from Columbia University in 1903. In 1906, Langmuir earns his Ph.D., degree from Gottingen. He accepts an instructor position in Chemistry at Stevens Institute of Technology, New Jersey, until 1909 when joins the General Electric Company. In the next years, he receives numerous awards such as the Nichols Medal, Cannizaro Prize, Willar Gibbs Medal. In 1912, he marries Marion Mersereau. He receives the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1932. Among his contributions to science are an improved tungsten filament design used in incandescent bulbs, an atomic hydrogen welding torch, and theories of atomic structure and chemical bond formations. He dies of a heart attack in 1957 at the age of 76. Students, and academicians involved in history, general readers, and scientists interested in the lives of great men in science will find this book pleasant reading.
Adirondack history is a tale written o~ the water. In the Adirondacks, people have traveled, conducted warfare, hunted and fished, gone to church, proposed marriage, and driven logs in, on, from, or by water. Without boats, small and large, Adirondack history—social, recreational, commercial, and environmental—would be an affair entirely different from what we have come to know. In this lavishly illustrated account, Hallie E. Bond presents a history of these boats—canoes, sailboats, power launches, outboards, and the indigenous guideboat—that figure prominently in the overall history of the Adirondacks. The pre-contact Indians paddled dugout and bark canoes; in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries these craft were joined by skiffs and bateaux. Between 1820 and World War II, a distinctive tradition of boat building developed, culminating in the famous Adirondack guideboat. As the nineteenth century progressed, a variety of small, fresh water, musclepowered boats was produced in the Adirondacks—an assemblage matched by only a few places in the country. There were the canoes and the men that made them famous—John Henry Rushton and Nessmuk—and the guideboats and their builders—H. Dwight Grant and Willard Hanmer. In the early twentieth century, the development of the internal combustion engine irrevocably changed not only boat use and design, but life and leisure in the Adirondacks. Bond skillfully captures the whole panorama of boats and boating in the Adirondacks, from early dugouts and bateaux to the highpowered inboards that won Gold Cup races on Lake George and the Kevlar pack canoes of today. Drawing on her experience as an historian and Curator of Collections and Boats at the Adirondack Museum, Bond places events and trends of the region in the context of national and international history and describes the significant contribution of the Adirondacks in the early twentieth-century development of recreation and travel in America. Boats and Boating in the Adirondacks also includes a descriptive catalog of boats from the museum's own collection with nearly two hundred illustrations in addition to those in the narrative, a list of boatbuilders active in the North Country before 1975, and a valuable glossary of terms.
Thirty years after its initial publication, this beloved classic is back in print. Superbly researched and written, Forest and Crag is the definitive history of our love affair with the mountains of the Northeastern United States, from the Catskills and the Adirondacks of New York to the Green Mountains of Vermont, the White Mountains of New Hampshire, and the mountains of Maine. It's all here in one comprehensive volume: the struggles of early pioneers in America's first frontier wilderness; the first ascent of every major peak in the Northeast; the building of the trail networks, including the Appalachian Trail; the golden era of the summit resort hotels; and the unforeseen consequences of the backpacking boom of the 1970s and 80s. Laura and Guy Waterman spent a decade researching and writing Forest and Crag, and in it they draw together widely scattered sources. What emerges is a compelling story of our ever-evolving relationship with the mountains and wilderness, a story that will fascinate historians, outdoor enthusiasts, and armchair adventurers alike.
A Wild Idea shares the complete story of the difficult birth of the Adirondack Park Agency (APA). The Adirondack region of New York's rural North Country forms the nation's largest State Park, with a territory as large as Vermont. Planning experts view the APA as a triumph of sustainability that balances human activity with the preservation of wild ecosystems. The truth isn't as pretty. The story of the APA, told here for the first time, is a complex, troubled tale of political dueling and communities pushed to the brink of violence. The North Country's environmental movement started among a small group of hunters and hikers, rose on a huge wave of public concern about pollution that crested in the early 1970s, and overcame multiple obstacles to "save" the Adirondacks. Edmondson shows how the movement's leaders persuaded a powerful Governor to recruit planners, naturalists, and advisors and assign a task that had never been attempted before. The team and the politicians who supported them worked around the clock to draft two visionary land-use plans and turn them into law. But they also made mistakes, and their strict regulations were met with determined opposition from local landowners who insisted that private property is private. A Wild Idea is based on in-depth interviews with five dozen insiders who are central to the story. Their observations contain many surprising and shocking revelations. This is a rich, exciting narrative about state power and how it was imposed on rural residents. It shows how the Adirondacks were "saved," and also why that campaign sparked a passionate rebellion.
