Tag: #History

Posted in #History

Ride the Devil’s Herd

Posted on by Reluctant Retiree

Wyatt Earp’s Epic Battle Against the West’s Biggest Outlaw Gang

The story of how a young Wyatt Earp and his brothers defeated the Old West’s biggest outlaw gang, by the New York Times–bestselling author of Texas Ranger.
Wyatt Earp is regarded as the most famous lawman of the Old West, best known for his role in the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona. But the story of his two-year war with a band of outlaws known as the Cowboys has never been told in full.
The Cowboys were the largest outlaw gang in the history of the American West. After battles with the law in Texas and New Mexico, they shifted their operations to Arizona. There, led by Curly Bill Brocius, they ruled the border, robbing, rustling, smuggling and killing with impunity until they made the fatal mistake of tangling with the Earp brothers.
Drawing on groundbreaking research into territorial and federal government records, John Boessenecker’s Ride the Devil’s Herd reveals a time and place in which homicide rates were fifty times higher than those today. The story still bears surprising relevance for contemporary America, involving hot-button issues such as gang violence, border security, unlawful immigration, the dangers of political propagandists parading as journalists, and the prosecution of police officers for carrying out their official duties. Wyatt Earp saw it all in Tombstone.
Praise for Ride the Devil’s Herd
A Pim County Public Library Southwest Books of the Year 2021
A True West Reader’s Choice for Best 2020 Western Nonfiction
Winner of the Best Book Award by the Wild West History Association
“A marvelous book. By means of meticulous research and splendid writing John Boessenecker has managed to do something never before attempted or accomplished, tying together the many violent clashes between lawmen and outlaws in the American southwest of the 1870-1890 period and showing how depredations by loosely organized gangs of outlaws actually threatened “Manifest Destiny” and the successful taming of the Wild West.” —Robert K. DeArment, author and historian
“A ripsnortin’ ramble across the bloodstained Arizona desert with Wyatt Earp and company. . . . Boessenecker displays a fine eye for period detail. . . . A pleasure for thoughtful fans of Old West history, revisionist without being iconoclastic.” —Kirkus Reviews

Posted in #History

Hidden History of the Florida Keys

Posted on by Reluctant Retiree

“Seldom-told tales of the ‘lively and unusual cast of historic figures’ who helped shape the Florida Keys from the 1820s through the 1960s.”—Keys News
 
The Florida Keys have witnessed all kinds of historical events, from the dramatic and the outrageous to the tragic and the comic. In the nineteenth century, uncompromising individuals fought duels and plotted political upsets. During the Civil War, a company of “Key West Avengers” escaped their Union-occupied city to join the Confederacy by sailing through the Bahamas. In the early twentieth century, black Bahamians founded a town of their own, while railway engineers went up against the U.S. Navy in a bid to complete the Overseas Railroad. When Prohibition came to the Keys, one defiant woman established a rum-running empire that dominated South Florida. 
 
Join Laura Albritton and Jerry Wilkinson as they delve into tales of treasure hunters, developers, exotic dancers, determined preservationists and more, from the colorful history of these islands.
Includes photos

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Hidden History on the Florida Keys,” a new volume penned by Laura Albritton and Upper Keys historian Jerry Wilkinson, reveals seldom-told tales of the “lively and unusual cast of historic figures” who helped shape the Florida Keys from the 1820s through the 1960s.” Keys News

About the Author

Fifth-generation Floridian Laura Albritton is a writer, book reviewer, and writing teacher. Her work has appeared in publications such as the Miami Herald, Sculpture magazine, Harvard Review and the Florida Keys Weekly, while her award-winning short fiction has been published in many literary journals. She wrote the travel book Miami for Families (University Press of Florida) and co-authored Marathon: The Middle Keys and Key West’s Duval Street (Arcadia Publishing) with Jerry Wilkinson. Laura holds a degree in comparative literature from Columbia and an MFA in creative writing from the University of Miami.

Fourth-generation Floridian Jerry Wilkinson arrived in Key West in 1947. He served in the U.S Air Force for twenty-four years before operating his own business. For decades, Jerry has researched and documented Florida Keys history, particularly that of the Upper Keys. He has contributed to books, films and television programs and created an extensive Keys history website (www.keyshistory.org). Jerry is president of the Historical Preservation Society of the Upper Keys and serves on the boards of the Historic Florida Keys Foundation and the Florida Keys History and Discovery Center. Jerry’s previous books include Key Largo and Islamorada, co-authored with Brad Bertelli.

Posted in Book Tours

The Texas Rangers: A Century of Frontier Defense (Texas Classics)

Posted on by Reluctant Retiree

The renowned historian’s classic study of the Texas Ranger Division, presented with its original illustrations and a foreword by Lyndon B. Johnson.
 
Texas Rangers tells the story of this unique law enforcement agency from its origin in 1823, when it was formed by “Father of Texas” Stephen F. Austin, to the 1930s, when legendary lawman Frank Hamer tracked down the infamous outlaws Bonnie and Clyde. Both colorful and authoritative, it presents the evolution and exploits of the Texas Rangers through Comanche raids, the Mexican War, annexation, secession, and on into the 20th century.
 
Written in 1935 by Walter Prescott Webb, the pioneering historian of the American West, Texas Rangers is a true classic of Texas history.

Sea Dog (retired)
4.0 out of 5 stars Law and Order In a Tumultous Era
Reviewed in the United States on February 3, 2013
Format: KindleVerified Purchase
An excellent history of Texas Rangers, who were basically a quasi-military state police (3-4 companies, at most 300 men) which dated from the days of the Texas Republic (1836-45) until the present, although today it is more of a traditional state police force. Webb (whose edition has a foreward written by Lyndon B. Johnson) addresses primarily the first century of the Rangers, with the subtitle "A Century of Frontier Defense."

Operating within the borders of what is still the largest of the lower 48 states -- someone once remarked "you can drive across Texas all day and STILL be inside it" -- at a time of limited communication and mobility, the Texas Rangers were a group of men who were dednicated to enforcing the laws of their state and dealing harshly with those who violated them.
At the time the Rabgers were formed, there were still remnants of Indian tribes and the border with Mexico was easily crossed, with resultant cross border cattle stealing at a time when cattle raising was the a major part of Texas commerce.

The difficultly of bring law and order to such a vast region with so little men cannot be imagined. However, operating singly or in regional companies, the Rangers slowly did so. They often stalked known lawbreakers when they were sleeping or otherwise unaware, and in many instances when the found them the lawbreakers were shot on the spot and were not brought back alive (imagine the difficulties a single Ranger would have bring multiple prisioers to a county seat court). That said, the vast majority of Texas citizens at the time clearly believed the Rangers were neceaasry and needed to enforce the laws of their state, and in fact the behavior of the Rangers over time has given them an enviable repuration as fearless, frugal and fair.

One example from the book may make the point about their effective methods. A company of Rangers under Captain McNelly was chasing a group of Mexicans who had entered Texas and stolen 250 cattle and taken them across the Rio Grande into Mexico near Brownsville. With the aid of Casuse, an older Ranger of Hispanic descent, they tracked the stolen herd. As they came across suspicious Mexicans who might be spys for the rustlers, "Casuse would talk to the Mexican a little, and then tell our interpreter what the Mexican was. If the Mexican proved to be a citizen (of Texas) we let him go at once; if he proved to be a bandit spy we took charge of him until we saw a suitable tree.... (where) Casuse would put therope over the bandit's neck, throw it over a limb, pull him up and let him down on the ground until he would consent to tell us all he knew. As far was we knew this treatment always brought out the truth." After determining that they had all information, the spy would be turned over to Casuse, who then put him on a horse, tied a "regular hangman's knot," and hung the man: "We caught several spies on that scout before we caught up with the bandits and the cattle, and Cause dealt with them all alike, showing no partiality -- he always made them a present of six feet of rope."

McNelly eventually entered Mexico, killed many of the bandits, recovered the cattle, and returned to Texas. Much later, US Army General Ord -- whose troops had remained in the US while the Rangers crossed the Rio Grande into Mexico -- later testified before Congress that "The officer of the State troops (Ranges) had learned of the whereabout of this raiding party by means which I could not legally resort to, but which were the only means of getting at the actual facts. He had caught one of the members and hung him up until he was made to confess where the rest of the raiders were."

The next and last sentence in the chapter was a final summary: "Affairs on the border cannot be judged by the standards that hold elsewhere." All prospective readers would do well to keep that summary in mind.
The earlier Ranger methods may have been harsh by today's standards, but they were fair and highly effective.
Posted in Book Tours

How to Speak Midwestern

Posted on by Reluctant Retiree

“A long-overdue study of the middle-American vernacular, and how that vernacular informs our identity . . . A regionally specific Urban Dictionary.” —Inside Hook
 
The Pittsburgh toilet. Squeaky cheese. City chicken. Shampoo Banana. Chevy in the Hole. These are all phrases that are familiar to Midwesterners, but foreign to anyone living outside the region. Find out what they mean in How to Speak Midwestern. Edward McClelland will not only explain what Midwesterners say, but how and why they say it. He examines the causes of the Northern Cities Vowel Shift, one of the most significant changes in English pronunciation in a thousand years; explains why the accents in Fargo miss the nasality that’s a hallmark of Minnesota speech; and reveals why Chicagoans talk more like people from Buffalo than their next-door neighbors in Wisconsin. For outsiders, McClelland will include helpful information such as “How to Talk Through Your Nose,” “How to Mispronounce Foreign Place Names,” and “‘Well, That’s Different’: How to Passive-Aggressively Criticize People, Places and Things.”
 
If you’re from the Midwest, you’ll have a better understanding of why you talk the way you do. If you’re not, well, you’ll know exactly what to say the next time someone ends a sentence with “eh?”
 
“How to Speak Midwestern is a fascinating read, whether you hail from WOWOland, the UP, Cereal City, or Baja Minnesota.” —Chicagoist
 
“A dictionary wrapped in some serious dialectology inside a gift book trailing a serious whiff of Relevance.” —The New York Times

Posted in Book Tours

America’s Women: 400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines (P.S.)

Posted on by Reluctant Retiree

Rich in detail, filled with fascinating characters, and panoramic in its sweep, this magnificent, comprehensive work tells for the first time the complete story of the American woman from the Pilgrims to the 21st-century

In this sweeping cultural history, Gail Collins explores the transformations, victories, and tragedies of women in America over the past 300 years. As she traces the role of females from their arrival on the Mayflower through the 19th century to the feminist movement of the 1970s and today, she demonstrates a boomerang pattern of participation and retreat.

In some periods, women were expected to work in the fields and behind the barricades—to colonize the nation, pioneer the West, and run the defense industries of World War II. In the decades between, economic forces and cultural attitudes shunted them back into the home, confining them to the role of moral beacon and domestic goddess. Told chronologically through the compelling true stories of individuals whose lives, linked together, provide a complete picture of the American woman’s experience, Untitled is a landmark work and major contribution for us all.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Well researched and well written, America’s Women: 400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines is a powerful and important book. Starting with Pocahontas and Eleanor Dare (the first female colonist), this lively and fascinating history records the changes in American women’s lives and the transformations in American society from the 1580s through the 2000s.

A history of the oft-marginalized sex must often draw from diaries and journals, which were disproportionally written by whites; as a result, African-American and Native American women are not as well represented as white in the earlier chapters of America’s Women. However, Gail Collins writes about women of many races and ethnicities, and in fact provides more information about Native Americans, African-Americans, and Chinese, Jewish, and Italian immigrants than some general U.S. history books. She writes about rich and poor, young and old, urban and rural, slave and slave-owner, athlete and aviatrix, president’s wife and presidential candidate–and, of course, men and women. And some of these women–from the justly famous, like Clara Barton and Harriet Tubman, to the undeservedly obscure, like Elizabeth Eckford and Senator Margaret Chase Smith–will not only make any woman proud to be a woman, they will make any American proud to be American.

An editor at the New York Times, Gail Collins has also written Scorpion Tongues: Gossip, Celebrity, and American Politics and, with Dan Collins, The Millennium Book. –Cynthia Ward

From Booklist

In a vibrant history of American women that is as vast and varied as the nation itself, Collins elegantly and eruditely celebrates the hard-won victories, overwhelming obstacles, and selfless contributions of a captivating array of influential women. Chronicling issues both critical and obscure, Collins demonstrates an uncommon appreciation of commonplace subjects, taking a “you are there” approach to illuminate the extraordinary challenges faced by pioneer women, such as needing to provide diapers for their babies, or to empathize with a young Pilgrim woman faced with forging a life in a hostile wilderness. From the first English child born in the “new world” to the birth of the “second wave” of feminism, the characters and subjects that have formed, and informed, women’s current status are presented from a broad perspective and personal viewpoint to create a thoroughly readable, often revelatory, and intimately refined account of the philosophical concepts and practical considerations that embody the past, enable the present, and empower the future of American women. Carol Haggas
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

“Though America’s Women is an easy and entertaining read, it also fulfills the radical promise of women’s history.”