Summary

A tributary of the Ohio River and significant commercial route in the nineteenth century, the Muskingum River in southeastern Ohio presents a remarkable case study of how Americans have managed their waterways. In Taming the Muskingum, esteemed scholar Emory Kemp traces this history, emphasizing the engineering and construction aspects of river navigation and the fourteen related flood control dams built under the direction of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Kemp’s study ranges from early settlement and navigation of the uncontrolled Muskingum to the state-of-the-art engineering projects undertaken during the New Deal to more recent conservation and recreation uses.

Illustrated with drawings, photographs, and maps showing many aspects of the dam and reservoir system as well as the Muskingum slackwater navigation, Taming the Muskingum is a rich evocation of a navigation system that is today recognized as a national Historical Civil Engineering Landmark. 

Contents

Coming Soon.

Author

Emory L. Kemp, a distinguished engineer in the American Society of Civil Engineers, has been a practicing engineer for more than half a century. He is the founder and director of the Institute for the History of Technology and Industrial Archaeology at West Virginia University, where he was also chair and a professor of civil engineering and history. He has served as president of the Public Works Historical Society and is a codirector of the Smithsonian Institution/West Virginia University Joint Project for the History of Technology. He is the author of Essays on the History of Transportation and Technology and American Bridge Patents:The First Century (1790-1890), both available from West Virginia University Press.

Reviews

Coming Soon.

Summary

In the first book-length study of Storer College, Dawne Raines Burke tells the story of the historically black institution from its Reconstruction origins to its demise in 1955. Established by Northern Baptists in the abolitionist flashpoint of Harpers Ferry, Storer was the first college open to African Americans in West Virginia, and it played a central role in regional and national history. In addition to educating generations of students of all races, genders, and creeds, Storer served as the second meeting place (and the first on US soil) for the Niagara Movement, a precursor to the National Association for the Adavancement of Colored People.

An American Phoenix provides a comprehensive and extensively illustrated history of this historically black college, bringing to life not just the institution but many of the individuals who taught or were educated there. It fills a significant gap in our knowledge of African American history and the struggle for rights in West Virginia and the wider world.

Contents

Coming Soon.

Author

Dawne Raines Burke is an assistant professor of education at Shepherd University in Shepherdstown, West Virginia. Burke began her investigation into the history of Storer College as part of her doctoral research at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

Reviews

“Uncovers the significant role which the students of Storer College, its faculty, the Board of Trustees, and its alumni played in early education and the American civil rights movement. We all owe a great debt to Dawne Raines Burke for exploring and seeking out the story of this great institution and its impact on this country.”
James A. Tolbert Sr., President, NAACP, West Virginia

Summary

Between 1880 and 1922, the coal fields of southern West Virginia witnessed two bloody and protracted strikes, the formation of two competing unions, and the largest armed conflict in American labor history—a week-long battle between 20,000 coal miners and 5,000 state police, deputy sheriffs, and mine guards. These events resulted in an untold number of deaths, indictments of over 550 coal miners for insurrection and treason, and four declarations of martial law. Corbin argues that these violent events were collective and militant acts of aggression interconnected and conditioned by decades of oppression. His study goes a long way toward breaking down the old stereotypes of Appalachian and coal mining culture. This second edition contains a new preface and afterword by author David A. Corbin.

Contents

Coming Soon.

Author

David A. Corbin served as a Senate staffer for twenty-six years—six years on the leadership staff of Senate majority leader Byrd and ten years on the leadership staffs of Senate majority leaders George Mitchell and Tom Daschle. He also served as Senator Byrd’s speechwriter for the last ten years of his career. Corbin is the editor of The West Virginia Mine Wars: An Anthology and the author of The Last Great Senator: Robert C. Byrd’s Encounters with Eleven U.S. Presidents. He received his PhD in history from the University of Maryland and lives in Annapolis.

Reviews

“Corbin’s study offers detailed insights into the intricacies of life in both the coal camps and among the operators, with deserved attention given to a documentation of operators’ strategies of control through company towns, control of the legislature and influence in the judicial system. As such his study provides a much needed analysis both of a particular region during a crucial stage of its socio-economic transformation, and the growth of unionization as a manifestation of occupational consciousness and the struggle to assert power by a major section of the region’s labor force.”
Ian M. Taplin, Journal of Social History

“David Corbin has provided us with an original and well written history of the southern West Virginia miners, as well as reminded us of the central lessons of labor history.”
Alexander MacKenzie Thompson III, The Journal of Economic History

“This book undoubtedly stands as an important contribution to its field.”
Perry K. Blatz, Industrial and Labor Relations Review

“David Alan Corbin tells this provocative story in great detail largely from the viewpoint of miners who, he says, were ‘probably the most exploited and oppressed coal diggers in the United States.’”
James E. Fell Jr, American Historical Review

“Thus the author rejects “feuding,” “gun-totin,” and “moonshining” as well as Sheldon Hackney’s emphasis on educational deficiencies, rapid industrialization, and urbanization to explain the miners’ proclivity to violence. Instead, he emphasizes the evolution of working-class culture, increased class consciousness, the adoption of a radical ideology, and the development of class solidarity in the period following the signing of the World War I armistice.”
Gary M. Fink, Journal of American History

“Corbin’s account of these epic struggles is more than history. It is a compelling documentation of social, cultural, and religious change in a violent, laissez-faire “republic” where rights were enforced only for the rich.”
Harry M. Caudill, The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society

“Corbin has painted a bold portrait of life, labour, and rebellion in the coalfields, and presented a compelling analysis of indigenous American labour radicalism.”
Allen Seager, Labour / Le Travail

“This is an excellent work that should be in most academic and large public libraries.”
Kevin M. Rosswurm, Library Journal

“This is certainly the stuff of provocative and insightful history. Corbin’s account contributes mightily to the dawning realization that culture and class were far from mutually exclusive in industrial America.”
John Bodnar, Indiana Magazine of History

“Marked by objectivity, clarity, and scholarship, this is unquestionably one of the finest monographs ever written about the American labor movement. With a fine taste for language, an admirable mastery of his materials, and a keen insight, Corbin leads his readers through an especially frightening episode of United States domestic history.”
Andre Kuczewski, Journal of American Culture

“The coal miners of southern West Virginia have found a historian worthy of their militant traditions. David Corbin has looked behind the spectacular strikes of the 1912–22 period and the well-publicized grime of Appalachian industrialization to analyze the development of class consciousness among these coal miners. He has sifted an amazing quantity and variety of sources to recover West Virginia miners’ self-expressed views of their experiences.”
Peter Gottlieb, International Labor and Working-Class History

“This is excellent. Corbin analyzes the coal miners’ culture splendidly, focusing on the sense of regionwide solidarity produced by high levels of geographic mobility, the prominence and self-reliance of black miners, and the generation of miner-preachers as rival to the contemptible ministry of the company-sponsored churches. . . .a fine polished piece of work.”
David Montgomery, author of Beyond Equality

Summary

No person involved in so much history received so little attention as the late Robert C. Byrd, the longest-serving U.S. senator. In The Last Great Senator, David A. Corbin examines Byrd’s complex and fascinating relationships with eleven presidents of the United States, from Eisenhower to Obama. Furthermore, Byrd had an impact on nearly every significant event of the last half century, including the Cold War, the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War, Kennedy’s New Frontier, the Watergate scandal, the Reagan Revolution, the impeachment of President Clinton, and the Iraq War. Holding several Senate records, Byrd also cast more votes than any other U.S. senator. 

In his sweeping portrait of this eloquent and persuasive man’s epic life and career, Corbin describes Senator Byrd’s humble background in the coalfields of southern West Virginia (including his brief membership in the Ku Klux Klan). He covers Byrd’s encounters and personal relationship with each president and his effect on events during their administrations. Additionally, the book discusses Byrd’s interactions with other notable senators, including Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Russell, Mike Mansfield, and especially Robert and Edward Kennedy. Going beyond the boundaries of West Virginia and Capitol Hill, The Last Great Senator presents Byrd in a larger historical context, where he rose to the height of power in America.

Contents

Coming Soon.

Author

David A. Corbin served as a Senate staffer for twenty-six years—six years on the leadership staff of Senate majority leader Byrd and ten years on the leadership staffs of Senate majority leaders George Mitchell and Tom Daschle. He also served as Senator Byrd’s speechwriter for the last ten years of his career. Corbin is the editor of The West Virginia Mine Wars: An Anthology and the author of Life, Work, and Rebellion in the Coal Fields: The Southern West Virginia Miners, 1880–1920. He received his PhD in history from the University of Maryland and lives in Annapolis.

Reviews

Summary

For decades, hundreds of photographs chronicling some of the greatest moments in West Virginia University football history have been hidden away beneath piles of dusty media guides, tattered game programs, and yellowed newspaper clippings. Within the annals of the WVU athletic department, these archival treasures have been overlooked and forgotten over the years. That is until now. 

With nearly twenty-five years of experience in intercollegiate athletics at West Virginia University, John Antonik brings these long-lost photographs to life with a narrative that highlights the key players, coaches, and the greatest moments in Mountaineer football history. Saturday Snapshots spotlights the dirt and grime, the sweat and tears, and the pageantry and tradition behind a team that has captivated the Mountain State from its inception. With stunning pictures, exclusive stories, and fascinating facts and statistics, it is the ultimate resource for the faithful West Virginia University football fan. 

By spanning WVU football’s entire history—from that first game in snowy Morgantown on Saturday, November 28, 1891, to West Virginia’s appearance in the AutoZone Liberty Bowl in Memphis, Tennessee, on December 29, 2014—these snapshots will keep you turning the pages until the clock runs out.

Contents

INTRODUCTION

FROM HUMBLE BEGINNINGS
The Pre-1920s
Player of the Era: Ira Errett Rodgers

THE DOCTOR IS IN THE HOUSE
1920s
Player of the Decade: Marshall Glenn

DEPRESSING TIMES
1930s
Player of the Decade: Joe Stydahar

THE WINDS OF WAR
1940s
Player of the Decade: Jimmy Walthall

THE VIOLENT WORLD OF SAM HUFF
1950s
Player of the Decade: Bruce Bosley

THE MILL
1960s
Player of the Decade: Garrett Ford

BREAKING BARRIERS
1970s
Player of the Decade: Danny Buggs

COUNTRY ROADS, TAKE ME HOME
1980s
Player of the Decade: Major Harris

THE VOICE GOES SILENT
1990s
Player of the Decade: Canute Curtis

TWO LEGS ARE BETTER THAN ONE
2000s
Player of the Decade: Pat White

A LONG, STRANGE TRIP
Post-2000s
Player of the Decade: Tavon Austin

Top 100 Mountaineer Players of All-Time
Top 100 Opposing Players of All-Time

Sources/Credits
About the Author

Author

John Antonik is Director of Digital Media for Intercollegiate Athletics, West Virginia University and author of West Virginia University Football Vault: The History of the Mountaineers, Roll Out the Carpet: 101 Seasons of West Virginia University Basketball, and The Backyard Brawl: Stories from One of the Weirdest, Wildest, Longest Running and Most Intense Rivalries in College Football History.

Reviews

Summary

The nine stories in My Pulse Is an Earthquake take place in the clutches of grief. Characters struggle to make sense of sudden losses of life, love, and community. From 1970 to the present day, children and young adults from the Rockies to the Appalachian Mountains guide readers through the valleys of their lives as dog breeders, immigrants, Catholic school delinquents, rookie policewomen, drummers, ballerinas, teenage brides, and an accountant who keeps a careful inventory of losses. 

In each story, we see the darkness that can surface during the happy moments in life—weddings, births, promotions, the opening night of a director’s favorite play, or the best performance of a dancer’s career, when no one important is there to watch. We enter daydreams and night terrors where the dead are within reach, pointing out how they could have been saved. We wear their clothes and carry their teddy bears or vinyl records everywhere. We crawl around in caves and pound hammers into walls until our own hearts stop beating. 

This collection explores how the unexpected harm to young, vibrant loved ones—from murder, kidnapping, battle, accident, natural disaster, swift illness, or stillbirth—can rupture families, and how the most unlikely healers can bring together those who remain.

My Pulse Is an Earthquake was performed on stage by L.A.'s longest running spoken word series, The New Short Fiction Series, an event sponsored by Barnes & Noble. The New Short Fiction Series hosted launch party on September 20, 2015 as well, which  included a performance by musical guest Lucy Peru.

Contents

Queen City Playhouse 1 

Canis Major 15 

A New Kukla 41 

White Rabbit 66 

The Lost Bureau 93 

Representing the Beast 118 

The Music She Will Never Hear 143 

Center of Population 170 

The Cliffs of Dover 189 

Acknowledgments 219 

Reading and Discussion Questions 223 

About the Author 227

Author

Kristin FitzPatrick grew up in suburban Detroit and earned degrees from Michigan State University, DePaul University in Chicago, and California State University, Fresno. A semifinalist for the 2014 Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction, Kristin is the recipient of residencies from Jentel and The Seven Hills School in Cincinnati. Her work has been chosen for the Thomas Wolfe Fiction Prize and has appeared in publications such as Colorado Review, The Southeast Review, Epiphany, and The Best of Gival Press Short Stories, as well as on stage in Sacramento and Los Angeles. Kristin and her husband live in Southern California, where she is working on a novel and teaching writing at CSU Channel Islands. Learn more at kristinfitzpatrick.com.

Reviews

"In this wonderfully diverse collection Kristin Fitzpatrick demonstrates over and over how well she knows the world and how deeply she understands her fierce and reckless characters. Her vivid plots and immaculate prose carry her readers to the edge of darkness. My Pulse Is an Earthquake is a terrific debut."
Margot Livesey, author of Eva Moves the Furniture and The New York Times best seller The Flight of Gemma Hardy. She now teaches at Iowa Writers' Workshop.

"My Pulse Is an Earthquake offers some of the most beautiful prose I've read in a long time, along with some of the most memorable characters. There's magic between these covers.  I loved every word, and I'll be reading every word she writes from now on."
Steve Yarbrough, author of The Realm of Last Chances

"Kristin FitzPatrick has a gift for creating wholly formed worlds—simultaneously familiar and unique—that she invites us to enter while she spins out richly layered stories quite unlike any we’ve heard before. My Pulse Is an Earthquake is a truly masterful debut collection to settle into and savor."
Stephanie G’Schwind, editor of Colorado Review

“With a mesmerizing economy of language, Kristin FitzPatrick fathoms how people either rise to or fail each other in the crucial occasions of their lives. Each finely made story contributes to the book’s cumulative emotional power, which is--miraculously--both restrained and shattering."
Elise Blackwell, author of Hunger and The Lower Quarter

“Bold and refreshingly original, this debut work of fiction is astonishing. FitzPatrick spins out intriguing and richly textured stories, and in doing so reveals the dreams and struggles of children, aspiring artists, and working-class adults. With compassion and insight, these interlinked stories help us fathom the extraordinary vividness of ordinary life.”
Laura Long, author of Out of Peel Tree

"Kristin FitzPatrick possesses an extraordinary ability to place fascinating characters into situations that reveal profound mysteries and nuances of the human condition. Long after you’ve closed the cover on her debut short story collection, you’ll find yourself longing to know what happens beyond the small precious glimpse you’ve been lucky to catch of her characters’ vibrant, astonishing worlds."
Bridget Boland, author of The Doula and owner of ModernMuse: Energetic Tools for Writers

“FitzPatrick's debut collection is a stunning and intricately woven group of short stories exploring the topic of grief. Grief takes many forms, a concept elegantly articulated in this series of chronologically arranged stories that dips in and out of several characters' lives. With nimble structuring and evocative prose, FitzPatrick's pleasingly cohesive collection offers as many artful callbacks and codas as dazzling explorations of emotional vacancy and rebirth.”
Kirkus Reviews

Summary

George Washington’s childhood is famously the most elusive part of his life story. For centuries biographers have struggled with a lack of period documentation and an absence of late-in-life reflection in trying to imagine Washington’s formative years. In George Washington Written upon the Land, Philip Levy explores this most famous of American childhoods through its relationship to the Virginia farm where much of it took place. Using approaches from biography, archaeology, folklore, and studies of landscape and material culture, Levy focuses on how different ideas about Washington’s childhood functioned—what sorts of lessons they sought to teach and how different epochs and writers understood the man and the past itself. 

In a suggestive and far-reaching final chapter, Levy argues that Washington was present at the onset of the Anthropocene—the geologic era when human activity began to have a significant impact on world ecosystems. Interpreting Washington’s childhood farm through the lens of “big” history, he encourages scholars to break down boundaries between science and social science and between human and nonhuman.

Contents

Coming Soon.

Author

Philip Levy is professor of history at the University of South Florida and was part of the team that discovered and excavated George Washington’s boyhood home, a project that made national news in 2008. He is the author of Where the Cherry Tree Grew: The Story of Ferry Farm, George Washington’s Boyhood Home and Fellow Travelers: Indians and Europeans Contesting the Early American Trail.

Reviews

"In this beautifully written and deeply researched book, Philip Levy reveals connections that have eluded generations of scholars. Which is to say, George Washington Written upon the Land accomplishes the impossible: it casts one of the most famous and influential figures in the nation's history in an entirely new light. Readers will be delighted and surprised in equal measure by this extraordinary work."
Ari Kelman, winner of the Bancroft Prize for A Misplaced Massacre: Struggling Over the Memory of Sand Creek

"This book is a paradigm shifter for those of us involved not only with the study of American memory but for the larger subfield of cultural history."
Gretchen A. Adams, author of The Specter of Salem: Remembering the Witch Trials in Nineteenth-Century America