Arcadia Publishing Inc : 7152 books

Grosse Ile Township today is made up of a dozen islands in the Detroit River. The largest island was given the name Grosse Ile by early French explorerswho found it being used by the Native American tribes as a fishing and hunting ground. In 1776, Detroit merchants William and Alexander Macomb purchased...

John Streckfus began his small Acme Company in 1889 with one wooden packet boat, the steamer Verne Swain, out of Rock Island, Illinois, carrying people and goods on the Mississippi River. His business grew, but each year brought competition from the growing railroads. He decided that excursion boats...

From its founding in 1927 until the establishment of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in 1948, Wright Field played a vital role keeping the Army Air Force positioned as the world's leader in aircraft design and development. The Second World War catapulted it into the forefront of America's war effort,...

Kalamazoo experienced a dramatic transformation during the first decades of the 20th century. Its factories churned out a wide variety of products, and the downtown area was being rapidly transformed by the addition of new skyscraper office buildings, hotels, department stores, theaters, parks, and...

Postcard photographers traveled the length and breadth of the nation snapping photographs of busy street scenes, documenting local landmarks, and assembling crowds of neighborhood children only too happy to pose for a picture. These images, printed as postcards and sold in general stores across the country, survive as telling reminders of an important era in America�s history.

More than 25,000 Italian immigrants came to Chicago after 1945. The story of their exodus and reestablishment in Chicago touches on war torn Italy, the renewal of family and paesani connections, the bureaucratic challenges of the restrictive quota system, the energy and spirit of the new immigrants,...

Cincinnati, Ohio, might have seemed like an unlikely choice to host the nation's largest annual R&B concert, but thanks to local promoter Dino Santangelo, the Ohio Valley Jazz Festival would become the "Granddaddy of Them All." The first festival was held in 1962 at the Carthage Fairgrounds, but the...

Few cities can claim a hardwood heritage like that found in metro Detroit. Metro Detroit has been the epicenter for cataclysmic change in the past 60 years that no other major American city has suffered, but the one constant among so much upheaval is a passionate following afforded high school basketball....

Long Island has been in the corridors of almost all major turning points of American history, but Long Island has been overlooked as a battleground of the civil rights movement. Since early colonization by the English settlers in the 17th century, the shadow of slavery has bequeathed a racial caste system...

Pleasant City, a neighborhood of West Palm Beach, Florida, is the oldest African-American community in Palm Beach County. The first black settlers came to a place called the Styx�later owned by white millionaires who then rented their backyards to black workers�to work on the railroad and Henry Flagler�s...

Cleveland's Gospel Music documents the history of black gospel music from the 1920s through the 1980s. The gospel quartet groups, radio announcers, solo artists, and promoters established Cleveland as the gospel singers' metropolitan hub. An integral part of Cleveland's history and its rich African-American...

African Americans have heavily contributed to and shaped the unique and vibrant Rutherford County in middle Tennessee. Located 30 miles southeast of Nashville, Rutherford County is at the state�s geographical center. This area is home to the Stones River National Battlefield, a national park that was...

The African American community of Wichita is as old as the city itself, dating back to early pioneers, cowboys, and business figures. Once relatively integrated, Wichita became more segregated as the 20th century unfolded. In response, African Americans developed a lively neighborhood downtown with its...

Pennsylvania�s Historic Bridges examines the development of different types of bridge structures across Pennsylvania through the world of postcards, many of which are from the early 1900s. The structures featured are constructed from various materials and in a multitude of styles. Also found within...