American National Biography is the first new comprehensive biographical dicionary focused on American history to be published in seventy years. Produced under the auspices of the American Council of Learned Societies, the ANB contains over 17,500 profiles on historical figures written by an expert in the field and completed with a bibliography. The scope of the work is enormous--from the earlest recorded European explorations to the very recent past.

The Harlem Renaissance is the best known and most widely studied cultural movement in African American history. Now, in Harlem Renaissance Lives, esteemed scholars Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham have selected 300 key biographical entries culled from the eight-volume African American National Biography, providing an authoritative who's who of this seminal period. Here readers will find engagingly written and authoritative articles on notable African Americans who made significant contributions to literature, drama, music, visual art, or dance, including such central figures as poet Langston Hughes, novelist Zora Neale Hurston, aviator Bessie Coleman, blues singer Ma Rainey, artist Romare Bearden, dancer Josephine Baker, jazzman Louis Armstrong, and the intellectual giant W. E. B. Du Bois. Also included are biographies of people like the Scottsboro Boys, who were not active within the movement but who nonetheless profoundly affected the artistic and political statements that came from Harlem Renaissance figures. The volume will also feature a preface by the editors, an introductory essay by historian Cary D. Wintz, and 75 illustrations.

An 8-volume reference set containing over 4,000 entries written by distinguished scholars, 'The African American National Biography' is the most significant and expansive compilation of black lives in print today.

When the colonies that became the USA were still dominions of the British Empire they began to imagine their sporting pastimes as finer recreations than even those enjoyed in the motherland. From the war of independence and the creation of the republic to the twenty-first century, sporting pastimes have served as essential ingredients in forging nationhood in American history. This collection gathers the work of an all-star team of historians of American sport in order to explore the origins and meanings of the idea of national pastimes—of a nation symbolized by its sports. These wide-ranging essays analyze the claims of particular sports to national pastime status, from horse racing, hunting, and prize fighting in early American history to baseball, basketball, and football more than two centuries later. These essays also investigate the legal, political, economic, and culture patterns and the gender, ethnic, racial, and class dynamics of national pastimes, connecting sport to broader historical themes. American National Pastimes chronicles how and why the USA has used sport to define and debate the contours of nation. This book was published as a special issue of the International Journal of the History of Sport.

This book explores the history of scrapbook-making, its origins, uses, changing forms and purposes as well as the human agents behind the books themselves. Scrapbooks bring pleasure in both the making and consuming - and are one of the most enduring yet simultaneously changing cultural forms of the last two centuries. Despite the popularity of scrapbooks, no one has placed them within historical traditions until now. This volume considers the makers, their artefacts, And The viewers within the context of American culture. The volume's contributors do not show the reader how to make scrapbooks or improve techniques but instead explore the curious history of what others have done in the past and why these splendid examples of material and visual culture have such a significant place in many households.

The stories now being told about the colonial American past represent an "America" newly found, as scholars continue to evaluate and revise the longer-standing stories that have, across the centuries, held particular cultural and critical sway. This collection is a celebration of the widening of scholarly inquire in early American studies, and a tribute to a leading early Americanist whose scholarly career continues to contribute to the opening up of crucial questions of canon.

William Stimpson was at the forefront of the American natural history community in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Stimpson displayed an early affinity for the sea and natural history, and after completing an apprenticeship with famed naturalist Louis Agassiz, he became one of the first professionally trained naturalists in the United States. In 1852, twenty-year-old Stimpson was appointed naturalist of the United States North Pacific Exploring Expedition, where he collected and classified hundreds of marine animals. Upon his return, he joined renowned naturalist Spencer F. Baird at the Smithsonian Institution to create its department of invertebrate zoology. He also founded and led the irreverent and fun-loving Megatherium Club, which included many notable naturalists. In 1865, Stimpson focused on turning the Chicago Academy of Sciences into one of the largest and most important museums in the country. Tragically, the museum was destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, and Stimpson died of tuberculosis soon after, before he could restore his scientific legacy. This first-ever biography of William Stimpson situates his work in the context of his time. As one of few to collaborate with both Agassiz and Baird, Stimpson's life provides insight into the men who shaped a generation of naturalists—the last before intense specialization caused naturalists to give way to biologists. Historians of science and general readers interested in biographies, science, and history will enjoy this compelling biography.

Christian-Muslim Relations. A Bibliographical History 16 (CMR 16) covering North America, South-East Asia, China, Japan and Australasia in the period 1800-1914, is a further volume in a general history of relations between the two faiths from the 7th century to the early 20th century. It comprises a series of introductory essays and the main body of detailed entries. These treat all the works, surviving or lost, that have been recorded. They provide biographical details of the authors, descriptions and assessments of the works themselves, and complete accounts of manuscripts, editions, translations and studies. The result of collaboration between numerous leading scholars, CMR 16, along with the other volumes in this series, is intended as a basic tool for research in Christian-Muslim relations. Section Editors: Clinton Bennett, Luis F. Bernabe Pons, Jaco Beyers, Emanuele Colombo, Lejla Demiri, Martha Frederiks, David D. Grafton, Stanisław Grodź, Alan Guenther, Vincenzo Lavenia, Arely Medina, Alain Messaoudi, Gordon Nickel, Claire Norton, Reza Pourjavady, Douglas Pratt, Radu Păun, Charles Ramsey, Peter Riddell, Umar Ryad, Mehdi Sajid, Cornelia Soldat, Karel Steenbrink, Charles Tieszen, Carsten Walbiner, Catherina Wenzel.

Dictionaries of national biography are a long-established and significant genre of biographical and historical writing, existing in many forms across the globe. This book brings together practitioners from around the English‑speaking world to reflect on national biographical dictionary projects’ recent cultural journeys, and the challenges presented to them by such developments as the transition to a digital environment, a new alertness to the need to represent diversity, and the rise of transnationalism. Exploring their paths forward, the chapters of this book collectively make a powerful argument for the continued value and importance of large‑scale collaborative biographical dictionary research.

Stand, Columbia! Alma Mater Through the storms of Time abide Stand, Columbia! Alma Mater Through the storms of Time abide. "Stand, Columbia!" by Gilbert Oakley Ward, Columbia College 1902 (1904) Marking the 250th anniversary of one of America's oldest and most formidable educational institutions, this comprehensive history of Columbia University extends from the earliest discussions in 1704 about New York City being "a fit Place for a colledge" to the recent inauguration of president Lee Bollinger, the nineteenth, on Morningside Heights. One of the original "Colonial Nine" schools, Columbia's distinctive history has been intertwined with the history of New York City. Located first in lower Manhattan, then in midtown, and now in Morningside Heights, Columbia's national and international stature have been inextricably identified with its urban setting. Columbia was the first of America's "multiversities," moving beyond its original character as a college dedicated to undergraduate instruction to offer a comprehensive program in professional and graduate studies. Medicine, law, architecture, and journalism have all looked to the graduates and faculty of Columbia's schools to provide for their ongoing leadership and vitality. In 2003, a sampling of Columbia alumni include one member of the United States Supreme Court, three United States senators, three congressmen, three governors (New York, New Jersey, and California), a chief justice of the New York Court of Appeals, and a president of the New York City Board of Education. But it is perhaps as a contributor of ideas and voices to the broad discourse of American intellectual life that Columbia has most distinguished itself. From The Federalist Papers, written by Columbians John Jay and Alexander Hamilton, to Charles Beard's An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution and Jack Kerouac's On the Road to Edward Said's Orientalism, Columbia and its graduates have greatly influenced American intellectual and public life. Stand, Columbia also examines the experiences of immigrants, women, Jews, African Americans, and other groups as it takes critical measure of the University's efforts to become more inclusive and more reflective of the diverse city that it calls home.