Motherless from an early age, she became her father's official hostess during the Civil War and Reconstruction years as well as his unofficial campaign manager. As the opening of the Civil War, her husband, William Sprague, was a wealthy industrialist, the "boy governor" of Rhode Island, a dashing military figure, and an alcoholic.".

This four-volume set documents the complexity and richness of women's contributions to American history and culture, empowering all students by demonstrating a more populist approach to the past. Based on the content of most textbooks, it would be easy to reach the erroneous conclusion that women have not contributed much to America's history and development. Nothing could be further from the truth. Offering comprehensive coverage of women of a diverse range of cultures, classes, ethnicities, religions, and sexual identifications, this four-volume set identifies the many ways in which women have helped to shape and strengthen the United States. This encyclopedia is organized into four chronological volumes, with each volume further divided into three sections. Each section features an overview essay and thematic essay as well as detailed entries on topics ranging from Lady Gaga to Ladybird Johnson, Lucy Stone, and Lucille Ball, and from the International Ladies of Rhythm to the International Ladies Garment Workers Union. The set also includes a vast variety of primary documents, such as personal letters, public papers, newspaper articles, recipes, and more. These primary documents enhance users' learning opportunities and enable readers to better connect with the subject matter.

Salmon P. Chase was one of the preeminent men of 19th-century America. A majestic figure, tall and stately, Chase was a leader in the fight to end slavery, a brilliant administrator who as Lincoln's Secretary of the Treasury provided crucial funding for a vastly expensive war, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court during the turmoil of Reconstruction, and the presiding officer of the impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson. Yet he was also a complex figure. As John Niven reveals in this magisterial biography, Chase was a paradoxical blend of idealism and ambition. If he stood for the highest moral purposes--the freedom and equality of all mankind--these lofty ideas failed to mask a thirst for power so deeply ingrained in his character that it drove away many who shared his principles, but mistrusted his motives. Niven provides a vivid description of Chase's early years--his childhood in New Hampshire (where his father's failed business venture and early death left the family all but destitute) and in Ohio (where he was sent to live with his uncle Philander, an Episcopal bishop), his education at Dartmouth, and his early law career in Cincinnati. Niven shows how the plight of the slaves stirred this reticent young lawyer, and how Chase gradually moved to the forefront of the antislavery movement. At the same time, we see how he used his growing prominence in the antislavery movement to forward his political ambitions. Niven illuminates Chase's long tenure as a public man. Twice elected United States Senator, twice chosen governor of Ohio (then the third most populous state in the Union), Chase organized the widespread but diffuse anti-slavery movement into a workable political organization, the Free Soil party (whose slogan "Free Soil, Free Labor, Freemen" Chase coined himself). We read of Chase's work in Lincoln's war cabinet and his tenure as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and we also follow his many political maneuvers, his attempts to undercut rivals, and his poorly run campaigns for presidential nominations. Niven also provides an intimate portrait of Chase's family life--his loss of three wives and four of his six children, and the unfortunate marriage of his beautiful daughter Kate to a rich but dissolute man--and a vivid picture of life at mid-century. What emerges is a portrait of a tragic figure, whose high qualities of heart and mind and whose many achievements were ultimately tarnished by an often unseemly quest for power. It is a striking look at an eminent statesman as well as a revealing glimpse into political life in 19th-century America, all set against a background of the anti-slavery movement, the Civil War, and the turmoil of Reconstruction.

Chronicling the sometimes outlandish, often tragic history of the environs of the White House, this book covers two centuries of assassinations, slave escapes, deadly duels, sex scandals, battles, brawls and spy intrigues that took place in the presidential neighborhood, Lafayette Square. The author recounts the triumphs and catastrophes of heroes and villains both famous and unsung, placing them in the context of contemporary world events of the day.

The Oxford History of the United States is the most respected multivolume history of the American nation. In the newest volume in the series, The Republic for Which It Stands, acclaimed historian Richard White offers a fresh and integrated interpretation of Reconstruction and the Gilded Age as the seedbed of modern America. At the end of the Civil War the leaders and citizens of the victorious North envisioned the country's future as a free-labor republic, with a homogenous citizenry, both black and white. The South and West were to be reconstructed in the image of the North. Thirty years later Americans occupied an unimagined world. The unity that the Civil War supposedly secured had proved ephemeral. The country was larger, richer, and more extensive, but also more diverse. Life spans were shorter, and physical well-being had diminished, due to disease and hazardous working conditions. Independent producers had become wage earners. The country was Catholic and Jewish as well as Protestant, and increasingly urban and industrial. The "dangerous" classes of the very rich and poor expanded, and deep differences -- ethnic, racial, religious, economic, and political -- divided society. The corruption that gave the Gilded Age its name was pervasive. These challenges also brought vigorous efforts to secure economic, moral, and cultural reforms. Real change -- technological, cultural, and political -- proliferated from below more than emerging from political leadership. Americans, mining their own traditions and borrowing ideas, produced creative possibilities for overcoming the crises that threatened their country. In a work as dramatic and colorful as the era it covers, White narrates the conflicts and paradoxes of these decades of disorienting change and mounting unrest, out of which emerged a modern nation whose characteristics resonate with the present day.

The Fellers Called Him Bill is a story of the American Civil War by P.J. Kearns. It is a thoroughly engaging account of the Great Rebellion following one young mans incredible journey through it. The generously illustrated narrative is presented as a three volume set Book 1 - Secession and the Outbreak of War Book 2 - The Rebellion Intensifies Book 3 - The Final Desperate Fighting and the Aftermath of War The story touches on the military, social, political, and economic realities of the era while introducing the larger-than-life Americans who shaped history in the mid 19th century. Loaded with fascinating anecdotes, photos, drawings, and maps. The Fellers Called Him Bill offers the reader a compelling narrative covering the most incredible period in American history. For a student of American History, the set of books would serve as an excellent source of material.

From the bell tower of the Cranston Print Works in Spragueville, which called hundreds to work in its time, to the quiet ripples of the Pawtuxet River, where the first settlers of Cranston built their homes in the 17th century, and from the family homesteads of Western Cranston to the elegant houses of Edgewood, Cranston is a unique place that is more than just a city--it is a neighborhood of people who take pride in their individuality and their hometown roots. During the Civil War, when people talked about Cranston, they were talking about Spragueville and the A.&W. Sprague Mills, then the largest calico manufacturing company in the world. The legacy of the Sprague Brothers, Amasa and William, owners of the A.&W. Sprague Manufacturing Company in the mid-1800s, had a wide-spread effect on the region. The murder of Amasa Sprague in 1843 changed the face of capital punishment in Rhode Island.

This fourth volume of the Salmon P. Chase papers covers the last 15 months of his tenure as Treasury secretary and concludes with his nomination as Chief Justice of the United States. Letters that document his increasing alienation from the Lincoln administration are featured.

The Civil War was the most traumatic event in American history, pitting Americans against one another, rending the national fabric, leaving death and devastation in its wake, and instilling an anger that has not entirely dissipated even to this day, 150 years later. This updated and expanded two-volume second edition of the Historical Dictionary of the Civil War relates the history of this war through a chronology, an introductory essay, an extensive bibliography, and hundreds of cross-referenced dictionary entries on persons, places, events, institutions, battles, and campaigns. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about the Civil War.

An NPR Best Book of 2022 From an acclaimed New York Times bestselling biographer, an “eloquently written, impeccably researched, and intensely moving” (The Wall Street Journal) reassessment of Abraham Lincoln’s indispensable Secretary of the Treasury: a leading proponent for black rights during his years in cabinet and later as Chief Justice of the United States. Salmon P. Chase is best remembered as a rival of Lincoln’s for the Republican nomination in 1860—but there would not have been a national Republican Party, and Lincoln could not have won the presidency, were it not for the groundwork Chase laid over the previous two decades. Starting in the early 1840s, long before Lincoln was speaking out against slavery, Chase was forming and leading antislavery parties. He represented fugitive slaves so often in his law practice that he was known as the attorney general for runaway negroes. Tapped by Lincoln to become Secretary of the Treasury, Chase would soon prove vital to the Civil War effort, raising the billions of dollars that allowed the Union to win the war while also pressing the president to recognize black rights. When Lincoln had the chance to appoint a chief justice in 1864, he chose his faithful rival because he was sure Chase would make the right decisions on the difficult racial, political, and economic issues the Supreme Court would confront during Reconstruction. Drawing on previously overlooked sources, Walter Stahr offers a “revelatory” (The Christian Science Monitor) new look at the pivotal events of the Civil War and its aftermath, and a “superb” (James McPherson), “magisterial” (Amanda Foreman) account of a complex forgotten man at the center of the fight for racial justice in 19th century America.