This is the first book in “The Everyday Life in America Series”, which consists of six books, by as many authors, and which goes through 1945. This book takes us from initial European settlement on the East Coast, up to the beginning of the seventeenth century. It covers pretty much every aspect of what life Read More
Geneature
The Sinners All Bow, by Kate Winkler Dawson
This is a book, about two other books, and about a murder. Well, maybe it was a murder. It was certainly a tragedy. The subtitle is “Two Authors, One Murder, and the Real Hester Prynne”. The story revolves around Sarah Maria Cornell, who was found dead in a Rhode Island field in December of 1832. Read More
DNA USA, by Bryan Sykes
This is not the usual type of book that I review, and since it was published in 2012, some of the information is dated, since DNA research is such a dynamic field. One of the reasons I wanted to read it has to do with the subtitle: “A Genetic Portrait of America”. Since DNA deals Read More
The Great Influenza, by John M Barry (first posted 1 Oct 2022)
This is a book not only about the influenza in 1918, its impact on America and the world in a time of war, but also about the men (and a few women!) who were trying desperately to stop it. The first part of book is actually more of a history of the development of modern Read More
The Poison Squad, by Deborah Blum
The “Poison Squad” was the nickname of the group of men enlisted by the then Chief Chemist at the US Department of Agriculture to test whether or not certain substances being added to food products were benign, as the producers claimed. However, this book is focused more on Harvey Washington Wiley than on the dozens Read More
The Pioneers, by David McCullough
Just from the title, I expected this book to be a more general study of early settlers into the Midwest. The subtitle is “The Heroic Story of the Settlers Who Brought the American Ideal West”. However, this book is laser focused on Ohio, and mostly on Marietta. Had I read the dust cover, I would Read More
Life on the Ohio Frontier, by Mary Lott
This is a collection of letters that were written by Mary Lott to her brother, Deacon John Phillips. Mary and her husband Henry had moved from Pennsylvania to Delaware County, Ohio, in the mid 1820’s. The letters start in 1826, and end shortly before John’s death in 1846. Mary died not long after her brother; Read More
The Irish Americans, by Jay P Dolan
This book describes the experiences of Irish emigrants from the 1700’s up to and including the entire 20th century. Not only does Dolan describe what life would have been like for the Irish who did cross the pond, he also discusses, in great detail, the conditions that caused many people to leave Ireland in the Read More
Mischievous Creatures, by Catherine McNeur
This book is about two sisters who lived in Pennsylvania in the early to mid 1800’s. One was a botanist, and the other, an entomologist. Since there was little to no formal training in those fields then, especially for women, they were both basically self-taught. And we really only know about them because they wrote Read More
Sensational, by Kim Todd
The subtitle of this book is The Hidden History of America’s “Girl Stunt Reporters”. So this is the story, or stories, of the most well-known women reporters of the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. While Nelly Bly probably has the most name-recognition now, there were several others almost as well-known at the time. And they Read More