A lavishly illustrated history of girlhood embroidery in the state of Delaware, from 1750 to 1850, including beautifully rendered photographs of 190 samplers. This magnificent volume includes well-researched biographical information on the young embroiderers and their families as well as information on prominent needlework teachers and themes.

Delaware Discoveries: Girlhood Embroidery, 1750-1850

Crafts, Hobbies & Home

Allen, Gloria Seaman

Steinhoff, Cynthia Shank

Antiques & Collectibles

Chesapeake Book Company

Maryland did not freely choose to remain in the Union at the outbreak of the Civil War, this book argues: the state was held by brute force. A colorful account of the dilemmas faced by Marylanders in the crisis as seen from the Southern point of view.

A Southern Star for Maryland: Maryland and the Secession Crisis

History

Denton, Lawrence M.

Americas

Located in Washington, D. C., the Anacostia River is a poster child for America's tragically neglected, abused urban waterways. There are compelling ethical grounds for remedying this river's environmental problems, for the Anacostia in our time demonstrates that environmental burdens like pollution and resource depletion are not shared equally. Wennersten's book offers a corrective to the uncritical assumptions of growth for its own sake, and development at the cost of our waters, our natural resources, and the health of our citizenry.

Anacostia: The Death and Life of an American River

Wennersten, John R.

Spanning the years 1865 to 1916 when the industrial revolution took hold, this book, one of the rare state level studies of labor and politics, explains how workers discarded outworn ideas and tactics and gradually moved toward social liberalism, a set of ideas simultaneously adopted by many in the middle class. The result was a long series of shifting cross-class alliances that won many labor reforms. The book delves into the world of the Central Labor Union and, contrary to the view that workers eschewed politics in favor of collective bargaining, convincingly demonstrates that workers were key players in the birth of modern liberal politics in the Progressive Era.

Cross-Class Alliances And The Birth Of Modern Liberalism

Business & Money

George B. Du Bois Jr.

Economics

From his humble office at the Baltimore Court of Common Pleas, Isaac Freeman Rasin ran the city and built an envialbe fortune. This is narrative history at its best, packed with action, colorful detail and ruthless men. Melton traces how a political boss and his associates gained power-and held it-in a city noted for political violence. Rasin now takes his place beside New York's Boss Tweed and George Washington Plunkett as one of the truly memorable big-city bosses.

Old Man Rasin: Boss Politics in Gilded Age Baltimore, 1867-1907

Tracy Matthew Melton

Ned informs, entertains, and inspires readers with stories of the rich history of this area, growing up around the Bay, and ideas on how you can help restore the bay to the national treasure it once was. The book makes a great gift to volunteers, sponsors, family and friends who care about the Bay. The book has received the following National Book Awards: 
<ul>
<li>2010 Winner of the Excellence in Journalism Award chosen by the Renewable Natural Resource Foundation</li>
<li>2010 Winner of the Best Book on Environmental and Natural Resources selected by The American Society for Public Administration.</li>
<li>2010 Recommended by the National Science Teachers Association</li>
<li>2011 Recommended by the Izaak Walton Conservation League of America</li>
</ul>

Chesapeake Watershed: A Sense of Place and a Call to Action

Science & Math

Tillman, Ned

Biological Sciences

The story of Sotterley plantation in St. Mary's County began shortly after the founding of Maryland and continued over three centuries that saw it rise from humble beginnings, prosper in the age of tobacco and slavery, endure depression, and survive three wars, only to stumble toward ruin until a generous fate brought restoration and renewed relevance for our time. Some who resided there were socially prominent, though most were not. Some were free, others enslaved. Some were white, more were black. Yet they were men and women whose stories have much to tell us about the history of southern Maryland and a maturing Chesapeake society.

Sotterley: Her People and Their Worlds: Three Hundred Years of a Maryland Plantation

Brown, David G.

In the Spring of 1861, with secession in full flower and Baltimore occupied by General Benjamin "Beast" Butler's nervous Union troops, reports emerged that Southern sympathizers there possessed a terrible weapon of mass destruction, one capable of firing 300 rounds per minute and utterly destroying anything in its path. But not everyone was impressed. "A very amiable machine, indeed, for killing friend and foe," said the Scientific American. "We suppose that the inventor intended to use it for the purpose of committing suicide." What was this awful "engine of war," and did it ever work? John Lamb presents for the first time in print the full story of the "Winans Steam Gun" and its antecedents, from inception in the fertile - sometimes fantastical - minds of nineteenth century mechanical engineers, through personal jealousies, patent disputes, and test firings. Here too, is the story of Ross Winans, the colorful, pro-Southern Baltimore industrialist to whom the gun was mistakenly attributed, and who as seized and briefly imprisoned after its capture.

A Strange Engine of War: The "Winans" Steam Gun and the Civil War in Maryland

Lamb, John W.

New York physician Robert L. Dickinson, a lover of nature and a prolific artist, served with the War Department during WWI and while there produced idyllic sketches of the rustic scenery all but vanished from today's busy capital. Most of his Washington sketches are included in this volume, along with historical information about each site.

A Washington Sketchbook: Drawings by Robert L. Dickinson, 1917-1918

Arts & Photography

Spilsbury, Gail Dickersin

History & Criticism

Patrick Smithwick has done it again. His new book Flying Change is every bit the sleek, well-bred and fast Thoroughbred as its predecessor,Racing My Father. In Flying Change, Smithwick is no longer racing his father. He is racing himself - while continuing with his duties as a father, a husband, a friend, a teacher and a writer. This memoir of dueling ambitions is the tale of a man who decides in mid-life to call off all restraints, silence all naysayers, put his mind and body and courage to the test, and do what in his case--he has been away from the world of racing for twenty-five years--is the impossible: within a nine-month period get a horse to ride in the most difficult steeplechase race in the world, and then, ride that horse as if his life depends on it, which, literally, it does. Flying Change is an inspiration for anyone who thought he or she could never compete again. If you'd like to know what it's like to be a member of the elite racing set, if you'd like to experience firsthand a foxhunt at its most exciting moments, if you'd like to vicariously ride in the Maryland Hunt Cup, then this is your book. The demands in time and energy required by Smithwick's return to racing pull him away from his family and his ambition to write, creating major conflicts. Yet, the fast-paced narrative shows Smithwick striving to carry on traditions from his upbringing and apply them to the raising of his own three children. These sections are positive, upbeat, father-affirming. Fatherhood--the tensions, the responsibilities, the possibilities--is a topic sorely missing in the American canon. When tackled in American literature, books dealing with fatherhood are most often ones written by a son or daughter describing his or her mistreatment by father who is often either abusive, violent, alcoholic, inattentive, or worse. Smithwick fights against that formula in Racing My Father, a memoir of growing up as the son of A. P. "Paddy" Smithwick, the legendary steeplechase jockey. In Flying Change, Smithwick goes against the grain again. He writes, as a father of three children, about his relationships with them. He addresses the question of what it means to be a father in 21 Century America. Tragedy on the racetrack in the form of death, paralysis, and suicide lurks in the background. This realistic recreation of the world of Thoroughbred racing gives the book a seriousness, and it also creates suspense. Flying Change is a must-read for the general audience as well as lovers of the horse and of horse racing. This is not only a racing memoir that catapults the reader through time and space at a breathtaking pace, it is a literary memoir that examines the big questions of how to live one's life.

Flying Change: A Year of Racing and Family and Steeplechasing

Smithwick, Patrick

Biographies & Memoirs

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