Becoming Americas Playground

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Becoming America's Playground

Author : Larry D. Gragg
Publisher : University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN 13 : 0806165855
Total Pages : 291 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (61 download)

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Book Synopsis Becoming America's Playground by : Larry D. Gragg

Download or read book Becoming America's Playground written by Larry D. Gragg and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2019-08-29 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1950 Las Vegas saw a million tourists. In 1960 it attracted ten million. The city entered the fifties as a regional destination where prosperous postwar Americans could enjoy vices largely forbidden elsewhere, and it emerged in the sixties as a national hotspot, the glitzy resort city that lights up the American West today. Becoming America’s Playground chronicles the vice and the toil that gave Las Vegas its worldwide reputation in those transformative years. Las Vegas’s rise was no happy accident. After World War II, vacationing Americans traveled the country in record numbers, making tourism a top industry in such states as California and Florida. The Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce saw its chance and developed a plan to capitalize on the town’s burgeoning reputation for leisure. Las Vegas pinned its hopes for the future on Americans’ need for escape. Transforming a vice city financed largely by the mob into a family vacation spot was not easy. Hotel and casino publicists closely monitored media representations of the city and took every opportunity to stage images of good, clean fun for the public—posing even the atomic bomb tests conducted just miles away as an attraction. The racism and sexism common in the rest of the nation in the era prevailed in Las Vegas too. The wild success of Frank Sinatra’s Rat Pack performances at the Sands Hotel in 1960 demonstrated the city’s slow progress toward equality. Women couldn’t work as dealers in Las Vegas until the 1970s, yet they found more opportunities for well-paying jobs there than many American women could find elsewhere. Gragg shows how a place like the Las Vegas Strip—with its glitz and vast wealth and its wildly public consumption of vice—rose to prominence in the 1950s, a decade of Cold War anxiety and civil rights conflict. Becoming America’s Playground brings this pivotal decade in Las Vegas into sharp focus for the first time.

Becoming America's Playground

Author : Larry D. Gragg
Publisher : University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN 13 : 0806165537
Total Pages : 404 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (61 download)

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Book Synopsis Becoming America's Playground by : Larry D. Gragg

Download or read book Becoming America's Playground written by Larry D. Gragg and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2019-08-29 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1950 Las Vegas saw a million tourists. In 1960 it attracted ten million. The city entered the fifties as a regional destination where prosperous postwar Americans could enjoy vices largely forbidden elsewhere, and it emerged in the sixties as a national hotspot, the glitzy resort city that lights up the American West today. Becoming America’s Playground chronicles the vice and the toil that gave Las Vegas its worldwide reputation in those transformative years. Las Vegas’s rise was no happy accident. After World War II, vacationing Americans traveled the country in record numbers, making tourism a top industry in such states as California and Florida. The Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce saw its chance and developed a plan to capitalize on the town’s burgeoning reputation for leisure. Las Vegas pinned its hopes for the future on Americans’ need for escape. Transforming a vice city financed largely by the mob into a family vacation spot was not easy. Hotel and casino publicists closely monitored media representations of the city and took every opportunity to stage images of good, clean fun for the public—posing even the atomic bomb tests conducted just miles away as an attraction. The racism and sexism common in the rest of the nation in the era prevailed in Las Vegas too. The wild success of Frank Sinatra’s Rat Pack performances at the Sands Hotel in 1960 demonstrated the city’s slow progress toward equality. Women couldn’t work as dealers in Las Vegas until the 1970s, yet they found more opportunities for well-paying jobs there than many American women could find elsewhere. Gragg shows how a place like the Las Vegas Strip—with its glitz and vast wealth and its wildly public consumption of vice—rose to prominence in the 1950s, a decade of Cold War anxiety and civil rights conflict. Becoming America’s Playground brings this pivotal decade in Las Vegas into sharp focus for the first time.

Satan's Playground

Author : Paul J Vanderwood
Publisher : Duke University Press
ISBN 13 : 082239166X
Total Pages : 410 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (223 download)

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Book Synopsis Satan's Playground by : Paul J Vanderwood

Download or read book Satan's Playground written by Paul J Vanderwood and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2010-04-09 with total page 410 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Satan’s Playground chronicles the rise and fall of the tumultuous and lucrative gambling industry that developed just south of the U.S.-Mexico border in the early twentieth century. As prohibitions against liquor, horse racing, gambling, and prostitution swept the United States, the vice industry flourished in and around Tijuana, to the extent that reformers came to call the town “Satan’s Playground,” unintentionally increasing its licentious allure. The area was dominated by Agua Caliente, a large, elegant gaming resort opened by four entrepreneurial Border Barons (three Americans and one Mexican) in 1928. Diplomats, royalty, film stars, sports celebrities, politicians, patricians, and nouveau-riche capitalists flocked to Agua Caliente’s luxurious complex of casinos, hotels, cabarets, and sports extravaganzas, and to its world-renowned thoroughbred racetrack. Clark Gable, Jean Harlow, Louis B. Mayer, the Marx Brothers, Bing Crosby, Charlie Chaplin, Gloria Swanson, and the boxer Jack Dempsey were among the regular visitors. So were mobsters such as Bugsy Siegel, who later cited Agua Caliente as his inspiration for building the first such resort on what became the Las Vegas Strip. Less than a year after Agua Caliente opened, gangsters held up its money-car in transit to a bank in San Diego, killing the courier and a guard and stealing the company money pouch. Paul J. Vanderwood weaves the story of this heist gone wrong, the search for the killers, and their sensational trial into the overall history of the often-chaotic development of Agua Caliente, Tijuana, and Southern California. Drawing on newspaper accounts, police files, court records, personal memoirs, oral histories, and “true detective” magazines, he presents a fascinating portrait of vice and society in the Jazz Age, and he makes a significant contribution to the history of the U.S.-Mexico border.

American Playgrounds

Author : Susan G. Solomon
Publisher : UPNE
ISBN 13 : 9781584655176
Total Pages : 288 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (551 download)

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Book Synopsis American Playgrounds by : Susan G. Solomon

Download or read book American Playgrounds written by Susan G. Solomon and published by UPNE. This book was released on 2005 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A compelling history, a manifesto, and a manual for change.

The Appian Way of America

Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 338 pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (31 download)

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Book Synopsis The Appian Way of America by :

Download or read book The Appian Way of America written by and published by . This book was released on 1923 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Chain Reactions

Author : Lucy Jane Santos
Publisher : Icon Books
ISBN 13 : 1837731551
Total Pages : 304 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (377 download)

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Book Synopsis Chain Reactions by : Lucy Jane Santos

Download or read book Chain Reactions written by Lucy Jane Santos and published by Icon Books. This book was released on 2024-07-04 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tracing uranium's past, and how it intersects with our understanding of other radioactive elements, this book aims to disentangle our attitudes and to unpick the atomic mindset. Chain Reactions looks at the fascinating, often-forgotten, stories that can be found throughout the history of the element. Ranging from glassworks to penny stocks; medicines to weapons; something to be feared to a powerful source of energy, this global history not only explores the development of our scientific understanding of uranium, but also shines a light on its cultural and social impact. By understanding our nuclear past, we can move beyond the ideological opposition to atomic technology and encourage a more nuanced dialogue about whether it is feasible - and desirable - to have a genuinely nuclear-powered future.

Armed Jews in the Americas

Author : Raanan Rein
Publisher : BRILL
ISBN 13 : 9004462546
Total Pages : 263 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (44 download)

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Book Synopsis Armed Jews in the Americas by : Raanan Rein

Download or read book Armed Jews in the Americas written by Raanan Rein and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2021-07-05 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume brings together some of the best new works on armed Jews in the Americas. Links between Jews and their ties to weapons are addressed through multiple cultural, political, social, and ideological contexts, thus breaking down longstanding, stilted myths in many societies about Jews and weaponry.

America the Beautiful

Author : Ben Carson, M.D.
Publisher : Zondervan
ISBN 13 : 0310417341
Total Pages : 224 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (14 download)

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Book Synopsis America the Beautiful by : Ben Carson, M.D.

Download or read book America the Beautiful written by Ben Carson, M.D. and published by Zondervan. This book was released on 2012-01-24 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is America becoming? Or, more importantly, what can she be if we reclaim a vision for the things that made her great in the first place? Join Dr. Ben Carson as he explores what made this nation great and discovers how we can find our way back. In America the Beautiful, Dr. Ben Carson helps us learn from our past in order to chart a better course for our future. From his personal ascent from inner-city poverty to international medical and humanitarian acclaim, Carson shares experiential insights that help us understand: What is already good about America Where we have gone astray Which fundamental beliefs have guided America from her founding into preeminence among nations Written by a man who has experienced America's best and worst firsthand, America the Beautiful is at once alarming, convicting, and inspiring. You'll gain new perspectives on our nation's origins, our Judeo-Christian heritage, our educational system, capitalism versus socialism, our moral fabric, healthcare, and much more. An incisive declaration of the values that shaped America's past and must shape her future, America the Beautiful calls us all to use our God-given talents to improve our lives, our communities, our nation, and our world.

The Possibility Machine

Author : Jake Johnson
Publisher : University of Illinois Press
ISBN 13 : 0252055012
Total Pages : 254 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (52 download)

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Book Synopsis The Possibility Machine by : Jake Johnson

Download or read book The Possibility Machine written by Jake Johnson and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2023-10-10 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Singular and star-studded writings on America’s neon-lit playground At once a Technicolor wonderland and the embodiment of American mythology, Las Vegas exists at the Ground Zero of a reverence for risk-taking and the transformative power of a winning hand. Jake Johnson edits a collection of short essays and flash ideas that probes how music-making and soundscapes shape the City of Second Chances. Treating topics ranging from Cher to Cirque de Soleil, the contributors delve into how music and musicians factored in the early development of Vegas’s image; the role of local communities of musicians and Strip mainstays in sustaining tensions between belief and disbelief; the ways aging showroom stars provide a sense of timelessness that inoculates visitors against the outside world; the link connecting fantasies of sexual prowess and democracy with the musical values of Liberace and others; considerations of how musicians and establishments gambled with identity and opened the door for audience members to explore Sin City–only versions of themselves; and the echoes and energy generated by the idea of Las Vegas as it travels across the country. Contributors: Celine Ayala, Kirstin Bews, Laura Dallman, Joanna Dee Das, James Deaville, Robert Fink, Pheaross Graham, Jessica A. Holmes, Maddie House-Tuck, Jake Johnson, Kelly Kessler, Michael Kinney, Carlo Lanfossi, Jason Leddington, Janis McKay, Sam Murray, Louis Niebur, Lynda Paul, Arianne Johnson Quinn, Michael M. Reinhard, Laura Risk, Cassaundra Rodriguez, Arreanna Rostosky, and Brian F. Wright

Havana Before Castro

Author : Peter Moruzzi
Publisher : Gibbs Smith
ISBN 13 : 142360993X
Total Pages : 257 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (236 download)

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Book Synopsis Havana Before Castro by : Peter Moruzzi

Download or read book Havana Before Castro written by Peter Moruzzi and published by Gibbs Smith. This book was released on 2008-07-01 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Take a trip to the golden age of Havana in this gorgeously illustrated volume of vintage photographs, postcards, brochures, and other ephemera. Featuring hundreds of historic images and cultural artifacts, Havana Before Castro documents how the Cuban capital evolved from a Prohibition Era getaway destination to a heady blend of glittering nightclubs, outrageous cabarets, all-night bars, and backstreet brothels. Here, captured in one amazing book, is the drama, passion, intrigue, and opulence of a legendary city during its heyday—before the Castro regime took over and Americans were banned from travel to this tropical paradise. In chapters covering such topics as Cuban rum and cigars, the world-famous Tropicana Club, and Havana’s association with the mob, author Peter Moruzzi provides essential historical context for the many fascinating and evocative images.

Bugsy's Shadow

Author : Larry D. Gragg
Publisher : University of New Mexico Press
ISBN 13 : 0826365159
Total Pages : 232 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (263 download)

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Book Synopsis Bugsy's Shadow by : Larry D. Gragg

Download or read book Bugsy's Shadow written by Larry D. Gragg and published by University of New Mexico Press. This book was released on 2023-10 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Early in the Prohibition era, Moe Sedway became part of the New York organized crime gang led by Meyer Lansky and Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel. A loyal and highly effective operative for Siegel, Sedway eventually gained monopoly control of the race wire service in Las Vegas and also became an effective casino manager of the Las Vegas Club, El Cortez, and the Rex Club. A breach in their relationship led to rumors that Sedway had gained Lansky's approval for a "hit" on Siegel. The unsolved mystery of who murdered Bugsy in 1947 has spawned numerous theories about the identity of the hitman, but regardless of who pulled the trigger, Bugsy's death opened the way for Moe to flourish as his own man at last. Long overshadowed by Bugsy in the annals of organized crime in America, Moe Sedway is now at last brought out into the light in this riveting tale of the sensational life and times of one of Vegas's most mysterious and little-known figures.

Las Vegas in the Rearview Mirror

Author : Martino Stierli
Publisher : Getty Publications
ISBN 13 : 1606061372
Total Pages : 360 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (6 download)

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Book Synopsis Las Vegas in the Rearview Mirror by : Martino Stierli

Download or read book Las Vegas in the Rearview Mirror written by Martino Stierli and published by Getty Publications. This book was released on 2013 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An illustrated reevaluation of the seminal architectural manifesto Learning from Las Vegas. It explores the significance of this controversial publication by situating it in the artistic, architectural, and urbanist discourse of the 1960s and '70s, and by evaluating the book's enduring influence of visual studies and architectural research.

Saunders Meadow - A Place Without Fences, A History of The Term Occupancy Permit Act of 1915

Author : Dr. Robert Reyes, PhD
Publisher : Hillcrest Publishing Group
ISBN 13 : 1634139100
Total Pages : 391 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (341 download)

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Book Synopsis Saunders Meadow - A Place Without Fences, A History of The Term Occupancy Permit Act of 1915 by : Dr. Robert Reyes, PhD

Download or read book Saunders Meadow - A Place Without Fences, A History of The Term Occupancy Permit Act of 1915 written by Dr. Robert Reyes, PhD and published by Hillcrest Publishing Group. This book was released on 2016-08-23 with total page 391 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On March 4, 1915, with the prompting and support of the US Forest Service, Congress passed the Occupancy Act. This Special Use Permit allowed private citizens the opportunity to occupy national forest or public domain lands for a certain period of time for family recreation summer homes, campgrounds, resorts, and stores. Author Dr. Robert Reyes provides readers with the first comprehensive collection of facts and details on the Term Occupancy Permit Act of 1915, which helps owners register their cabins as National Historic Places. With 14,000 out of the original 20,000 cabins still in existence, it's imperative that the historical significance of the Term Occupancy Permit Act is conserved for both current and prospective generations of cabin owners to reference and utilize. Thanks to the exhaustive research and devotion of Dr. Reyes, Saunders Meadow: A Place Without Fences masterfully accomplishes that important task in this comprehensive and invaluable body of work.

Bright Lights in the Desert

Author : Fred E Woods
Publisher : University of Nevada Press
ISBN 13 : 1647790727
Total Pages : 271 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (477 download)

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Book Synopsis Bright Lights in the Desert by : Fred E Woods

Download or read book Bright Lights in the Desert written by Fred E Woods and published by University of Nevada Press. This book was released on 2023-02-14 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bright Lights in the Desert explores the history of how members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Las Vegas have improved the regions’ neighborhoods, inspired educational institutions, brought integrity to the marketplace, and provided wholesome entertainment and cultural refinement. The LDS influence has helped shape the metropolitan city because of its members’ focus on family values and community service. Woods discusses how, through their beliefs and work ethics, they have impacted the growth of the area from the time of their first efforts to establish a mission in 1855 through the present day. Bright Lights in the Desert reveals Las Vegas as more than just a tourist destination and shows the LDS community’s commitment to making it a place of deep religious faith and devotion to family.

The Politics of Park Design

Author : Galen Cranz
Publisher : MIT Press (MA)
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 376 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (91 download)

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Book Synopsis The Politics of Park Design by : Galen Cranz

Download or read book The Politics of Park Design written by Galen Cranz and published by MIT Press (MA). This book was released on 1982 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Galen Cranz surveys the rise of the park system from 1850 to the present through 4 stages - the pleasure ground, the reform park, the recreation facility and the open space system.

Rivista di Estetica 85

Author : AA.VV.
Publisher : Rosenberg & Sellier
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 220 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (599 download)

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Book Synopsis Rivista di Estetica 85 by : AA.VV.

Download or read book Rivista di Estetica 85 written by AA.VV. and published by Rosenberg & Sellier. This book was released on 2024-07-05 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This issue of the 'philosophy of the city' includes articles by scholars on a range of human sciences, from media theory to aesthetics and architectural theory. Philosophy, social ontology, cultural anthropology, aesthetics, digital hermeneutics, media theory, cognitive science: these are just some of the disciplines that contribute to the philosophy of the city. This variety of approaches doesn't necessarily result in a chaotic mix. Many of the included forms of discourse belong to the same episteme, which means there are many connections and overlaps. This is true both in the literatures of reference and in the ways of answering the question of what 'the city' is. Secondly, the texts don't focus on the city itself, but on those who live in, design, imagine and think about it. Thirdly, because these texts create a place where different ideas can live together. This is like a city, where ideas change, are built on and then rebuilt. This is what Wittgenstein wrote about in his Philosophical Investigations.

The Lost Continent

Author : Bill Bryson
Publisher : Anchor Canada
ISBN 13 : 0385674562
Total Pages : 354 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (856 download)

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Book Synopsis The Lost Continent by : Bill Bryson

Download or read book The Lost Continent written by Bill Bryson and published by Anchor Canada. This book was released on 2012-09-25 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "I come from Des Moines. Somebody had to." And, as soon as Bill Bryson was old enough, he left. Des Moines couldn't hold him, but it did lure him back. After ten years in England he returned to the land of his youth, and drove almost 14,000 miles in search of a mythical small town called Amalgam, the kind of smiling village where the movies from his youth were set. Instead he drove through a series of horrific burgs, which he renamed Smellville, Fartville, Coleslaw, Coma, and Doldrum. At best his search led him to Anywhere, USA, a lookalike strip of gas stations, motels and hamburger outlets populated by obese and slow-witted hicks with a partiality for synthetic fibres. He discovered a continent that was doubly lost: lost to itself because he found it blighted by greed, pollution, mobile homes and television; lost to him because he had become a foreigner in his own country.