The Boardinghouse in Nineteenth-Century America

Download The Boardinghouse in Nineteenth-Century America PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : JHU Press
ISBN 13 : 9780801885716
Total Pages : 258 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (857 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Boardinghouse in Nineteenth-Century America by : Wendy Gamber

Download or read book The Boardinghouse in Nineteenth-Century America written by Wendy Gamber and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2007-04-16 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Publisher description

Anglo-American Travelers and the Hotel Experience in Nineteenth-Century Literature

Download Anglo-American Travelers and the Hotel Experience in Nineteenth-Century Literature PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317198034
Total Pages : 298 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (171 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Anglo-American Travelers and the Hotel Experience in Nineteenth-Century Literature by : Monika M Elbert

Download or read book Anglo-American Travelers and the Hotel Experience in Nineteenth-Century Literature written by Monika M Elbert and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-08-24 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume examines the hotel experience of Anglo-American travelers in the nineteenth century from the viewpoint of literary and cultural studies as well as spatiality theory. Focusing on the social and imaginary space of the hotel in fiction, periodicals, diaries, and travel accounts, the essays shed new light on nineteenth-century notions of travel writing. Analyzing the liminal space of the hotel affords a new way of understanding the freedoms and restrictions felt by travelers from different social classes and nations. As an environment that forced travelers to reimagine themselves or their cultural backgrounds, the hotel could provide exhilarating moments of self-discovery or dangerous feelings of alienation. It could prove liberating to the tourist seeking an escape from prescribed gender roles or social class constructs. The book addresses changing notions of nationality, social class, and gender in a variety of expansive or oppressive hotel milieu: in the private space of the hotel room and in the public spaces (foyers, parlors, dining areas). Sections address topics including nationalism and imperialism; the mundane vs. the supernatural; comfort and capitalist excess; assignations, trysts, and memorable encounters in hotels; and women’s travels. The book also offers a brief history of inns and hotels of the time period, emphasizing how hotels play a large role in literary texts, where they frequently reflect order and disorder in a personal and/or national context. This collection will appeal to scholars in literature, travel writing, history, cultural studies, and transnational studies, and to those with interest in travel and tourism, hospitality, and domesticity.

Culinary Aesthetics and Practices in Nineteenth-Century American Literature

Download Culinary Aesthetics and Practices in Nineteenth-Century American Literature PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 0230103146
Total Pages : 267 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (31 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Culinary Aesthetics and Practices in Nineteenth-Century American Literature by : M. Drews

Download or read book Culinary Aesthetics and Practices in Nineteenth-Century American Literature written by M. Drews and published by Springer. This book was released on 2009-10-26 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Culinary Aesthetics and Practices in Nineteenth-Century American Literature examines the preponderance of food imagery in nineteenth-century literary texts. Contributors to this volume analyze the social, political, and cultural implications of scenes involving food and dining and illustrate how "aesthetic" notions of culinary preparation are often undercut by the actual practices of cooking and eating. As contributors interrogate the values and meanings behind culinary discourses, they complicate commonplace notions about American identity and question the power structure behind food production and consumption.

On the Make

Download On the Make PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : NYU Press
ISBN 13 : 0814752543
Total Pages : 290 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (147 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis On the Make by : Brian P Luskey

Download or read book On the Make written by Brian P Luskey and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2010-01-01 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the bustling cities of the mid-nineteenth-century Northeast, young male clerks working in commercial offices and stores were on the make, persistently seeking wealth, respect, and self-gratification. Yet these strivers and "counter jumpers" discovered that claiming the identities of independent men—while making sense of a volatile capitalist economy and fluid urban society—was fraught with uncertainty. In On the Make, Brian P. Luskey illuminates at once the power of the ideology of self-making and the important contests over the meanings of respectability, manhood, and citizenship that helped to determine who clerks were and who they would become. Drawing from a rich array of archival materials, including clerks’ diaries, newspapers, credit reports, census data, advice literature, and fiction, Luskey argues that a better understanding of clerks and clerking helps make sense of the culture of capitalism and the society it shaped in this pivotal era.

Science and Technology in Nineteenth-Century America

Download Science and Technology in Nineteenth-Century America PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN 13 : 0313017654
Total Pages : 222 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (13 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Science and Technology in Nineteenth-Century America by : Todd Timmons

Download or read book Science and Technology in Nineteenth-Century America written by Todd Timmons and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2005-09-30 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 19th Century was a period of tremendous change in the daily lives of the average Americans. Never before had such change occurred so rapidly or and had affected such a broad range of people. And these changes were primarily a result of tremendous advances in science and technology. Many of the technologies that play such an central role in our daily life today were first invented during this great period of innovation—everything from the railroad to the telephone. These inventions were instrumental in the social and cultural developments of the time. The Civil War, Westward Expansion, the expansion and fall of slave culture, the rise of the working and middle classes and changes in gender roles—none of these would have occurred as they did had it not been for the science and technology of the time. Science and Technology in Nineteenth-Century America chronicles this relationship between science and technology and the revolutions in the lives of everyday Americans. The volume includes a discussion of: Transportation—from the railroad and steamship to the first automobiles appearing near the end of the century. Communication—including the telegraph, the telephone, and the photograph Industrialization— how the growing factory system impacted the lives of working men and women Agriculture—how mechanical devices such as the McCormick reaper and applications of science forever altered how farming was done in the United States Exploration and navigations—the science and technology of the age was crucial to the expansion of the country that took place in the century, and The book includes a timeline and a bibliography for those interested in pursuing further research, and over two dozen fascinating photos that illustrate the daily lives of Americans in the 19th Century Part of the Daily Life through History series, this title joins Science and Technology in Colonial America in a new branch of the series-titles specifically looking at how science innovations impacted daily life.

Interdisciplinary Investigations of the Boott Mills, Lowell, Massachusetts: The boarding house system as a way of life

Download Interdisciplinary Investigations of the Boott Mills, Lowell, Massachusetts: The boarding house system as a way of life PDF Online Free

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

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Interdisciplinary Investigations of the Boott Mills, Lowell, Massachusetts: The boarding house system as a way of life by : Mary Carolyn Beaudry

Download or read book Interdisciplinary Investigations of the Boott Mills, Lowell, Massachusetts: The boarding house system as a way of life written by Mary Carolyn Beaudry and published by . This book was released on 1987 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

At Home in Nineteenth-Century America

Download At Home in Nineteenth-Century America PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : NYU Press
ISBN 13 : 0814769144
Total Pages : 267 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (147 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis At Home in Nineteenth-Century America by : Amy G. Richter

Download or read book At Home in Nineteenth-Century America written by Amy G. Richter and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2015-01-23 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Few institutions were as central to nineteenth-century American culture as the home. Emerging in the 1820s as a sentimental space apart from the public world of commerce and politics, the Victorian home transcended its initial association with the private lives of the white, native-born bourgeoisie to cross lines of race, ethnicity, class, and region. Throughout the nineteenth century, home was celebrated as a moral force, domesticity moved freely into the worlds of politics and reform, and home and marketplace repeatedly remade each other. At Home in Nineteenth-Century America draws upon advice manuals, architectural designs, personal accounts, popular fiction, advertising images, and reform literature to revisit the variety of places Americans called home. Entering into middle-class suburban houses, slave cabins, working-class tenements, frontier dugouts, urban settlement houses, it explores the shifting interpretations and experiences of these spaces from within and without. Nineteenth-century homes and notions of domesticity seem simultaneously distant and familiar. This sense of surprise and recognition is ideal for the study of history, preparing us to view the past with curiosity and empathy, inspiring comparisons to the spaces we inhabit today—malls, movie theaters, city streets, and college campuses. Permitting us to listen closely to the nineteenth century’s sweeping conversation about home in its various guises, At Home in Nineteenth-Century America encourages us to hear our contemporary conversation about the significance and meaning of home anew while appreciating the lingering imprint of past ideals. Instructor's Guide

The Colored Conventions Movement

Download The Colored Conventions Movement PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : John Hope Franklin African
ISBN 13 : 9781469654263
Total Pages : 400 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (542 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Colored Conventions Movement by : P. Gabrielle Foreman

Download or read book The Colored Conventions Movement written by P. Gabrielle Foreman and published by John Hope Franklin African. This book was released on 2021-03-22 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This volume of essays is the first to focus on the Colored Conventions movement, the nineteenth century's longest campaign for Black civil rights. Well before the founding of the NAACP and other twentieth-century pillars of the civil rights movement, tens of thousands of Black leaders organized state and national conventions across North America. Over seven decades, they advocated for social justice and against slavery, protesting state-sanctioned and mob violence while demanding voting, legal, labor, and educational rights. Collectively, these essays highlight the vital role of the Colored Conventions in the lives of thousands of early organizers, including many of the most famous writers, ministers, politicians, and entrepreneurs in the long history of Black activism"--

Get Out of My Room!

Download Get Out of My Room! PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 022640935X
Total Pages : 308 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (264 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Get Out of My Room! by : Jason Reid

Download or read book Get Out of My Room! written by Jason Reid and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2017-01-19 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Teenage life is tough. You’re at the mercy of parents, teachers, and siblings, all of whom insist on continuing to treat you like a kid and refuse to leave you alone. So what do you do when it all gets to be too much? You retreat to your room (and maybe slam the door). Even in our era of Snapchat and hoverboards, bedrooms remain a key part of teenage life, one of the only areas where a teen can exert control and find some privacy. And while these separate bedrooms only became commonplace after World War II, the idea of the teen bedroom has been around for a long time. With Get Out of My Room!, Jason Reid digs into the deep historical roots of the teen bedroom and its surprising cultural power. He starts in the first half of the nineteenth century, when urban-dwelling middle-class families began to consider offering teens their own spaces in the home, and he traces that concept through subsequent decades, as social, economic, cultural, and demographic changes caused it to become more widespread. Along the way, Reid shows us how the teen bedroom, with its stuffed animals, movie posters, AM radios, and other trappings of youthful identity, reflected the growing involvement of young people in American popular culture, and also how teens and parents, in the shadow of ongoing social changes, continually negotiated the boundaries of this intensely personal space. Richly detailed and full of surprising stories and insights, Get Out of My Room! is sure to offer insight and entertainment to anyone with wistful memories of their teenage years. (But little brothers should definitely keep out.)

Family Life in 19th-Century America

Download Family Life in 19th-Century America PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN 13 : 0313081123
Total Pages : 441 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (13 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Family Life in 19th-Century America by : James M. Volo

Download or read book Family Life in 19th-Century America written by James M. Volo and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2007-08-30 with total page 441 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nineteenth century families had to deal with enormous changes in almost all of life's categories. The first generation of nineteenth century Americans was generally anxious to remove the Anglo from their Anglo-Americanism. The generation that grew up in Jacksonian America matured during a period of nationalism, egalitarianism, and widespread reformism. Finally, the generation of the pre-war decades was innately diverse in terms of their ethnic backgrounds, employment, social class, education, language, customs, and religion. Americans were acutely aware of the need to create a stable and cohesive society firmly founded on the family and traditional family values. Yet the people of America were among the most mobile and diverse on earth. Geographically, socially, and economically, Americans (and those immigrants who wished to be Americans) were dedicated to change, movement, and progress. This dichotomy between tradition and change may have been the most durable and common of American traits, and it was a difficult quality to circumvent when trying to form a unified national persona. Volumes in the Family Life in America series focus on the day-to-day lives and roles of families throughout history. The roles of all family members are defined and information on daily family life, the role of the family in society, and the ever-changing definition of family are discussed. Discussion of the nuclear family, single parent homes, foster and adoptive families, stepfamilies, and gay and lesbian families are included where appropriate. Topics such as meal planning, homes, entertainment and celebrations, are discussed along with larger social issues that originate in the home like domestic violence, child abuse and neglect, and divorce. Ideal for students and general readers alike, books in this series bring the history of everyday people to life.

Maritcha

Download Maritcha PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Abrams
ISBN 13 : 1613128444
Total Pages : 48 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (131 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Maritcha by : Tonya Bolden

Download or read book Maritcha written by Tonya Bolden and published by Abrams. This book was released on 2015-03-17 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Coretta Scott King Honor Book provides a much-needed window into a little-documented time in black history. The poignant story, based on the memoir of Maritcha Rémond Lyons, shows what it was like to be a black child born free and living in New York City in the mid-1800s.

The Continuing City

Download The Continuing City PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 560 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (91 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Continuing City by : James E. Vance

Download or read book The Continuing City written by James E. Vance and published by . This book was released on 1990-05 with total page 560 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "We shape our houses but then they shape us." Winston Churchill said it, but James Vance explains it in the updated edition of his classic study of urban geography. The Continuing City focuses on the morphology of the city -- its physical form and structure -- and its power to influence the culture, society, and the day-to-day lives of inhabitants. Without endorsing rigid environmentalism, Vance's text offers a counterpoint to behavioral explanations of history by examining the city as a social phenomenon and cultural force. Although the physical remains of the past are often seen only as works of art, they are also revealing documents. The city is a living alternative to the historical record, one that is unedited by artists and chroniclers. Vance explains the significance of the "morphogenesis" of the city in Western civilization from its ceremonial and administrative function in the ancient world, through its decline with the rise of feudalism, to its reemergence as a commercial center in the late Middle Ages, and its continuing evolution in the modern era. He also explores the city's impact on social structure, demography, technology, mercantile economics, political power, religious and intellectual institutions, styles of art and architecture, and other topics.

Before They Were Cardinals

Download Before They Were Cardinals PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Sports and American Culture
ISBN 13 : 9780826219350
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (193 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Before They Were Cardinals by : Jon David Cash

Download or read book Before They Were Cardinals written by Jon David Cash and published by Sports and American Culture. This book was released on 2011-03 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mark McGwire, Ozzie Smith, Lou Brock. These famous Cardinals are known by baseball fans around the world. But who and what were the predecessors of these modern-day players and their team? In Before They Were Cardinals, Jon David Cash examines the infancy of major-league baseball in St. Louis during the last quarter of the nineteenth century. His in-depth analysis begins with an exploration of the factors that motivated civic leaders to form the city's first major-league ball club. Cash delves into the economic trade rivalry between Chicago and St. Louis and examines how St. Louis's attempt to compete with Chicago led to the formation of the St. Louis Brown Stockings in 1875. He then explains why, three years later, despite its initial success, St. Louis baseball quickly vanished from the big-league map. St. Louis baseball was revived with the arrival of German immigrant saloon owner Chris Von der Ahe. Cash explains how Von der Ahe, originally only interested in concession rights, purchased a controlling interest in the Brown Stockings. His riveting account follows the team after Von der Ahe's purchase, from the formation of the American Association, to its merger in 1891 with the rival National League. He chronicles Von der Ahe's monetary downturn, and the club's decline as well, following the merger. Before They Were Cardinals provides vivid portraits of the ball players and the participants involved in the baseball war between the National League and the American Association. Cash points out significant differences, such as Sunday games and beer sales, between the two Leagues. In addition, excerpts taken from Chicago and St. Louis newspapers make the on-field contests and off-field rivalries come alive. Cash concludes this lively historical narrative with an appendix that traces the issue of race in baseball during this period. The excesses of modern-day baseball--players jumping contracts or holding out for more money, gambling on games, and drinking to excess; owners stealing players and breaking agreements--were all present in the nineteenth-century sport. Players were seen then, as they are now, as an embodiment of their community. This timely treatment of a fascinating period in St. Louis baseball history will appeal to both baseball aficionados and those who want to understand the history of baseball itself.

The Murder of Helen Jewett

Download The Murder of Helen Jewett PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Vintage
ISBN 13 : 0679740759
Total Pages : 514 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (797 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis The Murder of Helen Jewett by : Patricia Cline Cohen

Download or read book The Murder of Helen Jewett written by Patricia Cline Cohen and published by Vintage. This book was released on 1999-06-29 with total page 514 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1836, the murder of a young prostitute made headlines in New York City and around the country, inaugurating a sex-and-death sensationalism in news reporting that haunts us today. Patricia Cline Cohen goes behind these first lurid accounts to reconstruct the story of the mysterious victim, Helen Jewett. From her beginnings as a servant girl in Maine, Helen Jewett refashioned herself, using four successive aliases, into a highly paid courtesan. She invented life stories for herself that helped her build a sympathetic clientele among New York City's elite, and she further captivated her customers through her seductive letters, which mixed elements of traditional feminine demureness with sexual boldness. But she was to meet her match--and her nemesis--in a youth called Richard Robinson. He was one of an unprecedented number of young men who flooded into America's burgeoning cities in the 1830s to satisfy the new business society's seemingly infinite need for clerks. The son of an established Connecticut family, he was intense, arrogant, and given to posturing. He became Helen Jewett's lover in a tempestuous affair and ten months later was arrested for her murder. He stood trial in a five-day courtroom drama that ended with his acquittal amid the cheers of hundreds of fellow clerks and other spectators. With no conviction for murder, nor closure of any sort, the case continued to tantalize the public, even though Richard Robinson disappeared from view. Through the Erie Canal, down the Ohio and the Mississippi, and by way of New Orleans, he reached the wilds of Texas and a new life under a new name. Through her meticulous and ingenious research, Patricia Cline Cohen traces his life there and the many twists and turns of the lingering mystery of the murder. Her stunning portrayals of Helen Jewett, Robinson, and their raffish, colorful nineteenth-century world make vivid a frenetic city life and sexual morality whose complexities, contradictions, and concerns resonate with those of our own time.

Nineteenth-century American Western Writers

Download Nineteenth-century American Western Writers PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Dictionary of Literary Biograp
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 504 pages
Book Rating : 4.F/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Nineteenth-century American Western Writers by : Robert L. Gale

Download or read book Nineteenth-century American Western Writers written by Robert L. Gale and published by Dictionary of Literary Biograp. This book was released on 1997 with total page 504 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Essays on American western writers of the nineteenth century. Many of these writers defy easy categorization, as some were soldiers, journalists, poets, fiction writers, naturalists and historians as well as artists. Conspicuous in their absence are dramatists. Discusses the many styles employed by the authors, including historical, scientific, military, realistic, naturalistic, powerful and humorous.

Middle Passage

Download Middle Passage PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1439125031
Total Pages : 229 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (391 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis Middle Passage by : Charles Johnson

Download or read book Middle Passage written by Charles Johnson and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-02-21 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A twenty-fifth anniversary edition of Charles Johnson’s National Book Award-winning masterpiece—"a novel in the tradition of Billy Budd and Moby-Dick…heroic in proportion…fiction that hooks the mind" (The New York Times Book Review)—now with a new introduction from Stanley Crouch. Rutherford Calhoun, a newly freed slave and irrepressible rogue, is lost in the underworld of 1830s New Orleans. Desperate to escape the city’s unscrupulous bill collectors and the pawing hands of a schoolteacher hellbent on marrying him, he jumps aboard the Republic, a slave ship en route to collect members of a legendary African tribe, the Allmuseri. Thus begins a voyage of metaphysical horror and human atrocity, a journey which challenges our notions of freedom, fate and how we live together. Peopled with vivid and unforgettable characters, nimble in its interplay of comedy and serious ideas, this dazzling modern classic is a perfect blend of the picaresque tale, historical romance, sea yarn, slave narrative and philosophical allegory. Now with a new introduction from renowned writer and critic Stanley Crouch, this twenty-fifth anniversary edition of Middle Passage celebrates a cornerstone of the American canon and the masterwork of one of its most important writers. "Long after we’d stopped believe in the great American novel, along comes a spellbinding adventure story that may be just that" (Chicago Tribune).

A City So Grand

Download A City So Grand PDF Online Free

Author :
Publisher : Beacon Press
ISBN 13 : 0807050458
Total Pages : 387 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (7 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!


Book Synopsis A City So Grand by : Stephen Puleo

Download or read book A City So Grand written by Stephen Puleo and published by Beacon Press. This book was released on 2010-05-04 with total page 387 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A lively history of Boston’s emergence as a world-class city—home to the likes of Frederick Douglass and Alexander Graham Bell—by a beloved Bostonian historian “It’s been quite a while since I’ve read anything—fiction or nonfiction—so enthralling.”—Dennis Lehane, author of Mystic River and Shutter Island Once upon a time, “Boston Town” was an insulated New England township. But the community was destined for greatness. Between 1850 and 1900, Boston underwent a stunning metamorphosis to emerge as one of the world’s great metropolises—one that achieved national and international prominence in politics, medicine, education, science, social activism, literature, commerce, and transportation. Long before the frustrations of our modern era, in which the notion of accomplishing great things often appears overwhelming or even impossible, Boston distinguished itself in the last half of the nineteenth century by proving it could tackle and overcome the most arduous of challenges and obstacles with repeated—and often resounding—success, becoming a city of vision and daring. In A City So Grand, Stephen Puleo chronicles this remarkable period in Boston’s history, in his trademark page-turning style. Our journey begins with the ferocity of the abolitionist movement of the 1850s and ends with the glorious opening of America’s first subway station, in 1897. In between we witness the thirty-five-year engineering and city-planning feat of the Back Bay project, Boston’s explosion in size through immigration and annexation, the devastating Great Fire of 1872 and subsequent rebuilding of downtown, and Alexander Graham Bell’s first telephone utterance in 1876 from his lab at Exeter Place. These lively stories and many more paint an extraordinary portrait of a half century of progress, leadership, and influence that turned a New England town into a world-class city, giving us the Boston we know today.