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The boat on which Edna Ferber based her famous novel brought excitement and entertainment to isolated small towns up and down the East Coast in early twentieth-century America. The builder of the boat, James E. Adams, was a farmer from Michigan who taught himself to be a circus aerialist, started and prospered with his own carnival company, and, when retirement proved boring, decided to build a showboat. The book traces the history of the James Adams from its inception until its demise twenty-seven years later, a tale that includes fires, sinkings, a shooting, arrests, and several deaths.
The only book to delve deeply into Maryland’s rich musical performance history and the people who created it. In Musical Maryland, the first comprehensive survey of the music emanating from the Old Line State, David K. Hildebrand and Elizabeth M. Schaaf explore the myriad ways in which music has enriched the lives of Marylanders. From the drinking songs of colonial Annapolis, the liturgical music of the Zion Lutheran Church, and the work songs of the tobacco fields to the exuberant marches of late nineteenth-century Baltimore Orioles festivals, Chick Webb’s mastery on drums, and the triumphs of the Baltimore Opera Society, this richly illustrated volume explores more than 300 years of Maryland’s music history. Beginning with early compositions performed in private settings and in public concerts, this book touches on the development of music clubs like the Tuesday Club, the Florestan Society, and H. L. Mencken’s Saturday Night Club, as well as lasting institutions such as the Peabody Institute and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (BSO). Yet the soundscape also includes militia quicksteps, sea chanteys, and other work songs. The book describes the writing of “The Star-Spangled Banner"—perhaps Maryland's single greatest contribution to the nation's musical history. It chronicles the wide range of music created and performed by Maryland’s African American musicians along Pennsylvania Avenue in racially segregated Baltimore, from jazz to symphonic works. It also tells the true story of a deliberately integrated concert that the BSO staged at the end of World War II. The book is full of musical examples, engravings, paintings, drawings, and historic photographs that not only portray the composers and performers but also the places around the state in which music flourished. Illuminating sidebars by William Biehl focus on late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century song of the kind evoked by the USS Baltimore or inspired by the state's history, natural beauty, and romantic steamboats. The book also offers a sampling of the tunes that Maryland’s more remarkable composers and performers, including Billie Holiday, Eubie Blake, and Cab Calloway, contributed to American music before the homogenization that arrived in earnest after World War II. Bringing to life not only portraits of musicians, composers, and conductors whose stories and recollections are woven into the fabric of this book, but also musical scores and concert halls, Musical Maryland is an engaging, authoritative, and bold look at an endlessly compelling subject.
Elizabeth City is rich in legend and lore. The pirate Blackbeard was a frequent visitor to the area, selling his ill-gotten goods to a willing populace. The Wright brothers made Elizabeth City the first leg of their trips to Kitty Hawk, and they bought materials to build their flying machine from Kramer Brothers, a local lumberyard. Champion nine-ball player Luther "Wimpy" Lassiter was born and died here. Young "Beautiful Nell" Cropsey was murdered in 1901; her death is the town's most enduring mystery. Newspaperman W.O. Saunders, editor of the Independent, was known nationally after he walked down New York's Fifth Avenue in pajamas to protest uncomfortable work attire. Young Tamsen Donner, a member of the ill-fated Donner Party, was a teacher here in the 1830s. Fred Fearing's Rose Buddies welcomed boaters to Elizabeth City with homegrown roses and wine and cheese parties. He has entertained Walter Cronkite and Willard Scott, among other luminaries. These are just a few of the stories, mysteries, and legends of Elizabeth City's past and present.
In this novelistic romp that is by turns hilarious and brilliant, John Barth spoofs his own place in the pantheon of contemporary fiction and the generation of writers who have followed his literary trailblazing. Coming Soon!!! is the tale of two writers: an older, retiring novelist setting out to write his last work and a young, aspiring writer of hypertext intent on toppling his master. In the heat of their rivalry, the writers navigate, and sometimes stumble over, the cultural fault lines between print and electronic fiction, mentor and mentee, postmodernism and modernism.
The latest title in the Norton/Library of Congress Visual Sourcebooks series, Theaters offers a richly illustrated history of a revered cultural artifact and a technological challenge, following its progression from the eighteenth-century opera house to the modern movie multiplex. This visual sourcebook traces the development of its colorful and varied forms as they developed in early America, on the western frontier, and in cities from coast to coast. The first comprehensive study of American theaters, it illustrates their wide range from raucous music halls to vaudeville, from circus to grand opera, from World's Fair to Coney island, from nickelodeon to glorious picture palace. Also featured are theaters for burlesque, theaters afloat, military theaters, Shakespearean theaters, summer theaters, theaters and African-Americans, and arenas (when a stage just won't do), enlivened by a cast of entrepreneurs and showmen who were the movers and shakers of our theatrical heritage. CD-ROM included: screen resolution scans in easy-to-use TIFF format for Mac and PC.
For decades, acclaimed author John Barth has strayed from his Monday–through–Thursday–morning routine of fiction–writing and dedicated Friday mornings to the muse of nonfiction. The result is Final Fridays, his third essay collection, following The Friday Book (1984) and Further Fridays (1995). Sixteen years and six novels since his last volume of non–fiction, Barth delivers yet another remarkable work comprised of 27 insightful essays. With pieces covering everything from reading, writing, and the state of the art, to tributes to writer–friends and family members, this collection is witty and engaging throughout. Barth's "unaffected love of learning" (San Francisco Examiner & Chronicle) and "joy in thinking that becomes contagious" (Washington Post), shine through in this third, and, with an implied question mark, final essay collection.
In this poignant and personal history of one of America’s oldest theaters, Leslie Stainton captures the story not just of an extraordinary building but of a nation’s tumultuous struggle to invent itself. Built in 1852 and in use ever since, the Fulton Theatre in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, is uniquely ghosted. Its foundations were once the walls of a colonial jail that in 1763 witnessed the massacre of the last surviving Conestoga Indians. Those same walls later served to incarcerate fugitive slaves. Staging Ground explores these tragic events and their enduring resonance in a building that later became a town hall, theater, and movie house—the site of minstrel shows, productions of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, oratory by the likes of Thaddeus Stevens and Mark Twain, performances by Buffalo Bill and his troupe of “Wild Indians,” Hollywood Westerns, and twenty-first-century musicals. Interweaving past and present, private anecdote and public record, Stainton unfolds the story of this emblematic space, where for more than 250 years Americans scripted and rescripted their history. Staging Ground sheds light on issues that continue to form us as a people: the evolution of American culture and faith, the immigrant experience, the growth of cities, the emergence of women in art and society, the spread of advertising, the flowering of transportation and technology, and the abiding paradox of a nation founded on the principle of equality for “all men,” yet engaged in the slave trade and in the systematic oppression of the American Indian.
The classic tale behind MGM’s blockbuster movie directed by George Sidney, starring Ava Gardner, Howard Keel, and Kathryn Grayson. Bringing to life the adventurous world of Mississippi show boats, the grittiness of turn-of-the-century Chicago, and the majesty of 1920s Broadway, Pulitzer Prize winner Edna Ferber’s Show Boat is a classic. Magnolia Hawks spends her childhood aboard the Cotton Blossom, growing up amid simmering racial tension and struggling to survive life on the Mississippi. When she falls in love with the dashing Gaylord Ravenal and moves with him to Chicago, the joy of giving birth to their beautiful daughter, Kim, is offset by Gaylord’s gambling addiction and distrustful ways. Only when Kim sets off on her own to pursue success on the New York stage does Magnolia return to the Cotton Blossom, reflecting on her own life and all who once called the show boat their home. Originally published in 1926, adapted for the stage as a musical a year later and filmed three times over three decades, Show Boat brilliantly explores a nation going pivotal change through the lens of its popular culture. With a new foreword by Foster Hirsch. Vintage Movie Classics spotlights classic films that have stood the test of time, now rediscovered through the publication of the novels on which they were based.
The proud rural charm and enchanting waterfront setting of Mathews are beloved features of this coastal county. Located on the northeast tip of the Tidewater region's Middle Peninsula, the land faces the winds and tides of the Chesapeake Bay head-on. Mathews is bordered by the Piankatank River to the north and the Mobjack Bay and its tributaries to the southwest. Home to powerful Powhatan Indians, it first was settled by Englishmen in the 17th century. The land was part of York and then Gloucester and became a separate county in 1791, renowned for its shipbuilding industry. Through the 21st century, Mathews County has served up fish and shellfish, vegetables and flowers, and music and crafts to neighbors, visitors, and merchants from other East Coast towns and beyond.