History / United States / 20th Century

Total 25 results found.

Black Urban History at the Crossroads

Black Urban History at the Crossroads

Race and Place in the American City

Navigates the Complicated History of the City as Both Site of Oppression and Space for Self-Determination

Pittsburgh Rising

Pittsburgh Rising

From Frontier Town to Steel City, 1750-1920

Traces the Arc of Pittsburgh’s Rise from Frontier Outpost to Dynamic Industrial Region

The People’s Spaceship

The People’s Spaceship

NASA, the Shuttle Era, and Public Engagement after Apollo

How Everyday Citizens Played an Integral Role in the Development of NASA’s Space Shuttle

Donora Death Fog

Donora Death Fog

Clean Air and the Tragedy of a Pennsylvania Mill Town

The Complete Story of the Worst Air Pollution Disaster in US History

New Energies

New Energies

A History of Energy Transitions in Europe and North America

Captures the Drama and Complexity of Past Transitions While Looking toward Energy Sources of the Future

Cultivating Victory

Cultivating Victory

The Women's Land Army and the Victory Garden Movement

A compelling study of the sea change brought about in politics, society, and gender roles during World Wars I and II by campaigns to recruit Women’s Land Armies in Great Britain and the United States to cultivate victory gardens. Cecilia Gowdy-Wygant compares and contrasts the outcomes of war in both nations as seen through women’s ties to labor, agriculture, the home, and the environment. She sheds new light on the cultural legacies left by the Women’s Land Armies and their major role in shaping national and personal identities.

Roads Not Taken

Roads Not Taken

An Intellectual Biography of William C. Bullitt

A journalist, diplomat, and writer, William Christian Bullitt was a member of the American delegation to the Paris Peace Conference (1919), the first Ambassador to the Soviet Union (1933-1936) and France (1936-1940), and the Special Representative of the President of the United States in the Middle East (1940). He played a huge role in the establishment of US-USSR relations on the eve of World War II. Based on Bullitt’s unpublished papers and diplomatic documents from the Russian archives, this new biography presents Bullitt as a truly cosmopolitan American, one of the first politicians of the global era.

When They Hid the Fire

When They Hid the Fire

A History of Electricity and Invisible Energy in America

Daniel French examines the American social perceptions of electricity as an energy technology between the mid-19th and early decades of the 20th centuries. Arguing that both technical and cultural factors played a role, French shows how electricity became an invisible and abstract form of energy in American society, leading Americans to culturally construct electricity as unlimited and environmentally inconsequential—a newfound “basic right” of life in the United States.

Power on the Hudson

Power on the Hudson

Storm King Mountain and the Emergence of Modern American Environmentalism

Robert D. Lifset offers an original case history of a major event in environmental history—when a small group of local residents initiated a landmark case of ecology versus energy production and challenged the construction of the Storm King pumped-storage hydroelectric power plant on the Hudson River in the 1960s.

Seeking the Greatest Good

Seeking the Greatest Good

The Conservation Legacy of Gifford Pinchot

Char Miller chronicles the history of the Pinchot Institute for Conservation Studies and describes its iconic national historic site, Grey Towers, offered by Pinchot’s family as a lasting gift to the American people. As a union of the United States Forest Service and the Conservation Foundation, the institute was created to formulate policy and develop conservation education programs. Miller explores the institute’s unique fusion of policy makers, scientists, politicians, and activists and their efforts to increase our understanding of and responses to urban and rural forestry, water quality, soil erosion, air pollution, endangered species, land management and planning, and hydraulic fracking.

Pastoral and Monumental

Pastoral and Monumental

Dams, Postcards, and the American Landscape

Pastoral and Monumental chronicles America’s longtime fascination with dams as represented on picture postcards from the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century. Through over four hundred images, Donald C. Jackson documents the remarkable transformation of dams and their significance to the environment and culture of America.

The City Natural

The City Natural

Garden and Forest Magazine and the Rise of American Environmentalism

The weekly magazine Garden and Forest existed for only nine years (1888-1897). Yet, in that brief span, it brought to light many of the issues that would influence the future of American environmentalism. In The City Natural, Shen Hou presents the first “biography” of this important but largely overlooked vehicle for individuals with the common goal of preserving nature in American civilization. As Hou reveals, Garden and Forest was instrumental in redefining the fields of botany and horticulture, while also helping to shape the fledgling professions of landscape architecture and forestry.

Seattle and the Roots of Urban Sustainability

Seattle and the Roots of Urban Sustainability

Inventing Ecotopia

Sanders examines the rise of environmental activism in Seattle amidst the “urban crisis” of the 1960s and its aftermath. Seattle’s activists came to influence everything from industry to politics, planning, and global environmental movements.

Race and Renaissance

Race and Renaissance

African Americans in Pittsburgh since World War II

Race and Renaissance presents the first history of African American life in Pittsburgh after World War II. It examines the origins and significance of the second Great Migration, the persistence of Jim Crow into the postwar years, the second ghetto, the contemporary urban crisis, the civil rights and Black Power movements, and the Million Man and Million Woman marches, among other topics.

Bethlehem Steel

Bethlehem Steel

Builder and Arsenal of America

Bethlehem Steel presents an original and compelling history of a leading American company, examining the numerous factors contributing to the growth of this titan and those that eventually felled it—along with many of its competitors in the U.S. steel industry.

Total 25 results found.