|9780822948544|Life as Art|Playwright August Wilson is best known for his American Century Cycle, a sequence of ten plays—including the Pulitzer Prize–winning Fences and The Piano Lesson—that chronicle the lives of Black Americans in each decade of the twentieth century. But behind the celebrated plays stands a complex man shaped by his hometown’s vibrant Black culture. In August Wilson’s American Century: Life as Art, Laurence Glasco, a foremost historian of Black life in Pittsburgh, draws on Wilson’s early poetry, archival material, and original interviews with family members, neighbors, and friends to show how the city and its residents shaped the playwright…

|9780822967613|The Drawings of an American Naturalist| Winner, The Athenaeum of Philadelphia 2024 Literary Award for Nonfiction Pennsylvania naturalist William Bartram (1739–1823) is best known as the author of a travelogue describing his botanizing journey through the American South in the late eighteenth century. Writing was not, however, Bartram’s only or even preferred method of recording the natural world around him. His deeply unconventional drawings, depicting sentient plants and hybrid organic forms, lie at the heart of his understanding of nature. With this book, Elizabeth Athens considers the strangeness of Bartram’s graphic enterprise, exploring the essential role his renderings played in…

|9780822967606|The Woman Behind the Artist| While biographers of Andy Warhol have long recognized his mother as a significant influence on his life and art, Julia Warhola’s story has not yet been told. As an American immigrant who was born in a small Carpatho-Rusyn village in Austria-Hungary in 1891, Julia never had the opportunity to develop her own considerable artistic talents. Instead, she worked and sacrificed so her son could follow his dreams, helping to shape Andy’s art and persona. Julia famously followed him to New York City and lived with him there for almost twenty years, where she remained engaged…

|9780822948414|A Photographic Journey down the Youghiogheny| Join celebrated author and photographer Tim Palmer as he takes us down one of America’s most magnificent rivers. From the Youghiogheny’s lofty headwaters to its quiet ending only a dozen miles from Pittsburgh, the river he reveals shines with splendor and beckons to all who walk, bike, paddle, or simply pause to appreciate the natural wonder awaiting those who live nearby or visit from near and far. A companion to Palmer’s earlier book—Youghiogheny: Appalachian River—this elegant photo essay shows us the remarkable beauty of a river that has become enormously popular. With a sharp…

|9780822967446|Sport, Race, and Memory in the Steel City|Americans love sports, from neighborhood pickup basketball to the National Football League, and everything in between. While no city better demonstrates the connection between athletic games and community than Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the common association of the city’s professional sports teams with its blue-collar industrial past illustrates a white nostalgic perspective that excludes the voices of many who labored in the mines and mills and played on local fields. In this original and lyrical history, Robert T. Hayashi addresses this gap by uncovering and sharing overlooked tales of the region’s less famous athletes: Chinese…