Classic Speedsters

Classic Speedsters
Author: Ronald Sieber
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2021-11
Genre:
ISBN: 9781737983408

Classic Speedsters: The Cars, The Times, and The Characters Who Drove Them chronicles the most significant vehicles ever to have traveled American roads and racetracks. Speedsters were the pizzazz cars of their era. Speedsters were owned by entertainers, captains of industry, the wealthy, and in some cases, the everyday guy or gal. They were often expensive, but always fast and sexy. Speedsters were America's first sports cars.Each chapter frames the birth and evolution of a company that produced a speedster model in its lineup and includes a biography of a famous owner of the period. This book traces the journey of the speedster concept across several time periods and among twelve automotive companies. It answers three fundamental questions:· Why were these cars so important and influential?· Why did so many prominent people own them?· What message do they have for modern design?

Haynes-Apperson and America's First Practical Automobile

Haynes-Apperson and America's First Practical Automobile
Author: W. C. Madden
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 242
Release: 2003
Genre: Transportation
ISBN: 9780786413973

While Elwood Haynes and the Apperson brothers are not as well known as Henry Ford, Ransom Olds and other famous automobile manufacturers, their contributions to the automotive industry are just as significant. They were responsible for one of the first functioning automobiles, if not the first, in the United States. After building their automobile in 1894, the three men formed the Haynes-Apperson Automobile Company in Kokomo, Indiana, one of the first car manufacturing companies in the country. Three years after incorporation, a dispute over money caused the partnership to split up and Edgar and Elmer Apperson formed their own company. Both companies lasted until the mid-1920s. This book is a history of these automotive pioneers and their companies: the Haynes-Apperson Automobile Company, the Haynes Automobile Company, and the Apperson Brothers Automobile Company. It is richly illustrated with photographs of the factories, automobiles, personalities and advertisements.

Hope Amid Hardship

Hope Amid Hardship
Author: Linda Johnston
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 227
Release: 2013-08-06
Genre: History
ISBN: 1493005987

Why did they stay? Despite the challenges of loneliness, drought, and political turmoil Kansas pioneers faced, many found and wrote about joy and beauty in their adopted communities. Letters and diaries describe the times that gave them reason to sing, dance, and celebrate – moments when their burdens were lighter. This volume brings together reflections of 50 individuals of different ages, backgrounds, and outlooks who helped shape the identity of the Sunflower State.

Moss Bluff Rebel

Moss Bluff Rebel
Author: Philip Robert Caudill
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
Total Pages: 238
Release: 2009-02-10
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781603440899

So wrote Texas pioneer cattle drover William Berry Duncan in his March 1862 diary entry, the day he joined the Confederate Army. Despite his misgivings, Duncan left his prosperous business to lead neighbors and fellow volunteers as commanding officer of cavalry Company F of Spaight’s Eleventh Battalion that later became the 21st Texas Infantry in America’s Civil War. Philip Caudill’s rich account, drawn from Duncan’s previously untapped diaries and letters written by candlelight on the Gulf Coast cattle trail to New Orleans, in Confederate Army camps, and on his southeast Texas farm after the war, reveals the personable Duncan as a man of steadfast integrity and extraordinary leadership. After the war, he returned to his home in Liberty County and battled for survival on the chaotic Reconstruction-era Texas frontier. Supplemented by archival records and complementary accounts, Moss Bluff Rebel paints a picture of everyday life for the Anglo-Texans who settled the Mexican land grants in the early nineteenth century and subsequently became citizens of the proudly independent Texas Republic. The carefully crafted narrative goes on to reveal the wartime emotions of a reluctant Confederate officer and his postwar struggles to reinvent the lifestyle he knew before the war, a way of life he sensed was lost forever. Moss Bluff Rebel will appeal to history lovers of all ages attracted to the drama of the Civil War period and the men and women who shaped the Texas frontier.

The Lions of Fifth Avenue

The Lions of Fifth Avenue
Author: Fiona Davis
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 370
Release: 2020-08-04
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 152474462X

A Good Morning America Book Club Pick and a New York Times bestseller! “A page-turner for booklovers everywhere! . . . A story of family ties, their lost dreams, and the redemption that comes from discovering truth.”—Adriana Trigiani, bestselling author of The Shoemaker's Wife In New York Times bestselling author Fiona Davis's latest historical novel, a series of book thefts roils the iconic New York Public Library, leaving two generations of strong-willed women to pick up the pieces. It's 1913, and on the surface, Laura Lyons couldn't ask for more out of life—her husband is the superintendent of the New York Public Library, allowing their family to live in an apartment within the grand building, and they are blessed with two children. But headstrong, passionate Laura wants more, and when she takes a leap of faith and applies to the Columbia Journalism School, her world is cracked wide open. As her studies take her all over the city, she is drawn to Greenwich Village's new bohemia, where she discovers the Heterodoxy Club—a radical, all-female group in which women are encouraged to loudly share their opinions on suffrage, birth control, and women's rights. Soon, Laura finds herself questioning her traditional role as wife and mother. And when valuable books are stolen back at the library, threatening the home and institution she loves, she's forced to confront her shifting priorities head on . . . and may just lose everything in the process. Eighty years later, in 1993, Sadie Donovan struggles with the legacy of her grandmother, the famous essayist Laura Lyons, especially after she's wrangled her dream job as a curator at the New York Public Library. But the job quickly becomes a nightmare when rare manuscripts, notes, and books for the exhibit Sadie's running begin disappearing from the library's famous Berg Collection. Determined to save both the exhibit and her career, the typically risk-averse Sadie teams up with a private security expert to uncover the culprit. However, things unexpectedly become personal when the investigation leads Sadie to some unwelcome truths about her own family heritage—truths that shed new light on the biggest tragedy in the library's history.

Sir James Martin

Sir James Martin
Author: Sarah Sharman
Publisher:
Total Pages: 312
Release: 1996
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN:

A biography of Sir James Martin, founder of the Martin-Baker Aircraft Company and designer of the ejection seat which has saved the lives of more than 6400 aircrew. One of the finest engineers of this century, Sir James was a passionate individualist, with little time for government control.