Download or read book Her Dream of Dreams written by Beverly Lowry and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2011-07-20 with total page 498 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “I am a woman that came from the cotton fields of the South; I was promoted from there to the wash-tub; then I was promoted to the cook kitchen, and from there I promoted myself into the business of manufacturing hair goods and preparations.” --Madam C. J. Walker, National Negro Business League Convention, 1912 Now, from a writer acclaimed for her novels and the memoir Crossed Over, a remarkable biography of a truly heroic figure. Madam C. J. Walker created a cosmetics empire and became known as the first female self-made millionaire in this nation’s history, a noted philanthropist and champion of women’s rights and economic freedom. These achievements seem nothing less than miraculous given that she was born, in 1867, to former slaves in a hamlet on the Mississippi River. How she came to live on another river, the Hudson, in a Westchester County mansion, and in a New York City town house, is at once inspirational and mysterious, because for all that is known about the famous entrepreneur, much that occurred before her magnificent transformation—years that trace a circuitous route across the country—remains obscure. By breathing life into scattered clues and dry facts, and with a deep understanding of the times and places through which Madam Walker moved, Beverly Lowry tells a story that stretches from the antebellum South to the Harlem Renaissance and bridges nearly a century of our history in her search for the distant truths of a woman who defied all odds and redefined conventional expectations. “Wherever there was one colored person, whether it was a city, a town, or a puddle by the railroad tracks, everybody knew her name.” --Violet Davis Reynolds, Stenographer, Madam C. J. Walker Co

Download or read book The Age of Homespun written by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2009-08-26 with total page 514 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: They began their existence as everyday objects, but in the hands of award-winning historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, fourteen domestic items from preindustrial America–ranging from a linen tablecloth to an unfinished sock–relinquish their stories and offer profound insights into our history. In an age when even meals are rarely made from scratch, homespun easily acquires the glow of nostalgia. The objects Ulrich investigates unravel those simplified illusions, revealing important clues to the culture and people who made them. Ulrich uses an Indian basket to explore the uneasy coexistence of native and colonial Americans. A piece of silk embroidery reveals racial and class distinctions, and two old spinning wheels illuminate the connections between colonial cloth-making and war. Pulling these divergent threads together, Ulrich demonstrates how early Americans made, used, sold, and saved textiles in order to assert their identities, shape relationships, and create history.

Download or read book The Dream Peddler written by Martine Fournier Watson and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2019-04-09 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Astonishing . . . Explores the vast underground legacy of our own desires. This is the must-read book of the year.” —Rene Denfeld, bestselling author of The Child Finder A richly imagined debut novel about a traveling salesman and the small town he changes forever If someone offered you a magic elixir that could conjure any dream you wanted . . . would you take it? Traveling salesmen like Robert Owens have passed through Evie Dawson’s town before, but none of them offered anything like what he has to sell: dreams, made to order, with satisfaction guaranteed. Soon after he arrives, the community is shocked by the disappearance of Evie’s young son. The townspeople, shaken by the Dawson family’s tragedy and captivated by Robert’s subversive magic, begin to experiment with his dreams. And Evie, devastated by grief, turns to Robert for a comfort only he can sell her. But the dream peddler’s wares awaken in his customers their most carefully buried desires, and despite all his good intentions, some of them will lead to disaster. Gorgeously told through the eyes of Evie, Robert, and a broad cast of fully realized characters, The Dream Peddler is an imaginative, moving novel of overcoming loss and reckoning with the longings we keep secret.

Download or read book Ghost Tantras written by Michael McClure and published by City Lights Publishers. This book was released on 2013-11-12 with total page 122 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lion roars, detonated dada, and visceral emotional truths: McClure describes these tantras as “ceremonies to change the nature of reality."

Download or read book The Fortunate Ones written by Ed Tarkington and published by Algonquin Books. This book was released on 2021-01-05 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “The Fortunate Ones feels like a fresh and remarkably sure-footed take on The Great Gatsby, examining the complex costs of attempting to transcend or exchange your given class for a more gilded one. Tarkington’s understanding of the human heart and mind is deep, wise, and uncommonly empathetic. As a novelist, he is the real deal. I can’t wait to see this story reach a wide audience, and to see what he does next.” —Paula McLain, author of The Paris Wife When Charlie Boykin was young, he thought his life with his single mother on the working-class side of Nashville was perfectly fine. But when his mother arranges for him to be admitted as a scholarship student to an elite private school, he is suddenly introduced to what the world can feel like to someone cushioned by money. That world, he discovers, is an almost irresistible place where one can bend—and break—rules and still end up untarnished. As he gets drawn into a friendship with a charismatic upperclassman, Archer Creigh, and an affluent family that treats him like an adopted son, Charlie quickly adapts to life in the upper echelons of Nashville society. Under their charming and alcohol-soaked spell, how can he not relax and enjoy it all—the lack of anxiety over money, the easy summers spent poolside at perfectly appointed mansions, the lavish parties, the freedom to make mistakes knowing that everything can be glossed over or fixed? But over time, Charlie is increasingly pulled into covering for Archer’s constant deceits and his casual bigotry. At what point will the attraction of wealth and prestige wear off enough for Charlie to take a stand—and will he? The Fortunate Ones is an immersive, elegantly written story that conveys both the seductiveness of this world and the corruption of the people who see their ascent to the top as their birthright.

Download or read book Smoking Typewriters written by John McMillian and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2014-08-13 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What caused the New Left rebellion of the 1960s? In Smoking Typewriters, historian John McMillian argues that the "underground press" contributed to the New Left's growth and cultural organization in crucial, overlooked ways.

Download or read book Democracy and Education written by John Dewey and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 1916 with total page 456 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: . Renewal of Life by Transmission. The most notable distinction between living and inanimate things is that the former maintain themselves by renewal. A stone when struck resists. If its resistance is greater than the force of the blow struck, it remains outwardly unchanged. Otherwise, it is shattered into smaller bits. Never does the stone attempt to react in such a way that it may maintain itself against the blow, much less so as to render the blow a contributing factor to its own continued action. While the living thing may easily be crushed by superior force, it none the less tries to turn the energies which act upon it into means of its own further existence. If it cannot do so, it does not just split into smaller pieces (at least in the higher forms of life), but loses its identity as a living thing. As long as it endures, it struggles to use surrounding energies in its own behalf. It uses light, air, moisture, and the material of soil. To say that it uses them is to say that it turns them into means of its own conservation. As long as it is growing, the energy it expends in thus turning the environment to account is more than compensated for by the return it gets: it grows. Understanding the word "control" in this sense, it may be said that a living being is one that subjugates and controls for its own continued activity the energies that would otherwise use it up. Life is a self-renewing process through action upon the environment.

Download or read book Directory of American Scholars written by and published by . This book was released on 1974 with total page 784 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Black Rose written by Tananarive Due and published by One World. This book was released on 2001-01-02 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “One of the most exciting novels of the year . . . The dramatic story of Madam C.J. Walker, America’s first black female millionaire.”—E. Lynn Harris Born to former slaves on a Louisiana plantation in 1867, Madam C.J. Walker rose from poverty and indignity to become America’s first black female millionaire, the head of a hugely successful beauty company, and a leading philanthropist in African American causes. Renowned author Alex Haley became fascinated by the story of this extraordinary heroine, and before his death in 1992, he embarked on the research and outline of a major novel based on her life. With The Black Rose, critically acclaimed writer Tananarive Due brings Haley’s work to an inspiring completion. Blending documented history, vivid dialogue, and a sweeping fictionalized narrative, Tananarive Due paints a vivid portrait of this passionate and tenacious pioneer and the unforgettable era in which she lived. Praise for The Black Rose “An artfully framed page-turner.”—Essence “An impressive accomplishment . . . Due’s combination of historical study and fictional exploration endows this gripping tale with intimacy and emotional authenticity.”—The Miami Herald

Download or read book Academy and Literature written by Charles Edward Cutts Birch Appleton and published by . This book was released on 1901 with total page 650 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Makeda written by Randall Robinson and published by Akashic Books. This book was released on 2011-08-30 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Makeda Gee Florida Harris March is a proud matriarch, the anchor and emotional bellwether who holds together a hard-working African American family living in 1950s Richmond, Virginia. Lost in shadow is Makeda's grandson Gray, who begins escaping into themagical world of Makeda's tiny parlor.

Download or read book Choice written by and published by . This book was released on 1983 with total page 928 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book New England Journal of Education written by and published by . This book was released on 1897 with total page 862 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Homespun Heroines and Other Women of Distinction written by Hallie Quinn Brown and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1988 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Church, school, and club constitute the triumvirate of associations central to the lives of the women chronicled in Homespun Heroines and Other Women of Distinction, compiled and edited by Hallie Quinn Brown.

Download or read book English as a Global Language written by David Crystal and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2012-03-29 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written in a detailed and fascinating manner, this book is ideal for general readers interested in the English language.

Download or read book The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism written by Theda Skocpol and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this penetrating new study, Skocpol of Harvard University, one of today's leading political scientists, and co-author Williamson go beyond the inevitable photos of protesters in tricorn hats and knee breeches to provide a nuanced portrait of the Tea Party. What they find is sometimes surprising.

Download or read book Emerson in His Journals written by Ralph Waldo Emerson and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1982 with total page 612 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume offers the reader the heart of Emerson's journals, that extraordinary series of diaries and notebooks in which he poured out his thoughts for over 50 years. Drawing from Harvard's 16-volume scholarly edition of the journals--but omitting the textual apparatus--Porte presents a sympathetic selection that brings us close to Emerson the man.