Accessible America

Accessible America
Author: Bess Williamson
Publisher: NYU Press
Total Pages: 290
Release: 2020-05-01
Genre: Design
ISBN: 1479802492

A history of design that is often overlooked—until we need it Have you ever hit the big blue button to activate automatic doors? Have you ever used an ergonomic kitchen tool? Have you ever used curb cuts to roll a stroller across an intersection? If you have, then you’ve benefited from accessible design—design for people with physical, sensory, and cognitive disabilities. These ubiquitous touchstones of modern life were once anything but. Disability advocates fought tirelessly to ensure that the needs of people with disabilities became a standard part of public design thinking. That fight took many forms worldwide, but in the United States it became a civil rights issue; activists used design to make an argument about the place of people with disabilities in public life. In the aftermath of World War II, with injured veterans returning home and the polio epidemic reaching the Oval Office, the needs of people with disabilities came forcibly into the public eye as they never had before. The US became the first country to enact federal accessibility laws, beginning with the Architectural Barriers Act in 1968 and continuing through the landmark Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990, bringing about a wholesale rethinking of our built environment. This progression wasn’t straightforward or easy. Early legislation and design efforts were often haphazard or poorly implemented, with decidedly mixed results. Political resistance to accommodating the needs of people with disabilities was strong; so, too, was resistance among architectural and industrial designers, for whom accessible design wasn’t “real” design. Bess Williamson provides an extraordinary look at everyday design, marrying accessibility with aesthetic, to provide an insight into a world in which we are all active participants, but often passive onlookers. Richly detailed, with stories of politics and innovation, Williamson’s Accessible America takes us through this important history, showing how American ideas of individualism and rights came to shape the material world, often with unexpected consequences.

A Concise American History

A Concise American History
Author: David Brown
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 638
Release: 2020-10-04
Genre: History
ISBN: 1000057720

Expertly steering readers through the often tumultuous and exhilarating history of the United States, from its early modern Native American roots to twenty-first-century neoliberalism and the shifting political climate of the past decade, this highly readable textbook provides a compelling overview of American development over the last five centuries. This book avoids either celebratory or condemnatory rhetoric to present a critical examination of domestic America and its interaction with the rest of the world. Balancing coverage of political, social, cultural, and economic history, each chapter also includes a wealth of features to facilitate learning: Timelines situating key events in their wider chronology Lists of topics covered within each chapter for easy reference Concept boxes discussing selected issues in more detail Historiography boxes exploring key debates Chapter summaries offering condensed outlines of the main themes of each chapter Further reading lists guiding readers to additional resources Maps and images bringing to life important events and figures from America’s history Clearly and engagingly written and positioning America’s narrative within the wider global context, this textbook is particularly accessible for non-US students and is the perfect introduction for those new to US history. This textbook is also supported by a companion website offering interactive content including a timeline, multiple-choice quizzes, and links to selected web resources.

Places in Time

Places in Time
Author: Susan Buckley
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Total Pages: 52
Release: 2003-06-23
Genre: Atlases
ISBN: 0618311130

Twenty chronologically ordered "story maps" that follow the footsteps of one person's journey in history.

American History in 100 Nutshells

American History in 100 Nutshells
Author: Tad Tuleja
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Total Pages: 258
Release: 1992-05-19
Genre: Reference
ISBN: 9780449903469

From the discovery of America to the war in the Persian Gulf, Tad Tuleja chronologically offers 100 sayings and events, using each as a lens through which to view America at that time. History is fascinating, but with all those pesky people, places, and dates floating in memory limbo, it’s tough to remember enough to have it all make sense. Tad Tuleja has solved that problem by taking American history’s most famous thoughts and phrases and succinctly explaining the events they describe. Arranged chronologically, with three informative appendices and hundreds of tidbits of off-beat information, American History in 100 Nutshells is a fast, thorough, and entertaining walk through the hallowed halls of history. You’ll learn the history behind such terms and sayings as: • These are the times that try men’s souls • The shot heard ‘round the world • Our country right or wrong • To the victor belongs the spoils • The Trail of Tears • The Underground Railroad • Manifest Destiny • John Brown’s body lies a’mouldering in the grave • Jim Crow laws • A splendid little war • The Hundred Days • 205 card-carrying communists • Don’t trust anyone over 30 • And much more!

The Challenge of American History

The Challenge of American History
Author: Louis P. Masur
Publisher: JHU Press
Total Pages: 562
Release: 1999-05-20
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780801862229

In The Challenge of American History, Louis Masur brings together a sampling of recent scholarship to determine the key issues preoccupying historians of American history and to contemplate the discipline's direction for the future. The fifteen summary essays included in this volume allow professional historians, history teachers, and students to grasp in a convenient and accessible form what historians have been writing about.

A Disability History of the United States

A Disability History of the United States
Author: Kim E. Nielsen
Publisher: Beacon Press
Total Pages: 290
Release: 2012-10-02
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0807022039

The first book to cover the entirety of disability history, from pre-1492 to the present Disability is not just the story of someone we love or the story of whom we may become; rather it is undoubtedly the story of our nation. Covering the entirety of US history from pre-1492 to the present, A Disability History of the United States is the first book to place the experiences of people with disabilities at the center of the American narrative. In many ways, it’s a familiar telling. In other ways, however, it is a radical repositioning of US history. By doing so, the book casts new light on familiar stories, such as slavery and immigration, while breaking ground about the ties between nativism and oralism in the late nineteenth century and the role of ableism in the development of democracy. A Disability History of the United States pulls from primary-source documents and social histories to retell American history through the eyes, words, and impressions of the people who lived it. As historian and disability scholar Nielsen argues, to understand disability history isn’t to narrowly focus on a series of individual triumphs but rather to examine mass movements and pivotal daily events through the lens of varied experiences. Throughout the book, Nielsen deftly illustrates how concepts of disability have deeply shaped the American experience—from deciding who was allowed to immigrate to establishing labor laws and justifying slavery and gender discrimination. Included are absorbing—at times horrific—narratives of blinded slaves being thrown overboard and women being involuntarily sterilized, as well as triumphant accounts of disabled miners organizing strikes and disability rights activists picketing Washington. Engrossing and profound, A Disability History of the United States fundamentally reinterprets how we view our nation’s past: from a stifling master narrative to a shared history that encompasses us all.

Give Me Liberty! An American History

Give Me Liberty! An American History
Author: Eric Foner
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 23
Release: 2016-09-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 039328316X

Give Me Liberty! is the #1 book in the U.S. history survey course because it works in the classroom. A single-author text by a leader in the field, Give Me Liberty! delivers an authoritative, accessible, concise, and integrated American history. Updated with powerful new scholarship on borderlands and the West, the Fifth Edition brings new interactive History Skills Tutorials and Norton InQuizitive for History, the award-winning adaptive quizzing tool.

This Country of Ours: The Story of the United States

This Country of Ours: The Story of the United States
Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
Publisher: e-artnow
Total Pages: 508
Release: 2018-11-02
Genre: History
ISBN: 8026897862

"This Country of Ours" is a collection of extraordinary stories from the history of the United States beginning with accounts of exploration and settlement and ending with the presidency of Woodrow Wilson. This is a book which when you lay it down will make you say, "I'm glad that I was born an American." Contents: Stories of Explorers and Pioneers How the Vikings of Old Sought and Found New Lands The Sea of Darkness and the Great Faith of Columbus How Columbus Fared Forth Upon the Sea of Darkness and Came to Pleasant Lands Beyond How Columbus Returned in Triumph How America Was Named How the Flag of England Was Planted on the Shores of the New World How the Flag of France Was Planted in Florida How the French Founded a Colony in Florida How the Spaniards Drove the French Out of Florida How a Frenchman Avenged the Death of His Countrymen The Adventures of Sir Humphrey Gilbert About Sir Walter Raleigh's Adventures in the Golden West Stories of Virginia The Adventures of Captain John Smith More Adventures of Captain John Smith How the Colony Was Saved How Pocahontas Took a Journey Over the Seas How the Redmen Fought Against Their White Brothers How Englishmen Fought a Duel With Tyranny The Coming of the Cavaliers Bacon's Rebellion The Story of the Knights of the Golden Horseshoe Stories of New England The Story of the Pilgrim Fathers The Founding of Massachusetts The Story of Harry Vane The Story of Anne Hutchinson and the Founding of Rhode Island The Founding of Harvard How Quakers First Came to New England How Maine and New Hampshire Were Founded The Founding of Connecticut and War With the Indians The Founding of New Haven The Hunt for the Regicides King Philip's War How the Charter of Connecticut Was Saved The Witches of Salem Stories of the Middle and Southern Colonies Stories of the French in America Stories of the Struggle for Liberty The Boston Tea-party Stories of the United States Under the Constitution

Rad American History A-Z

Rad American History A-Z
Author: Kate Schatz
Publisher: Ten Speed Press
Total Pages: 178
Release: 2020-03-03
Genre: History
ISBN: 1984856839

From the New York Times bestselling team behind Rad American Women A-Z comes an illustrated collection of radical and transformative political, social, and cultural movements in American history. “An engaging, fascinating, and necessary book that speaks truth to power.”—Congresswoman Barbara Lee In Rad American History A-Z, each letter of the alphabet tells the story of a significant moment in America's progressive history--one that isn't always covered in history classes: A is for Alcatraz, and the Native occupation of 1969; C is for the Combahee River Raid, a Civil War action planned in part by Union spy Harriet Tubman; Z is for Zuccotti Park, and the Occupy movement that briefly took over the world. Paired with dynamic paper-cut art by Miriam Klein Stahl, the entries by Kate Schatz explore several centuries of politics, culture, art, activism, and liberation, including radical librarians, Supreme Court cases, courageous youth, punk rocker grrrls, Southern quilts, and modern witches. In addition to the twenty-six core stories, short sidebars expand the discussion, and dictionary-style lists refer readers to additional key moments. So while F is for Federal Theater Project, a New Deal-era program that employed thousands of artists, F is also for Freedom Rides and First Amendment. E is for Earth First!, but also for Endangered Species Act and Equal Rights Amendment. There are tales of triumph, resilience, creation, and hope. Each engaging, fact-filled narrative illustrates an eye-opening moment that shows us how we got to now--and what we need to know about our histories to create a just and sustainable future. Advance praise for Rad American History A-Z “I wish I’d had Rad American History A–Z when I was growing up; it’s a book I hope to read to my children one day. In such chaotic political times, this is a critical tool for young people to know how change happens, and to know that they, too, can make change happen. This book belongs on all library shelves as a transformative approach to history as we know it.”–Alicia Garza, cofounder of Black Lives Matter Global Network