Imperial Material

Imperial Material
Author: Alvita Akiboh
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 297
Release: 2023
Genre: Emblems, National
ISBN: 0226828484

"Alvita Akiboh's book reveals how US national identity has been created, challenged, and transformed through embodiments of empire found in its territories, whether stamps, flags, or currency. These objects are economic and symbolic, but they also encode the relationships between territories-including the Philippines, the Marshall Islands, Puerto Rico, and Palau-and the empire with which they are entangled. Akiboh shows how such items became objects of local power, transmogrifying their original intent. For even if imperial territories were not always front and center for federal lawmakers and administrators, the people living there remained continuously aware of the imperial United States, whose presence announced itself on every bit of currency, every stamp, and the local flag"--

On Time Delivery

On Time Delivery
Author: William S. Schneider
Publisher: University of Alaska Press
Total Pages: 162
Release: 2012-03-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 1602231680

From the turn of the twentieth century in interior Alaska, dog team mail carriers were charged with maintaining the trail systems and carrying the mail until they were replaced in the late 1930s and ’40s by airplane mail service. With the advent and widespread adoption of aviation, many of the trails were abandoned, and a generation of rural Alaskans has now grown up with few ties to the overland trail system that supported their grandparents and inspired modern traditions such as the world-famous Iditarod Race. In addition to chronicling the history of this unique postal service, On Time Delivery pays tribute to the men who carried the mail and the families who supported them, and considers the changing nature of how people experience the country where they live—and how this is affected by the systems of communication and transportation upon which they depend.