The Lynching of Cleo Wright

The Lynching of Cleo Wright
Author: Dominic J. CapeciJr.
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
Total Pages: 352
Release: 2014-10-17
Genre: History
ISBN: 0813156467

On January 20, 1942, black oil mill worker Cleo Wright assaulted a white woman in her home and nearly killed the first police officer who tried to arrest him. An angry mob then hauled Wright out of jail and dragged him through the streets of Sikeston, Missouri, before burning him alive. Wright's death was, unfortunately, not unique in American history, but what his death meant in the larger context of life in the United States in the twentieth-century is an important and compelling story. After the lynching, the U.S. Justice Department was forced to become involved in civil rights concerns for the first time, provoking a national reaction to violence on the home front at a time when the country was battling for democracy in Europe. Dominic Capeci unravels the tragic story of Wright's life on several stages, showing how these acts of violence were indicative not only of racial tension but the clash of the traditional and the modern brought about by the war. Capeci draws from a wide range of archival sources and personal interviews with the participants and spectators to draw vivid portraits of Wright, his victims, law-enforcement officials, and members of the lynch mob. He places Wright in the larger context of southern racial violence and shows the significance of his death in local, state, and national history during the most important crisis of the twentieth-century.

Paper Machines

Paper Machines
Author: Markus Krajewski
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 222
Release: 2011-08-19
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0262297272

Why the card catalog—a “paper machine” with rearrangeable elements—can be regarded as a precursor of the computer. Today on almost every desk in every office sits a computer. Eighty years ago, desktops were equipped with a nonelectronic data processing machine: a card file. In Paper Machines, Markus Krajewski traces the evolution of this proto-computer of rearrangeable parts (file cards) that became ubiquitous in offices between the world wars. The story begins with Konrad Gessner, a sixteenth-century Swiss polymath who described a new method of processing data: to cut up a sheet of handwritten notes into slips of paper, with one fact or topic per slip, and arrange as desired. In the late eighteenth century, the card catalog became the librarian's answer to the threat of information overload. Then, at the turn of the twentieth century, business adopted the technology of the card catalog as a bookkeeping tool. Krajewski explores this conceptual development and casts the card file as a “universal paper machine” that accomplishes the basic operations of Turing's universal discrete machine: storing, processing, and transferring data. In telling his story, Krajewski takes the reader on a number of illuminating detours, telling us, for example, that the card catalog and the numbered street address emerged at the same time in the same city (Vienna), and that Harvard University's home-grown cataloging system grew out of a librarian's laziness; and that Melvil Dewey (originator of the Dewey Decimal System) helped bring about the technology transfer of card files to business.

The Prince of Las Vegas

The Prince of Las Vegas
Author: Brian Malanaphy
Publisher:
Total Pages: 394
Release: 2017-04-26
Genre:
ISBN: 9780692734339

A modern retelling of Hamlet, except with a few twists. It's seventies Vegas. Amid the glitz, neon lights, poker players, and flood of cash, Jack Romano, a well-respected self-made casino owner and patriarch, has died. His only son, Nick, arrives home for the funeral and discovers that the death may not have been so accidental. Now he must decide what to do about Claudio, an ambitious, seasoned mobster who is also his dad's so-called business partner. Complications arise as Nick finds himself falling in love with Rosalie, the daughter of one of Claudio's crew. Nick must not only save his family's casino business, but also his dad's hoard of silver, amassed over decades, and stashed in the casino's basement vaults. "The only thing missing are the cement shoes. Malanaphy's tumultuous and thrilling ride through the wise-guy back rooms of not-so-old Las Vegas is a sometimes funny, sometimes not, but always captivating whodunnit that'll keep you turning the pages. The Prince of Las Vegas has it all: Romance, mystery and a fresh take on a Cosa Nostra-esque underworld where behind every poker table there's a mobster looking to grab the great, late Jack Romano's loot. If you can't read this well-honed mobster thriller without cheering on the good guys and boo-hissing the bad ones, well ... fuhgeddaboudit!" - Andy Scontras, author of When You Are Strange "A well written, nostalgic and fun, Vegas crime thriller. Malanaphy's novel does not disappoint!" - Gary Braver, author of Tunnel Vision "Would make a great Scorsese or Tarantino movie." - Douglas Corleone, author of Good As Gone.

Forensic Evidence

Forensic Evidence
Author: Terrence F. Kiely
Publisher: CRC Press
Total Pages: 360
Release: 2000-08-23
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1439834377

Forensic Evidence: Science and the Criminal Law is a comprehensive analysis of the most recent state and federal court decisions addressing the use of forensic science in the investigation and trial of criminal cases. Each case provides a complete overview and analysis of the relevant scientific issues debated by the court in that particular case.