Ranging widely, essayists here examine the 1900 storm that ravaged Galveston, Texas, the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, the Titanic sinking, the Northridge earthquake, the crash of Air Florida Flight 90, the 1977 Chicago El train crash, and many other devastating events. These catastrophes elicited vastly different responses, and thus raise a number of important questions. How, for example did African Americans, feminists, and labor activists respond to the Titanic disaster? Why did the El train crash take on such symbolic meaning for the citizens of Chicago? In what ways did the San Francisco earthquake reaffirm rather than challenge a predominant faith in progress?

But all that changed after September 14, 1919, when a massive hurricane struck the bay and buried the downtown area under ten feet of debris. Estimates of the death toll ranged from nearly 300 to 1,000, and the storm left millions of dollars of damage in its wake. The citizens of Corpus Christi, however, rather than being demoralized, were galvanized by the disaster. In gripping detail, author Mary Jo O'Rear chronicles the successful efforts of the newly unified Corpus Christi, efforts that culminated in the dedication of the Port of Corpus Christi on September 14, 1926 - seven years to the day after the storm that devastated the city.

This collection of essays, written by some of the foremost historians in the field of Coast Guard history, highlights the wartime roles played by the United States’ oldest federal maritime service, from its inception through the last decade of the twentieth century. The Fighting Coast Guard features three distinct sections: “Beginnings,” which includes a short overview of the US Revenue Cutter Service (the USCG’s primary forerunner, established in 1790) and two chapters on World War I; “Conflagration,” the role of the USCG during the World War II era; and “The Cold War and Beyond,” an assessment of the Coast Guard’s participation in the Korean Conflict, the Vietnam War, and the Persian Gulf War of 1991. The Fighting Coast Guard is a significant contribution to the limited historiography of the Coast Guard and a critical analysis of various wartime roles undertaken by the Coast Guard during America’s twentieth-century conflicts. Because the Coast Guard operated as part of the Department of the Navy during the two world wars, its service and history is often overlooked or envoloped by the larger service, while the USCG’s limited participation in cold and hot wars since 1945 is often ignored altogether. This anthology provides readers with a solid overview while highlighting some of the service’s most important contributions as a combatant force. This definitive study of the role of the US Coast Guard in wartime, from its modern inception in 1915 through the end of the twentieth century, is long overdue and will shed new light on America’s smallest military service.

Small-scale fishing, a house-hold based enterprise in Puerto Rico, rarely provides sufficient income for a family, but it anchors their culture and sense of themselves within that culture. Even when family members must engage in wage work to supplement house-hold income, they think of themselves as fishers. Liche typifies these wage workers: "When he was quite young, he left the island to struggle in other lands, to work, to raise a family, to send home the money he earned. Ten, twenty, thirty years passed...during which he did not once fish or even see the ocean. But in a boat-building factory in New Jersey, in a bakery in the Bronx, on the production line of a chemical factory, on dozens of construction sites, every single day he made a mental review of the waters, the isles and cays ...and entertained no thought that was not related to his return." Fishers at Work, Workers at Sea describes Puerto Rican fishing families as they negotiate homeland and diaspora. It considers how wage work affects their livelihoods and identities at home and how these independent producers move in and out of global commodity markets. Drawing on some 100 life histories and years of fieldwork, David Griffith and Manuel Valdés Pizzini have developed a complex, often moving portrait of the men and women who fiercely struggle to hang onto the coastal landscapes and cultural heritage tied to the Caribbean Sea.

A comprehensive and timely examination of the history and current status of immigrants and refugees—their stories, the events that led to their movement, and the place of these movements in contemporary history and politics. Immigration and Asylum: From 1900 to the Present is an accessible and up-to-date introduction to the key concepts, terms, personalities, and real-world issues associated with the surge of immigration from the beginning of the 20th century to the present. It focuses on the United States, but is also the first encyclopedic work on the subject that reflects a truly global perspective. With contributions from the world's foremost authorities on the subject, Immigration and Asylum offers nearly 200 entries organized around four themes: immigration and asylum; the major migrating groups around the world; expulsions and other forced population movements; and the politics of migration. In addition to basic entries, the work includes in-depth essays on important trends, events, and current conditions. There is no better resource for exploring just how profoundly the voluntary and forced movement of asylum seekers and refugees has transformed the world—and what that transformation means to us today.