When Thomas Banister fought for the British during the American Revolution, his farm and business were confiscated. He was exiled in far-off Nova Scotia, before he returned to a secluded life on Long Island. His older brother, John Banister married with a child, swore allegiance to the United Colonies, then witnessed the destruction of his Newport lands by the British Army. Convinced British laws supported remuneration, John left for England, where he sought justice for four years. His wife, Christian Stelle Banister, managed the family property and raised their son while the state threatened confiscation and the French Army lived in Newport. Tracing the lives of three young Americans during the Revolution, this study of the Banister family of Rhode Island contributes to an understanding of the war's effects on the lives of ordinary people.

Merchant John Banister (1707-1767) of Newport, Rhode Island, wore many hats: exporter, importer, wholesaler, retailer, money-lender, extender of credit and insurer, owner and outfitter of sailing vessels, and ship builder for the slave trade. His recently discovered accounting records reveal his role in transforming colonial trade in mid-18th century America. He combined business acumen and a strong work ethic with knowledge of the law and new technologies. Through his maritime activities and real estate development, he was a rain-maker for artisans, workers and producers, contributing to income opportunities for businesswomen, freemen and slaves. Drawing on Banister's meticulous daybooks, ledgers, letters and receipts, the author analyzes his contribution to the economic history of colonial America, highlighting the complexity of the commerce of the era.

Originally published in 1972, Christopher McKee’s biography of Edward Preble remains the most authoritative source on this influential early shaper of the U.S. naval tradition. McKee documents Preble’s rise from obscurity to become Thomas Jefferson’s chief administrator. He chronicles the officer’s relationship with Jefferson and outlines the president’s policies and strategies during the Barbary Wars. McKee also brings to light the Tripolitan activities and attitudes that confronted Preble as he sought to bring the war to an end.

These volumes, published in conjunction with the Rhode Island Historical Society, represent the result of an exhaustive search for documents relating to the life and career of Revolutionary War general Nathanael Greene. The papers--letters and documents received by Greene as well as those sent by him--are carefully edited and fully annotated. The editors reproduce many items in full but abstract papers that are of lesser significance. Greene, who served as quartermaster general of the army and later as commander of the forces fighting in the southern theater, is generally considered the ablest of Washington's generals. His papers are a vital source of information on the war itself as well as on the man.

Axel Bundgaard has produced a meaningful work on the important but little-told history of interschool athletics, exploring the introduction and nature of sport in the controlled environment of the American boarding school. Beginning in the late eighteenth century, American educators looked to the English public school as the educational archetype for producing good men, good Christians, and good leaders. The British incorporation of sport into the process of education, however, took root only slowly in the United States, where it seemed alien to Puritan values extolling hard work and deploring play as wasted time. Only when educators were convinced that sport was an essential tool in the process of raising the next generation by building character, team spirit, and leadership did the informal physical play initiated by students in early schools begin to evolve toward the highly organized, school-sponsored sports of today. Using archival material from several eastern boarding schools founded in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Bundgaard traces this process from its beginnings in the muscular Christianity prevailing in the boarding schools of Victorian England-most notably Rugby. There, athletics and the prefect system older boys shaping the manners and morals of younger ones were used to mold youth into "Christian gentlemen," and it was believed that the seeds of future military victories were planted on the school playing fields. Bundgaard shows how this model of sport and character building was gradually absorbed into the classical curricula of private education in America, and then continues to chronicle the dramatic changes in this model through the first decade of the twentieth century, as educational philosophies evolved and an ideal of physical vigor and "conduct befitting a gentleman" emerged. Drawing on archival sources at Groton, Andover, Exeter, St. Paul's Suffield, Williston, Woodberry Forest, and Worcester Academy interviews, personal communications, school newspapers, and histories of various institutions Bundgaard provides a new critical perspective on the evolution of play and sports for schoolboys. This book will stimulate research on the broader subject of American secondary school athletics and pique the interest of sport historians, educators, and a general audience.