Little Sara Bolster loved the great shining horses that drew the Henkel brewery wagon through the streets of Detroit in the 1880s. Those horses came to signify her fate, for she married the Henkel son and later, as a widow, took over the business. Sara’s struggle against the intolerance and hypocrisy of family and friends who disapproved of a woman running a brewery and opening a beer garden makes her a standout among the characters of Mildred Walker. The Brewers’ Big Horses recreates the manners and traditions of Germans in America as Prohibition gets up steam.

This biography of the author of 13 celebrated novels is also Hugo's search for the writing life of a mother known to her children as a socially correct middle-class doctor's wife rather than as the ambitious novelist she was as well. 14 photos.

Modernism and Mildred Walker is the first full-length critical study of the major fictional works of this American author whose life spanned the twentieth century (1905?98) and whose literary production spanned almost three-quarters of a century. A highly regarded chronicler of New England and the American West, she is also appreciated for her portrayal of women characters and the complexity of women?s roles. Long beloved by readers of Montana fiction, Mildred Walker?s novels have been dismissed by some critics as only of regional interest, and, as Carmen Pearson argues, have not been explored and appreciated from other critical perspectives and by other audiences. ø In this persuasive new study, Pearson offers a new and decidedly western interpretation of Modernism as a critical tool andø proposes a variety of readings and interpretations designed to emphasize the relationship between cultural production in the West and modernism. She encourages readers and students of literature to reappraise Walker?s work and to undertake further critical studies of their own.

The first major history of Chicago ever written, A History of Chicago covers the city’s great history over two centuries, from 1673 to 1893. Originally conceived as a centennial history of Chicago, the project became, under the guidance of renowned historian Bessie Louise Pierce, a definitive, three-volume set describing the city’s growth—from its humble frontier beginnings to the horrors of the Great Fire, the construction of some of the world’s first skyscrapers, and the opulence of the 1893 World’s Fair. Pierce and her assistants spent over forty years transforming historical records into an inspiring human story of growth and survival. Rich with anecdotal evidence and interviews with the men and women who made Chicago great, all three volumes will now be available for the first time in years. A History of Chicago will be essential reading for anyone who wants to know this great city and its place in America. “With this rescue of its history from the bright, impressionable newspapermen and from the subscription-volumes, Chicago builds another impressive memorial to its coming of age, the closing of its first ‘century of progress.’”—E. D. Branch, New York Times (1937)