In the postbellum nineteenth century, journalism reached larger audiences with more information in less time. With the rise of industrialization and mechanization, the means of conveying news to the public improved dramatically. In 1873 Frederic Hudson, one of the nation's first journalism historians, predicted that these technological advances would spawn genuinely national newspapers. Such publications would be circulated to all parts of the country by means of pneumatic tubes, he wrote, which could convey newspapers from one coast to the other within three hours. The prophesy of compressed air blowing bunches of newspapers across the length and breadth of the country was so far awry that it is amusing to consider today. However, Hudson's forecast of a national newspaper, which seemed just as far-fetched in that era of a distinctly provincial press, came to fruition in only the following decade. As the population soared (due in large measure to immigration), as urban areas blossomed, and as the public became increasingly literate, more people turned to newspapers for information about their community and nation. It was against this backdrop that the Saturday Globe was born in 1881. From its auspicious infancy in Utica, New York, the Saturday Globe grew into a major newspaper with nationwide circulation. Through its pioneering use of regional editions, it became the first truly national newspaper in United States history. It served as a unifying force for disparate communities, which were constantly being redefined by the expansion of industry and the increase in population. The Saturday Globe's readership, which peaked at nearly 300,000, was attracted by its stunning artwork, its national scope, and its charming miscellany of stories. In many ways, the Saturday Globe was a theoretical forerunner of USA Today. Although it eschewed the political partisanship so common among newspapers of the era, the Saturday Globe emanated a morally conservative tenor, which was sometimes difficult to reconcile with the newspaper's tendency toward sensationalism. Relying on many diverse sources, Ralph Frasca constructs a comprehensive social history of the Saturday Globe, placing it in a larger context by showing how cultural, technological, economic, demographic, and journalistic forces in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries both created a milieu for the Saturday Globe's inception and success and lead to its demise forty-three years later. The story of the Saturday Globe offers insight into the processes by which mighty newspapers rise, fall, and erode into the deepest recesses of time. The survival of America's newspapers is just as much a concern now as when the Saturday Globe, a mere husk of its former self, folded. While the Saturday Globe fought a losing battle against imitators and magazines, today's newspapers wage a similar war against the encroachment of the broadcast media. The history of the Saturday Globe offers a compelling case study of a major newspaper's rise and fall.

The field of business history has changed and grown dramatically over the last few years. There is less interest in the traditional `company-centred' approach and more concern about the wider business context. With the growth of multi-national corporations in the 1980s, international and inter-firm comparisons have gained in importance. In addition, there has been a move towards improving links with mainstream economic, financial and social history through techniques and outlook. The International Bibliography of Business History brings all of the strands together and provides the user with a comprehensive guide to the literature in the field. The Bibliography is a unique volume which covers the depth and breadth of research in business history. This exhaustive volume has been compiled by a team of subject specialists from around the world under the editorship of three prestigious business historians.

In what may be the first explicitly comparative study of the effects of globalization on metropolitan and rural communities, In Gotham's Shadow examines how three central New York communities struggled over the last half century to survive in a global economy that seems to have forgotten them. Utica, formerly a city of one hundred thousand, experienced the same trends of suburbanization, deindustrialization, and urban renewal as nearly every American city, with the same mixed results. In Cooperstown and Hartwick, two small villages forty miles south of Utica, the same trends were at work, though with different outcomes. Hartwick may be seen as an example of how small towns have lost their core, while Cooperstown may be seen as an example of how a small town can survive by transforming itself into a tourist destination. Thomas provides extensive historical background mixed with newspaper excerpts and lively interviews that add a human dimension to the transformations these communities have experienced.

In the years after the Civil War, black and white Union soldiers who survived the horrific struggle joined the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR)--the Union army's largest veterans' organization. In this thoroughly researched and groundbreaking study, Barbara Gannon chronicles black and white veterans' efforts to create and sustain the nation's first interracial organization. According to the conventional view, the freedoms and interests of African American veterans were not defended by white Union veterans after the war, despite the shared tradition of sacrifice among both black and white soldiers. In The Won Cause, however, Gannon challenges this scholarship, arguing that although black veterans still suffered under the contemporary racial mores, the GAR honored its black members in many instances and ascribed them a greater equality than previous studies have shown. Using evidence of integrated posts and veterans' thoughts on their comradeship and the cause, Gannon reveals that white veterans embraced black veterans because their membership in the GAR demonstrated that their wartime suffering created a transcendent bond--comradeship--that overcame even the most pernicious social barrier--race-based separation. By upholding a more inclusive memory of a war fought for liberty as well as union, the GAR's "Won Cause" challenged the Lost Cause version of Civil War memory.

This book uses the history of Breathitt County, Kentucky, to examine political violence in the United States and its interpretation in media and memory. Violence in Breathitt County, during and after the Civil War, usually reflected what was going on elsewhere in Kentucky and the American South. In turn, the types of violence recorded there corresponded with discernible political scenarios.

The influence of the mass media on American history has been overwhelming. History of the Mass Media in the United States examines the ways in which the media both affects, and is affected by, U.S. society. From 1690, when the first American newspaper was founded, to 1995, this encyclopedia covers more than 300 years of mass media history. History of Mass Media in the United States contains more than 475 alphabetically arranged entries covering subjects ranging from key areas of newspaper history to broader topics such as media coverage of wars, major conflicts over press freedom, court cases and legislation, and the concerns and representation of ethnic and special interest groups. The editor and the 200 scholarly contributors to this work have taken particular care to examine the technological, legal, legislative, economic, and political developments that have affected the American media.

To many antebellum Americans, Appalachia was a frightening wilderness of lawlessness, peril, robbers, and hidden dangers. The extensive media coverage of horse stealing and scalping raids profiled the region's residents as intrinsically violent. After the Civil War, this characterization continued to permeate perceptions of the area and news of the conflict between the Hatfields and the McCoys, as well as the bloodshed associated with the coal labor strikes, cemented Appalachia's violent reputation. Blood in the Hills: A History of Violence in Appalachia provides an in-depth historical analysis of hostility in the region from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth century. Editor Bruce E. Stewart discusses aspects of the Appalachian violence culture, examining skirmishes with the native population, conflicts resulting from the region's rapid modernization, and violence as a function of social control. The contributors also address geographical isolation and ethnicity, kinship, gender, class, and race with the purpose of shedding light on an often-stereotyped regional past. Blood in the Hills does not attempt to apologize for the region but uses detailed research and analysis to explain it, delving into the social and political factors that have defined Appalachia throughout its violent history.