With The Town of Tonawanda, author John Percy has created an unprecedented collection of historic photographs, illustrating over a century of change. Readers catch glimpses of the town as it progressed from its agricultural era through industrialization, into suburbanization. Located immediately north of the City of Buffalo, the Town of Tonawanda was able to build on the success of that city's nineteenth-century growth. Luckily, the town's development has been recorded on film; many rare and never-before-published photographs are in the collection of the Tonawanda-Kenmore Historical Society, the principal source for this new work. Many of Tonawanda's people made significant contributions to the growth of our nation, particularly in the development of technology. Features of town history are recognized worldwide, like the Erie Canal, the Niagara River, and our aircraft and automotive industries. Organized to illustrate the principal eras during the past century, over two hundred photographs depict the lumber industry, the canal, and the railroads that transformed the village of Tonawanda a boom town. When the village became a separate city in 1903, the rural town developed a great industrial riverfront and the area's first successful suburb, Kenmore. World War II brought even further growth of industry, population, and culture. As we shift gears into the twenty-first century, it is natural to reflect on our area's lively past. This important new volume helps inspire the sharing of memories and stories between young and old, resident and visitor alike

Between the years of 1940 and 1960, Tonawanda and North Tonawanda virtually redefined themselves. The waning lumber industry gave way to manufacturing that accommodated first the war effort and then postwar market demands. After the war, men and women returned to family life, and the baby boom began. New homes, new schools, and new roads were built to serve the burgeoning population; meanwhile, local industries expanded, and new businesses took root. Well-paying jobs were plentiful, as were consumer goods such as televisions, modern appliances, and cars. Community pride was evident, with volunteers swelling the ranks of fire companies, churches, and service clubs. Downtown had dozens of shops, department stores, restaurants, and entertainment venues such as the Riviera and Melody Fair. Tonawanda and North Tonawanda: 1940-1960 celebrates the American Dream, an era when teenagers were rocking and rolling at school dances and hanging out at Zeffery's the Sugar Bowl, and Pee Wee's Pizzeria.

"Powerful and important . . . an instant classic." —The Washington Post Book World The award-winning look at an ugly aspect of American racism by the bestselling author of Lies My Teacher Told Me, reissued with a new preface by the author In this groundbreaking work, sociologist James W. Loewen, author of the classic bestseller Lies My Teacher Told Me, brings to light decades of hidden racial exclusion in America. In a provocative, sweeping analysis of American residential patterns, Loewen uncovers the thousands of "sundown towns"—almost exclusively white towns where it was an unspoken rule that blacks weren't welcome—that cropped up throughout the twentieth century, most of them located outside of the South. Written with Loewen's trademark honesty and thoroughness, Sundown Towns won the Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award, received starred reviews in Publishers Weekly and Booklist, and launched a nationwide online effort to track down and catalog sundown towns across America. In a new preface, Loewen puts this history in the context of current controversies around white supremacy and the Black Lives Matter movement. He revisits sundown towns and finds the number way down, but with notable exceptions in exclusive all-white suburbs such as Kenilworth, Illinois, which as of 2010 had not a single black household. And, although many former sundown towns are now integrated, they often face "second-generation sundown town issues," such as in Ferguson, Missouri, a former sundown town that is now majority black, but with a majority-white police force.

Writing about the economic collapse and social unrest of her 1970s childhood in Buffalo, New York, Laura Pedersen was struck by how things were finally improving in her beloved hometown. As 2008 began, Buffalo was poised to become the thriving metropolis it had been a hundred years earlier—only instead of grain and steel, the booming industries now included healthcare and banking, education and technology. Folks who'd moved away due to lack of opportunity in the 1980s talked excitedly about returning home. They mised the small-town friendliness and it wasn't nostalgia for a past that no longer existed—Buffalo has long held the well-deserved nickname the City of Good Neighbors. The diaspora has ended. Preservationists are winning out over demolition crews. The lights are back on in a city that's usually associated with blizzards and blight rather than its treasure trove of art, architecture, and culture.

History of Buffalo Music & Entertainment from the 1830s to the early 1980s. Covering Canal Street & Christy's Minstrels, The Pan-American Exposition, Theaters (vaudeville, burlesque & movie), Crystal Beach & other amusement parks, Nightclubs of the 1930s - 1960s, Big Band Jazz, early radio & television, Classical Music, 1950s rock 'n' roll bands & radio, Folk Music, 1960s Buffalo Sound Bands, 1960s Teen Club Bands, Behind the Scenes (music education, music businesses & manufacturers), music clubs in the 1960s & 1970s, The 1970s rock & commercial rock bands, Original Music Scene, Jazz, Blues & R&B in the 1970s & early 1980s, Country Music, Ethnic Music (German, Irish & Polish), bands and clubs of the early 1980s and over 125 historic photos.

In the tradition of Michael Herr’s Dispatches and works by such masters of the memoir as Mary Karr and Tobias Wolff, a powerful account of war and homecoming. Brian Castner served three tours of duty in the Middle East, two of them as the commander of an Explosive Ordnance Disposal unit in Iraq. Days and nights he and his team—his brothers—would venture forth in heavily armed convoys from their Forward Operating Base to engage in the nerve-racking yet strangely exhilarating work of either disarming the deadly improvised explosive devices that had been discovered, or picking up the pieces when the alert came too late. They relied on an army of remote-controlled cameras and robots, but if that technology failed, a technician would have to don the eighty-pound Kevlar suit, take the Long Walk up to the bomb, and disarm it by hand. This lethal game of cat and mouse was, and continues to be, the real war within America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But The Long Walk is not just about battle itself. It is also an unflinching portrayal of the toll war exacts on the men and women who are fighting it. When Castner returned home to his wife and family, he began a struggle with a no less insidious foe, an unshakable feeling of fear and confusion and survivor’s guilt that he terms The Crazy. His thrilling, heartbreaking, stunningly honest book immerses the reader in two harrowing and simultaneous realities: the terror and excitement and camaraderie of combat, and the lonely battle against the enemy within—the haunting memories that will not fade, the survival instincts that will not switch off. After enduring what he has endured, can there ever again be such a thing as “normal”? The Long Walk will hook you from the very first sentence, and it will stay with you long after its final gripping page has been turned.