Lois Marshall

Although she called herself "just a singer," soprano Lois Marshall (1925-97) became a household name across Canada during her thirty-four year career and remains one of the foremost figures in the history of Canadian music. She rubbed shoulders with Canada's musical aristocracy – Glenn Gould, Sir Ernest MacMillan, Jon Vickers, Maureen Forrester – but Marshall always held first place in the hearts of her adoring fans. At the height of the Cold War, Moscow and St. Petersburg embraced her as warmly as Canada had. Yet Marshall remained true to her Canadian roots and to Toronto, her lifelong home. This first-ever biography recounts her dazzling career and paints an intimate portrait of the woman, her childhood encounter with polio, and her complex relationship with her teacher and mentor, Weldon Kilburn. Hers is a tale of a warm, courageous woman; it is also the story of classical music in Canada.

Soprano Lois Marshall (1925-1997) became a household name across Canada during her 34-year career. This first-ever biography recounts her dazzling career and paints an intimate portrait of the woman, her childhood encounter with polio, and her complex relationship with her teacher and mentor, Weldon Kilburn.-Soprano Lois Marshall (1925-1997) became a household name across Canada during her 34-year career. This first-ever biography recounts her dazzling career and paints an intimate portrait of the woman, her childhood encounter with polio, and her complex relationship with her teacher and mentor, Weldon Kilburn.

By the summer of 1915 Germany was faced with two major problems in fighting World War I: how to break the British blockade and how to stop or seriously disrupt the British supply line across the Atlantic. Th e solution to the former was to find a way over, through, or under it. Aircraft in those days were too primitive, too short range, and too underpowered to accomplish this, and Germany lacked the naval strength to force a passage through the blockade. But if Germany could build a fleet of cargo U-boats that were large enough to carry meaningful loads and had the range to make a round trip between Germany and the United States without refueling, the blockade might be successfully broken. Since the German navy could not cut Britain’s supply line to America, another answer lay in sabotaging munitions factories, depots, and ships, as well as infecting horses and mules at the western end of the supply line. German agents, with American sympathizers, successfully carried out more than fifty attacks involving fires and explosions and spread anthrax and glanders on the East Coast before America’s entry into the war on 6 April 1917. Breaking the blockade with a fleet of cargo U-boats provided the lowest risk of drawing America into the war; at the same time, sabotage was incompatible with Germany’s diplomatic goal of keeping the United States out of the war. The two solutions were very different, but the fact that both campaigns were run by intelligence agencies—the Etappendienst (navy) and the Geheimdienst (army), through the agency of one man, Paul Hilken, in one American city, Baltimore, make them inseparable. Those solutions created the dichotomy that produced the U-boat Deutschland and the Baltimore Sabotage Cell. Here, Messimer provides the first study of the degree to which U.S. citizens were enlisted in Germany’s sabotage operations and debunks many myths that surround the Deutschland.

The musical career of Alexander Tumanov extends from Stalinist and Soviet Russia through contemporary Canada, and as such provides an inspiring portrait of one person’s devotion to his art under trying circumstances. Tumanov was a founding member of Moscow’s Madrigal Ensemble of early music, which introduced Renaissance and Baroque music to the Soviet Union. The Ensemble enjoyed tremendous popularity in the 1960s and 1970s, despite occasional official disapproval by the Soviet bureaucracy. At times the compositions of the group’s founder, Andrei Volkonsky, were banned. Volkonsky eventually emigrated to escape the oppressive conditions, followed soon after, in 1974, by Tumanov, and the Madrigal Ensemble continued in a changed form under new leaders. The story of the author's subsequent life and career in Canada provides a poignant point of contrast with his Soviet period — at the musical, academic, and political levels. This book is a valuable resource for those interested in the history of music and intellectual life in Russia, Ukraine, and the Soviet Union in the twentieth century and is the first published book on the Madrigal Ensemble.

A moving account of the popular first lady's White House tenure, taking readers behind the scenes of her strained marriage to the famously taciturn president. An insightful look at the Coolidges, their relationship in the public eye, and her contributions to the historical legacy of presidential wives.

One of America's first national parks, Hot Springs has welcomed the famous and the infamous, all seeking the healing elements of her waters. Hot Springs was one of the first areas set aside as a federal land reservation in 1832--predating the first national park at Yellowstone by 40 years. In 1921, it was officially designated a national park. Physically the smallest of the 59 US national parks today, Hot Springs measures just larger than 5,500 acres. Its 47 on-site springs produce more than 700,000 gallons of thermal water per day. From early natives who quarried novaculite found in the surrounding hills to famous politicians, performers, and athletes, people have been coming to these springs for thousands of years to partake in the supposed healing powers of the water. President Franklin Roosevelt, boxer Jack Dempsey, and French opera diva Lily Pons are a few of the visitors who made the trek to the Valley of the Vapors. The history of Hot Springs National Park revolves around people's' interactions with its thermal water.