The View From Cracker Hill

The hard work of nineteenth-century Irish immigrants in Waterbury helped place the city on the map as the Brass Capital of the World. In the early years of immigration, the Irish still had a hard road before them, filled with prejudice and social exclusion. Irish Catholics would hold Mass in secret, but eventually beautiful churches were built, attracting the most revered clergy in Connecticut. Soon Irish and Irish Americans established themselves as city leaders and professionals in the community. Dr. Charles A. Monagan was a founding member of St. Mary's Hospital, while his son John later became mayor. Some achieved fame through their excellence in sports, such as Roger Connor, whose long-standing record for career home runs was unbeatable until finally broken by the one and only Babe Ruth. Detailed research and oral histories from living descendants bring to light the remarkable Waterbury Irish legacy.

Bold as Brass is a collection of twenty-four stories set in Waterbury, Connecticut, once Brass Capital of the World. All the stories are works of fiction. They are the author's look into long-ago lives, both of her Irish Catholic family and of imagined characters who might have joined them in their daily goings on, in a period of time that stretches from the thirties through the fifties. Whether the characters are swimming at Scovill's Dam on a hot summer day and wondering what is beneath that water or telling stories around the kitchen table on a rainy afternoon, making a pilgrimage to Saint Anne de Beaupre in Canada to request a baby or bearing gifts to a birthday celebration with mixed results, their stories are presented in a way that shows how insightful commonplace occurrences can prove to be. Bold as Brass is the author's second book, deliciously anecdotal, and a true companion to her first book, The View from Cracker Hill, a memoir of 1950s Waterbury. These are stories of working-class people, of whom Betty notes in "Saturday Night Swells," the idea that "ordinary people can have extraordinary moments is a wonderful discovery." The author says, "I echo Betty's sentiment, and I am delighted to share these stories."

Book Delisted

A. P. Hill: Lee's Forgotten General is the first biography of the Confederacy's long-neglected hero whom Lee ranked next to Jackson and Longstreet. Although the name and deeds ot this gallant Virginian conspicuously punctuate the record of every major campaign of the Army of Northern Virginia, the man himself has persistently remained what Douglas Southall Freman termed an "elusive personality." William Woods Hassler, through careful and persistent research, has compiled an interesting documentary study from which emerges a balanced portrait of this distinguished but complex character. Here for the first time is detailed the romantic triangle which enmeshed Hill and McClellan, former roommates at West Point, with beauteous Nelly Marcy, reigning queen of pre-war Washington's younger set. Hill lost this contest to Nelly's parents, but he later won the hand of General John Hunt Morgan's lovely and talented sister, Dolly. And at Sharpsburg, Hill wreaked vengeance upon McClellan by his timely arrival which saved Lee from defeat at the same time it spelled McClellan's subsequent dismissal from command of the Army of the Potomac. The author traces Hill's meteoric rise from Colonel of the redoubtable Thirteenth Virginia Regiment to Major General in command of the famed Light Division. Against a "you are there" background of intimate detail, the reader follows the exploits of tempestous Ambrose Powell Hill as he welds his officers and men into fierce striking units. Where the fighing is thickests there is the red-haired, red-shirted Hill brandishing his sword and exhorting his men to victory. Sometimes the issue ends ignominiously as at Bristoe Station, but more often the outcome is glorious as at Second Manassas and Reams Station. Gray greats and near-greats stalk through these pages with vivid reality as one meets Jeb Stuart, Dorsey Pender, John Hood, Heros von Borcke, Ham Chamerlayne, Willie Pegram, Rev. J. Wm. Jones, Cadmus Wilcox, Harry Heth, J. R. Anderson, Lawrence O'Brien Branch, James Archer, Jim Lane, Thomas Wooten, Charles Field, George Tucker, Kyd Douglas, Johnston Pettigrew, Moxley Sorrel, William H. Palmer, Wade Hampton, Jube Early, Lindsay Walker, Maxcy Gregg, Sam McGowan, and others. Accompanying Hill and his commands from pre-Manassas to the final breakthrough at Petersburg, the reader relives the campaigns in the Eastern theater. At the same time the reader gains a deeper insight into the problems of command, together with an appreciation of the hardships which the Confederate soldiers endured during even the early days of the conflict. Although Powell Hill's consideration and ability won for him the unbounded respect and devotion of his troops, his proud, sensitive nature continually embroiled him with his superiors. His dispute with Longstreet following the Seven Days Battles almost culminated in a duel. Transferred to Jackson's command, Hill outspokenly quarreled with "Old Jack" until the latter's mortal wounding at Chancellorsville effected a dramatic battlefield reconciliation. As Jackson's successor, Hill performed irregularly. The author analyzes objectively the various factors which may have caused the changes in Hill's fortunes following his elevation to corps command.

Bold as Brass is a collection of twenty-four stories set in Waterbury, Connecticut, once Brass Capital of the World. All the stories are works of fiction. They are the author's look into long-ago lives, both of her Irish Catholic family and of imagined characters who might have joined them in their daily goings on, in a period of time that stretches from the thirties through the fifties. Whether the characters are swimming at Scovill's Dam on a hot summer day and wondering what is beneath that water or telling stories around the kitchen table on a rainy afternoon, making a pilgrimage to Saint Anne de Beaupre in Canada to request a baby or bearing gifts to a birthday celebration with mixed results, their stories are presented in a way that shows how insightful commonplace occurrences can prove to be. Bold as Brass is the authors second book, deliciously anecdotal, and a true companion to her first book, The View from Cracker Hill, a memoir of 1950s Waterbury. These are stories of working-class people, of whom Betty notes in "Saturday Night Swells," the idea that "ordinary people can have extraordinary moments is a wonderful discovery." The author says, "I echo Betty's sentiment, and I am delighted to share these stories."

Infinite happiness and boundless dreams – welcome to the world of Kaveri, Chellam, and Rangu. Growing up together and experiencing the joy of childhood, their friendship is of unconditional love and innocence. The vast and beautiful Western Ghats, lush green farms, cold and untamed rivers from the mountains, and the big banyan tree set the perfect backdrop for their fun and adventures.

Cities are nothing without the streets—the arteries through which goods, people, and ideas flow. Neighborhood by neighborhood, block by block, the city streets are where politics begins. In Struggle for the Street, Jessica D. Klanderud documents the development of class-based visions of political, social, and economic equality in Pittsburgh's African American community between World War I and the early 1970s. Klanderud emphasizes how middle-class and working-class African Americans struggled over the appropriate uses and dominant meanings of street spaces in their neighborhoods as they collectively struggled to define equality. In chapters that move from one community to the next, Klanderud tracks the transformation of tactics over time with a streets-eye view that reveals the coalescing alliances between neighbors and through space. Drawing on oral histories of neighborhood residents, Black newspapers, and papers from the NAACP and Urban League, this study reveals complex class negotiations in the struggle for civil rights at the street level.