Richard Cahan

Lost in America documents the life and death of America's architectural and historic treasures. The book is based on a remarkable archive created by the Historic American Building Survey (HABS), a Works Progress Administration project that still documents the nation's most important buildings. Lost in America focuses on 100 buildings that have been torn down over the past 90 years. Some―like New York's Penn Station and Chicago's Stock Exchange―were...

In the late 1930s, the federal government embarked on an unusual project. As a part of the Works Progress Administration's efforts to give jobs to unemployed Americans, government workers tracked down 3,000 men and women who had been enslaved before and during the Civil War. The workers asked them probing questions about slave life. What did they think about their slaveholders? What songs did they sing? What games did they play? Did they always think...

This unique history reveals how a century of Federal Court drama and influential rulings shaped the development and culture of Northern California. From the gold rush to the Internet boom, the US District Court for the Northern District of California has played a major role in how business is done and life is lived on the Pacific Coast. When California was first admitted to the Union, pioneers were busy prospecting for new fortunes, building towns...

"Ernest C. Withers was one of the most prominent African-American photographers during the civil rights years. During the course of his work, he took thousands photographs that document the Movement--from the Emmett Till trial in 1955 to the assassination of Martin Luther King in 1968. What set his work apart was that he goes beyond the political struggles to show the human face of Movement. Withers worked primarily a local photographer, as a freelancer...