Although known as the retail capital of Rhode Island, Warwick is much more than a conglomeration of shopping centers, malls, and industrial parks; it is a city marked by an extraordinary history and in many ways, serves as a mirror of the American experience. Like many communities across the United States, Warwick developed from a rural hamlet into a town distinguished by a variety of industries in the nineteenth century, attracting immigrants

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"The third installment of the Making of America series, Abraham Lincoln, tells of one of our most beloved presidents. Born in a cabin deep in the backwoods of Kentucky, growing up in a family considered "the poorest of the poor," Lincoln rose to become the sixteenth president of the United States. As president, he guided the United States through the Civil War, helped end slavery in America, and strengthened the federal government. Unlike other biographies,...

At the end of the Reconstruction, the spread of science and technology, industrialism, urbanization, immigration, and economic depressions eroded Americans' conventional beliefs in individualism and a divinely ordained social system. In The Search for Order, 1877-1920, Robert H. Wiebe shows how, in subsequent years, during the Progressive Era of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, Americans sought the organizing principles around which a new viable...

"A portrait of one of America's most controversial presidents traces his youth, participation in the Revolutionary War, nationalist perspectives, resolve to dismantle the national bank, and discriminatory actions against black and Native Americans." --

This biography for young readers examines the life of a brilliant lawyer who successfully argued the case that ended legal racial segregation in America. Thurgood Marshall, the great grandson of a slave, was born at a time when African Americans were denied equal rights in America. Segregation was legal. Lynching was common. In some places, African Americans were entirely excluded from public life, they were forbidden to enter public parks and museums...

Farmington, one of Detroit's oldest suburbs, was originally inhabited by the Potawatomi and was ceded to the government for sale to settlers beginning in 1820. Established as Quakertown and incorporated as Farmington, this "Crossroads Community" developed around a literal railroad stop, flourishing from an agricultural center to a thriving business district. A sense of community, family, and home inspired residents to overcome natural and social obstacles...

Although fairly new on the American scene of cities, Chesapeake possesses a long history dating back to the early 1600s, when the first intrepid settlers began establishing farms on the fertile soils of Tidewater Virginia. Over the centuries, the region divided itself into larger cities, such as Norfolk and Portsmouth, a number of small towns, and rural county governments. Combating the expansion of the City of Norfolk, the leaders and citizens of...

Florida's railroad heritage began in the 1830s amidst Native American upheaval and territorial colonization. Surpassing waterways as the primary mode of transport, the "Iron Horse" linked practically every town and city, carried tourists and locals, and ably conveyed the wealth of Florida's mines, factories, forests, groves, and farms. Nearly 175 years later, railroads still remain a dependable source of transport within the Sunshine State.

Once the primary hunting ground of the Monocan Indians and later a harmonious common area shared with the Quakers, Lynchburg was a crossroads for various cultures even before its founding following the French and Indian War. With roots in the prosperous tobacco fields, the City of Seven Hills became one of the nation's wealthiest communities by the Civil War. During the robust and arduous times to come, Lynchburg continued to thrive by developing...