Washington: A History of the Capital, 1800-1950 (Princeton Legacy Library)
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A one-volume edition, this history of Washington was or...)
A one-volume edition, this history of Washington was originally published in two parts. Washington: Village and Capital, 1800-1878 was awarded the 1963 Pulitzer Prize for History.
Originally published in 1977.
The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
The Ordnance Department: Planning Munitions for War (United States Army in World War II: The Technical Services)
(The U.S. Army fought World War II with matériel much of w...)
The U.S. Army fought World War II with matériel much of which was developed in the decade prior to our entry, particularly in the period following the German blitz in Poland. Our efforts to develop munitions to the point where our armies could cope on equal terms with those of potential enemies are covered here in this, the first of three projected volumes on the history of the Ordnance Department in World War II. How well the Ordnance Department succeeded in matching the Germans in quality continues to be a matter of debate both within the Ordnance Department itself, and between the using arms and the Department. That the battle of quantity was wonwith the help of a superb industrial machinecan hardly be denied. This volume, the result of diligent research by Dr. Constance McL. Green and her associates, should interest not only military men but also scientists, industrialists, and laymen in general. Among other things, it shows the urgent necessity of a directed, continuous, and intensive research program and the danger in failing to recognize and profit by developments abroad. Also shown is the inherent time interval between the drawing board and the production of the end item in quantity.
Secret City: A History of Race Relations in the Nation's Capital (Princeton Legacy Library)
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The efforts of Washington's Negro community to establis...)
The efforts of Washington's Negro community to establish unity within itself, and to win recognition from white Washingtonians- and conversely, the efforts of a minority of white Washingtonians to effect an understanding with the Negroes-make this a fascinating story.
Originally published in 1967.
The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
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This is the inside story of one of the earliest success...)
This is the inside story of one of the earliest successful U.S. satellites, a fascinating Cold War?era chronicle of the nation's earliest battles and triumphs in the Space Race. It recounts the origins, development, and results of Project Vanguard, a pioneering venture in the exploration of outer space. Primarily an analysis of the project's scientific and technical challenges, this volume documents onboard experiments, instrumentation, tracking systems, and test firings. It also portrays the drama of organizing an unprecedented project under the pressure of a strict time limit as well as the tempestuous climate of American opinion during the Soviet Unions Sputnik launches. The history concludes with an evaluation of the satellite program's significant contributions to scientific knowledge. Numerous historic photographs highlight the text, which is written in accessible, nontechnical language. In addition to a historic foreword by Charles A. Lindbergh, this new edition features an informative introduction by Paul Dickson. Authoritative and inexpensive, it will appeal to students and teachers of history and science as well as aviation enthusiasts.
Constance McLaughlin Green was an expert in urban history.
Background
Constance McLaughlin Green was born into an academic family August 21, 1897, at Ann Arbor, Michigan. Her father, Andrew Cunningham McLaughlin, was a professor of constitutional history at the University of Michigan and then at the University of Chicago. He won the Pulitzer Prize for history in 1936, an accomplishment his daughter repeated in 1963 for the first volume of her study of Washington, D. C. She spent most of her childhood in Chicago in the neighborhood surrounding the University of Chicago where her neighbors included an aggregation of the nation's leading scholars, scientists, and intellectuals. Her mother, who was the daughter of a university president, served as hostess to many of these academic neighbors. The Green home bubbled with stimulating conversation and ideas. Green's mother, however, never attended college herself because the historian's grandmother thought it unsuitable for women. As a consequence, Constance's mother compensated for her own lack of higher education by asserting that no daughter of hers would ever grow up without professional training to ensure the ability to earn her own living.
Education
Green attended the University of Chicago's famous laboratory school for elementary and secondary education and then in the fall of 1917 went east to Smith College, a woman's school in Northampton, Massachusetts. In contrast to the University of Chicago she found Smith intellectually tepid.
Career
After graduation she taught briefly at Chicago. Her husband took her back to Holyoke, Massachusetts, a New England mill town which she found provincial. Ironically, her first book was a history of that city, Holyoke, Massachusetts: A Case History of the Industrial Revolution in America. The genesis of the book rests in Green's enrollment in Yale's graduate school at the height of the Great Depression, after having been discouraged from studying at Harvard by two eminent historians; they believed it would be too difficult for a woman to commute from Holyoke to Cambridge. At her Yale interview the historian Ralph Gabriel inquired about what she would like to investigate for her dissertation. When she mentioned a topic in intellectual history for which he considered her ill prepared, he asked, "Well, what kind of a city, what kind of a town, do you live in?" She replied that it was a dreary prefabricated industrial city feeling the impact of immigration and ethnocultural and religious conflict. Gabriel then said, "Good, that sounds like just the thing. " As a consequence, a distinguished career of writing urban and local history began, although Green denied credit for being a founding mother of the field. She modestly pointed out that she simply wrote about something that was convenient-the city in which she lived. The Holyoke history was published two years later in 1939. While scholars still find the book useful, at the time Holyoke locals resented it. At a next door neighbor's bridge party Green heard a woman saying, "How did she have the gall to think that she could write a history when we know so much better than she does. " This highlighted some of the dangers facing a scholar who writes local history. During World War II she worked as a historian for the Army ordnance department, which led to the publication of a volume on the role of women as production workers in war plants in the Connecticut Valley. Green, acknowledging that contemporary feminists might think her attitude nonsense, admitted enjoying the fact that she was often the only woman working in a male setting with military historians. Green also researched her History of Naugatuck, Connecticut, which was commissioned by the town's Chamber of Commerce because of her Holyoke study, during this period. In 1946 her husband died, and she moved to Washington, D. C. the following year. Six years later the Rockefeller Foundation requested that she write a pilot study of American urban history. Again, she chose the city in which she resided for her subject-to the good fortune of her readers. Her work, which first appeared in 1963, earned her the coveted Pulitzer Prize, which she thought she had "not a chance" to win. Her two-volume history of Washington was followed by a third on race relations in that city. Just before she died on December 5, 1975, she seemed pessimistic about the racial situation in that city and the general urban condition of the nation's capital. This, however, had not dulled her optimism for young historians to study the city. She urged them to maintain their enthusiasm and to continue in their scholarship.
Achievements
Constance McLaughlin Green won the 1963 Pulitzer Prize for history at a time when there were few published women historians. Green was a pioneer in the field of urban history, and her work provides an example of the early narrative approach to the subject. She began to write on the subject prior to its becoming popular in America's colleges and universities during the 1960. Moreover, she was a successful published female historian at a time when the discipline of history did not include many women. Green received her doctoral degree two months before her 40th birthday.
