Jim Murphy

By weaving personal accounts of actual survivors together with the carefully researched history of Chicago and the disaster, [the author] constructs a ... narrative that recreates the events ... And finally, he reveals how, even in a time of deepest despair, the human spirit triumphed, as the people of Chicago found the courage and strength to build their city once again.-Dust jacket.

Combines an account of Robert Louis Stevenson's experiences as he traveled from New York to California by train in 1879 and a description of the building and operation of railroads in nineteenth-century America.

A memoir that brings the American Revolution alive with telling details, drama, and a country boy's humor.

A description of the Cardiff Giant mystery in which a man in upstate New York buried a ten-foot-tall., petrified model of a man, which was discovered by well diggers a year later, and set into motion a money-making spectacle.

"In 1944 a groundbreaking operation repaired the congenital heart defect known as blue baby syndrome. The operation's success brought the surgeon Alfred Blalock international fame and paved the way for open-heart surgery. But the technique had been painstakingly developed by Vivien Thomas, Blalocks African American lab assistant, who stood behind Blalock in the operating room to give him step-by-step instructions. The stories of this medical and social...

While traveling in 1883 with her Italian American family (including a meddlesome little sister) and other immigrant pioneers to a utopian community in Idaho, fourteen-year-old Teresa keeps a diary of her experiences along the way.

In 1874, Brian Doyle records in his diary how he ran away from his home in San Francisco, joined the crew of a whaling ship, and endured storms, hostile shipmates, and being stranded in the Arctic.

"Drawing on Arnold's surviving writings and on the letters, memoirs, and political documents of his contemporaries ... a fascinating portrait of a brilliant man, consistently undervalued by his peers, who made a choice that continues to reverberate through American history."

Describes the events of the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863 as seen through the eyes of two actual participants, nineteen-year-old Confederate lieutenant John Dooley and seventeen-year-old Union soldier Thomas Galway. Also discusses Lincoln's famous speech delivered at the dedication of the National Cemetery at Gettysburg.