When an American town reached a hundred years, or two hundred and fifty, it often printed a book about itself. Lee, Massachusetts issued its centennial history by vote of the town in 1878, and Northampton marked its 250th anniversary in 1904 with local history, portraits and the record of the celebration. Richmond Lodge No. 10, a Virginia Masonic lodge, told its story in 1909, and a Utica water company printed a memorial to its president in 1922. Hartford’s Charter Oak and the vanished mansion on Blennerhassett Island, tied to Aaron Burr’s expedition, got books of their own in 1904 and 1906.
Lee’s centennial history, issued by vote of the town in 1878.
The city’s 1904 memorial of the celebration, with portraits and local history.
Its history, printed in 1909.
Utica’s Consolidated Water Company remembers John Vacher Bacot, 1922.
A 1904 Hartford history of the legend and the Wadsworth family.
A 1906 account of Blennerhassett Island and Aaron Burr’s expedition.
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Africa, from its peoples to its independence
Anthropologists among the Acholi and the Ovimbundu, Tom Mboya on Kenya’s freedom, the copper miners of Central Africa and a report on Southern Rhodesia.
Washington, on the record
Congress investigating the intelligence agencies and Watergate, the Senate’s closed sessions made public, and the journalists who roasted them all.
Authors who gave their own books away
A Chicago doctor, a Boston lawyer, an author of a case for Francis Bacon and a former Chief of Protocol each signed a copy for someone.
The people who tried to catalog everything
Every field eventually produces someone who tries to list all of it: early flight, Byzantine hymns, American history, the characters of fiction, the baboon.
For the naturalist: birds, insects, fish and Darwin’s own letters
How people looked at animals, from Darwin’s letters to a state’s bird guide and the smallest creatures on a Puget Sound beach.
For the botanist: orchids, native fruits, seaweeds and the fungi that attack crops
Plants as scientists catalogued them, from Burma’s orchids to Brazil’s fruits, the seaweeds of the Maldives and the pests of ornamental trees.