2007, ISBN: 9780674010208

University of Wisconsin Press, 1998-10-12. Hardcover. Like New. Prompt shipment, with tracking. we ship in CLEAN SECURE NEW boxes From Publishers Weekly Brown, a freelance journali… More...

University of Wisconsin Press, 1998-10-12. Hardcover. Like New. Prompt shipment, with tracking. we ship in CLEAN SECURE NEW boxes From Publishers Weekly Brown, a freelance journalist and concerned parent, observes the daily routine at the Red Caboose day-care center in Madison, Wis., which her older daughter once attended and where her younger daughter has been a student. Brown divides the book into four sections, each one focusing on both a season and a particular age group. Between overly detailed descriptions of playroom machinations, Brown profiles the administrative complexities of the center and its chronic scramble for money and clients. The structure of the book makes sense; but some of the author's conclusions will puzzle the reader. Obvious statements such as "if there's one thing little kids don't do well, it's wait" and "kids need to exercise their muscles as well as their minds" are less troubling than reports of bussing three-year-olds to the library to watch cartoon videos (Dr. Seuss, but still...) and encouraging them to shout out explicit terms for genitalia in order to catalogue differences between the genders. Brown shows little evaluation, insight or emotion in her reports on these episodes or in her description of the window where children wave good-bye to their parents and that has such sad associations that they otherwise avoid it. In her epilogue the author comments that until our society is willing to invest more money, child care won't reach the level of quality our next generation deserves. It is all the more confusing, then, that her prologue insists she's going to tell us "what's right" with this day-care center. Author tour. Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc., University of Wisconsin Press, 1998-10-12, 5, New Haven, Conn: Yale University Press, 2006. Hardcover. New. Blue cloth binding with color pictorial illustrated dustjacket. X, 236 pp., 64 bw and 104 color plates. In an era of both optimism and anxiety about the nation's future, Americans in the nineteenth century focused attention on the cultivation and education of children as future citizens. Contemporary portrayals of children - in fine paintings, popular prints, illustrated primers, and advertisements - helped to shape cultural expectations: pictures of hardy country boys, intent schoolchildren, and little girls practicing embroidery were examples of the ways model Americans should look and behave. At the same time, images showing street urchins, young slaves, or children at work in factories reflected troubling conflicts in society. This appealing book explores representations of children in relation to the currents of American culture, including urbanization, immigration, separate spheres of the genders, and the nation's professed devotion to egalitarianism. A generous selection of illustrations includes well-loved works by such artists as Winslow Homer and Eastman Johnson, as well as fascinating archival images. With engaging depictions of children from varied economic, racial, and geographic backgrounds, Young America opens a new window on the life and culture of the United States during a century of vast change and growth. Published on the occasion of the exhibition "American ABC", held at Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts, Stanford University, Feb. 1-May 7, 2006; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C., July 4-Sept. 17, 2006; Portland Museum of Art, Portland, Maine, Nov. 1, 2006-Jan. 7, 2007./ Includes bibliographical references (pages 207-226) and index., Yale University Press, 2006, 6, In 1806 an anxious crowd of thousands descended upon Lenox, Massachusetts, for the public hanging of Ephraim Wheeler, condemned for the rape of his thirteen-year-old daughter, Betsy. Not all witnesses believed justice had triumphed. The death penalty had become controversial; no one had been executed for rape in Massachusetts in more than a quarter-century. Wheeler maintained his innocence. Over one hundred local citizens petitioned for his pardon--including, most remarkably, Betsy and her mother. \n \nImpoverished, illiterate, a failed farmer who married into a mixed-race family and clashed routinely with his wife, Wheeler existed on the margins of society. Using the trial report to reconstruct the tragic crime and drawing on Wheeler's jailhouse autobiography to unravel his troubled family history, Irene Quenzler Brown and Richard D. Brown illuminates a rarely seen slice of early America. They imaginatively and sensitively explore issues of family violence, poverty, gender, race and class, religion, and capital punishment, revealing similarities between death penalty politics in America today and two hundred years ago. \n \nBeautifully crafted, engagingly written, this unforgettable story probes deeply held beliefs about morality and about the nature of justice.From Publishers Weekly\n \nHistory's grand narratives-the American Revolution, the Civil War, the Gold Rush-are always crowd pleasers, but microhistory, on the scale of everyday persons and singular events, draws readers seeking a more intimate encounter. The case unfolded here, of a man executed for raping his daughter, offers such an experience, bringing readers face to face with a family torn by domestic violence and civic authorities struggling with questions of justice. Throughout the book, Brown and Brown, both professors at the University of Connecticut, balance a historical perspective on rural Massachusetts in the early 1800s with a sympathetic portrait of each character. After a journalistic reporting of the Wheeler trial, the authors take a psychological approach to the story from the viewpoints of Betsy, the 13-year-old victim; Hannah, the abused wife; and Ephraim, the father, who insisted that he had been framed. The authors also follow the judges, the state councilors and the governor through the decision to uphold capital punishment and, particularly, to deny petitions for Ephraim's life. If the authors go a bit far in transposing modern psychology to these early Americans, they clearly distinguish documented facts from conjectures about the individuals' thoughts and emotions. Wheeler was hanged two centuries ago, yet the authors effectively demonstrate that there were never uncomplicated solutions to the perennial problems of family violence and criminal justice. 14 photos, 1 map. \nCopyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.\nFrom Booklist\nIn a forceful reminder of just how long Americans have debated the morality of capital punishment, two gifted historians revisit a post-Revolutionary Massachusetts community struggling to adjudicate the ugly case of a dissolute sailor and farmhand--one Ephraim Wheeler--accused of raping his daughter. Careful scrutiny of the evidence leaves little doubt about Wheeler's guilt. Still, a community anxious to distance itself from the bloody rigor of contemporary British jurisprudence was troubled by doubts about the justice of ending an almost 30-year hiatus of executions for rape. In limning the personality of the man whose fate lay in the balance, the authors uncover few virtues. Yet they do illuminate sufficient humanity to account for the petitions from 103 local residents for clemency. But the governor refused to intervene. And so the taut narrative of Wheeler's last moments--the sudden release of the supporting plank, the jerk of the rope, the frantic death struggle of the suspended man--leaves modern readers wrestling with the same questions that troubled nineteenth-century witnesses of the harrowing event. Bryce Christensen \nCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved\n-- \n \n, 5<

2003, ISBN: 9780674010208

In 1806 an anxious crowd of thousands descended upon Lenox, Massachusetts, for the public hanging of Ephraim Wheeler, condemned for the rape of his thirteen-year-old daughter, Betsy. Not … More...

In 1806 an anxious crowd of thousands descended upon Lenox, Massachusetts, for the public hanging of Ephraim Wheeler, condemned for the rape of his thirteen-year-old daughter, Betsy. Not all witnesses believed justice had triumphed. The death penalty had become controversial; no one had been executed for rape in Massachusetts in more than a quarter-century. Wheeler maintained his innocence. Over one hundred local citizens petitioned for his pardon--including, most remarkably, Betsy and her mother. \n \nImpoverished, illiterate, a failed farmer who married into a mixed-race family and clashed routinely with his wife, Wheeler existed on the margins of society. Using the trial report to reconstruct the tragic crime and drawing on Wheeler's jailhouse autobiography to unravel his troubled family history, Irene Quenzler Brown and Richard D. Brown illuminates a rarely seen slice of early America. They imaginatively and sensitively explore issues of family violence, poverty, gender, race and class, religion, and capital punishment, revealing similarities between death penalty politics in America today and two hundred years ago. \n \nBeautifully crafted, engagingly written, this unforgettable story probes deeply held beliefs about morality and about the nature of justice.From Publishers Weekly\n \nHistory's grand narratives-the American Revolution, the Civil War, the Gold Rush-are always crowd pleasers, but microhistory, on the scale of everyday persons and singular events, draws readers seeking a more intimate encounter. The case unfolded here, of a man executed for raping his daughter, offers such an experience, bringing readers face to face with a family torn by domestic violence and civic authorities struggling with questions of justice. Throughout the book, Brown and Brown, both professors at the University of Connecticut, balance a historical perspective on rural Massachusetts in the early 1800s with a sympathetic portrait of each character. After a journalistic reporting of the Wheeler trial, the authors take a psychological approach to the story from the viewpoints of Betsy, the 13-year-old victim; Hannah, the abused wife; and Ephraim, the father, who insisted that he had been framed. The authors also follow the judges, the state councilors and the governor through the decision to uphold capital punishment and, particularly, to deny petitions for Ephraim's life. If the authors go a bit far in transposing modern psychology to these early Americans, they clearly distinguish documented facts from conjectures about the individuals' thoughts and emotions. Wheeler was hanged two centuries ago, yet the authors effectively demonstrate that there were never uncomplicated solutions to the perennial problems of family violence and criminal justice. 14 photos, 1 map. \nCopyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.\nFrom Booklist\nIn a forceful reminder of just how long Americans have debated the morality of capital punishment, two gifted historians revisit a post-Revolutionary Massachusetts community struggling to adjudicate the ugly case of a dissolute sailor and farmhand--one Ephraim Wheeler--accused of raping his daughter. Careful scrutiny of the evidence leaves little doubt about Wheeler's guilt. Still, a community anxious to distance itself from the bloody rigor of contemporary British jurisprudence was troubled by doubts about the justice of ending an almost 30-year hiatus of executions for rape. In limning the personality of the man whose fate lay in the balance, the authors uncover few virtues. Yet they do illuminate sufficient humanity to account for the petitions from 103 local residents for clemency. But the governor refused to intervene. And so the taut narrative of Wheeler's last moments--the sudden release of the supporting plank, the jerk of the rope, the frantic death struggle of the suspended man--leaves modern readers wrestling with the same questions that troubled nineteenth-century witnesses of the harrowing event. Bryce Christensen \nCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved\n-- \n \n, 5<

2003, ISBN: 9780674010208

Cambridge (Mass. ): Belknap Press / Harvard Univ. Very Good/Very Good. 2003. First Edition. Hard Cover. 8vo 0674010205 Dust jacket complete, unclipped. Crem cloth spine over cream board… More...

Cambridge (Mass. ): Belknap Press / Harvard Univ. Very Good/Very Good. 2003. First Edition. Hard Cover. 8vo 0674010205 Dust jacket complete, unclipped. Crem cloth spine over cream boards. Bright gilt titling on spine. No ownership inscription. 388 pages clean and tight. In 1860 an anxious crowd of thousands descended upon Lenox, Massachusetts, for the public hanging of Ephraim Wheeler, condemned for the rape of his thirteen-year-old daughter, Betsy. Not all witnesses believed justice had triumphed. The death penalty had become controversial; no one had been executed for rape in Massachusetts in more than a quarter century. Wheeler maintained his innocence. Over one hundred local citizens petitioned for his pardon-including, most remarkably, Betsy and her mother. Impoverished, illiterate, a failed farmer who married into a mixed-race family and clashed routinely with his wife, Wheeler existed on the margins of society. Using the trial report to reconstruct the tragic crime and drawing on Wheeler's jailhouse autobiography to unravel his troubled family history, Irene Quenzler Brown and Richard D. Brown illuminate a rarely seen slice of early America. They imaginatively and sensitively explore issues of family violence, poverty, gender, race and class, religion, and capital punishment, revealing similarities between death penalty politics in America today and two hundred years ago. Beautifully crafted, engagingly written, this unforgettable story probes deeply held beliefs about morality and about the nature of justice. ., Belknap Press / Harvard Univ, 2003, 3<