Arcadia Bestsellers

Nearly one-third of Maine residents have French blood and are known as Franco-Americans.

Many trace their heritage to French Canadian families who came south from Quebec in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to work in the mills of growing communities such as Auburn, Augusta, Biddeford, Brunswick, Lewiston, Saco, Sanford, Westbrook, Winslow, and Waterville. Other Franco-Americans, known as Acadians, have rural roots in the St. John Valley in northernmost Maine. Those of French heritage have added a unique and vibrant accent to every community in which they have lived, and they are known as a cohesive ethnic group with a strong belief in family, church, work, education, the arts, their language, and their community. Today they hold posts in every facet of Maine life, from hourly worker to the U.S. Congress. These hardworking people have a notable history and have been a major force in Maine's development.

New England food and drinks writer Corin Hirsch explores the origins and taste of the favorite potations of early Americans and offers some modern-day recipes to revive them today.

Colonial New England was awash in ales, beers, wines, cider and spirits. Everyone from teenage farmworkers to our founding fathers imbibed heartily and often. Tipples at breakfast, lunch, teatime and dinner were the norm, and low-alcohol hard cider was sometimes even a part of children's lives. This burgeoning cocktail culture reflected the New World's abundance of raw materials: apples, sugar and molasses, wild berries and hops. This plentiful drinking sustained a slew of smoky taverns and inns--watering holes that became vital meeting places and the nexuses of unrest as the Revolution brewed.

A history of the Narragansett Tribe of RI from early European encounters to the tribe's return to sovereignty in the 20th Century.

Before Roger Williams set foot in the New World, the Narragansett farmed corn and squash, hunted beaver and deer, and harvested clams and oysters throughout what would become Rhode Island. They also obtained wealth in the form of wampum, a carved shell that was used as currency along the eastern coast. As tensions with the English rose, the Narragansett leaders fought to maintain autonomy. While the elder Sachem Canonicus lived long enough to welcome both Verrazzano and Williams, his nephew Miatonomo was executed for his attempts to preserve their way of life and circumvent English control. Historian Robert A. Geake explores the captivating story of these Native Rhode Islanders.

America's leading authority on Halloween presents interviews with spooky rock groups, amateur vampires, haunted house creators, champion pumpkin carvers, and more, all in the quest of explaining the nation's unique love affair with this holiday. The collection of essays and interviews explores the pop culture phenomenon that is Halloween, and why we celebrate it the way we do today.

Join author David Healey as he keeps an eye to the red horizon and chronicles the most remarkable storms to churn the waters of the Chesapeake Bay.

Even before John Smith's crew weathered its first squall, the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries had been ravaged by every type of storm imaginable. A 1769 hurricane altered the course of history, demolishing the shipping channels of Charlestown and making Baltimore the dominant port. A once-in-five-hundred-years storm, Tropical Storm Agnes, left more than seventy people dead and devastated the ecology of the bay. Before the blizzards of 2009 and 2010, the snowfall record was held by the combination of the Great Eastern Blizzard of 1899, which blew the water out of the bay, and the Great White Hurricane, which stranded the oyster fleet of Baltimore in feet of ice.

Join author J.P. Webster as he explores the fascinating and complex history of the Philadelphia State Hospital at Byberry.

The Quaker City and its hospitals were pioneers in the field of mental health. Yet by the end of the nineteenth century, its institutions were crowded and patients lived in shocking conditions. The mentally ill were quartered with the dangerously criminal. By 1906, the city had purchased a vast acreage of farmland incorporated into the city, and the Philadelphia Hospital dubbed its new venture Byberry City Farms. From the start, its history was riddled with corruption and committees, investigations and inquests, appropriations and abuse. Yet it is also a story of reform and redemption, of heroes and human dignity--many dedicated staff members did their best to help patients whose mental illnesses were little understood and were stigmatized by society.

The River City. Marietta, in Ohio was one of the earliest premanent settlements in the US and as the ""new frontier, building steamboats and home to riverboats, has a long and vibrant history.

Marietta, known as the ""River City,"" was the first permanent settlement of the Northwest Territory. In 1788, General Rufus Putnam and 48 pioneers founded this organized settlement at the confluence of the Ohio and Muskingum Rivers, eventually leading it to become a major riverboat community with many steamboat-building yards. Marietta was a main thoroughfare for people migrating to the new frontier, including those seeking freedom on the Underground Railroad route. Marietta's accessibility from the rivers and both rail and road has made Marietta the hub of business, industry, education, and recreation in Southeastern Ohio for centuries. Today's downtown business and residential areas still reflect its long and rich history.

From the bloody Battle of Wilson's Creek in August 1861 until surrender in June 1865, the Civil War in the Indian Territory proved to be a test of valor and endurance.

Connecticut's witch hunt was the first and most ferocious in New England, occurring almost fifty years before the infamous Salem witch trials.

Between 1647 and 1697, at least thirty-four men and women from across the state were formally charged with witchcraft. Eleven were hanged. In New Haven, William Meeker was accused of cutting off and burning his pig's ears and tail as he cast a bewitching spell. After the hanging of Fairfield's Goody Knapp, magistrates cut down and searched her body for the marks of the devil. Through newspaper clippings, court records, letters and diaries, author Cynthia Wolfe Boynton uncovers the dark history of the Connecticut witch trials.

Explore the events and characters that make up the more unusual aspects of Cleveland's history. A must-read for fans of fantastic, peculiar, and nontraditional history.

Eliot Ness might come busting in and take all of you crooks to jail - or more likely he won't, even if you've been robbing banks all over Cleveland and bragging about it to the media, like self-proclaimed last of the big-time bank robbersEddie Watkins.

This isn't your Kevin Costner version of Eliot Ness, and this isn't your standard collection of Cleveland eccentrics. Join author Ted Schwarz on this romp celebrating bizarre misdeeds and noteworthy accomplishments of Clevelanders large and small. Learn of the burlesque star who created the striptease and the con woman who claimed to be Andrew Carnegie's illegitimate daughter. Get to know present-day street musician Maurice Reedus Jr. and the remaining cast of loving souls, offbeat characters and one-of-a-kind Clevelanders.

As the Cleveland Plain Dealerput it in April 2009, Ted Schwarz may be the most prolific author you've never heard of.He's been freelancing full time for nearly forty years. During that time, he's written well over one hundred books and more than three thousand articles and short stories for publications throughout the world. His books have been translated into more than a half dozen languages, and several have been made into documentaries and/or television movies. He has appeared on over three hundred television and radio programs in the United States and Canada.

Preserved in these pages are the rich and storied history of the scenic waterfront town of Panama City Beach.

In a collection of nostalgic and lighthearted vignettes, local author Jeannie Weller Cooper recounts the history of Panama City Beach, the barrier islands and beach for old Panama City. First inhabited by Native Americans in the years before the Spanish arrived in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Panama City Beach has always proved a good hideout for fugitives, from Native Americans fleeing from European invaders to runaway slaves, Civil War soldiers, outlaws and rumrunners. In 1929, the first Hathaway Bridge was completed; connecting Greater Panama City to the beach, but the lagoon and the beach remained a sleepy curiosity until the bombing of Pearl Harbor mobilized the United States to war. Now Panama City Beach is home to thousands of residents, as well as being a renowned tourist destination.