Arcadia Bestsellers

Nestled on the East Branch of the DuPage River in Naperville, Illinois, sits the Greene family homestead with a 14,000-square-foot barn, the largest one in DuPage County, and a farmhouse lovingly called Oak Cottage by the family.

One of the county’s earliest settlers, William Briggs Greene, acquired land in 1843 and developed the farmstead. Home to six generations of the Greene family, the homestead serves as a tribute to the courage and determination of the early settlers, who came in lumber wagons to the dense rolling prairie woodlands and learned how to farm and manage livestock. This book is also the story of William Bertram Greene, a father, grandfather, businessman, and philanthropist, who with his remarkable wisdom and foresight secured the preservation of the Greene homestead for future generations by donating it to the Forest Preserve District of DuPage County in 1971.

Revati Natesan, living across the street for 30 years, witnessed the weather beating down upon the Greene barn and Oak Cottage and the subsequent massive restoration efforts. Following a career as an electronics engineer at Bell Labs, she founded the ThinkGlobal Arts Foundation, which uses the arts as a medium to promote cultural awareness, peace, and harmony. The foundation organized citywide events across Naperville for several years celebrating peace and gifted a peace pole to the city that is installed in Veterans Park, Naperville.

The Morris Canal was not the longest canal in the world, but it did have one superlative to its credit—it climbed higher than any other canal ever built.

In its time, it was world famous, visited by tourists and technical people from as far away as Europe and Asia.For nearly 100 years, it crossed the hills of northern New Jersey, accomplishing that feat with 23 lift locks and 23 inclined planes.From Lake Hopatcong, the canal ran westward through the Musconetcong valley to Phillipsburg, on the Delaware River, and eastward through the valleys of the Rockaway and Passaic Rivers to tidewater at Newark and Jersey City—a little over 100 miles horizontally and a total rise and fall of nearly 1,700 feet vertically.The Morris Canal, once an important soldier in the American Industrial Revolution, has been gone for most of the 20th century, but its memory lives on in the many photographs, postcards, and other memorabilia that its unique presence inspired.

Waikiki, literally ""spouting water,"" is the name of what was once a lush wetland area where three mountain streams met the Pacific Ocean.

With changes brought by American colonialism and the expansion of the United States to the Pacific Ocean, Waikiki was transformed into one of the most popular beachfront tourist destinations in the world. With a topography featuring Diamond Head, picturesque beach spots, and the expansive Kapi'olani Park, recreation has reigned in Waikiki for much of its contemporary history. However, it was once a place of small neighborhoods, family-owned shops, restaurants, and lei stands. As locals met foreigners, Waikiki's landscape changed from rural to urban, and today an estimated 65,000 tourists visit Waikiki each day. A big city or small town, Waikiki has become part of America's story.

The legacy of Arcadia University began in 1853, when Sylvania (Jones) Stevens and Juliet A. (Poundstone) Avery, along with several other students, left their family homes and accompanied Rev. Sheridan Baker to the Beaver Female Seminary in Beaver, Pennsylvania. After graduating in 1856, they were the first students to receive diplomas from the seminary. This book concentrates on the Glenside, Pennsylvania, campus up until the school’s name and status change to Arcadia University in 2001 and covers the many shifts in the school’s name and location.

Kenneth Samen graduated in 1992 with a bachelor of arts degree in communications from Beaver College/Arcadia University. For the past 27 years, Samen has worked for Prudential Insurance Company of America. This is Samen’s third title with Arcadia Publishing. His research for this book led him into his personal postcard collection and the university’s archives and, externally, to historical societies and institutional collections to locate images and items that have not been seen in years. Dr. Ajay Nair is a nationally recognized expert in student affairs and an accomplished scholar of social justice, race, and ethnicity. Dr. Nair was appointed president of Arcadia University in April 2018 and inaugurated in October 2018.

Nestled on the island peninsula of Cape Ann on the North Shore of Massachusetts, Gloucester, known as “America’s Oldest Seaport,” was founded in 1623 by farmers and fishermen from Dorchester, England, as the first permanent European settlement in Massachusetts.

This had been the second European attempt at settling the area, and though it initially struggled, Gloucester maintained its status as a fishing village and became a major New England commercial port in the centuries to come. Its growth granted it national notoriety for its robust maritime culture and economy and led to its eventual distinction as a tourist and fine arts destination as well. Additionally, Gloucester is bordered by the towns of Rockport, Manchester-by-the-Sea, and Essex, all of which have played their own unique roles in the development of the Cape Ann area. 

Ryan A. McRae, a historian and native of the North Shore, has carefully cultivated his own collection of original postcards of the area and has used this, as well as his expertise in the field, to effectively narrate and exhibit Gloucester and Cape Ann’s unique history in this medium.

Truly a frontier town when it was founded in 1839, Iowa City was created to become the new capital of Iowa Territory.

With the arrival of the railroad in 1855, growth was rapid, and the establishment of the University of Iowa in 1847 meant that town and gown literally grew up together. Industry thrived in the late 1800s. Included were the manufacture of linseed oil, corn glucose, and vanilla extracts; the production of glassware, gloves, and jewelry; and the assembly of small farm machinery. A resurgence took place in the 1950s, beginning with the establishment of a Procter and Gamble plant. Meanwhile, artists and innovators flourished. Variously called an “Athens of the West,” a UNESCO City of Literature, and the “Greatest Small City for the Arts,” Iowa City continues to attract new families, university faculty and researchers, business people, entrepreneurs, restaurateurs, and retirees who find world-class medical care and enough sports, arts, and entertainment for all to enjoy.

Fort Holabird was a US Army facility near Baltimore, Maryland and began as a training center for a relatively new military technology, the motor vehicle, it would later bear witness to intrigue as a center of US Army intelligence and counterintelligence.

Fort Holabird was a US Army facility near Baltimore, Maryland. Opened as Camp Holabird in preparation for World War I, Holabird trained vehicle drivers and mechanics. After World War II, Holabird became home to the US Army Intelligence School. It was around this time the facility was renamed Fort Holabird. The intelligence school relocated to Fort Huachuca, Arizona, in 1971, and Fort Holabird closed in 1973. Holabird has an amazing history. It began as a training center for a relatively new military technology, the motor vehicle. Holabird would later bear witness to intrigue as a center of US Army intelligence and counterintelligence. Holabird is also remembered by many Vietnam-era draftees as an induction center.

Author David B. Lari is an attorney, historian, US Army veteran, lifelong resident of Maryland, and a graduate of the University of Baltimore. The sources of these photographs include the US National Archives, the US Army Heritage and Education Center, the National World War I Museum and Memorial, the Dundalk-Patapsco Neck Historical Society and Museum, and the Kansas Historical Society.

An entertaining romp through the charming history of a beloved Chicago neighborhood.

The town of Pullman, the brainchild of George M. Pullman, began as a small community on the far south side of Chicago. In 1879, Pullman, builder of the well-known Pullman Sleeping Car, purchased land just west of Lake Calumet and surrounding the Illinois Central Railroad, to build his model town in 1880. Pullman was the first planned model industrial town, and its center was Pullman's railroad car business. Employees lived in well-constructed housing on pleasantly landscaped streets, with all the necessary conveniences, including a bank, library, theater, post office, church, parks, and recreational facilities. In fact, Pullman was presented an award for the ""World's Most Perfect Town"" in 1896.

See how brothers Edward and Lincoln Filene brought fashion and entertainment to generations of Bostonians.

It was regarded as the ""World's Largest Specialty Store."" William Filene's Sons Company was founded in 1870 and brothers Edward and Lincoln Filene were revolutionaries who championed employee relations and innovative merchandising. In 1909, Edward organized and opened Filene's famous Automatic Bargain Basement, while Lincoln helped found the Federated Department Stores Company in March 1929. Filene's was a pioneer in branch-store development.

In its heyday, the store hosted appearances by fashion designers, such as Christian Dior, Pierre Cardin, and Pauline Trigère, in addition to celebrities, like Zsa Zsa Gabor, Gloria Swanson, and Gene Autry. A victim of retail consolidation, the flagship downtown Boston store closed its doors in 2006. Its building, designed by the internationally renowned architect Daniel Burnham, celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2012 and anxiously awaits its redevelopment. Now, you can see some of these historic photographs that come directly from the Filene Marketing Archives at the Boston Public Library.

No other city in the United States is home to more Slovaks than Pittsburgh. Through historical photographs, Slovak Pittsburgh celebrates the rich heritage there.

It is estimated that close to 100,000 Slovak immigrants came to the area in the 1890s looking for work and the chance for a better life. The hills and valleys of this new land reminded newcomers of the farms, forests, and mountains they left behind. They lived in neighborhoods close to their work, forming numerous cluster communities in such places as Braddock, Duquesne, Homestead, Munhall, the North Side, Rankin, and Swissvale. Once settled, Slovak immigrants founded their own churches, schools, fraternal benefit societies, and social clubs. Many of these organizations still enjoy an active presence in Pittsburgh today, serving to pass on the customs and traditions of the Slovak people.

Cincinnati played a large part in creatng a refuge for escaped salaves and in the Underground Railroad movement.

Nearly a century after the American Revolution, the waters of the Ohio River provided a real and complex barrier for the United States to navigate. While this waterway was a symbol of freedom and equality for thousands of enslaved black Americans who had escaped from the horrible institution of enslavement, the Ohio River was also used to transport thousands of slaves down the river to the Deep South. Due to Cincinnati's location on the banks of the river, the city's economy was tied to the slave society in the South. However, a special cadre of individuals became very active in the quest for freedom undertaken by African American fugitives on their journeys to the North. Thanks to spearheading by this group of Cincinnatian trailblazers, the ""Queen City"" became a primary destination on the Underground Railroad, the first multiethnic, multiracial, multiclass human-rights movement in the history of the United States.

Constructed as the Easton and Amboy Railroad, opened by 1875, the Lehigh Valley Railroad was instrumental in developing commerce and communities of central New Jersey.

Thout it no longer runs, it was originally built to haul unending trains of ""black diamonds"" from Pennsylvania to Perth Amboy, the Lehigh Valley Railroad became so much more than a conduit for shipping coal. In building across the state, it became instrumental in not only hauling produce to New York City markets but also for providing service to companies like Johns-Manville and Lionel Trains. From Phillipsburg to Jersey City and all points in between, the Lehigh Valley Railroad hauled freight and passengers, while at the same time contributing to the social fabric of the area. The Lehigh Valley Railroad across New Jersey paints a picture of a railroad that provided over 100 years of quality service to the Garden State.

No ballpark in Philadelphia was more revered than the one at Twenty-first Streetand Lehigh Avenue. A must-have for fans of Philadelphia and baseball history!

Originally called Shibe Parkand later Connie Mack Stadium, America's first steel-and concrete stadium opened in 1909. When it closed in 1970, it had earned a special place in the hearts and minds of Philadelphia sports fans. Home of the Athleticsfor 46 years, the Philliesfor 32 and a half seasons, and the Eaglesfor 18 years, it was also the site of many boxing matches, Negro Leaguebaseball games, and college and high school baseball and football games. Over the years, as the area developed, Shibe Parkbecame known for its obstructed views, delicious hot dogs, Sunday curfews, absence of beer, and boobirds. Along with memorable teams and games, the ballpark played host to eight World Seriesand two All-Star Games.

Join Rich Westcott, baseball writer, historian, author and president of the Philadelphia Sports Writers' Association, as he gathers archival photos capturing this legendary stadium's exciting history.