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The Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC, is a monument to the nation's 16th president, a commemoration of the country's post-Civil War reunification, and a setting for national events and quiet visits.

Demands for a national memorial to Abraham Lincoln began shortly after his 1865 assassination but produced nothing substantial until the early 20th century. Elevation of Lincoln to legendary status and an extended debate over location and design finally led Congress in 1913 to approve a memorial at the west end of the National Mall. Construction took another eight years. Since its dedication in 1922, the Lincoln Memorial has hosted civil rights demonstrations, presidential events, national celebrations, and day and night visits by millions of people who come to reflect upon one of the most consequential leaders in American history.

Kevin S. Schindler is a historian at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, and has written six books about science and history. Brian Anderson is a Washington, DC, lawyer and Ford's Theatre Society trustee who previously wrote a book about the history of Ford's Theatre. Drawing upon Washington-area museums and research libraries, Schindler and Anderson have assembled a rich collection of historical images to tell the fascinating story of this American landmark.

As the most significant eighteenth-century estate assembled in the British American colonies still in existence, Drayton Hall is an icon of American history, design and preservation.

Its story is told through archaeological artifacts, architectural research and documentary investigations, with a focus on the inhabitants and their connections to the wider Atlantic world. A multitude of scholars contributed to our understanding of Drayton Hall as the first complete example of Palladian architecture in North America, its placement at the intersection of the European Enlightenment and America's slave society and as a family home where extraordinary events became landmark historic moments. Today, Drayton Hall is valued as the most authentic pre-Revolutionary southern plantation that helps examine the creation of American identity.

A part of Belt's City Anthology Series, a unique take on Charm City through the eyes of those who live there every day.To many outsiders, Baltimore--sometimes derisively called Mobtown or Bodymore--is a city famous for its poverty and violence, twin ills that have been compounded by decades of racial segregation and the loss of manufacturing jobs. But that portrait has only given us a skewed view of a truly unique and diverse American city, the place that produced Babe Ruth, Elijah Cummings, Nancy Pelosi, Edgar Allan Poe, John Waters, and Thurgood Marshall, and a city that's completely its own. In the over thirty-five essays, poems, and short stories collected here, the authors take an unfiltered look at the ins and outs of Baltimore's past and present. You'll hear about the first time an umbrella appeared in the Inner Harbor, nineteenth-century grave robbers, and the city's history with redlining and blockbusting. But you'll also get a deeper sense of what life is like in Baltimore today, including stories about urban gardening in Bolton Hill, the slow demise of local journalism, what life was like in the city during COVID, and the legacy of Freddie Gray. As Ron Kipling Williams writes in his essay about the city's magnetic appeal, Baltimore has always been a city worth fighting for, and running through all these essays is the story of Baltimore's resilience. From Pigtown to Pimlico, this anthology captures the sights, sounds, and feel of this city that so many people have come to discover is truly a lovely place, a fighting place, a charmer. Edited by Gary M. Almeter and Rafael Alvarez, this anthology offers an unfiltered look at Baltimore that will appeal to anyone looking for a portrait of an American city that's far more nuanced than the stories that are generally told about it.

These mailable vintage-photograph postcards celebrate the history of Marco Island, the largest of Florida's Ten Thousand Islands. Marco Island projects prominently from Florida's mainland at the peninsula's southwestern fringe, where the waters of the Everglades and the Gulf of Mexico commingle. Its tropical climate, verdant landscape, unique topography, and abundant wildlife sustained prehistoric Native American cultures for centuries. The first pioneer settlers arrived in 1870, carving out a niche on the harsh Florida frontier. Bustling villages soon sprang up on the island, bolstered by strong leaders and economies centered around farming and fishing. The crash of Florida's land boom, along with the Great Depression, devastating hurricanes, and a series of failed developments, ultimately stunted the island's growth. Most of Marco Island was sold to the Deltona Corporation in 1964, which transformed the island into a place its early residents might find unrecognizable.

The Town of Elon College was incorporated by the State of North Carolina in 1893. From a humble beginning, it is now home to one of the most respected and honored private universities in the nation. A railroad depot was built in a remote area of Alamance County between autumn of 1887 and spring of 1888 to serve textile mills to the north. A post office also opened in 1888, and the Christian Church opened Elon College there in 1889. That little college, now a university, is named the best in several areas of national ranking year after year. The town, now Elon, North Carolina, grew from that tiny depot site to a thriving business area across from the college campus, and there are other nearby businesses along with large residential neighborhoods that make up Elon in its 125th year. For many years, the town was also home to Elon Orphanage, which opened in 1907.

Tybee Island has fought hard to survive wars, earthquakes, hurricanes, the Great Depression, and even Prohibition, and while Tybee fights hard, Tybee plays hard. Tybee has a unique story as one of the top tourist destinations of the early 20th century. From the early days, when people could only reach Tybee by train, to the upheavals of the 1960s and 1970s, souvenir postcards tell the story of Tybee's unique and diverse history.

Baltimore has long had an LGBT community, but it was not until the 1960s that this ostracized minority of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals began demanding equality. By 1973, Metropolitan Community Church was established, and in 1975, a brave band of a dozen met for a Pride Rally at Mount Vernon Square. It was also at this time that the Gay and Lesbian Community Center emerged, offering a clinic and gay youth and lesbian support groups. The Johns Hopkins SHARE (Study to Help the AIDS Research Effort) became a national model in 1984 for the treatment and etiology of HIV. The award-winning Chase Brexton Clinic serves thousands every year, having grown from a tiny office to the biggest AIDS health care facility in the city, with six more locations in Maryland today.

Oxford, Maryland, is an exceptionally well-preserved waterfront community on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay. Although Oxford has weathered wars, economic booms and busts, and shifting demographics since its colonial origins in the mid-17th century, many of its most distinguishing features--both natural and man-made--have survived. By the end of the 19th century, when photography was widespread in America, Oxford was growing from a sleepy backwater village into a bustling working-class town. Most residents made a living by harvesting and selling oysters and crabs or by working in the trades that supported that thriving industry. Schools, churches, and civic organizations expanded as families moved in. The year-round population, barely 300 in the 1870s, was over 1200 by 1910. That all changed by the end of World War II, as overfishing and marine diseases decimated the native oysters and shuttered local seafood businesses. Gradually, tourists and retirees discovered "quaint" Oxford. Recreational sailors replaced working watermen, and the seafood packing houses made way for waterfront restaurants. Today, Oxford remains undeniably picturesque, and just beneath the surface lies a deep and rich history.

What did Lake Norman look like before it became a major tourist attraction for Mooresville? This volume of historical postcards features buildings, businesses, and sites that are no longer around, with topics ranging from early life in the town to advertisements for early hotels, trains, World War I and World War II, churches and schools, and the importance of the lake to the community. Images for this volume come from the Mooresville Postcard Collection, part of the Local History and Archives. Author Henry A. Poore is a lifelong Mooresville resident whose roots trace back to Mooresville and Iredell County since the 1700s. He has collected and researched postcards that were printed in Mooresville and worked to create the archives at the town's library. He has served as curator, archivist, and town historian and is the chairman of the Historic Preservation Commission for Mooresville and a founding member of the Mooresville Museum.

Guided by a visionary widow named Julia Tuttle, the city of Miami truly came into being in 1896 and has not stopped growing. Halfway through the last century, the apparent domination of land, population, and business by whites and--for decades--repressed African Americans became tested and balanced by the victims of the 1959 Cuban Revolution. Beyond that, hundreds of thousands of others from Spanish-speaking lands came to create what truly is an international metropolis. The chapters of Miami's existence are delineated by those legendary locals who came earliest; those who were the pioneers; those who established businesses that endured; those who were the builders and visionaries; those who served in politics; those who came from other places; those who created, built, and extended educational and arts opportunities; and those who embraced the placid environment and natural beauty of the "Magic City."

Just 35 years after Jamestown was settled, Virginia colonists planted tobacco in nearby Middlesex County, an area strategically located between two major rivers and the Chesapeake Bay. Middlesex life has been closely tied to both land and water. From the commerce of the early steamboats to the modern oyster-farming industry, the waterways have provided an avenue for business and a bountiful harvest of crabs, fish, and oysters. The county's modern boating industry grew from a 19th-century wooden boatbuilding tradition. The center of that industry, Deltaville, is known today as the "Boating Capital of the Chesapeake Bay." From the county's oyster heritage came Virginia's most famous celebration, the Urbanna Oyster Festival, which annually draws 60,000 people to the small waterfront town. Stately homes and churches that predate the Revolutionary War include Colonial Christ Church, which annually attracts hundreds of marines to the gravesite of Lt. Gen. Lewis Burwell "Chesty" Puller, the most decorated marine in the history of the United States Marine Corps, who retired to the county in 1955.

Like all great cities, Asheville's story is one of people, not institutions or industries. For more than two centuries, deep in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina, extraordinary women and men have created a truly unique American city. Legendary Locals of Asheville tells the stories of the people who founded, built, and rebuilt Asheville. From the first woman elected to state office in the South, who won her primary before women had the right to vote, to the grandson of a famed railroad magnate who built a 250-room chateau that became the largest home in America, to the entrepreneur who helped ignite the city's renaissance when he risked opening an art gallery downtown when most of it was still boarded up, Ashevillians are an amazing lot. Likewise, there are stories of extraordinary groups like the renowned faculty of an experimental college that redefined the American arts or the brave high school students who joined together to fight segregation. Their stories are as touching and fascinating as they are varied.