When The Parkway Came

The most visited site in the National Park system, the 469-mile Blue Ridge Parkway winds along the ridges of the Appalachian mountains in Virginia and North Carolina. According to most accounts, the Parkway was a New Deal "Godsend for the needy," built without conflict or opposition by landscape architects and planners who traced their vision along a scenic, isolated southern landscape. The historical archives relating to this massive public project, however, tell a different and much more complicated story, which Anne Mitchell Whisnant relates in this revealing history of the beloved roadway.

This book helps young readers understand why and how the Blue Ridge Parkway, the most visited site in our national park system, came to be built, the differing views of people affected by it, and the tradeoffs that were necessary along the way. The beautiful color photographs capture the enduring beauty of the parkway while the historical illustrations help to appreciate the vision and hard work that brought it into being.

The Blue Ridge Parkway began as a dream in the late 1800s and became reality in 1983 when the 469-mile scenic highway was completed. Heavy construction was done by contractors who won bids for the different projects along various sections of the parkway. Construction of the Blue Ridge Parkway began in September 1935 at Cumberland Knob. Civilian Conservation Corps troops took care of the roadsides, landscaping, and structure building. As part of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, this project was intended to provide jobs throughout the region. Images of America: Building the Blue Ridge Parkway contains approximately 200 construction photographs of the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Second edition of Blue Ridge Parkway Vistas book

Bruce Radde traces the history of Connecticut's Merritt Parkway from the proposals for its construction and design in the early 1920s to its triumphant completion in 1940.

More than 200 photographs of wildflowers organized by color, shape and blooming season. Clearly written descriptions include tips on identification and notes on plant usage by Native Americansand early settlers. Includes tour guide to 75 of the best sites for viewing wildflowers in spring, summer and fall.

A forerunner of the modern highway system, the Long Island Motor Parkway was constructed during the advent of the automobile and at a pivotal time in American history. Following a spectator death during the 1906 Vanderbilt Cup Race, the concept for a privately owned speedway on Long Island was developed by William K. Vanderbilt Jr. and his business associates. It would be the first highway built exclusively for the automobile. Vanderbilt's dream was to build a safe, smooth, police-free road without speed limits where he could conduct his beloved automobile races without spectators running onto the course. Features such as the use of reinforced concrete, bridges to eliminate grade crossings, banked curves, guardrails, and landscaping were all pioneered for the parkway. Reflecting its poor profitability and the availability of free state-built public parkways, the historic 48-mile Long Island Motor Parkway closed on Easter Sunday, April 17, 1938.

This book is an overview of the Blue Ridge Parkway's first fifty years, with photographs by William Bake. Noted Blue Ridge Parkway Historian, Harley E. Jolley, wrote the descriptions and text.

Deborah Solomon’s definitive biography of Joseph Cornell, one of America’s most moving and unusual twentieth-century artists, now reissued twenty years later with updated and extensively revised text Few artists ever led a stranger life than Joseph Cornell, the self-taught American genius prized for his enigmatic shadow boxes, who stands at the intersection of Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism, and Pop Art. Legends about Cornell abound—the shy hermit, the devoted family caretaker, the artistic innocent—but never before has he been presented for what he was: a brilliant, relentlessly serious artist whose stature has now reached monumental proportions.

This pictorial history of Natchez Trace illustrates the people, places, and events that have shaped the area's cultural and natural history. The Natchez Trace is one of the oldest trails in North America. In 1801, President Jefferson ordered the Army to build a road along the trail to provide a route for moving troops and delivering mail. Jefferson dispatched soldiers down the road in 1803 to protect the Louisiana Purchase, and Andrew Jackson and his troops followed it to battle the British in the War of 1812. As an 1800-era link between Nashville, Tennessee, and Natchez, Mississippi, the road served as a pathway for settling much of what we now know as the South. Twentieth-century writers such as Eudora Welty later embellished its lore of heroes, bandits, and spies, inspiring Southern leaders to revive the Natchez Trace.