Building the St. Helena II tells the story of the 1970 reconstruction of an authentic, operational 1825 canal boat. The narrative unfolds in the small village of Canal Fulton, Ohio, along the surviving one- mile section of the 333-mile Ohio & Erie Canal, which in the 1820s connected the new nation’s western frontier to the thriving coastal states. Canal Fulton was at the leading edge of a national environmental movement to reclaim, restore, and reuse historic U.S. canals for education and recreation.

Since the 1970s, urban communities have had to face the wrenching process of economic restructuring. Events are too often framed [by the media] with a kind of economic determinism that denies agency to individual communities. To what degree can industrial cities still imagine themselves as authors of their own economic fates? Author Perry Bush explores this question by focusing on the small midwestern city of Lima, Ohio.

The American Revolution gave birth to a nation, forever changed the course of political thought, and shattered and transformed the lives of the citizens of the new republic. An iconic figure of the Old Northwest, governor, Indian fighter, general in the War of 1812, and ultimately president, William Henry Harrison was one such citizen. The son of a rich Virginia planter, Harrison saw his family mansion burned and his relatives scattered. In the war’s aftermath, he rejected his inherited beliefs about slavery, religion, and authority, and made an idealistic commitment to serve the United States.

The essays in this volume explore the complex relationships among events, memory, and portrayal of those events and the deepest questions of human experience, all viewed through a range of disciplinary lenses but grouped into three sections, each with its own focus and meaning.

During the Great Depression, photographer Allen Eugene Cole posted a sign in front of his studio in Cleveland’s Central neighborhood: Somebody, Somewhere, Wants Your Photograph. An entrepreneurial businessman with a keen ability to market his images of Cleveland’s black experience, Cole was deeply immersed in civic life.

Beginning with a detailed description of the May 4 shootings and the events that preceded them, Kent State and May 4th is a revised, updated, and expanded volume of essays that seeks to answer frequently raised questions while correcting historical inaccuracies. The third edition includes a new essay that analyzes a group of television documentaries about May 4 and an overview of the legal aftermath of the shootings, including governmental investigations to determine responsibility and how students were affected by these events. The book also explores the gymnasium annex controversy of 1977, in which Kent State University proposed the building of a new recreational facility on portions of land where students and Guardsmen confronted each other. Finally, the editors examine how the university and community have memorialized May 4 over the past forty years.

Since World War II, American historians have traditionally sided with the Loyalist supporters, validating their arguments that the pro-Nationalists were un-American for backing an unpalatable dictator. In Arguing Americanism, author Michael E. Chapman examines the long-overlooked pro-Nationalist argument. Employing new archival sources, Chapman documents a small yet effective network of lobbyists—including engineer turned writer John Eoghan Kelly, publisher Ellery Sedgwick, homemaker Clare Dawes, muralist Hildreth Meière, and philanthropist Anne Morgan—who fought to promote General Franco’s Nationalist Spain and keep the embargo in place.

Author Richard Cartwright Austin uses his father’s letters, Russian and American documents, and extensive photographic resources to tell how this cooperation between capitalist and communist, American and Russian, was achieved. From near-breakdown during the initial months, through a Russian winter that called for bravery and ingenuity, to a frantic race toward completion in the final months, Building Utopia reveals the common humanity of both communists and capitalists and the contrasts between Russian and American cultures. Historians as well as scholars interested in early U.S.-Soviet cooperation or in the history of technology will be attracted to this compelling story.

This fourth and final volume of a selected edition of the papers of Robert A. Taft documents Taft’s post–World War II and congressional experiences until his death in 1953. Regardless of his conservative commitments, Taft saw the need for responsible reform. In the immediate postwar years, he recognized the need for federal aid to education, for social welfare legislation that assisted the poor, and for federal support for public housing. Out of political necessity, Taft became more partisan as the 1950 senatorial campaign approached, convinced he had to win reelection in Ohio by a large margin if he was to establish himself as a frontrunner in the primary campaign for the 1952 presidential election. Moderate Republicans spurned Taft and doubted that the serious, partisan senator could successfully head a national ticket. His support, nevertheless, was essential to the 1952 Eisenhower presidential campaign.

This third volume in the series documents Robert A. Taft’s experience through World War II and his early postwar years. After winning a tough reelection battle as senator from Ohio in 1944, Taft moved steadily upward in the leadership ranks of his party and assumed a preeminent position among the bipartisan group of conservatives that increasingly dominated Congress. This volume continues the contribution that The Papers of Robert A. Taft provides to the study of United State political and diplomatic history, Ohio history, and conservative political theory.