In 1880, James Garfield decided to try something new: rather than run the typical passive campaign for president, he would welcome voters to his farm. By the end of the campaign, thousands of people—including naturalized voters, African Americans, women, men from various occupations, and young voters—traveled to Garfield’s home, listened to him speak, shook hands, met his family, and were invited inside. The press reported the interactions across the country. Not only did Garfield win, but he started a new campaign technique that then carried three other Republicans to the presidency.

This detailed and well-illustrated study explores the hundred-year history of the longest-surviving public-use airport in Ohio. Intertwining the story of the airport’s development with the history of flight-education programs at the University, the book highlights a vast cast of characters and an examination of aviation’s development on the local level throughout the last century.

Kudos from Strand Magazine on Virginia McConnell’s latest book The Bell of Bedford Avenue: The Sensational Brooks-Burns Murder in Turn-of-the-Century New York.

“Ultimately, McConnell does a splendid job of re-creating early twentieth-century New York City and provides the reader with a compelling look at the lives of adolescents with a taste for mayhem and destruction. The […]

This carefully researched and engagingly written political biography marks the first full treatment of Ohio native and politician Martin L. Davey. An important figure on the local, state, and national political scene in the early decades of the twentieth century, Davey served as mayor of Kent, Ohio, was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, and completed two terms as Ohio governor.

“Gentleman George” not only provides a microcosm of Democratic Party operations during Pendleton’s lifetime but is also a case study in the longevity of Jacksonian principles. In an era of intense Democratic factionalism stretching from the 1850s to the 1880s, Pendleton sought to unite the divided party around its traditional Jacksonian principles, which, when reapplied to address the changing political issues, became the foundation of the midwestern Democratic ideology.