Books in New York State Series series

Blacks in the Adirondacks: A History tells the story of the many African Americans who settled in or passed through this rural, mountainous region of northeastern New York State. In the area for a variety of reasons, some were lifetime residents, while others were there for a few years or months―as summer employees, tuberculosis patients, or in connection with full- or part-time occupations in railroading, the performing arts, and baseball.From blacks who settled on land gifted to them by Gerrit Smith, a prosperous landowner and fervent abolitionist, to those who worked as waiters in resort hotels, Svenson chronicles their rich and varied experiences, with an emphasis on the 100 years between 1850 and 1950. Many experienced racism and isolation in their separation from larger black populations; some found a sense of community in the scattered black settlements of the region. In this first definitive history, Svenson gives voice to the many blacks who spent time in the Adirondacks and sheds light on their challenges and successes in this remote region.

Blacks in the Adirondacks: A History tells the story of the many African Americans who settled in or passed through this rural, mountainous region of northeastern New York State. In the area for a variety of reasons, some were lifetime residents, while others were there for a few years or months―as summer employees, tuberculosis patients, or in connection with full- or part-time occupations in railroading, the performing arts, and baseball.From blacks who settled on land gifted to them by Gerrit Smith, a prosperous landowner and fervent abolitionist, to those who worked as waiters in resort hotels, Svenson chronicles their rich and varied experiences, with an emphasis on the 100 years between 1850 and 1950. Many experienced racism and isolation in their separation from larger black populations; some found a sense of community in the scattered black settlements of the region. In this first definitive history, Svenson gives voice to the many blacks who spent time in the Adirondacks and sheds light on their challenges and successes in this remote region.

The newest book from one of America's most passionately inventive poets, Bill Kushner, will be featured in the launch of Melville House Publishing's NEW YORK POETS series, the new series meant to tell the rest of the world about the poets they talk about in America's poetry capital.Kushner has long been packing them in for his readings in New York's poetry underground—places such as the KGB Bar and the Cornelia Street Café. Now, In The Hairy Arms of Whitman shows off for the rest of the country how the Bronx-born son of impoverished Russian immigrants has twisted together the strands of New York's greatest poetry movements to come up with a style that is uniquely his own—as offbeat and relentless as Alan Ginsberg and the Village Beatniks, as funny and intellectually sharp as the New York School's John Ashbery and Frank O'Hara, and as spiritually searching and inspiring as New York's first bard, Walt Whitman.In The Hairy Arms of Whitman puts on full display the talents that have long made Kushner a downtown favorite in New York—the linguistic lushness and quirkiness, the conversational wit and personal narrative forms, and the warming quality of compassion and scrappy perseverance.Bill Kushner's In The Hairy Arms of Whitman is an affirming tour de force by an important poet.