Books in the How Things Worked series

By helping readers understand the financial history of this period and the way banking shaped the society in which ordinary Americans lived and worked, this book broadens and deepens our knowledge of the Early American Republic.

A uniquely detailed exploration of life in the CCC, The New Deal's Forest Army compellingly demonstrates how one New Deal program changed America and gave birth to both contemporary forestry and the modern environmental movement.

Payne's book will help students recognize the telltale signs of bubbles and busts, so that they may become savvier consumers and investors.

Before the Refrigerator is ideal for history of technology classes, food studies classes, or anyone interested in what daily life in the United States was like between 1880 and 1930.

This perspective allows a unique view of the development of an industrial society not just from the ground up but from the hearth up.

Colored Troops, Union military strategy, and race relations during and after the tumultuous Civil War.

By studying the origins of America's public schools, Neem urges us to focus on the defining features of democratic education: promoting equality, nurturing human beings, preparing citizens, and fostering civic solidarity.

The lively narrative will appeal to students of Texas and western history as well as anyone interested in cowboy culture.

Encountering Ellis Island lays bare the profound and sometimes-victorious story of people chasing the American Dream: leaving everything behind, facing a new language and a new culture, and starting a new American life.

Based on contemporary accounts, settlers' reminiscences, and the work of other historians, Sod Busting dives deeply into the practical realities of how things worked to make vivid one of the quintessentially American experiences, breaking new land.