Bloody Williamson

Author : Paul M. Angle
Publisher : Knopf
Page : 356 pages
File Size : 43,9 Mb
Release : 2014-10-15
Category : True Crime
ISBN : 9780804152778

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Bloody Williamson by Paul M. Angle Pdf

This is a horror story of native American violence. It carries a grim lesson for the whole country. Political doctrines have played no part in the violence and murder that have brought much ill fame to one corner of Illinois. On the map, Williamson is just another county. But in history it is a place in which a strange disease has raged for more than eighty years—a disease marked by a pathological tendency to settle differences by force. Fascinated by this, Paul M. Angle, the well-known historian, set out to discover what really had happened. Through enormous research he has been able to reconstruct the whole story in all its horrible, scarifying detail. Using the best techniques of reportage, without editorializing, without subjective coloration, he has produced a narrative beyond imagination. It begins with the "Bloody Vendetta," a feud that rampaged in the 1870s. It deals with labor's success in organizing coal mines in southern Illinois, an affair that twice blew up in violence. It covers the Herrin Massacre of 1922—perhaps the most shocking episode in the history of organized labor in this country—and the subsequent trials. The Ku Klux Klan provides material for four chapters that come to a climax in a fatal duel between the Klan and its opponents. And it ends with the story of the gang war between Charlie Birger and the Shelton brothers. It is a tale to shake the most phlegmatic reader.

Author : Paul McClelland Angle
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 45,9 Mb
Release : 1983
Category : Coal miners
ISBN : OCLC:1409185484

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Bloody Williamson by Paul McClelland Angle Pdf

Author : Paul M. Angle
Publisher : University of Illinois Press
Page : 356 pages
File Size : 51,5 Mb
Release : 1992
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 0252062337

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Bloody Williamson by Paul M. Angle Pdf

"In Williamson County some men took to violence almost as a way of life. A shocking story, well told."--New Yorker Williamson County in southern Illinois has been the scene of almost unparalleled violence, from the Bloody Vendetta between two families in the 1870s through the Herrin Massacre of 1922, Ku Klux Klan activities that ended in fatalities, and the gang war of the 1920s between the Charlie Birger and Shelton brothers gangs. Paul Angle was fascinated by this more-than-fifty-year history, and his account of this violence has become a classic.

Author : John Griswold
Publisher : Arcadia Publishing
Page : 160 pages
File Size : 49,9 Mb
Release : 2009-11-27
Category : Photography
ISBN : 9781625843197

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Herrin by John Griswold Pdf

Herrin, Illinois, has seen many dramatic events unfold in the nearly two hundred years since it was a bell-shaped prairie on the frontier. Now, Herrin native John Griswold, a writer and teacher at the University of Illinois, provides the first comprehensive history of this most American city, a place that in its time became not just a melting pot, but a cauldron. Discover why the coal was so good in the “Quality Circle” and what happened to the boom that followed its discovery. Explore the roots of the vicious Herrin Massacre of 1922 and learn why the entire nation has focused its gaze on this small Midwestern city so many times. Incorporating the most recent scholarship, interviews, and classic histories and narratives, this brief and entertaining history is illustrated with more than seventy-five archival photos that help tell this important American story.

Author : Stan J. Hale
Publisher : Turner Publishing Company
Page : 526 pages
File Size : 50,7 Mb
Release : 1993
Category : Williamson County (Ill.)
ISBN : 9780938021766

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Williamson County Illinois Sesquicentennial History by Stan J. Hale Pdf

Author : Lisa McGirr
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
Page : 384 pages
File Size : 53,8 Mb
Release : 2015-11-30
Category : History
ISBN : 9780393248791

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The War on Alcohol: Prohibition and the Rise of the American State by Lisa McGirr Pdf

“[This] fine history of Prohibition . . . could have a major impact on how we read American political history.”—James A. Morone, New York Times Book Review Prohibition has long been portrayed as a “noble experiment” that failed, a newsreel story of glamorous gangsters, flappers, and speakeasies. Now at last Lisa McGirr dismantles this cherished myth to reveal a much more significant history. Prohibition was the seedbed for a pivotal expansion of the federal government, the genesis of our contemporary penal state. Her deeply researched, eye-opening account uncovers patterns of enforcement still familiar today: the war on alcohol was waged disproportionately in African American, immigrant, and poor white communities. Alongside Jim Crow and other discriminatory laws, Prohibition brought coercion into everyday life and even into private homes. Its targets coalesced into an electoral base of urban, working-class voters that propelled FDR to the White House. This outstanding history also reveals a new genome for the activist American state, one that shows the DNA of the right as well as the left. It was Herbert Hoover who built the extensive penal apparatus used by the federal government to combat the crime spawned by Prohibition. The subsequent federal wars on crime, on drugs, and on terror all display the inheritances of the war on alcohol. McGirr shows the powerful American state to be a bipartisan creation, a legacy not only of the New Deal and the Great Society but also of Prohibition and its progeny. The War on Alcohol is history at its best—original, authoritative, and illuminating of our past and its continuing presence today.

Author : Greg Bailey
Publisher : McFarland
Page : 179 pages
File Size : 40,9 Mb
Release : 2020-10-27
Category : History
ISBN : 9781476681719

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The Herrin Massacre of 1922 by Greg Bailey Pdf

In 1922, a coal miner strike spread across the United States, swallowing the heavily-unionized mining town of Herrin, Illinois. When the owner of the town's local mine hired non-union workers to break the strike, violent conflict broke out between the strikebreakers and unionized miners, who were all heavily armed. When strikebreakers surrendered and were promised safe passage home, the unionized miners began executing them before large, cheering crowds. This book tells the cruel truth behind the story that the coal industry tried to suppress and that Herrin wants to forget. A thorough account of the massacre and its aftermath, this book sets a heartland tragedy against the rise and decline of the coal industry.

Author : Paul McClelland Angle
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 299 pages
File Size : 45,9 Mb
Release : 1966
Category : Coal miners
ISBN : OCLC:1183417392

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Bloody Williamson by Paul McClelland Angle Pdf

Author : Donald Bain
Publisher : Purdue University Press
Page : 300 pages
File Size : 54,8 Mb
Release : 2005
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 155753375X

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Charlie and the Shawneetown Dame by Donald Bain Pdf

Charlie and the Shawneetown Dame, based on a true story, recounts one of the most famous turf wars waged during the madness called Prohibition. The outsized ambition of Charlie Birger - a flamboyant, slightly mad Al Capone wannabe - brought him from New York to southern Illinois in search of fortune as a bootlegger. However, Birger soon found that his dream of grandeur faced a few hurdles - including the vicious Shelton Brothers and Helen Holbrook, a beautiful, alcoholic socialite from Shawneetown, whose simultaneous affairs with Birger and Carl Shelton fueled a bloody and bizarre gang war. Donald Bain vividly captures turbulent Southern Illinois during the Roaring Twenties, while deftly chronicling Birger's journey from charismatic leader to beleaguered general in the harsh reality of hand-to-hand combat, and ending with his demise as a dupe to a far cleverer enemy. Ultimately done in by the "Shawneetown Dame;" his own inflated ego; and by a sly sheriff named Pritchars, who conned Birger into jail, allowing the area's most famous gangster to bring his sub-machine gun into the cell with him - Charlie and his story are a fascinating piece of Americana - crude, violent, yet often humorous. Replete with homemade tank battles and crude bombings from an open cockpit aircraft, Bain himself considers this rapid, riveting read to be his best book.

Author : Michael C. Batinski
Publisher : SIU Press
Page : 270 pages
File Size : 49,5 Mb
Release : 2022-01-03
Category : History
ISBN : 9780809338375

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Forgetting and the Forgotten by Michael C. Batinski Pdf

Dispossessing : land and past -- Squaring the circles, filling the squares -- Settlers and transients -- Civil wars and silences -- Gilding the past -- Passersby, rich and penniless -- Reconstruction and race.

Author : Darcy O'Brien
Publisher : Open Road Media
Page : 1034 pages
File Size : 49,7 Mb
Release : 2017-07-11
Category : True Crime
ISBN : 9781504047173

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American Murder by Darcy O'Brien Pdf

Three riveting accounts of horrific crimes and the twisted minds behind them by an Edgar Award–winning author, in one volume. A father’s ultimate betrayal, a savage killing spree that terrorized Los Angeles, and the brutal slaying of a rich man’s college-aged daughter. In this heart-stopping true crime collection, New York Times–bestselling author Darcy O’Brien uncovers the dark underside of the American dream. Murder in Little Egypt: Dr. John Dale Cavaness selflessly attended to the needs of his small, southern Illinois community. But when Cavaness was charged with the murder of his son Sean in December 1984, a radically different portrait of the physician and surgeon emerged. Throughout the three decades he had basked in the admiration and respect of the people of Little Egypt, Cavaness was privately terrorizing his family, abusing his employees, and making disastrous financial investments. In this New York Times bestseller, as more and more grisly details come to light, so too does rural America’s heritage of blood and violence become clear. The Hillside Stranglers: For weeks, the body count of sexually violated, brutally murdered young women escalated. With increasing alarm, Los Angeles newspapers headlined the deeds of a serial killer they named the Hillside Strangler. But not until January 1979, more than a year later, would the mysterious disappearance of two university students near Seattle lead police to the arrest of a security guard—the handsome, charming, fast-talking Kenny Bianchi—and the discovery that the strangler was not one man but two. The Hillside Stranglers is the disturbing portrait of a city held hostage by fear and a pair of psychopaths whose lust was as insatiable as their hate. A Dark and Bloody Ground: On a sweltering evening in August 1985, three men breached Roscoe Acker’s alarm and security systems, stabbed his daughter to death, and made off with over $1.9 million in cash. The killers were part of a hillbilly gang led by Sherry Sheets Hodge, a former prison guard, and her husband, lifetime criminal Benny Hodge. The stolen money came in handy shortly afterward, when they used it to lure Kentucky’s most flamboyant lawyer, Lester Burns, into representing them. “The smell of wet, coal-laden earth, white lightning, and cocaine-driven sweat rises from these marvelously atmospheric—and compelling—pages” (Kirkus Reviews).

Author : Darcy O'Brien
Publisher : Open Road Media
Page : 297 pages
File Size : 53,7 Mb
Release : 2014-07-01
Category : True Crime
ISBN : 9781497658653

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Murder in Little Egypt by Darcy O'Brien Pdf

New York Times Bestseller: The “fascinating” true story of John Dale Cavaness, a much-admired Illinois doctor—and the cold-blooded killer of his own son (The Washington Post). Fusing the narrative power of an award-winning novelist and the detailed research of an experienced investigator, author Darcy O’Brien unfolds the story of Dr. John Dale Cavaness, the southern Illinois physician and surgeon charged with the murder of his son Sean in December 1984. Outraged by the arrest of the skilled medical practitioner who selflessly attended to their needs, the people of Little Egypt, as the natives call their region, rose to his defense. But during the subsequent trial, a radically different, disquieting portrait of Dr. Cavaness would emerge. Throughout the three decades that he enjoyed the admiration and respect of his community, Cavaness was privately terrorizing his family, abusing his employees, and making disastrous financial investments. As more and more grisly details of the Cavaness case come to stark Midwestern light in O’Brien’s chilling account, so too does the hidden gothic underside of rural America and its heritage of violence and blood. “A meticulous account . . . An implicit indictment of a culture that condones and encourages violent behavior in men.” —The New York Times Book Review “A fascinating story, and Darcy O’Brien does a great job of structuring it for suspense.” —The Washington Post “Riveting.”—Publishers Weekly “A terrifying story of family violence and the community that honored the perpetrator.” —Kirkus Reviews “Stunning material . . . Handled with justice and fastidiousness by a natural storyteller.” —Seamus Heaney, winner of the Nobel Prize

Author : Gary DeNeal
Publisher : SIU Press
Page : 373 pages
File Size : 43,7 Mb
Release : 1998-12-10
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9780809322176

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A Knight of Another Sort by Gary DeNeal Pdf

Charlie Birger's legacy is that of the most popular and, arguably, the most violent gangster in southern Illinois during the 1920s. A Russian immigrant who first proved his grit on the streets of St. Louis as a newsboy, Birger later excelled in boxing and breaking horses in the West. But the coming of Prohibition to the coal fields of southern Illinois provided the opportunity for Birger to become a key figure in a maelstrom of violence that would shock the country. Bolstered by years of research and interviews, Gary DeNeal tenders an insightful biography of this controversial character. Enhanced by newly discovered photographs and a new chapter, the second edition of A Knight of Another Sort brings Birger and his bloody era vividly to life.

Author : Barbara Allen,Thomas J. Schelereth
Publisher : University Press of Kentucky
Page : 224 pages
File Size : 52,9 Mb
Release : 2014-10-17
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9780813158426

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Sense Of Place by Barbara Allen,Thomas J. Schelereth Pdf

Despite the homogenization of American life, areas of strong regional consciousness still persist in the United States, and there is a growing interest in regionalism among the public and among academics. In response to that interest ten folklorists here describe and interpret a variety of American regional cultures in the twentieth century. Their book is the first to deal specifically with regional culture and the first to employ the perspective of folklore in the study of regional identity and consciousness. The authors range widely over the United States, from the Eastern Shore to the Pacific Northwest, from the Southern Mountains to the Great Plains. They look at a variety of cultural expressions and practices -- legends, anecdotes, songs, foodways, architecture, and crafts. Tying their work together is a common consideration of how regional culture shapes and is shaped by the consciousness of living in a special place. In exploring this dimension of regional culture the authors consider the influence of natural environment and historical experience on the development of regional culture, the role of ethnicity in regional consciousness, the tensions between insiders and outsiders that stem from a sense of regional identity, and the changes in culture in response to social and economic change. With its focus on cultural manifestations and its folkloristic perspective this book provides a fresh and needed contribution to regional studies. Writ¬ten in a clear, readable style, it will appeal to general readers interested in American regions and their cultures. At the same time the research and analytical approach make it useful not only to folklorists but to cultural geographers, anthropologists, and other scholars of regional studies.

Author : United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Labor and Human Resources
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 704 pages
File Size : 53,5 Mb
Release : 1985
Category : Extortion
ISBN : STANFORD:36105045505844

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Labor Violence by United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Labor and Human Resources Pdf