By Laurel Ulrich '80G
Knopf, 2001

Laurel Ulrich, a professor of history at Harvard University, wrote this book to answer a question that arose while she was working on her Pulitzer Prize-winning book, A Midwife's Tale. How had a 17th-century male enterprise, cloth-making, turned into women's work by the late 18th century? She combed museums and historical societies across New England in search of objects made from homespun cloth and the tools that were used to produce them. Fourteen of those objects, including spinning wheels, woven baskets, a tablecloth, bedcoverings and an unfinished sock-provide the framework for a fascinating study of early-American history.

The idea of a virtuous "age of homespun" is a myth created by 19th-century Americans, who were already longing for "the good old days," when hardworking families lived on farms and wore clothing made by wives and mothers. The truth, Ulrich says, is more complex. Cloth production did not become women's work until the economy began to shift from subsistence farming to more industrial activities like woodworking and shipbuilding. "Farmers and their sons concentrated on market production, while children and women produced less saleable commodities for family use," Ulrich writes. "The end result was an 'industrious revolution' that transformed the Western world."

One of Ulrich's chapters focuses on two spinning wheels that she found in the garret of the William Damm Garrison, part of the Woodman Institute in Dover, N.H. A garrison is a military post, which suggests one story from history; tools for making yarn suggest another. But Ulrich shows how the history of textile production in New England is intertwined with war and the displacement of the native people.

About the spinning wheels, Ulrich concludes: "No one knows who made them, but they do have a story. It begins with the transformation of textile technology from the continent to the British Isles in the 16th and 17th centuries and from Britain to America in successive waves of immigration. It is a story about conquest as well as settlement, about imperial objectives and Protestant vision, and about the distribution of work in colonial households."

"Sometimes the most useful insights come from pondering the harnesses and treadles that move the interlocking threads of daily life," Ulrich writes. In this study, she shows us how to see mundane objects as the tools that shape history.

By Nina Glick Schiller and Georges Eugene Fouron
Duke University Press, 2001

This is a study of the experience of "transmigrants," immigrants who are citizens of the United States but still maintain close ties to their homeland. But it is also a deeply personal account of the authors' experiences with migration and a case study of Haitian "long-distance nationalism."

Schiller, an associate professor of anthropology at the University of New Hampshire, and Fouron, an associate professor of education at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, interviewed 109 Haitians, including many members of Fouron's own family, to explore "the nature of the relationship between the United States and Haiti and the lessons to be learned from the new form of citizenship-transborder citizenship-which this relationship has encouraged."

These contemporary immigrants, the authors argue, have forged a different model of immigration from that found in earlier generations. This new model includes both the immigrants' sense of themselves as Americans and an intense desire to improve conditions in their homeland.

Their findings are fascinating, and Fouron's experiences as a first-generation Haitian immigrant are particularly illuminating. The authors show how "family" in Haiti functions as a network that ensures survival in a disastrous economy. Those who stay behind rely heavily upon family members who emigrate. Fouron writes about the varied obligations he must fulfill in the United States and the complicated nature of his visits to Haiti, where he is expected to deliver money and gifts to a wide range of people. "The nation is an extension of the family," the authors write, adding that both family and nation can extend long distances and across the borders of states.

Schiller and Fouron developed this book concept during a research trip to Haiti in 1996. Immigration is clearly an important topic, and it is treated here with great depth and originality.~

Also of Note...
Customer Share Marketing: How the World's Great Marketers Unlock Profits from Customer Loyalty by Tom Osenton '76, Prentice Hall, 2002. See at amazon.com Since the 1950s, Osenton explains, U.S. marketers "have perfected the art of acquiring customers and growing market share." But once you have established a customer base, how do you continue to increase your sales? The Internet could provide the best answer, Osenton says. Heart-Side Up by Barbara Dimmick '76, '83G, Graywolf Press, 2002. See at amazon.com This second novel by the author of In the Presence of Horses is another compelling story. Dimmick's protagonists are women who are on the edge of one life, about to fall into another and living by instinct alone. Essential Love: Poems about Mothers and Fathers, Daughters and Sons and To Love One Another: Poems Celebrating Marriage edited by Ginny Lowe Connors '73, Grayson Books, 2000 and 2002. See at amazon.com The poems in these two lovely collections chart all the crucial stops on the map of family life. The Act of Pitching: A Tutorial for All Levels by a Master Technician-Detailing Every Aspect of Pitching by John A. Bagonzi '56, Hedgehog Hill Press, 2002. See at amazon.com Pitchers, coaches and fans will enjoy this informative and accessible guide. Those involved in any competitive activity will discover useful tools for developing focus and the energy of mind necessary for winning.		A Boomer's Angst: A Collection of Columns about Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Lower Cholesterol by Paul L. Briand III '75, Writer's Club Press, 2001. See at amazon.com The author, a newspaper editor, has collected various columns he has written over the years on a wide range of subjects, including fatherhood and his generation's obsession with health and physical fitness. Task Force Lone Bandit by Robert S. Billings '42, Poppy Lane Publishing Company, 2000. See at Barnes and Noble This novel depicts 24 hours of desperate fighting in the "Battle of the Bulge." Based on the author's combat experiences, the novel shows how infantrymen, artillerymen, tankers and tank destroyers help an inexperienced commander to cope with multiple disasters. Salt Water Farm: Memoir of a Place on Great Bay by Dorothy Emery Hazzard '45, Peter E. Randall ('63) Publisher, 2001. See at Peter Randall, Publisher In 1933, the author's parents fell in love with a 30-acre farm on Great Bay in Greenland, N.H. This is the delightful story of what happened when their romantic vision collided with the realities of farm life. Aquatic and Wetland Plants of Northeastern North America, Volumes One and Two by Garrett E. Crow and C. Barre Hellquist '65, '66G, University of Wisconsin Press, 2000. See at amazon.com An exhaustive reference work that identifies pretty much any plant you are likely to come across while wandering through wetland areas in the northeastern United States and Canada.