Praise for: Madame Vieux Carre

John Sledge has a great review of Scott Ellis' Madame Vieux Carré: The French Quarter in the Twentieth Century in yesterday's Mobile Press-Register.

In the book, Ellis, a French Quarter resident from 1975 to 1987, presents the social and political history of this famous district as it evolved from 1900 through the beginning of the twenty-first century.

A sample from Sledge's Southern Bound column:

...entertaining and readable overview of this recent history that no lover of the Quarter should be without. Ellis, an independent researcher in Panama City, Fla., is a former Quarter resident, and happily he does not hesitate to enliven his study with personal experiences and observations. 

Another great quote from Sledge after the jump.

On the Horizon: MuzikMafia

David Pruett's MuzikMafia: From the Local Nashville Scene to the National Mainstream details the formation, meteoric rise, and the subsequent break up of a unique musical collective. 

This well-known collective of Nashville artists,  including Gretchen Wilson and Big & Rich, suddenly appeared on the national stage in 2004 with platinum-selling albums, numerous industry awards, and widespread media coverage. 

Pruett examines the MuzikMafia from an insider’s perspective garnered through five years of working closely with the artists themselves, producing a rare, behind-the-scenes account of the commercial music industry and the MuzikMafia’s rise to superstardom.

To the uninformed it may seem that the MuzikMafia is a loose, informal collection of artists. However, it may be more difficult to gain entry into the MuzikMafia than an organized crime family.

Rules for membership of the MuzikMafia after the jump.

Praise for Lewis Hine as Social Critic

Scotty Kirkland, a correspondent with the Mobile Press-Register, has a good review of Kate Sampsell-Willmann's Lewis Hine as Social Critic.

Kirkland notes that Hine made several trips to the gulf coast and his photo subjects included laborers in Mobile and Biloxi, Miss. Kirkland commends Sampsell-Willmann for bringing this subject to light. 

Sampsell-Willmann’s book is the first full-length treatment of Lewis Hine, and her careful analysis of his career was sorely needed...the book is compelling and has broad ramifications on how we see the work of other photographers.

Kate Sampsell-Willmann is a visiting assistant professor of history at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service in Qatar. Her work has appeared in the Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, History of Photography, and American Quarterly.
  

Lewis Hine as Social Critic is available from UPM.

Spring/Summer Catalog Now Available

UPM's latest catalog, featuring books published between March and August, is now available to view online.

View current and upcoming titles here and download the entire catalog here.

Casual Questions with Paul Martin Lester

Paul Martin Lester is the author of On Floods and Photo-Ops: How Herbert Hoover and George W. Bush Exploited Catastrophes.

Lester is a professor of communications at California State University, Fullerton. He is the author of Visual Communication: Images with Messages and Photojournalism: An Ethical Approach and coeditor of Images That Injure: Pictorial Stereotypes in the Media. 

• What was your first job? 
  
  When I was 14 I had a paper route. I delivered for the afternoon paper, now defunct. The best part of the job was I inherited from the previous paperboy a big, black bicycle with an attached silver sidecar. Besides being handy to carry the papers around the neighborhood, in the summer I would ride a friend in it to the local swimming pool.
  
  
  

Black History Month at UPM

Today, February 1, marks the beginning of Black History Month. Several UPM titles demonstrate the accomplishments of African Americans. 

All African American studies titles will be discounted 20% for the entire month of February. This discount is available only through our website. Books on sale includes not only history books, but several volumes from our Conversations Series as well as several American Made Music titles. 

A few reading suggestions:

• Justice Older than the Law: The Life of Dovey Johnson Roundtree by Katie McCabe and Dovey Johnson Roundtree. This book was the winner of 2009 Letitia Woods Brown Memorial Book Award from the Association of Black Women Historians.
  
  
• That's Got 'Em!: The Life and Music of Wilbur C. Sweatman by Mark Berresford. Just released this month.
  
  
• Making a Way out of No Way: African American Women and the Second Great Migration by Lisa Krisoff Boehm. Now in its second printing!