Indian Mounds of Wisconsin

by Robert A. Birmingham, Amy L. Rosebrough

2017 · University of Wisconsin Pres

This work offers an analysis of the way in which the phenomenon of not in my backyard operates in the United States. The author takes the situation further by offering hope for a heightened public engagement with the pressing environmental issues of the day.

Spirits of Earth

by Robert A. Birmingham

2009 · Univ of Wisconsin Press

Between A.D. 700 and 1100 Native Americans built more effigy mounds in Wisconsin than anywhere else in North America, with an estimated 1,300 mounds—including the world’s largest known bird effigy—at the center of effigy-building culture in and around Madison, Wisconsin. These huge earthworks, sculpted in the shape of birds, mammals, and other figures, have aroused curiosity for generations and together comprise a vast effigy mound ceremonial landscape. Farming and industrialization destroyed most of these mounds, leaving the mysteries of who built them and why they were made. The remaining mounds are protected today and many can be visited. explores the cultural, historical, and ceremonial meanings of the mounds in an informative, abundantly illustrated book and guide. Finalist, Social Science, Midwest Book Awards

Ancient Effigy Mound Landscapes of Upper Midwestern North America

by Robert A. Birmingham, Amy L. Rosebrough

2025 · Oxbow Books

First comprehensive overview of the effigy mound phenomenon of the Upper Midwest of North America c 700–1100 CE. This book provides an overview of the effigy mound phenomenon of the Upper Midwest of North America, centered on southern Wisconsin. Between c. AD 700 and 1100, Late Woodland people of the Upper Midwest used the topography and other natural features to create vast ceremonial landscapes consisting of thousands of earthen mounds sculpted into animals and animal spirits (bears, birds, panthers, snakes, etc.) that mirrored their belief and clan-based social structure and served an important role in mortuary ritual. In so doing, the Late Woodland people created quite visible three-dimensional maps of ancient cosmology and social structures that are similar to the beliefs and social systems of more recent Native people. The effigy landscapes of this region are unique. The authors document the nature of the effigy mound landscapes, describing the use of topography and natural features to create them, and provide the interpretation that these were living landscapes in which ancestral animals and the supernatural were ritually brought back to life in a continuous cycle of death and rebirth of the earth and its people. Subsistence patterns, artifacts, settlement systems, and changes in these through the effigy building era are examined and effigy mound societies are compared and contrasted with preceding and succeeding societies, as well as contemporaneous societies in adjacent regions. Examples are drawn from throughout the effigy mound region. The book is profusely illustrated with high quality historical and modern maps, photographs of effigy mounds including aerials, and LiDAR imagery providing three-dimensional images.

The Jews in America Trilogy

by Stephen Birmingham

2016 · Open Road Media

Three New York Times bestsellers chronicle the rise of America's most influential Jewish families as they transition from poor immigrants to household names. In his acclaimed trilogy, author Stephen Birmingham paints an engrossing portrait of Jewish American life from the colonial era through the twentieth century with fascinating narrative and meticulous research. The collection's best-known book, "Our Crowd" follows nineteenth-century German immigrants with recognizable names like Loeb, Sachs, Lehman, Guggenheim, and Goldman. Turning small family businesses into institutions of finance, banking, and philanthropy, they elevated themselves from Lower East Side tenements to Park Avenue mansions. Barred from New York's gentile elite because of their religion and humble backgrounds, they created their own exclusive group, as affluent and selective as the one that had refused them entry. The Grandees travels farther back in history to 1654, when twenty-three Sephardic Jews arrived in New York. Members of this small and insulated group—considered the first Jewish community in America—soon established themselves as wealthy businessmen and financiers. With descendants including poet Emma Lazarus, Barnard College founder Annie Nathan Meyer, and Supreme Court Justice Benjamin N. Cardozo, these families were—and still are—hugely influential in the nation's culture, politics, and economics. In "The Rest of Us, " Birmingham documents the third major wave of Jewish immigration: Eastern Europeans who swept through Ellis Island between 1880 and 1924. These refugees from czarist Russia and Polish shtetls were considered barbaric, uneducated, and too steeped in the traditions of the "old country" to be accepted by the well-established German American Jews. But the new arrivals were tough, passionate, and determined. Their incredible rags to riches stories include those of the lives of Hollywood tycoon Samuel Goldwyn, Broadway composer Irving Berlin, makeup mogul Helena Rubenstein, and mobster Meyer Lansky. This unforgettable collection comprises a comprehensive account of the Jewish American upper class, their opulent world, and their lasting mark on American society.

Proceedings of the Birmingham Natural History and Philosophical Society

by Birmingham Natural History and Philosophical Society (Birmingham, England)

1921

Volumes 1-10 include Records of meteorological observations taken at the Observatory of the Birmingham and Midland institute 1891/June 1892-1896.