The Pitcher Book

by William Richard Phipps

2020 · Heritage Books

The Pitcher name seems most prevalent in Eastern England and it could have possibly come from a job description as many surnames were derived from the actual occupation of the name bearer. It seems to be most definitely of Anglo-Saxton origin somewhere in the range of the years 1200 to 1500. Some sources speculate that it might be a name given to a person from the Picardy section of Northern France, which is a region that adjoins Normandy. This is a region from which many of the followers of William the Conqueror came which may have introduced the name into England as early as the 1066 invasion. London church registers list the name as early as December 26, 1581 when Matthew Pitcher was christened at St. Martin-in-the-Fields. This massive volume covers thirteen generations of Pitchers beginning with Andrew Pitcher who was born in Devonshire, Parish of Kent, or Worcester, England, in 1621; and came to America about 1634. Entries typically include the descendant's full name, date and place of birth, name of spouse and date of marriage, names of spouse's parents, date of death and place of burial, and names of children with date and place of birth for each. Additional information, such as occupation, is often provided. A list of sources and a full name index add to the value of this work.

Birthplace of the Atomic Bomb

by William S. Loring

2019 · McFarland

It was not Robert Oppenheimer who built the bomb--it was engineers, chemists and young physicists in their twenties, many not yet having earned a degree. The first atomic bomb was originally conceived as a backup device, a weapon not then currently achievable. The remote Trinity Site--the birthplace of the bomb--was used as a test range for U.S. bombers before the first nuclear device was secretly detonated. After the blast, locals speculated that the flash and rumble were caused by colliding B-29s, while Manhattan Project officials nervously measured high levels of offsite radiation. Drawing on original documents, many recently declassified, the author sheds new light on a pivotal moment in history--now approaching its 75th anniversary--told from the point of view of the men who inaugurated the Atomic Age in the New Mexico desert.

Native American Verbal Art

by William M. Clements

2021 · University of Arizona Press

For more than four centuries, Europeans and Euroamericans have been making written records of the spoken words of American Indians. While some commentators have assumed that these records provide absolutely reliable information about the nature of Native American oral expression, even its aesthetic qualities, others have dismissed them as inherently unreliable. In Native American Verbal Art: Texts and Contexts, William Clements offers a comprehensive treatment of the intellectual and cultural constructs that have colored the textualization of Native American verbal art. Clements presents six case studies of important moments, individuals, and movements in this history. He recounts the work of the Jesuits who missionized in New France during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and textualized and theorized about the verbal expressions of the Iroquoians and Algonquians to whom they were spreading Christianity. He examines in depth Henry Timberlake’s 1765 translation of a Cherokee war song that was probably the first printed English rendering of a Native American "poem." He discusses early-nineteenth-century textualizers and translators who saw in Native American verbal art a literature manqué that they could transform into a fully realized literature, with particular attention to the work of Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, an Indian agent and pioneer field collector who developed this approach to its fullest. He discusses the "scientific" textualizers of the late nineteenth century who viewed Native American discourse as a data source for historical, ethnographic, and linguistic information, and he examines the work of Natalie Curtis, whose field research among the Hopis helped to launch a wave of interest in Native Americans and their verbal art that continues to the present. In addition, Clements addresses theoretical issues in the textualization, translation, and anthologizing of American Indian oral expression. In many cases the past records of Native American expression represent all we have left of an entire verbal heritage; in most cases they are all that we have of a particular heritage at a particular point in history. Covering a broad range of materials and their historical contexts, Native American Verbal Art identifies the agendas that have informed these records and helps the reader to determine what remains useful in them. It will be a welcome addition to the fields of Native American studies and folklore.