As the US entered World War I in 1917, a burst of patriotism in New Orleans collided with civil liberties. The city, due to its French heritage, shared a strong cultural tie to the Allies, and French speakers from Louisiana provided vital technical assistance to the US military during the war effort. Meanwhile, citizens of German heritage were harassed by unscrupulous, ill-trained volunteers of the American Protective League, ordained by the Justice Department to shield America from enemies within. As a major port, the wartime mobilization dramatically reshaped the cultural landscape of the city in ways that altered the national culture, especially as jazz musicians spread outward from the vice districts. Whiskey, Women, and War: How the Great War Shaped Jim Crow New Orleans surveys the various ways the city confronted the demands of World War I under the supervision of a dynamic political machine boss. Author Brian Altobello analyzes the mobilization of the local population in terms of enlistments and war bond sales and addresses the anti-vice crusade meant to safeguard the American war effort, giving attention to Prohibition and the closure of the red-light district known as Storyville. He studies the political fistfight over women’s suffrage, as New Orleans’s Gordon sisters demanded the vote predicated on the preservation of white supremacy. Finally, he examines race relations in the city, as African Americans were integrated into the city’s war effort and cultural landscape even as Jim Crow was firmly established. Ultimately, the volume brings to life this history of a city that endured World War I in its own singular style.

Shortly after graduating from University of Glasgow in 1934, Elizabeth “Bessie” Williamson began working as a temporary secretary at the Laphroaig Distillery on the Scottish island Islay. Williamson quickly found herself joining the boys in the tasting room, studying the distillation process, and winning them over with her knowledge of Scottish whisky. After the owner of Laphroaig passed away, Williamson took over the prestigious company and became the American spokesperson for the entire Scotch whisky industry. Impressing clients and showing her passion as the Scotch Whisky Association’s trade ambassador, she soon gained fame within the industry, becoming known as the greatest female distiller. Whiskey Women tells the tales of women who have created this industry, from Mesopotamia’s first beer brewers and distillers to America’s rough-and-tough bootleggers during Prohibition. Women have long distilled, marketed, and owned significant shares in spirits companies. Williamson’s story is one of many among the influential women who changed the Scotch whisky industry as well as influenced the American bourbon whiskey and Irish whiskey markets. Until now their stories have remained untold.

Ellen Johnson fans her children as they nap on a pallet in the dogtrot of their home in western Louisiana. Aaron, her husband fighting in the Civil War, writes to tell her his right leg was amputated just below the hip after being hit by a mini ball in the Battle of Mansfield, Louisiana. He was sent to Shreveport where he stayed for 16 months to recover, then went by steamboat to Alexandria where he is paroled. He writes for someone to come to take him home.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1874.

John C. Tramazzo highlights the relationship between bourbon and military service to show the rich and dramatic connection in American history.

For the Colleys of southeastern Missouri, the War between the States is a plague that threatens devastation, despite the family’s avowed neutrality. For eighteen-year-old Adair Colley, it is a nightmare that tears apart her family and forces her and her sisters to flee. The treachery of a fellow traveler, however, brings about her arrest, and she is caged with the criminal and deranged in a filthy women’s prison. But young Adair finds that love can live even in a place of horror and despair. Her interrogator, a Union major, falls in love with her and vows to return for her when the fighting is over. Before he leaves for battle, he bestows upon her a precious gift: freedom. Now an escaped "enemy woman," Adair must make her harrowing way south buoyed by a promise . . . seeking a home and a family that may be nothing more than a memory.

Named a Best Book by Entertainment Weekly, O Magazine, Goodreads, Southern Living, Outside Magazine, Oprah.com, HelloGiggles, Parade, Fodor’s Travel, Sioux City Journal, Read it Forward, Medium.com, and NPR’s All Things Considered. "A thunderclap of originality, here is a fresh voice and fresh take on one of the oldest stories we tell about ourselves as Americans and Westerners. It's riveting in all the right ways -- a damn good read that stayed with me long after closing the covers." - Timothy Egan, New York Times bestselling author of The Worst Hard Time From a blazing new voice in fiction, a gritty and lyrical American epic about a young woman who disguises herself as a boy and heads west In the spring of 1885, seventeen-year-old Jessilyn Harney finds herself orphaned and alone on her family's homestead. Desperate to fend off starvation and predatory neighbors, she cuts off her hair, binds her chest, saddles her beloved mare, and sets off across the mountains to find her outlaw brother Noah and bring him home. A talented sharpshooter herself, Jess's quest lands her in the employ of the territory's violent, capricious Governor, whose militia is also hunting Noah--dead or alive. Wrestling with her brother's outlaw identity, and haunted by questions about her own, Jess must outmaneuver those who underestimate her, ultimately rising to become a hero in her own right. Told in Jess's wholly original and unforgettable voice, Whiskey When We're Dry is a stunning achievement, an epic as expansive as America itself--and a reckoning with the myths that are entwined with our history.