In this provocative work, Cheryl Claassen challenges long-standing notions about hunter-gatherer life in the southern Ohio Valley as it unfolded some 8,000 to 3,500 years ago. Focusing on freshwater ...shell mounds scattered along the Tennessee, Ohio, Green, and Harpeth rivers, Claassen draws on the latest archaeological research to offer penetrating new insights into the sacred world of Archaic peoples. Some of the most striking ideas are that there were no villages in the southern Ohio Valley during the Archaic period, that all of the trading and killing were for ritual purposes, and that body positioning in graves reflects cause of death primarily.
Mid-twentieth-century assessments of the shell mounds saw them as the products of culturally simple societies that cared little about their dead and were concerned only with food. More recent interpretations, while attributing greater complexity to these peoples, have viewed the sites as mere villages and stressed such factors as population growth and climate change in analyzing the way these societies and their practices evolved. Claassen, however, makes a persuasive case that the sites were actually the settings for sacred rituals of burial and renewal and that their large shell accumulations are evidence of feasts associated with those ceremonies. She argues that the physical evidence—including the location of the sites, the largely undisturbed nature of the deposits, the high incidence of dog burials, the number of tools per body found at the sites, and the indications of human sacrifice and violent death—not only supports this view but reveals how ritual practices developed over time. The seemingly sudden demise of shellfish consumption, Claassen contends, was not due to overharvesting and environmental change; it ended, rather, because the sacred rituals changed.
Feasting with Shellfish in the Southern Ohio Valley is a work bound to stir controversy and debate among scholars of the Archaic period. Just as surely it will encourage a new appreciation for the spiritual life of ancient peoples—how they thought about the cosmos and the mysterious forces that surrounded them.
On April 21, 1930-Easter Monday-some rags caught fire under the
Ohio Penitentiary's dry and aging wooden roof, shortly after
inmates had returned to their locked cells after supper. In less
than an ...hour, 320 men who came from all corners of Prohibition-era
America and from as far away as Russia had succumbed to fire and
smoke in what remains the deadliest prison disaster in United
States history.
Within 24 hours, moviegoers were watching Pathé's newsreel of
the fire, and in less than a week, the first iteration of the weepy
ballad "Ohio Prison Fire" was released. The deaths brought urgent
national and international focus to the horrifying conditions of
America's prisons (at the time of the fire, the Ohio Penitentiary
was at almost three times its capacity). Yet, amid darkening world
politics and the first years of the Great Depression, the fire
receded from public concern.
In Fire in the Big House, Mitchel P. Roth does justice
to the lives of convicts and guards and puts the conflagration in
the context of the rise of the Big House prison model, local and
state political machinations, and American penal history and reform
efforts. The result is the first comprehensive account of a tragedy
whose circumstances-violent unrest, overcrowding, poorly trained
and underpaid guards, unsanitary conditions, inadequate food-will
be familiar to prison watchdogs today.
Mining causes drastic disturbances in landscape and soil properties, and reclamation can restore soil quality over time. Thus, assessing changes in properties of reclaimed mine soils is essential to ...understanding the effects of the reclamation techniques. This study was aimed at quantifying the effects of mining and reclamation processes on physical and chemical properties of reclaimed soils for three dominant soil series in Ohio: Mahoning–Canfield–Rittman–Chili, Coshocton–Westmoreland–Berks, and Gilpin–Upshur–Lowell–Guernsey. Three newly reclaimed mine sites (<
1
year since reclamation) were identified from each of the three soil series. Three sampling locations were identified for each mine site. Each sampling location consisted of a paired, undisturbed reference site adjacent to the reclaimed mine sites (RMSs). Thus, there were 54 sampling locations distributed throughout eight counties in eastern Ohio. Composite and core samples were obtained from 0–15, 15–30, and 30–45
cm depths in 2008. Soil physical and chemical properties were measured and changes in properties of the RMSs in reference to the adjacent, undisturbed sites were quantified. The bulk density (BD) of the RMSs (1.11 to 1.69
Mg m
−
3
) significantly increased by up to 54% compared to that of the undisturbed sites (0.98 to 1.41
Mg m
−
3
) at the 0–15
cm depth but not at the lower depths. The BD of the RMS was also affected by soil series, a high BD in the Mahoning–Canfield–Rittman–Chili soil series. Mining and reclamation activities increased soil pH and electrical conductivity (EC), and decreased soil organic carbon (SOC) and nitrogen (N) pools. At the 0–15
cm depth, soil pH in RMSs (4.9 to 8.1) was 4 to 31% higher than that of the undisturbed sites (4.6 to 7.0). Likewise, EC in RMS (119 to 349
μS cm
−
1
) was >
200% higher than those for the undisturbed sites (43 to 154
μS cm
−
1
). In the 0–15
cm depth, SOC pools in RMSs (1.2 to 2.5
Mg ha
−
1
) declined by 52 to 83% of undisturbed sites (11 to 29
Mg ha
−
1
). Similarly, N pools in RMSs (1.2 to 2.5
Mg ha
−
1
) declined by 42 to 75% of undisturbed sites (3.1 to 5.1
Mg ha
−
1
). Clay content was positively correlated with SOC concentration in the RMSs but not in the undisturbed site. This trend indicates that a RMS high in clay content has a relatively high SOC sink capacity. The SOC, N, C:N ratio, and EC in the subsurface layer of RMSs were similar to those of the surface soil, although later received a topsoil cover. Such a trend suggests that topsoil materials require better handling during removal, storage, and application so as to preserve soil structure, nutrients, SOC, and N pools.
►Mining and the reclamation process increased soil bulk density at the 0–15
cm depth. ►Clay content positively correlated with soil carbon in the reclaimed site. ►Mining increased soil pH and EC, and decreased carbon and nitrogen pools. ►Topsoil requires better handling to preserve soil structure, SOC, and N pools.
Keep on Fighting Christenson, Dorothy H; Frederickson, Mary E
2015, 2015-07-15
eBook
Marian Alexander Spencer was born in 1920 in the Ohio River town of Gallipolis, Ohio, one year after the Red Summer of 1919 that saw an upsurge in race riots and lynchings. Following the example of ...her grandfather, an ex-slave and community leader, Marian joined the NAACP at thirteen and grew up to achieve not only a number of civic leadership firsts in her adopted home city of Cincinnati, but a legacy of lasting civil rights victories.Of these, the best known is the desegregation of Cincinnatis Coney Island amusement park. She also fought to desegregate Cincinnati schools and to stop the introduction of observers in black voting precincts in Ohio. Her campaign to raise awareness of industrial toxic-waste practices in minority neighborhoods was later adapted into national Superfund legislation.In 2012, Marians friend and colleague Dot Christenson sat down with her to record her memories. The resulting biography not only gives us the life story of remarkable leader but encapsulates many of the twentieth centurys greatest struggles and advances. Spencers story will prove inspirational and instructive to citizens and students alike.
In a society increasingly dominated by zero-tolerance thinking, Punishing Schools argues that our educational system has become both the subject of legislative punishment and an instrument for the ...punishment of children. William Lyons and Julie Drew analyze the connections between state sanctions against our schools (the diversion of funding to charter schools, imposition of unfunded mandates, and enforcement of dubious forms of teacher accountability) and the schools' own infliction of punitive measures on their students—a vicious cycle that creates fear and encourages the development of passive and dependent citizens.
Indigenous Prosperity and American Conquestrecovers the agrarian village world Indian women created in the lush lands of the Ohio Valley. Algonquian-speaking Indians living in a crescent of towns ...along the Wabash tributary of the Ohio were able to evade and survive the Iroquois onslaught of the seventeenth century, to absorb French traders and Indigenous refugees, to export peltry, and to harvest riparian, wetland, and terrestrial resources of every description and breathtaking richness. These prosperous Native communities frustrated French and British imperial designs, controlled the Ohio Valley, and confederated when faced with the challenge of American invasion.By the late eighteenth century, Montreal silversmiths were sending their best work to Wabash Indian villages, Ohio Indian women were setting the fashions for Indigenous clothing, and European visitors were marveling at the sturdy homes and generous hospitality of trading entrepots such as Miamitown. Confederacy, agrarian abundance, and nascent urbanity were, however, both too much and not enough. Kentucky settlers and American leaders-like George Washington and Henry Knox-coveted Indian lands and targeted the Indian women who worked them. Americans took women and children hostage to coerce male warriors to come to the treaty table to cede their homelands. Appalachian squatters, aspiring land barons, and ambitious generals invaded this settled agrarian world, burned crops, looted towns, and erased evidence of Ohio Indian achievement. This book restores the Ohio River valley as Native space.
Ohio Canal Era Scheiber, Harry N; Friedman, Lawrence M
02/2012
eBook
Ohio Canal Era,a rich analysis of state policies and their impact in directing economic change, is a classic on the subject of the pre-Civil War transportation revolution. This edition contains a new ...foreword by scholar Lawrence M. Friedman, Professor of Law, Stanford Law School, and a bibliographic note by the author.Professor Scheiber explores how Ohio-as a "public enterprise state," creating state agencies and mobilizing public resources for transport innovation and control-led in the process of economic change before the Civil War. No other historical account of the period provides so full and insightful a portrayal of "law in action." Scheiber reveals the important roles of American nineteenth-century government in economic policy-making, finance, administration, and entrepreneurial activities in support of economic development.His study is equally important as an economic history. Scheiber provides a full account of waves of technological innovation and of the transformation of Ohio's commerce, agriculture, and industrialization in an era of hectic economic change. And he tells the intriguing story of how the earliest railroads of the Old Northwest were built and financed, finally confronting the state-owned canal system with a devastating competitive challenge.Amid the current debate surrounding "privatization," "deregulation," and the appropriate use of "industrial policy" by government to shape and channel the economy. Scheiber's landmark study gives vital historical context to issues of privatization and deregulation that we confront in new forms today.
The Underground Railroad, an often misunderstood antebellum institution, has been viewed as a simple combination of mainly white "conductors" and black "passengers." Keith P. Griffler takes a new, ...battlefield-level view of the war against American slavery as he reevaluates one of its front lines: the Ohio River, the longest commercial dividing line between slavery and freedom. In shifting the focus from the much discussed white-led "stations" to the primarily black-led frontline struggle along the Ohio, Griffler reveals for the first time the crucial importance of the freedom movement in the river's port cities and towns. Front Line of Freedom fully examines America's first successful interracial freedom movement, which proved to be as much a struggle to transform the states north of the Ohio as those to its south. In a climate of racial proscription, mob violence, and white hostility, the efforts of Ohio Valley African Americans to establish and maintain communities became inextricably linked to the steady stream of fugitives crossing the region. As Griffler traces the efforts of African Americans to free themselves, Griffler provides a window into the process by which this clandestine network took shape and grew into a powerful force in antebellum America.
PDF
