Kirjahaku

During the Gilded Age, Jekyll Island, Georgia, was one of the most exclusive resort destinations in the United States. Owned by the most elite and inaccessible social club in America, a group whose members included Rockefellers, Pulitzers, Vanderbilts, Goulds, and Morgans, this quiet refuge in the Golden Isles was the perfect winter getaway for the wealthy new industrial class of the snowbound North.In this delightful book, a companion volume to The Jekyll Island Club: Southern Haven for America's Millionaires, June Hall McCash focuses on the social club's members and the "cottages" they built near the clubhouse between 1888 and 1928. Illustrated with hundreds of never-before-published photographs from private family collections, The Jekyll Island Cottage Colony tells the stories of each home, the owners' connections with the island, and their interactions with one another.While quite grand by today's standards, these homes were relatively simple in design, built to enhance rather than subdue the island's wild beauty. The cottages of Jekyll's "Millionaire's Row" were not nearly as lavish as their Newport counterparts, but typified Victorian resort architecture from New England to Florida, ranging from Queen Anne to shingle to Spanish and Mediterranean styles.After the Jekyll Island Club disbanded following World War II, the state of Georgia acquired the island to ensure its conservation. Once threatened by years of neglect and disrepair, the elegant clubhouse has been converted to a hotel, and many of the gracious cottages have been restored to their original condition. The Jekyll Island Cottage Colony is a fascinating guide to a unique treasure of architectural history, as well as a personal look at golden days gone by.

From the foremost authority on the famed Georgia barrier island, here is the first in-depth look at Jekyll Island’s early history. Much of what defines our view of the place dates from the Jekyll Island Club era. Founded in 1886, the Club was the private resort of America’s moneyed elite, including the Vanderbilts, Rockefellers, and Pulitzers. In her new book that ranges from pre-Columbian times through the Civil War and its aftermath, June Hall McCash shows how the environment, human conflict, and a desire for refuge shaped the island long before the Club’s founding.Jekyll’s earliest identifiable inhabitants were the Timucua, a flourishing group of Native Americans who became extinct within two hundred years after their first contact with Europeans. Caught up in the New World contests among France, Spain, and England, the island eventually became part of a thriving English colony. In subsequent stories of Jekyll and its residents, the drama of our nation plays out in microcosm. The American Revolution, the War of 1812, the slavery era, and the Civil War brought change to the island, as did hurricanes and cotton farming. Personality conflicts and unsanctioned love affairs also had an impact, and McCash’s narrative is filled with the names of Jekyll’s powerful and often colorful families, including Horton, Martin, Leake, and du Bignon.Bringing insight and detail to a largely untold chapter of Jekyll’s past, June Hall McCash breathes life into a small part of Georgia that looms large in the state’s history.

This book traces the life of Isidor and Ida Straus, both German Jewish immigrants who arrived as children in America in the early 1850s. Isidor's father, Lazarus, was an itinerate peddler in Georgia, but within one generation the family became the wealthy owners of Macy's Department Store in New York. A Titanic Love Story follows the Strauses' life from Talbotton, Georgia, where an anti-Semitic incident caused them to move to nearby Columbus. The devastation of Columbus at the end of the Civil War brought the family to New York, where Isidor met and eventually married the young Ida Blun. Ida and Isidor balanced the demands of business, family, and service to others and carved out their individual roles in those domains. A Titanic Love Story emphasizes their work together as a couple, focusing not only on Isidor's important roles as businessman, member of congress, and philanthropist, but also on Ida's contributions as an intelligent partner, the soul of the household, and matriarch of the family, as well as a stalwart supporter of her husband and one who engaged in philanthropic and creative activities of her own. The Strauses were wealthy Jews within their New York community, and as people committed to the welfare of their family, their city, their country, and those less fortunate than themselves, they dealt with their own grief, illness, and occasional brushes with anti-Semitism. Ironically, their final happy days in the south of France lead to their unexpected sailing on the Titanic. Both died as they had lived, with dignity, honor, loyalty to one another, and compassion for others. The public outpouring of grief at their deaths, even by today's standards of over-the-top journalism, was remarkable.

The Truth Keepers is a historical novel that tells the tale of a torn family and the struggles of a young nation. Set primarily on Jekyll Island, Georgia, in the nineteenth-century, it is based on the true story of Henri du Bignon, his wife, and his long-time mistress. Henri, the younger and favored du Bignon son, is portrayed through the eyes of his French wife, Amelia Nicolau, and his English mistress, Sarah Aust, both of whom have reasons for regret. Once well-respected in local social and business circles, Henri shocks the entire coastal community following his wife's death, with unexpected actions that ultimately drive him from the island to begin a new life elsewhere. The story begins with a fictionalized account, based on recently discovered documents of the Nicolau family in Bordeaux, France, who live through the revolution in their native land before coming to America and settling on the Georgia coast. As it explores the issues and limitations faced especially by women in nineteenth-century America, the story takes us from the French Revolution through the Civil War and its aftermath, when nearby Brunswick residents encounter many hardships, among them having to evacuate their town to the invading Union army. The novel ends in 1877, followed by a poignant epilogue set in the 1950s.

In a time when many agreed with Aristotle that women were incomplete males, Marie's birth was a bitter disappointment to her royal parents, French King Louis VII and his queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine, who desperately wanted a son. Yet, despite her parents' divorce and her separation from her mother when she was only seven, she clearly inherited Queen Eleanor's grit and determination, as well as her love of song and poetry. Today, the name of Marie, who became countess of Champagne, is associated with the medieval courts of love, and she is recognized as one of the greatest literary patrons of her day. As the crusades tore her life apart, she ruled over one of the largest domains in France for almost two decades. During that time, and well aware of the disadvantage of being a woman, she was compelled to defend her rights and those of her children--even to the point of going to war against her half-brother, Philip Augustus. Striving to meet the political demands of her fractured world, she became keenly aware of the competing needs of love, family, honor, and desire. Her story still resonates today.

Marie's birth was a bitter disappointment to her royal parents, French King Louis VII and his queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine, who desperately wanted a son. Yet, despite her parents' divorce and her separation from her mother when she was only seven, she clearly inherited Queen Eleanor's grit and determination, as well as her love of song and poetry. Today, the name of Marie, who became countess of Champagne, is associated with the medieval courts of love, and she is recognized as one of the greatest literary patrons of her day. As the crusades tore her life apart, she ruled over one of the largest domains in France for almost two decades. During that time, and well aware of the disadvantage of being a woman, she was compelled to defend her rights and those of her children--even to the point of going to war against her half-brother, Philip Augustus. Striving to meet the political demands of her fractured world, she became keenly aware of the competing needs of love, family, honor, and desire. Her story still resonates today.

Christophe Poulain du Bignon arrived with his family on Jekyll Island, Georgia, in 1792, seeking to escape the violence of the French Revolution. The three books of the Jekyll Island trilogy follow four generations of the family who live through the rise and fall of their sea island cotton plantation, as they wrestle with the issues of slavery, betrayal, guilt, and war. Despite the turbulence of their lives, they emerge as individuals who seek to love, forgive, and find fulfillment in an uncertain world.