Jean H. Baker

An English émigré who became America's first professional architect, Benjamin Henry Latrobe put his stamp on the built landscape of the new republic. Latrobe contributed to such iconic structures as the south wing of the US Capitol building, the White House, and the Navy Yard. He created some of the early republic's greatest neoclassical interiors, including the Statuary Hall and the Senate, House, and Supreme Court Chambers. As a young man, Latrobe was apprenticed to both a leading architect and civil engineer in London, studied the European continent's architectural and engineering monuments, worked on canals, and designed private houses. After the death of his first wife, he was bankrupt and emigrated to the United States in 1796 to restart his career. For the new nation with grand political expectations, he intended buildings and engineering projects to match those aspirations. Like his patron Thomas Jefferson, Latrobe saw his neoclassical designs as a way to convey American democracy. He envisioned his engineering projects, such as the canals and municipal water systems for Philadelphia and New Orleans, as a way to unite the nation and improve public health. Jean Baker conveys the personality of this charming, driven, and often frustrated genius and the era in which he lived. Latrobe tried to establish architecture as a profession with high standards, established fees, and recognized procedures, though he was unable to collect fees and earn the living his work was worth. Like many of his peers, he speculated and found himself in bankruptcy several times. Building America masterfully narrates the life and legacy of a key figure in creating an American aesthetic in the new United States.

Undoubtedly the most influential advocate for birth control even before the term existed, Margaret Sanger ignited a movement that has shaped our society to this day. Yet her star has waned. A frequent target of so-called family values activists, she has also been neglected by progressives, who cite her socialist leanings and purported belief in eugenics. In this captivating biography, the renowned feminist historian Jean H. Baker rescues Sanger from such critiques and restores her to the vaunted place in history she once held.Trained as a nurse, Sanger saw the dangers of unplanned pregnancy and pioneered the first family planning clinic, the forerunner to Planned Parenthood. The movement she started spread across the country, eventually becoming a vast international organization with her as its spokeswoman. Baker demonstrates that Sanger's staunch advocacy of women's privacy and freedom extended to her personal life as well: after abandoning the trappings of home and family for a globe-trotting life, she became notorious for the sheer number of her romantic entanglements. That she lived long enough to witness the advent of "free love" and the creation of the birth control pill which finally made planned pregnancy a reality is only fitting."

In the drafting of the U.S. Constitution, gender was a non-issue. Women played no role in the authorship of either the original 1787 document or the Bill of Rights, and were largely excluded from the Constitution's application.

Jean H. Baker's Sisters shows how the personal became political In the fight to grant women civil rights. They forever changed America: Lucy Stone, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Frances Willard, Alice Paul. At their revolution's start in the 1840s, a woman's right to speak in public was questioned. By its conclusion in 1920, the victory in woman's suffrage had also encompassed the most fundamental rights of citizenship: the right to control wages, hold property, to contract, to sue, to testify in court. Their struggle was confrontational (women were the first to picket the White House for a political cause) and violent (women were arrested, jailed, and force-fed in prisons). And like every revolutionary before them, their struggle was personal. For the first time, the eminent historian Jean H. Baker tellingly interweaves these women's private lives with their public achievements, presenting these revolutionary women in three dimensions, humanized, and marvelously approachable.

A thought-provoking look at the presidency of James Buchanan, whose administration paved the way for the onslaught of the Civil War, details his failures as a president--his inability to resolve the issue of slavery, his lack of compromise, his weak leadership in a time of national crisis, and more. 25,000 first printing.

Affairs of party, Jean Baker asserts, were a central feature of public life in nineteenth-century America. In this book she explores the way in which the Northern Democrats of the mid-eighteen hundreds lived their public lives. She begins with a psychobiographical explanation of how people became Democrats, weighing the importance of such influences as education and family life. She then discusses two major elements that set Democrats apart from members of other political organizations: a modified Republican ideology tailored to the circumstances of the Civil War, and a mordant racism conveyed most strikingly through minstrelsy. Finally, Baker studies the neglected subject of partisan behavior, concentrating on the significance of parades, voting, and other rituals. In Affairs of Party Jean Baker brings together the three basic components of a political culture—education, thought, and behavior—and provides an understanding of the collective values of Northern Democrats and an insight into the elusive meaning of party experience. In her new preface, Professor Baker places her book in the context of both recent scholarship and recent political and cultural developments.

Affairs of party, Jean Baker asserts, were a central feature of public life in nineteenth-century America. In this book she explores the way in which the Northern Democrats of the mid-eighteen hundreds lived their public lives. She begins with a psychobiographical explanation of how people became Democrats, weighing the importance of such influences as education and family life. She then discusses two major elements that set Democrats apart from members of other political organizations: a modified Republican ideology tailored to the circumstances of the Civil War, and a mordant racism conveyed most strikingly through minstrelsy. Finally, Baker studies the neglected subject of partisan behavior, concentrating on the significance of parades, voting, and other rituals. In Affairs of Party Jean Baker brings together the three basic components of a political culture—education, thought, and behavior—and provides an understanding of the collective values of Northern Democrats and an insight into the elusive meaning of party experience. In her new preface, Professor Baker places her book in the context of both recent scholarship and recent political and cultural developments.

An engaging and accessible introductory history of the people, places, culture, and politics that shaped Maryland.In 1634, two ships carrying a small group of settlers sailed into the Chesapeake Bay looking for a suitable place to dwell in the new colony of Maryland. The landscape confronting the pioneers bore no resemblance to their native country. They found no houses, no stores or markets, churches, schools, or courts, only the challenge of providing food and shelter. As the population increased, colonists in search of greater opportunity moved on, slowly spreading and expanding the settlement across what is now the great state of Maryland.In Maryland, historians recount the stories of struggle and success of these early Marylanders and those who followed to reveal how people built modern Maryland. Originally published in 1986, this new edition has been thoroughly revised and updated. Spanning the years from the 1600s to the beginning of Governor Larry Hogan’s term of office in January 2015, the book more fully fleshes out Native American, African American, and immigrant history. It also includes completely new content on politics, arts and culture, business and industry, education, the natural environment, and the role of women as well as notable leaders in all these fields. Maryland is heavily illustrated, with nearly two hundred photographs and illustrations (more than half of them in full color), as well as related maps, charts, and graphs, many of which are new to this book. An extensive index and a comprehensive Further Reading section provide extremely useful tools for readers looking to engage more deeply with Maryland history. Touching on major figures from George Calvert to Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman to William Donald Schaefer, this book takes readers on an unforgettable journey through the history of the Free State. It should be in every library and classroom in Maryland.