University of Akron Press Publications

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  The Akron Offering: A Ladies' Literary Magazine, 1849-1850

  Jon Miller

  FREE FULL-TEXT PDF DOWNLOAD

  From 1849 to 1850, Calista Cummings edited and published Akron's first literary magazine, The Akron Offering. At the time, Akron was a booming canal town on the verge of even greater prosperity. By turns religious, comic, romantic, and political, this extraordinary collection of early midwestern creative literature expresses a wide range of sometimes contradictory opinions on both the important questions of its day and the important questions of today: historical events such as the California Gold Rush of 1849 and the 1848 revolutions in Europe are considered alongside more timeless contemplations on truth, justice, and beauty. Comprehensively annotated and explained, this unprecedented critical edition of the complete run of an antebellum literary magazine has much to offer those interested in the histories of Akron, of Ohio, of the American Midwest, and of American literature. These original magazines are very rare, and their contents are not available anywhere else.

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  The Laws of Nature: Reflections on the Evolution of Ecosystem Management Law and Policy

  Kalyani Robbins

  This timely collection written by an interdisciplinary array of law professors, who specialize in legal and policy issues surrounding ecosystem management, and scholars and practitioners in areas such as environmental policy and planning, conservation, economics, and biology explore why ecosystems must be valued and managed in their own right. The importance of ecosystems has been underestimated. We cannot simply hope ecosystems will benefit from legislation focused on other environmental and natural resource protections, such as those for wildlife, trees, air and water. An ecosystem, a community of organisms together with their physical environment, viewed as a system of interacting and interdependent relationships, has its own intricate administrative issues. Edited by Kalyani Robbins, a law professor, The Laws of Nature will investigate how ecosystems function, their value to humans and wildlife, and what factors affect ecosystems' survival. This analysis is coupled with cutting-edge theories and regulatory proposals from legal scholars who study ecosystem questions. In the end, a thorough and multi-disciplinary understanding of the importance of ecosystem will be presented.

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  The Poet Resigns: Poetry in a Difficult World

  Robert Archambeau

  What are we really wishing for when we want poetry to have the prominence it had in the past? Why do American poets overwhelmingly identify with the political left? How do poems communicate? Is there an essential link between formal experimentation and political radicalism? What happens when poetic outsiders become academic insiders? Just what makes a poem a poem? If a poet gives up on her art, what reasons could she find for coming back to poetry? These are the large questions animating the essays of The Poet Resigns: Poetry in a Difficult World, a book that sets out to survey not only the state of contemporary poetry, but the poet's relationship to politics, society, and literary criticism. In addition to pursuing these topics, The Poet Resigns peers into the role of the critic and the manifesto, the nature of wit, the poetics of play, and the persistence of modernism, while providing detailed readings of poets as diverse as Harryette Mullen and Yvor Winters, George Oppen and Robert Pinsky, Pablo Neruda and C.S. Giscombe. Behind it all is a sense of poetry not just as an academic area of study, but as a lived experience and a way of understanding. Few books of poetry criticism show such range - yet the core questions remain clear: what is this thing we love and call 'poetry,' and what is its consequence in the world?

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  Thievery

  Seth Abramson

  A few rare holdouts to the contrary, American culture is loud, unsubtle, insensitive, needy, exhausting, cheaply convenient, unreflective, and above all, distracted. What has been happening behind the scenes during all the years we haven't been paying attention? What world have we given ourselves and what have we given up in that shallow exchange? Such observations are deeply implied by the poems in Seth Abramson's Thievery. At the bottom of this book is the sense that we've been ripped off and don't even know it yet. That we have allowed it has left us stunted, morally and spiritually, with no greater sense of wonder than a Styrofoam cup. Abramson is not preaching, however: he is telling the melancholy, lonely truth. -Maurice Manning, The Common Man

  Here is a book that is truly quietly deeply subtle. It appears to operate along the lines of here is how one thing follows another; it appears to rely on anticipated cause and effect to spring us forth from one fraction of a split second's thought to the next. There are many and then actions in this book. What follows comes as a surprise sometimes even when it shouldn't. For instance, at one poem's conclusion it says: An archer shoots. That's what an archer does. And this is astonishing. And then it is almost heartbreaking and then one must do a double take and then there is poetry. -Dara Wier

  In Thievery, his third and best book so far, Seth Abramson implicitly locates the source of the disaffection by which we are guided, not in the disasters of the twentieth century, which reconfirmed it, but in an unnameable and centuries-gone past. And by doing so he acknowledges that disaffection as the presence most familiar to us-indeed, its presence makes us familiar to each other: 'To be lost is to be connected / interminably.' These are grim and yet also startled poems, at home in a broken world and yet again and again and always surprised by its brokenness, and radiant with the sense that even the world in which one feels at home must be changed for the better. -Shane McCrae, Blood

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  Union and States’ Rights: A History and Interpretation of Interposition, Nullification, and Secession 150 Years After Sumter

  Neil H. Cogan

  Edited by Neil H. Cogan, who is a well-versed legal scholar of constitutional law, civil rights, and civil and criminal procedures, this volume is a collection of papers on a central issue of governance in the United States; namely, what is the power of the States to object to and cancel Federal law with which they disagree. For eighty-one years, from the ratification of the Constitution to the end of the Civil War, this issue of State power was the central issue of governance. Chapters address the history and legal arguments for three assertions of such State power: interposition, nullification, and secession. Scholars approach the assertions from the perspective of the "original understanding" of the Union; the antebellum arguments against the assertion of Federal power and in favor of concerted action; and contemporary viewpoints. Although both interposition and nullification were disruptive to the concept of union, the act of secession was an almost fatal assertion of State power against the Union. Now, 150 years after South Carolina's secession from the Union, it is appropriate to reconsider the arguments made for interposition, nullification, and secession. Currently In several states, nullification measures are before the legislatures. During the recent Texas Gubernatorial campaign, secession was discussed by two of the major candidates. The Tea Party Movement is reflective of a broader movement to limit Federal intervention in State matters. The publication of this collection provides an intelligent voice to the national debate.

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  A Face to Meet the Faces: An Anthology of Contemporary Persona Poetry

  Stacey Lynn Brown and Oliver de la Paz

  The literary tradition of persona, of writing poems in voices or from perspectives other than the poet’s own, is ancient in origin and contemporary in practice. The embodiment of different voices is not only a dramatic and creative moment, but also a moment of true empathy, as the author moves beyond his or her own margins to fully inhabit the character, personality, and mindset of another human being. While there are a great number of poems written in persona, both historically as well as in the modern poetic landscape, there are no anthologies currently in existence that collect and celebrate the diverse writers who work in this mode today—or the divergent voices and characters they create.

  Stacey Lynn Brown and Oliver de la Paz have selected a superb collection of approximately 200 persona poems. These poems embody characters from popular culture, history, the Bible, literature, mythology, newspaper clippings, legends, fairy tales, and comic books, to name just a few, and their diversity is reflective of the wide range of authors working in this genre. The anthology will also contain brief explanatory notes written by the poets to help historicize and contextualize their characters and personae.

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  Carnival

  Jason Bredle

  Jason Bredle's poems approach the world like a haunted cat approaches a glacier, curious and itchy with strangeness. In Carnival, he skates paratactically between states of being: levity, heart-holes, licks of darkness, lovesickness and werewolfishness. Bredle's gift as a poet is to traverse and re-traverse one looking glass in ten different moods. When he goes through it, we are taken. -Melissa Broder

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  Cleveland's West Side Market: 100 Years and Still Cooking

  Laura Taxel and Marilou Suszko

  Cleveland's West Side Market is a matchless culinary and cultural resource, a nationally significant architectural treasure, and part of the city's distinctive urban landscape. In continuous use since it opened in 1912, the market is also among the oldest municipally owned and operated retail food arcades and one of only a handful of such places left in the country. Going to the market is a tradition that has spanned generations and decades.

  Cleveland's West Side Market: 100 Years and Still Cooking chronicles the history of this notable landmark and all it offers consumers and culinary aficionados. Written by two well-known Cleveland food writers, the book takes readers on a nostalgic tour of the Market building, outdoor arcades, and into the lives of many vendors and Market families who are the true foundation of this historic public space. Readers will discover foods, traditions and family rituals that were started and nurtured at the Market and enjoy humorous, touching and sometimes bawdy stories of what it was like to grow up, grow old and carve out a living at the Market. Many of the book's stories and memories reveal personal family histories told for the first time. The volume is rich with many rare, and until now unpublished, vintage and contemporary photographs and images that provide a delightful armchair tour of this magnificent landmark, which is a must see destination for food lovers no matter where they live.

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  Leaving Home in Dark Blue: Chronicling Ohio's Civil War Experience through Primary Sources and Literature

  Curt Brown

  Ohio played a major role in the Civil War, which, for most soldiers, was the grand event of their lives. Ohio regiments were formed, soldiers were conscripted, and battles were fought in places Ohioans didn't know existed. This collection gathers together primary materials from memoirs, newspapers, and literature to trace Ohioans' participation in the war. The collection is built chronologically from the start of the conflict to the return of soldiers after the final battles. When available, participants post-war lives are documented.

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  Prop Rockery

  Emily Rosko

  Art is about something the way a cat is about the house," says Allen Grossman. This is abundantly true of Emily Rosko's poems in Prop Rockery, a condition she defines with a quote from King Lear: "a looped and windowed raggedness." And while this condition is "pretend," and these poems are indeed virtuoso performances, the despair, loneliness, lies, and miscommunication they examine are as real as anything in art. Parataxis and fragments meet rhyme and chewy-on-the-tongue Anglo Saxon diction at the axis of postmodern irony. Prop Rockery explodes in your mouth-no sugar, plenty of bite. -Natasha Sajé, author of Bend and Red Under the Skin

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  The Applied Psychology of Harry Hollingworth: Roots in the Great Plains, Volume 1

  Harry Hollingworth, Ludy T. Benjamin, and Lizette Royer-Barton

  Harry Levi Hollingworth was one of the pioneers in the field known today as industrial-organizational psychology. He was the author of more than twenty books and a hundred scientific and theoretical articles. His honors were many, including serving as President of the American Psychological Association in 1927. In 1940, at the age of 60 and partly initiated by the sudden death of his wife, Hollingworth took stock of his life in an autobiography that focused on his origins and development in rural Nebraska and his subsequent career as a psychologist at Columbia University. For the first time, this autobiography is now available.

  In 1911, an early research study funded by the Coca-Cola Company propelled Hollingworth to fame and eventually considerable wealth as an applied researcher in the field of business psychology. Coca-Cola was sued by the federal government under the recent Pure Food and Drugs Act for marketing a beverage with a deleterious ingredient, namely caffeine, and the company needed research on humans to counter the government's claims. The story of this research and the trials that eventually led to the United States Supreme Court are part of the fascinating career described in this book.

  Hollingworth's success in applying the science of psychology to the problems of the business world opened many doors for other psychologists, including many who worked full-time in business and industrial settings. This book provides an intimate account of the life and career of a very successful applied researcher who claims in this autobiography that the applied problems he virtually devoted his entire life were never of interest to him and that he did the work only for the money. The paradox of this claim offers considerable insight into the prejudices faced by applied scientists and how Hollingworth tried to separate himself from his own accomplishments.

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  The Final Journey of the Saturn V

  Andrew R. Thomas and Paul N. Thomarios

  The Saturn V rocket carried men to the moon, and its history reflects the US space program's rise, success, and demise. In 1961, John F. Kennedy challenged America to put a man on the moon and win the space race. Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon in 1969 in the culmination of a concerted scientific and technological effort.

  A little over a decade later, the Saturn rocket was tossed aside to rot in a field near the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The rocket's carcass became the home to flora and fauna. Like the space program itself, the rocket was forgotten. Finally in the mid 1990s, supported by the Smithsonian Institute, the Saturn V was brought back to life. Leading the restoration was Paul Thomarios, the son of Greek immigrants. The reconditioning of the rocket is part of the story, but the story is also that of Thomarios. This book details both, showing how pride and dedication made the Saturn rocket and Paul Thomarios.

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  The Rest is History: True Tales from Akron's Vibrant Past

  Mark J. Price

  This collection is as much about the present as it is about the past. Award-winning journalist, Mark J. Price, whose popular weekly column "This Place, This Time" has appeared in the "Akron Beacon Journal" since 1998, explores the history of Akron, Ohio and Summit County through compelling vignettes, bringing to life bygone days through painstaking research of archival materials, local histories, newspaper records and vintage photographs, plus contemporary interviews. The real-life stories range from quirky to poignant, from humorous to tragic, and all points in between. Read about the U. S. president who strolled through the countryside, the Akron stagehand who became a Hollywood icon, the beloved beagle that attended elementary school, the natural landmark that slid underground, the pop concert that made girls faint, the lost cemetery that turned into a city park and the world-famous gadget that caught on in Northeast Ohio. A true treasure trove of the varied places of an historic region.

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  American Busboy

  Matthew Guenette

  "In American Busboy, a wry anti-mythology, the anti-hero busboy in an anonymous Clam Shack! tangles with the monotonous delirium of work, the indignities and poor pay of unskilled labor, the capricious deus ex machina of mean-spirited middle management, the zombified consumption of summer tourists, while jostling for the goddess-like attentions of waitresses and hostesses—all battered up in sizzlingly crisp wit and language, and deep-fried in a shiny glaze of surrealism." —Lee Ann Roripaugh

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  Buckeye Battleground: Ohio, Campaigns, and Elections in the Twenty-First Century

  Daniel J. Coffey, John C. Green, David B. Cohen, and Stephen C. Brooks

  Buckeye Battleground is the result of a decade's worth of research at the Bliss Institute on elections in Ohio, with special emphasis on the 2004 and 2008 presidential campaigns, and the 2006 gubernatorial campaign. This book seeks to explain why Ohio is, and has been, at the center of American elections. Using historical analysis, demographic data, and public opinion surveys, the authors demonstrate Ohio's role as the quintessential "battleground" state in American elections. This title is unique in its approach and coverage.

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  Champions, Cheaters, and Childhood Dreams: Memories of the Soap Box Derby, Revised Edition

  Melanie Payne

  From 1934 to the 1970s, the All-American Soap Box Derby pushed thousands of youths to use their curiosity, ingenuity, and determination to become the most famous kid in America. Through first-person accounts, Champions, Cheaters, and Childhood Dreams chronicles a history of the race from a hillside in Dayton to the corporate-sponsored, star-studded event it would become in the 1950s and 1960s. The influence of the Great Depression, World War II, the Civil Rights and feminist movements, Vietnam, and Watergate helped shape and transform the race from a simple amateur event into an American icon. The revised edition has been updated to include race histories through 2010.

  "Punches are not pulled, praise is given when praise is due, criticism is leveled when called for." --totalbike.com

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  Famous Chefs and Fabulous Recipes: Lessons Learned at One of the Oldest Cooking Schools in America

  Lisa Abraham and Catherine St. John

  Hudson, Ohio, has all the charm of a Connecticut watercolor. A quaint clock tower stands on the village green. A little further up the road, the chiseled buildings of Western Reserve Academy, founded in 1826, dot the landscape. Red-bricked shops make downtown window shopping a weekend event. If Jimmy Stewart showed up as George Bailey, residents wouldn’t bat an eyelash. Tucked into this historic enclave is one of the oldest cooking schools in America, the Western Reserve School of Cooking.

  Originally founded by Zona Spray, and now run by Catherine St. John, the intimate institution has been a destination for many prominent chefs including Hugh Carpenter, Shirley O. Corriher, David Hirsch, and Michael Symon. This volume contains recipes from all of them. But the feast doesn’t stop there. Learn how to bake a cake from White House chef Roland Mesnier. Knead some dough with master baker Ciril Hitz. If you can’t wait for dessert, Emily Luchetti, the Executive Pastry Chef for Waterbar and Farallon Restaurants in San Francisco, will help you out. This truly unique volume covers the gamut with exquisite recipes from the school’s own chefs, to mouth-watering dishes from the international chefs who have taught at the school.

  Local food columnist Lisa Abraham provides extensive interviews with the chefs. What inspired them to take up the profession? Who were their mentors? Why do they do what they do? This cookbook is unique in its format, has fabulous recipes from famous chefs and is the perfect ingredient to spice up your special dinner, event or last-minute dish.

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  How I Saw It: My Photographic Memory of the Soap Box Derby

  Jeff Iula and Bill Ignizio

  Jeff Iula grew up around the Soap Box Derby. His memories of the race events over the past forty years are a treasure trove of the history of the gravity race, but also other aspects of the the Derby Downs race that are rarely covered. Aided by writer, Bill Ignizio, Iula has delved into his collection of Derby memorabilia to identify the most compelling images of cars and contestants, programs and tickets, and celebrities and ceremonies. This collection is unique and informative. A must for Soap Box Derby fans.

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  Hurricane Party

  Alison Pelegrin

  "Hurricane Party is an original and rewarding work, a masterful follow-up to Big Muddy River of Stars, and a livewire, compelling contribution to American poetry. No other poet sounds like Pelegrin, and that's the sure sign of a writer at the top of her game." —Elton Glaser

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  Infinite Hope and Finite Disappointment: The Story of the First Interpreters of the Fourteenth Amendment

  Elizabeth Reilly

  Infinite Hope and Finite Disappointment details the aspirations and promises of the 14th Amendment in the historical, legal, and sociological context within which it was framed. Part of the Reconstruction Amendments collectively known as "The Second Founding," the 14th Amendment fundamentally altered the 1787 Constitution to protect individual rights and altered the balance of power between the national government and the states. The book also shows how initial Supreme Court interpretations of the Amendment's reach hindered its applicability. Finally, the contributors investigate the current impact of the 14th Amendment.

  Contents Infinite Hope: The Framers as First Interpreters The Antebellum Political Background of the Fourteenth Amendment, Garrett Epps The Historical Context of the Fourteenth Amendment, Paul Finkelman The 39th Congress (1865-1867) and the 14th Amendment: Some Preliminary Perspectives, Richard L. Aynes The Union as It Wasn't and the Constitution as It Isn't: Section Five and Altering the Balance of Powers, Elizabeth Reilly Finite Disappointment: The Supreme Court as First Interpreter Justice Miller's Reconstruction: The Slaughter-House Cases, Health Codes, and Civil Rights in New Orleans, 1861-1873, Michael A. Ross Rebuilding the Slaughter-House: The Cases' Support for Civil Rights, David S. Bogen Why "Privileges or Immunities:" An Explanation of the Framers' Interpretation and the Supreme Court's Misinterpretation, William J. Rich The Legacy of Slaughter-House, Bradwell, and Cruikshank in Constitutional Interpretation, Wilson R. Huhn Never Losing Infinite Hope: The People as First Interpreters The Use of the Fourteenth Amendment by Salmon P. Chase in the Trial of Jefferson Davis, C. Ellen Connally "Horror of a Woman": Myra Bradwell, the 14th Amendment, and the Gendered Origins of Sociological Jurisprudence, Gwen Hoerr Jordan Fourteenth Amendment Citizenship and the Reconstruction-Era Black Public Sphere, James W. Fox, Jr.

  This title is part of the &Law series sponsored by the University of Akron School of Law.

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  Le Spleen de Poughkeepsie

  Joshua Harmon

  Winner of the 2010 Akron Poetry Prize, Le Spleen de Poughkeepsie is "a tender anti-epic, a grunge-tinged love song to America's benighted post-industrial heartland." Harmon's Poughkeepsie shimmers just beyond the borders of banal recognition. "If you're not part of the problem, / you're part of the lengthening / tragedy," Harmon writes in an introductory pastoral, seeking out "the stray / detours and workarounds of the secret / city inside the more obvious one...on the outskirts of the absurd / attention to the material life." Poughkeepsie is that city of the heart where no one can look at anyone else "alone," where "the noise of beauty" is a cop's bullet polishing off a "traffic-struck doe," where "five dollars takes you anywhere in this town / except out of it."

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  Pedaling on the North Coast: Biking the Streets of Greater Cleveland

  Stan Purdum and Murray Fishel

  Grab your bicycle, start pedaling, and prepare to explore Ohio's North Coast. Stan Purdum returns with more great rides around Northeast Ohio. Pedaling on the North Coast is your guide to the best routes in the Greater Cleveland Area. From lakeside rides to trips to Cleveland landmarkls like the historic West Side Market, Pedaling on the North Coast is the perfect companion for everyone from the casual cyclist to the seasoned vet. The eighteen rides offer a diverse selection to discover Cleveland and the surrounding area: crank over to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Cleveland Browns stadium; bike along the famed Emerald Necklace; check out the Cleveland Botanical Gardens and Art Museum; ride through neighborhoods like Little Italy, Shaker, Tremont, Ohio City and many more. Pedaling on the North Coast includes detailed directions for every ride, including maps and mileage notations. Purdum shares his favorite spots to eat and explore along each route as well as rich, historical background and revealing sidebars. Saddle up and get ready to ride!

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  Steps in Time: Ninety Years of Metro Parks, Serving Summit County

  Sarah Vradenburg

  What started in 1921 in an effort to "encourage forestry," conserve natural resources and protect the "comfort and welfare of the citizens" of Summit County has, in ninety years, grown into one of the largest and most popular metropolitan park districts in Ohio. Today, Metro Parks, Serving Summit County manages 10,000 acres, including 13 developed parks, six conservation areas, and more than 120 miles of trails, including 21.5 miles of the Ohio & Erie Canal Towpath Trail. Annual attendance averages 4.5 million visitors.

  Since 2007, author Sarah Vradenburg, a former editorial writer for the Akron Beacon Journal, has studied archives, interviewed park visitors, and hiked with current and former staff to help shape a people-oriented history of the park district. The book contains historic and current photos, including a signature photograph of each park at the time of publication. A review of the park district’s directors and commissioners, from 1921 to the present, is also be included.

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  The Monkey and the Wrench: Essays into Contemporary Poetics

  Mary Biddinger and John Gallaher

  The first volume in the "Akron Series in Contemporary Poetics," The Monkey & the Wrench, explores the debate over hybrid aesthetics, confronts the topic of contemporary rhyme, and ventures into the realm of persona and the mystical poem. This volume is ideal for both the classroom and the nightstand, for the poet's desk and the critic's bookshelf. Series editors Mary Biddinger and John Gallaher have assembled an eclectic collection that welcomes the reader into the conversation, while documenting the seismic activity of today's poetry world.

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  Glenna Snow's Cook Book: Home Tested Recipes by Beacon Journal Readers

  Glenna Snow and Kevin F. Kern

  Glenna Snow was the home economics editor for the Akron Beacon Journal in the 1930s and 1940s. Snow and the newspaper produced a book of readers' recipes in 1938. Six years later, adding more recipes and a substitution section due to government rationing during WWII, the 1944 edition was published. Introduced by historian, Kevin Kern, this reprint edition contains1385 "recipes in a readable form so that each ingredient, with its amount falls into the proper place at the proper time, to give the best results." The recipes are diverse and unique including instructions for "War Cake" and "Martha Washington Omelet." Common staples like "Coffee Cake," "Pot Roast with Vegetables," and "Apple Sauce" are included. Among the more distinctive recipes are "Potato Doughnuts," "Squirrel Stew," and "Souse." Kern explains that the cook book is an historical primary source.

  These recipes are not only a list of ingredients, but a record of the ethnic groups that populated the Akron area prior to and during WWII. The cookbook also illustrates the scarcity experienced during war highlighted by a substantial section on preserving food with methods such as canning, drying, and pickling.

  During the period covered by the two publications, electrification is becoming more widespread with recipes reflecting the change in technology. The cook book is a perfectly-preserved "fossil" of the archaeology of Akron and the Midwest during a period when America was recovering from the Great Depression and fighting a global war. More though, the book is a collection of recipes and techniques that are as relevant today as when they were collected.