From the publisher: In the nineteenth century, the complex cultural meaning of hair was not only significant, it could affect one's place in society. After the Civil War, hairdressing was a growing profession and the hair industry a mainstay of local, national, and international commerce. In Beyond Vanity, Elizabeth L. Block expands the nascent field of hair studies by restoring women's hair as a cultural site of meaning in the early United States. With a special focus on the places and spaces in which the industry operated, Block argues that the importance of hair has been overlooked due to its ephemerality as well as its misguided association with frivolity and triviality. As Block clarifies, hairdressing was anything but frivolous.

Dr. Block's website can be found at https://www.elizabethlblock.com/

Information on her book can be found at https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262049054/beyond-vanity/

She is on social media at https://x.com/ElizabethLBlock

Support our show at https://patreon.com/axelbankhistory

**A portion of every contribution is given to a charity for children's literacy**

"Axelbank Reports History and Today" can be found on social media at

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Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify

If you've ever gone holiday shopping, you have probably gone into a bookshop to find the perfect gift for someone you care about. In this episode, we talk with Evan Friss about his astonishing history of how American bookstores were born, how they grew, and how they've at least tried to survive in a world where almost everything is done online. From chains to indies, he shows how bookstores became a critical place where ideas are exchanged, and how books themselves are marketed and consumed. From Ben Franklin to YOU, he shows how bookstores mark American progress.

Information on his book can be found at https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/679154/the-bookshop-by-evan-friss/

His website is https://evanfriss.com/

He is on social media at https://x.com/EvanFriss

Support our show at https://patreon.com/axelbankhistory

**A portion of every contribution is given to a charity for children's literacy**

"Axelbank Reports History and Today" can be found on social media at

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Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify

Considering the high profiles of Eleanor Roosevelt, Jackie Kennedy, Betty Ford, Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama, little is remembered about Pat Nixon. And that, Heath Lee argues, is the way she wanted it. On this episode, biographer Heath Lee discusses her book, "The Mysterious Mrs. Nixon: The Life and Times of Washington's Most Private First Lady," explores how Thelma Catherine Ryan went from a small mining town in the Far West to the most storied home in the world to become America's First Lady. She shows how Pat Nixon influenced her husband, and her country, in ways that are only just beginning to be recognized.

Heath Hardage Lee's website can be found at https://heathleeauthor.com/

She is on social media at https://x.com/HeathLee1

Information on her book can be found at https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250274342/themysteriousmrsnixon

Support our show at https://patreon.com/axelbankhistory

**A portion of every contribution is given to a charity for children's literacy**

"Axelbank Reports History and Today" can be found on social media at

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Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify

Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify

On this episode, we chat with David Greenberg about his epic biography of American icon John Lewis. We explore Lewis' background, early life, congressional career and of course, his march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Lewis was beaten, but not broken, and began a one-of-a-kind career fighting for human rights and decency among Americans. Greenberg not only explains what it was like to interview Lewis, but how he found so many new sources during years of research.

Information on his book can be found at https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/John-Lewis/David-Greenberg/9781982142995

David Greenberg's website is https://greenberg.rutgers.edu/

David Greenberg's social media feed can be found at https://x.com/republicofspin

Support our show at https://patreon.com/axelbankhistory

**A portion of every contribution is given to a charity for children's literacy**

"Axelbank Reports History and Today" can be found on social media at

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Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify

Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify

From the publisher: "Stadiums are monuments to recreation, sports, and pleasure. Yet from the earliest ballparks to the present, stadiums have also functioned as public squares. Politicians have used them to cultivate loyalty to the status quo, while activists and athletes have used them for anti-fascist rallies, Black Power demonstrations, feminist protests, and much more. 

In this book, historian Frank Guridy recounts the contested history of play, protest, and politics in American stadiums. From the beginning, stadiums were political, as elites turned games into celebrations of war, banned women from the press box, and enforced racial segregation. By the 1920s, they also became important sites of protest as activists increasingly occupied the stadium floor to challenge racism, sexism, homophobia, fascism, and more. Following the rise of the corporatized stadium in the 1990s, this complex history was largely forgotten. But today’s athlete-activists, like Colin Kaepernick and Megan Rapinoe, belong to a powerful tradition in which the stadium is as much an arena of protest as a palace of pleasure."

Information on Dr. Frank Guridy can be found at https://history.columbia.edu/person/guridy-frank/

Information on his book can be found at https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/frank-andre-guridy/the-stadium/9781541601451/?lens=basic-bo

His social media account can be found at https://x.com/fguridy

Support our show at https://patreon.com/axelbankhistory

**A portion of every contribution is given to a charity for children's literacy**

"Axelbank Reports History and Today" can be found on social media at

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Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify

Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify

Being president is a mixed bag. There are long days, high-stakes decisions, definitive elections and even the potential to be considered a dunce for the rest of history. But, there are also opportunities to help people in need, win the respect of the world, bring the country together, and, these days, make big bucks after their term in office. Their net worths soar after they sign book deals, honcho a film company or even endorse trinkets that seem fit for informercials. But as Megan Gorman shows in, "All The Presidents' Money," it wasn't always like that. Early presidents lived their lives out in debt. She shows how becoming president didn't preclude them from making mistakes with money that every American makes, and also how their ambition to earn big bucks foreshadowed their desire to run the country.

Megan Gorman's website can be found at https://www.allthepresidentsmoney.com/about-megan

Information on her book can be found at https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/All-the-Presidents-Money/Megan-Gorman/9798888450802

Support our show at https://patreon.com/axelbankhistory

**A portion of every contribution is given to a charity for children's literacy**

"Axelbank Reports History and Today" can be found on social media at

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Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify

Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify

Despite its reputation as a game with roots in rural America, Kevin Baker explains on this episode that baseball is rooted in New York City, and that it became the engine of the Big Apple. He also explains how the city itself influenced the game through its rules, its teams, its stadiums and its superstars. From Christy Mathewson to Babe Ruth, from the Highlanders to the Trolley Dodgers, from rundown streets to the Polo Grounds, Kevin Baker shows how New York and baseball grew up together.

Kevin Baker's Website can be found at https://kevinbaker.info/

Information on his book can be found at https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/7503/the-new-york-game-by-kevin-baker/

Support our show at https://patreon.com/axelbankhistory

**A portion of every contribution is given to a charity for children's literacy**

"Axelbank Reports History and Today" can be found on social media at

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Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify

Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify

From the late 1990s until the mid-2010s, conservatives used the rallying slogan of, “What would Reagan do?” as a call to arms on the Federal budget, on taxes, on foreign affairs, and on the government’s role in our lives. He was held up as the beacon for what a president, a governor, a state legislator or a candidate for any office should try to be. George W. Bush modeled his presidency on honoring Reagan and avoiding the political mistakes his made by his father. But that has changed in the Trump era. Reagan’s conservative example is no strived to emulate nearly as often. On this episode, Max Boot explains why, and what it says about the presidency and life of Ronald Reagan.

Max Boot is on social media at https://x.com/MaxBoot

Max Boot's website can be found at https://www.maxboot.net/

Information on his book can be found at https://wwnorton.com/books/9780871409447

Support our show at https://patreon.com/axelbankhistory

**A portion of every contribution is given to a charity for children's literacy**

"Axelbank Reports History and Today" can be found on social media at

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Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify

Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify

From the publisher: A comprehensive and engaging oral history of the decade that defined the feminist movement, including interviews with living icons and unsung heroes – from former Newsweek reporter and author of the “powerful and moving” (New York Times) Witness to the Revolution.

For lovers of both Barbie and Gloria Steinem, The Movement is the first oral history of the decade that built the modern feminist movement. Through the captivating individual voices of the people who lived it, The Movement tells the intimate inside story of what it felt like to be at the forefront of the modern feminist crusade, when women rejected thousands of years of custom and demanded the freedom to be who they wanted and needed to be.

This engaging history traces women’s awakening, organizing, and agitating between the years of 1963 and 1973, when a decentralized collection of people and events coalesced to create a spontaneous combustion. From Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique, to the underground abortion network the Janes, to Shirley Chisolm’s presidential campaign and Billie Jean King’s 1973 battle of the sexes, Bingham artfully weaves together the fragments of that explosion person by person, bringing to life the emotions of this personal, cultural, and political revolution. Artists and politicians, athletes and lawyers, Black and white, The Movement brings readers into the rooms where these women insisted on being treated as first class citizens, and in the process, changed the fabric of American life.

Information on her book from Simon & Schuster can be found at https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Movement/Clara-Bingham/9781982144210

Clara is on social media at https://x.com/CYBingham

Clara's website is at https://www.clarabingham.com/

Support our show at https://patreon.com/axelbankhistory

**A portion of every contribution is given to a charity for children's literacy**

"Axelbank Reports History and Today" can be found on social media at

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Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify

Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify

The first thing a president must do is swear to uphold the Constitution. But what happens when they betray that promise? Corey Brettschneider argues that it takes ordinary citizens to not only reign them in, but to make sure it never happens again. In "The Presidents and the People: Five Leaders Who Threatened Democracy and the Citizens Who Fought to Defend It," Professor Brettschneider profiles John Adams, James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Woodrow Wilson and Richard Nixon, and explains how they fought to protect the American ideal of equality, for only a few Americans. From suspending the right to free speech, the right to vote and the right to enjoy freedom itself, Brettschneider shows how presidents have stepped out of bounds, and also how ordinary Americans insisted the country belongs to all.

Information on his book can be found at https://wwnorton.com/books/9781324006275

His website is https://www.coreybrettschneider.com/

He is on social media at https://x.com/brettschneiderc?lang=en

Support our show at https://patreon.com/axelbankhistory

**A portion of every contribution is given to a charity for children's literacy**

"Axelbank Reports History and Today" can be found on social media at

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https://facebook.com/axelbankhistory

Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify

Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify