The classic account of moving from slavery to freedom, by the celebrated African-American educator and university founder. Booker T. Washington believed that every man and woman deserved a chance, regardless of their skin color. This classic work of literature, originally published in 1901, relays the story of a man born into slavery who, once freed, pursued education and racial equality. This new edition of Booker T. Washington's autobiography features...

One of the most important patriots in post-Revolutionary times. Most readers know Noah Webster for his dictionary masterpieces and his promotion of a living "American Language" that embraces words and idioms from all its immigrant peoples. But he was also the driving force behind universal education for all citizens, including slaves, females, and adult learners. Speaker of twenty languages, he developed the new country's curriculum, writing and publishing...

Known as the Poppy Lady, Moina Belle Michael, a schoolteacher from Georgia, successfully established the Flanders Field Memorial Poppy as a universal symbol of tribute and support for veterans and their families during World War I and II.

Nineteenth-century scientist David Starr Jordan built one of the most important fish specimen collections ever seen, until the 1906 San Francisco earthquake shattered his life's work. David Starr Jordan was a taxonomist, a man possessed with bringing order to the natural world. In time, he would be credited with discovering nearly a fifth of the fish known to humans in his day. But the more of the hidden blueprint of life he uncovered, the harder...

Prologue: The Meaning of the Veil - 1. The Force That Wins - 2. The Model Community - 3. The Self-Made Men - 4. The Survival of the Race - 5. The Settlement of the Negro Problem - 6. The Rising People - 7. The Lion and the Fox - 8. The Train of Disfranchisement - 9. The Leopard's Spots - 10. The Violence of Their Imagination - 11. The Warring Ideals - 12. The Tuskegee Machine - 13. The Assault by the Toms - 14. The Tragedy of Color - 15. The Man Farthest...