This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War

This Republic of Suffering:Death and the American Civil War by Drew Gilpin Faust

Sobering look at the cost in human life and suffering of the Civil War. It looks at how death was approached by the soldiers, their families, their governments, and their countrymen. The book tells of how some family members tried to find their lost loved ones in order to bring them home for burials and how many were unable to find their dead family members. An interesting look at the evolution of our thoughts on death and dying that the war brought about.

For a review of the book see http://readingarchives.blogspot.com/search?q=republic+of+suffering

The Hide of a Rhinoceros / The Doctor of Scenery Hill

The Hide of a Rhinoceros.
by Marjorie Patterson Kaiser
Book; English
Publisher:
New York, Vantage Press, [1975]
OCLC:
1924161
Related Subjects:
Patterson, Frank. Scenery Hill, Pennsylvania.

The Doctor of Scenery Hill
by Marjorie Patterson Kaiser
Book; English
Publisher:
[S.l.] : The Author, 1998.
Edition:
2nd ed
OCLC:
44753675

Library location:
1.
University of Rhode Island, Kingston
Kingston, RI 02881 United States

This book was orginally published under the title "The Hide of the Rhinoceros" and was then republished as "the Doctor of Scenery Hill". It is the true story of a young doctor and his wife who moved to Scenery Hill, Washington Co PA to take up his medical practice. It tells about the challenges he faced when he moved to a small rural farming community in the late 1890s. He was doctor to the townspeople as well as to those who lived in the nearby mining town. It tells of some of the backward ways in which people used to deal with medical problems, the resistance that he faced from some people because he was so young and they didn't trust him yet. It also describes many medical treatments and diagnosis that I personally didn't realize were actually known at that time. I was suprised at how advanced they really were. The book also deals with the problems his young bride faced as the wife of the town doctor, and the illness that finally took hold of the doctor after many years of tireless service to the town.

It is a very interesting look into what life was like in the area of Washington County just up the road from Beallsville on Rt 40. Even though it is not listed in WorldCat I do know that the Library and Archives at the Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh has a copy but you will have to read it at the library as their collection is non-circulating. This book may be hard to find - it took me months to locate a used copy online and then I paid a pretty penny for my copy. If you are interested in getting a snapshot of rural life in Southwestern PA and the coal towns in the area, it is worth trying to find.

Research Tip # 1

If you are looking for a hard to find book or an archive collection, a good place to start is World Cat website. http://www.worldcat.org/ This is a listing of books and archives that are in libraries all over the world. You can search by title, author, keywords. Not every library is a member so this is not a guarantee that you will find what you are looking for and just because you don't find it doesn't mean it is not out there somewhere.

For example, a small non-profit library may have to pay $2000 a year to be able to have their collection show up in a search. The items they hold may show up but the library location will not. I have donated a copy of my Hill Family genealogy to a local library and if I search for it, it will come up on World Cat but it will say that no library has the item. That is because the library can't afford the fee.

However you can find books and archives in libraries that are close to you and may have interlibrary loan. When doind research on the Ringgold Cavalry I entered the name of the author of one of the books that I have and found that his personal papers from the writing of the book are held in an archive at Emory University.

Try it out and see what you can discover - things you've been looking for and things you didn't even know existed. Have Fun!!