4. Roanoke: Story of County and City

Title: Roanoke: Story of County and City
Author: Virginia Writers' Project
Year Published: 1942
Year Printed:1942

Date Acquired: September 11, 2014
Where Purchased: Too Many Books, Roanoke, VA
Price Paid: $40

Read Status: Read (December 22, 2014)

Notes/Thoughts

• I almost didn't get this book because of the price. I had found another American Guide series book in South Carolina earlier in the week that was way overpriced ($100 vs. $10 on Amazon) that I didn't get. After finding that this was priced comparable if not cheaper than Amazon I decided it was worth it, especially since I actually found it in Roanoke and I'm not planning to start buying books for my 1940s collection online anytime soon.
• Interesting localized history, although there is a lot of just listing of names within the narrative as well as the extensive appendixes on Officers of Roanoke County and City and Veterans from the county.

3. Southern Horizons

Title: Southern Horizons
Author: William Haynes
Year Published: 1946
Year Printed: 1946

Date Acquired: September 9, 2014
Where Purchased: Bound to Be Read, Atlanta, GA
Price Paid: $10

Read Status: Read (September 28, 2014)

Notes/Thoughts

• This book provides an interesting historical look at the South's resources and how they were being utilized in the 1940s including recent discoveries at the time and what was currently being researched.
• One of the main focuses is on cotton including mentioning how crimped cotton bandages were a new development that came out of the secret research for the military. The discussion on cotton's future even included a quote that sound very much like today's The Fabric of Our Lives ads.
• "I can conceive that a few years hence woman may be boastful that they are wearing sheer cotton undies, luxury fabrics made out of cotton" (p. 51)
• One of the other parts that I found most interesting was the discussion on ramie, which sounded promising at the time Southern Horizons was written. In doing a little further research online, it seems that it still has not gained wide use despite it's superior strength because the processing is still complex and thus expensive. However, it was one of the main crops used in plant-derived plastics for Toyota Prius vehicles.

2. Tidewater Virginia

Title: Tidewater Virginia
Author: Paul Wilstach
Year Published: 1929
Year Printed: 1945

Date Acquired: August 28, 2014
Where Purchased: Book Bank, Alexandria, VA
Price Paid: $4 (Marked as $8, but they were having a 50% off sale at the time)

Read Status: Read (November 28, 2014)

Notes/Thoughts

• On my second visit to the local used bookstore, I found this book and decided to start collecting books printed in the 1940s.
• I found a lot of this repetitive having just finished Virginia: A Guide to the Old Dominion prior to reading this, which isn't surprising as this book (and several more by Paul Wilstach) is listed in that book's bibliography. However, this was still very enjoyable as the writing style is more engaging and conversational compared to the other being closer to stereotypical boring textbook style.
• Learned that the part of the Potomac River below Great Falls (which we happened to have just visited before I began reading this book) is actually an estuary hence this area being part of the Tidewater.
• Contains an interesting discussion on the meaning of Chesapeake as “country on a great river” supposedly dispelling a myth; but then I found a very similar 2005 Washington Post article coming to about the same conclusion as if it was a new discovery. Well, sort of maybe still was in the understanding of the Native American language; but not exactly a newly discovered potential meaning, although it does seem to mean that the myth was not really effectively dispelled in the 1920s. (p. 51)

1. Virginia: A Guide to the Old Dominion

Title: Virginia: A Guide to the Old Dominion
Author: Virginia Writers' Project
Year Published: 1940 (1946 printing included corrections)
Year Printed: 1947 (4th printing)

Date Acquired: June 1, 2014
Where Purchased: Book Bank, Alexandria, VA
Price Paid: $15

Read Status: Read (November 13, 2014)

Notes/Thoughts

• I picked this book out when checking out the local used bookstore the first weekend after we bought our condo in Alexandria. My mom ended up buying it for me as a housewarming gift.
• I never considered that turnpikes/toll roads existed before automobiles until reading about the first turnpikes in Virginia being chartered in the early 1800s; because dirt roads became impassable with heavy traffic. (p. 92)
• Lots on Thomas Jefferson's influence on architecture
• In the 1890s, there was a plan to develop twin cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis in Virginia; but only Minneapolis never came to exist. (p. 537)