John and Polly Thompson Caperton were in Augusta County, Virginia by 1753 and later in Botetourt County, Virginia in 1774. Descendants lived in Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Texas, Virginia West Virginia, and elsewhere.

The Achievable Dream: College Board Lessons on Creating Great Schools is an inspiring look at solutions to the challenges facing education in America, from one of the nation's leading authorities. Based on the personal observations of Gaston Caperton, President of the College Board and former Governor of West Virginia, these stories provide hope for the future and specific lessons of educational success that can be replicated in schools across the country – featuring students, parents, educators, policy-makers and communities that are bucking the trends and demonstrating how America can again be a world leader in education. Using 10-15 real-world case studies that highlight common traits of successful schools – including rigorous coursework taught by dedicated and skilled teachers; parental involvement; high standards that engage and challenge students; and support from local communities, colleges, and businesses – Caperton highlights models of success that reinforce one central theme: Improving education in America requires a shared commitment to learning that must become a national priority.

The Patriarch traces the turbulent history of one of the nation's most powerful newspaper companies and the family that built it. Based on years of archival research and interviews with Bingham intimates, it is a searing examination of three generations of an American family beset with mystery and vicious rivalry. 16 pages of photos.

This book is about the different ways that men and women experienced migration from the Southern seaboard to the antebellum Southern frontier. Based upon extensive research in planter family papers, Cashin studies how the sexes went to the frontier with diverging agendas: men tried to escape the family, while women tried to preserve it. On the frontier, men usually settled far from relatives, leaving women lonely and disoriented in a strange environment. As kinship networks broke down, sex roles changed, and relations between men and women became more inequitable. Migration also changed race relations, because many men abandoned paternalistic race relations and abused their slaves. However, many women continued to practice paternalism, and a few even sympathized with slaves as they never had before. Drawing on rich archival sources, Cashin examines the decision of families to migrate, the effects of migration on planter family life, and the way old ties were maintained and new ones formed.

“A memoir of three generations of women rich in historical detail” —from the Civil War to the Jazz Age (Kirkus Reviews) Shortly after her mother’s death in 2011, Sallie Bingham discovered a blue box in her mother’s closet containing the forgotten remnants of her foremothers’ lives. From her great-grandmother Sallie, was a gilded memoir written for her children during her final years; from her grandmother, Helena, a book of short stories she’d published called Legends of Virginia; and her mother, Mary, had left behind a grand romance in letters documenting her four-year courtship to the man who’d become Sallie Bingham’s father. Long before Sallie knew the details of these women’s lives she recognized the steel thread that ran through their personalities: resilience and indomitability. But to what extent did this steel thread tie up their secrets? How closely linked were their unquestioned feelings of Southern superiority—social, racial, moral, intellectual—to their ability to survive, even flourish, as their fortunes sank and rose? For years, Sallie could only speculate. Out of this astonishing 150-year treasure trove, Sallie Bingham has woven “more than a memoir; it’s an historical account of the legacies, heritages and travails of three generations of Southern women . . . in the living language of complex and exquisitely-preserved letters. Sallie Bingham’s meticulous and comprehensive work gives us a glimpse into another world—previously frozen in a ‘cornflower blue’ time capsule” (Bowling Green Daily News).

When Nellie Smith from Oakland, California met Charlie Tower, a young millionaire from Philadelphia on a cruise to Alaska in l887, it was love at first sight. They soon married and moved to Philadelphia's Rittenhouse Square. In 1897, President McKinley appointed Charlie, now called Charlemagne, Minister to Austria-Hungary. The Towers moved with their five small children to a palace in Vienna where Mark Twain became a regular visitor. Charlemagne was named Ambassador to Russia in 1899. He and Nellie witnessed the sumptuous grandeur of the Court of Tsar Nicholas II in St. Petersburg. Upon the Towers' departure from Russia in 1902, they were accorded the singular honor of visiting the royal family at their vacation home in the Crimea. During Charlemagne's six years as American Ambassador to Germany, Kaiser Wilhelm II considered him a friend and thought Nellie the most brilliant hostess on the international scene. Returning home to Philadelphia, family scandal and personal tragedy awaited as Nellie and Charlemagne saw the Europe they had known destroyed by war. Through diaries, letters and contemporary accounts, Nellie and Charlie gives a personal history of an American family living on two continents at the turn of the century.