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American Rural Studies: History Books

A guide to the history, culture, and socioeconomic issues facing the over 66 million Americans living in rural areas

Rural American History Books

Here you will find history books (both print and electronic) on Rural America as a whole, as well as the history of rural parts of New York State.

Rural History Books

To Know the Soul of a People : Religion, Race, and the Making of Southern Folk / by J.W. Drake
Call Number: E-book
New York: Oxford University Press, 2022.
We Got By : a Black Family's Journey in the Heartland by R. S. Sheffield
Call Number: E185.93.O2 S54 (RH)
Columbus, OH: Trillium, of Ohio State University Press, 2022.
The Harlan Renaissance : Stories of Black Life in Appalachian Coal Towns / by W. H. Turner
Call Number: E-book
Morgantown, WV: West Virginia University Press, 2021.
A History of the Ozarks, V. 3 : The Ozarkers / by B. Blevins
Call Number: E-book
Urbana, IL: The University of Illinois Press, 2021.
NOTE: Library has Vol. 1 & 2 of the series as E-books.
Appalachian Reckoning : a Region Responds to Hillbilly Elegy / by A. Harkins & M. McCarroll (Eds.)
Call Number: E-book
Morgantown, W.V: West Virginia University Press, 2019.
Lake of the Ozarks : My Surreal Summers in a Vanishing America by B. Geist
Call Number: F472.O93 G45 (RH, LC)
New York ; Boston: Grand Central Publishing, 2019.
Appalachia in Regional Context : Place Matters / by A. E. Kingsolver
Call Number: E-book
Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 2018.
Power and Progress on the Prairie : Governing People on Rosebud Reservation by T. Biolsi
Call Number: E99.D1 B565 (RH)
Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2018.
Born in the Country : a History of Rural America (Third ed.) by D. B. Danbom
Call Number: E179 .D25 (RH)
Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2017.
Back Yonder : an Ozark Chronicle by C. W. Hogue; B. Blevins
Call Number: F210 .H73 (RH)
Fayetteville, AR: University of Arkansas Press, 2016.
Hillbilly Elegy : a Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J. D. Vance
Call Number: HD8073.V37 A3 (RH)
New York: HarperCollins, 2016.
Stories of Survival : Arkansas Farmers During the Great Depression / by W. Downs
Call Number: E-book
Fayetteville, AR: Phoenix International, 2011.
The Church and the Land : the National Catholic Rural Life Conference and American Society, 1923-2007 by D. S. Bovee
Call Number: BX1407.R8 B68 (RH)
Washington, D.C: Catholic University Press, 2010.
African-American Gardens and Yards in the Rural South by R. Westmacott
Call Number: SB457.527 .W47 (RH)
Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press, 1992.
Note: Second print copy is in Special Collections

New York State Rural History Books

In the Catskill and My Boyhood / by J. Burroughs
Call Number: E-book
Albany, N.Y: State University of New York Press, 2021.
For the Good of Their Souls : Performing Christianity in Eighteenth-Century Mohawk Country / by W. B. Hart
Call Number: E-book
Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2020.
Declared Defective : Native Americans, Eugenics, and the Myth of Nam Hollow / by R. Jarvenpa
Call Number: E-book
Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2018.
Rural Indigenousness : a History of Iroquoian and Algonquian Peoples of the Adirondacks / by M. Otis
Call Number: E-book
Syracuse, N.Y: Syracuse University Press, 2018.
Blacks in the Adirondacks : a History / by S. Svenson
Call Number: E-book
Syracuse, N.Y: Syracuse University Press, 2017.
New York Amish : Life in the Plain Communities of the Empire State (Second ed.) / by K. Johnson-Weiner
Call Number: E-book
Ithaca, N.Y: Cornell University Press, 2017.
The Thomas Indian School and the "Irredeemable" Children of New York / by K. R. Burich
Call Number: E-book
Syracuse, N.Y: Syracuse University Press, 2016.
Life on a Rocky Farm : Rural Life Near New York City in the Late Nineteenth Century / by L. C. Barger; P. A. Rogerson (Contribution / Introduction)
Call Number: E-book
Albany, N.Y: State University of New York Press, 2013.
Putting the Barn Before the House : Women and Family Farming in Early-Twentieth-Century New York / by N. G. Osterud
Call Number: E-book
Ithaca, N.Y: Cornell University Press, 2012.
Making Mountains : New York City and the Catskills / by D. Stradling; W. Cronon (Foreword)
Call Number: E-book
Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 2007.
Rural Life in the Hudson Valley 1880-1920 : Observations and Photographs from Dutchess County by S. Benham; V. B. Augerson & S. H. Benham (Eds.)
Call Number: F127.D8 B39 (RH)
Poughkeepsie, N.Y: Hudson Books, 2005.
Gilboa : New York's Quest for Water and the Destruction of a Small Town by A. R. Thomas
Call Number: F127.S3 T53 (RH)
Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2005.
"The Hills" in the Mid-Nineteenth Century : the History of a Rural Afro-American Community in Westchester County, New York by E. A. Quinn
Call Number: F128.9.W47 C37 (RH)
Valhalla, N.Y: Westchester County Historical Society, 1988.
Rural School Survey of New York State, a Report to the Rural School Patrons by New York (State) Rural School Survey
Call Number: LA337 .J6 (LC-QuinnX)
Ithaca, N.Y: (n.p.), 1922.

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