Product Description

The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio introduces Evelyn Ryan, an enterprising woman who kept poverty at bay with wit, poetry, and perfect prose during the "contest era" of the 1950s and 1960s. Evelyn's winning ways defied the church, her alcoholic husband, and antiquated views of housewives. To her, flouting convention was a small price to pay when it came to raising her six sons and four daughters.

Graced with a rare appreciation for life's inherent hilarity, Evelyn turned every financial challenge into an opportunity for fun and profit. The story of this irrepressible woman, whose clever entries are worthy of Erma Bombeck, Dorothy Parker, and Ogden Nash, is told by her daughter Terry with an infectious joy that shows how a winning spirit will always triumph over poverty. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (142)

a great story....
This is a wonderful book, very thoughfully written and actually very funny. I was prepared to be disappointed when I saw the movie version, but Julianne Moore does a great job personifying this truly unique lady.
A great book and a great story...

A Private Gift
The author found years of 1950's jingles and slogans contest forms and notes in her deceased mother's trunks.From this treasure trove, she had the courage and source material to share an inspirational story of her mother's triumphs as a contest applicant.This sounds like a recipe for a sleeper, but the author has inherited a great deal of her mother's literary and creative gift.She artfully weaves the various jingles into the story and they become another lead player.The larger story is one of persistence, creativity and goodness in a challenging home environment of the small-town midwest, a large family, an alcoholic father and a tenuous economic situation.This is a well-written, interesting and touching story.The author reads the story on the CD-version, making it even more personal and enjoyable.

As I was writing this, a Publishers Clearinghouse window popped open.Some things never change!

Thought provoking
Loved this story of strength and commitment of a wife and mother raising her large family under very difficult conditions.She honored her marriage vowels to a very flawed husband and raised her children with love, patience and example.A very heart-warming book of a woman who took life as it came and made the most of her gifts and talents to make the best of it.

It was the best.
This was a great book.The father was very believable and the story was a wonderful true story.We need more books like this.

Great book
Love the book, service was great!I never dreamed there was another family so much like mine. ... Read more

Product Description
First settled in 1795, Hyde Park was an area of great estates and small and large farms until 1892. That's when the seven-member Hyde Park Syndicate capitalized on new transportation connections to downtown as a means to sell their property as smaller parcels. Designed to be upscale, the neighborhood attracted people looking for a suburban experience in an urban setting. This history introduces influential figures, including eventual Ohio governor Myers Y. Cooper, the Kilgour brothers, Levi Ault and Senator Joseph Foraker. It explains the development of Hyde Park Square and the community's streets, schools and churches. Readers will rediscover lost places, like the Grandin Bridge, Rookwood, the Pines, Belcamp and the Hermitage. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Reasons for the Death of Small Town America
As a person who grew up in small town South Dakota America,I share the pain of those who return to look over the ugly demise.But,I wanted to know the many reasons why this decline happened (and stop listening to the simplistic reasons offered by the Wal-Mart haters).So, I perused Amazon and came upon this well-researched gemstone. The downward slope is carefully laid out for the curious readers who are barbed, daily, by not only wanting answers, but needing answers.I highly recommend this work!

Graceful, perceptive history of one small American town.
This book is not a nostalgic paen to the place of small towns in Americanhistory.Neither does this book debunk small towns and small town values. Instead it is an example of an increasingly rare commodity: a gracefullywritten, perceptive, interesting, anlytical, narrative history, a book thatis at onceacademically sound and also appealing to a more general readingpublic.

The task that Davies sets for himself is to write a history ofhis home town that is true to the town and its peoples and, simultaneously,sets Camden, Ohio squarely in the economic, social, and political milieu of19th and 20th century America. As I read the book I had the sense thatDavies was employing a highly calibrated, zoom lens microscope to look atCamden.At 200 power, Davies was able to analyze the uniqueness of Camdenand its denizens at a particular time.Then, very quickly, he zoomed outin order to see and describe Camden against its larger background.So, thereader (at 200 power mafnification) is able to understand the impact ofearly movie theaters on the economic and social life of Camden.Then(zoomed out), the reader can understand how Camden's experience fit intothat of other small American towns.

A historian has to be a real proin order to apply successfully this approach.Davies is. He has readwidely in sociology, anthropology, economics, and history.He plumbed thearchival materials for Camden.He writes clearly with insight, verve, andcontrol.And the title, Main Street Blues, captures just the right tempoand key for the story he has to tell. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A Significant Authority on the Subject
I have read and now own this work. Over the years, Winesburg has become one of my very favorite novels and I can assure you as a student once instructed by Dr. Dunne at Central Connecticut State University, that he posesses an enormous amount of knowledge aboutAnderson's writings and their many contexts. You will not be disappointed! ... Read more