William Elliott Hazelgrove's Books

Rocket Man

By: William E Hazelgrove

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Rocket Man is a very funny and poignant comment on our times, when an upside down middle class is barely hanging onto the American dream. Taking cues from the calamity of The Great Recession, we meet Dale Hammer, a man who is determined to find meaning in a landscape of suburban homogeneity, looking for the moment he had with his own father when they blasted off a rocket on a wintery evening. He feels his son slipping away as he tries to get around “the silent shame of fathers and sons.” He becomes the Rocket Man for his sons scout troop and immediately his life implodes. Accused of cutting down the subdivision sign to his neighborhood, he becomes the lone rebel, going down in a flaming arc. When Rocket Day comes, Dale is determined to give his son more than his father gave him.

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Page Count

288

Publisher

Koehler Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

1938467582

ISBN 13

9781938467585

The Last Charge of the Rough Rider

Theodore Roosevelt's Final Days

By: William Hazelgrove,William Elliott Hazelgrove

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The Last Charge of the Rough Rider

Theodore Roosevelt's Final Days

By: William Hazelgrove,William Elliott Hazelgrove

There have been many books on Theodore Roosevelt, but there are none that solely focus on the last years of his life. Racked by rheumatism, a ticking embolism, pathogens in his blood, a bad leg from an accident, and a bullet in his chest from an assassination attempt, in the last two years of his life from April 1917 to January 6, 1919, he went from the great disappointment of being denied his own regiment in World War I, leading a suicide mission of Rough Riders against the Germans, to the devastating news that his son Quentin had been shot down and killed over France. Suffering from grief and guilt, marginalized by world events, the great glow that had been his life was now but a dimming lantern. But TR’s final years were productive ones as well: he churned out several “instant” books that promoted U.S. entry into the Great War, and he was making plans for another run at the Presidency in 1920 at the time of his death. Indeed, his political influence was so great that his opposition to the policies of Woodrow Wilson helped the Republican Party take back the Congress in 1918. However, as William Hazelgrove points out in this book, it was Roosevelt’s quest for the “vigorous life” that, ironically, may have led to his early demise at the age of sixty. "The Old Lion is dead,” TR’s son Archie cabled his brother on January 6, 1919, and so, too, ended a historic era in American life and politics.

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357

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield

Published Date

ISBN 10

1493070916

ISBN 13

9781493070916

Al Capone and the 1933 World's Fair

The End of the Gangster Era in Chicago

By: William Elliott Hazelgrove

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Al Capone and the 1933 World's Fair

The End of the Gangster Era in Chicago

By: William Elliott Hazelgrove

Al Capone and the 1933 World’s Fair: The End of the Gangster Era in Chicago is a historical look at Chicago during the darkest days of the Great Depression. The story of Chicago fighting the hold that organized crime had on the city to be able to put on The 1933 World's Fair. William Hazelgrove provides the exciting and sprawling history behind the 1933 World's Fair, the last of the golden age. He reveals the story of the six millionaire businessmen, dubbed The Secret Six, who beat Al Capone at his own game, ending the gangster era as prohibition was repealed. The story of an intriguing woman, Sally Rand, who embodied the World's Fair with her own rags to riches story and brought sex into the open. The story of Rufus and Charles Dawes who gave the fair a theme and then found financing in the worst economic times the country had ever experienced. The story of the most corrupt mayor of Chicago, William Thompson, who owed his election to Al Capone; and the mayor who followed him, Anton Cermak, who was murdered months before the fair opened by an assassin many said was hired by Al Capone. But most of all it’s the story about a city fighting for survival in the darkest of times; and a shining light of hope called A Century of Progress.

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281

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield

Published Date

ISBN 10

1442272279

ISBN 13

9781442272279

Dead Air

The Night That Orson Welles Terrified America

By: William Elliott Hazelgrove

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Dead Air

The Night That Orson Welles Terrified America

By: William Elliott Hazelgrove

An in-depth look at the greatest hoax in radio history and the panic that followed, which Publishers Weekly calls "a rollicking portrait of a director on the cusp of greatness" and Booklist, in a starred review, says, "Hazelgrove’s feverishly focused retelling of the broadcast as well as the fallout makes for a propulsive read as a study of both a cultural moment of mass hysteria and the singular voice at its root.” On a warm Halloween Eve, October 30, 1938, during a broadcast of H G. Wells’ War of the Worlds, a twenty-three-year-old Orson Welles held his hands up for radio silence in the CBS studio in New York City while millions of people ran out into the night screaming, grabbed shotguns, drove off in cars, and hid in basements, attics, or anywhere they could find to get away from Martians intent on exterminating the human race. As Welles held up his hands to his fellow actors, musicians, and sound technicians, he turned six seconds of radio silence—dead air—into absolute horror, changing the way the world would view media forever, and making himself one of the most famous men in America. In Dead Air: The Night that Orson Welles Terrified America, Willliam Elliot Hazelgrove illustrates for the first time how Orson Welles’ broadcast caused massive panic in the United States, convincing listeners across the nation that the end of the World had arrived and even leading military and government officials to become involved. Using newspaper accounts of the broadcast, Hazelgrove shows the true, staggering effect that Welles’ opera of panic had on the nation. Beginning with Welles’ incredible rise from a young man who lost his parents early to a child prodigy of the stage, Dead Air introduces a Welles who threw his Hail Mary with War of the Worlds, knowing full well that obscurity and fame are two sides of the same coin. Hazelgrove demonstrates that Welles’ knew he had one shot to grab the limelight before it forever passed him by—and he made it count.

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277

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield

Published Date

ISBN 10

1538187175

ISBN 13

9781538187173

Rocket Man

By: William Elliott Hazelgrove

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Rocket Man

By: William Elliott Hazelgrove

Rocket Man is a very funny and poignant comment on our times, when an upside down middle class is barely hanging onto the American dream. We meet Dale Hammer, who becomes the Rocket Man for his sons scout troop and immediately his life implodes. Accused of cutting down the subdivision sign to his neighborhood, he becomes the lone rebel, going down in a flaming arc. When Rocket Day comes, Dale is determined to give his son more than his father gave him.

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Page Count

291

Published Date

ISBN 10

1306850665

ISBN 13

9781306850667

Greed in the Gilded Age

The Brilliant Con of Cassie Chadwick

By: William Elliott Hazelgrove

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Greed in the Gilded Age

The Brilliant Con of Cassie Chadwick

By: William Elliott Hazelgrove

Greed in the Gilded Age is a Gatsby-esque tale of mystery, money, sex, and scandal. ‘Millionaire’ had just entered the American lexicon and Cassie Chadwick was front page news, becoming a media sensation before mass media, even eclipsing President Roosevelt’s inauguration. Using these newspaper articles, Hazelgrove tells the story of one of the greatest cons in American history. Combining the sexuality and helplessness her gender implied, Chadwick conned at least 2 million dollars, equivalent to about 60 million today, simply by claiming to be the illegitimate daughter and heir of steel titan, Andrew Carnegie. Playing to their greed, she was able to convince highly educated financiers to loan hundreds of thousands of dollars, on nothing more than a rumor and her word. She was a product of her time and painting her as a criminal is only one way to look at it. Those times rewarded someone who was smart, inventive, bold, and aggressive. She was able to break through boundaries of class, education, and gender, to beat the men of the one percent at their own game.

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Page Count

213

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield

Published Date

ISBN 10

1538142910

ISBN 13

9781538142912

Sally Rand

American Sex Symbol

By: William Elliott Hazelgrove

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Sally Rand

American Sex Symbol

By: William Elliott Hazelgrove

She would appear in more than thirty films and be named after a Road Atlas by Cecil B. DeMille. A football play would be named after her. She would appear on To Tell the Truth. She would be arrested six times in one day for indecency. She would be immortalized in the final scene of The Right Stuff, cartoons, popular culture, and live on as the iconic symbol of the Chicago World’s Fair of 1933. She would pave the way for every sex symbol to follow, from Marilyn Monroe to Lady Gaga. She would die penniless and in debt. In the end, Sammy Davis Jr. would write her a $10,000 check when she had nothing left. Her name was Sally Rand. You can draw a line from her to Lana Turner, Marilyn Monroe, Raquel Welch, Ann Margret, Madonna, and Lady Gaga. She broke the mold in 1933 by proclaiming the female body as something beautiful and taking it out of the strip club with her ethereal fan dance. She was a poor girl from the Ozarks who ran away with a carnival, then joined the circus, and finally made it to Hollywood where Cecil B. DeMille set her on the road to fame with silent movies. When the talkies came, her career collapsed and she ended up in Chicago, broke, sleeping in alleys. Two ostrich feathers in a second-hand store rescued her from obscurity.

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281

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield

Published Date

ISBN 10

1493038605

ISBN 13

9781493038602

Writing Gatsby

The Real Story of the Writing of the Greatest American Novel

By: William Elliott Hazelgrove

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Writing Gatsby

The Real Story of the Writing of the Greatest American Novel

By: William Elliott Hazelgrove

The Great Gatsby has sold 25 million copies worldwide and sells 500,000 copies annually. The book has been made into three movies and produced for the theatre. It is considered the Greatest American Novel ever written. Yet, the story of how The Great Gatsby was written has not been told except as embedded chapters of much larger biographies. This story is one of heartbreak, infidelity, struggle, alcoholism, financial hardship, and one man’s perseverance to be faithful to the raw diamond of his talent in circumstances that would have crushed others. The story of the writing of The Great Gatsby is a story in itself. Fitzgerald had descended into an alcoholic run of parties on Great Neck, New York, where he and Zelda had taken a home. His main source of income was writing for the “slicks,” or magazines of the day, the main source being the Saturday Evening Post, where Fitzgerald’s name on a story got him as much as $4,000. Then on May 1, 1924, he, Zelda, and baby daughter Scottie quietly slipped away from New York on a “dry” steamer to France, the writer in search of sobriety, sanity, and his muse, resulting in the publication of The Great Gatsby a year later.

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Page Count

303

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield

Published Date

ISBN 10

1493070142

ISBN 13

9781493070145

One Hundred and Sixty Minutes

The Race to Save the RMS Titanic

By: William Elliott Hazelgrove

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One Hundred and Sixty Minutes

The Race to Save the RMS Titanic

By: William Elliott Hazelgrove

One hundred and sixty minutes. That is all the time rescuers would have before the largest ship in the world slipped beneath the icy Atlantic. There was amazing heroism and astounding incompetence against the backdrop of the most advanced ship in history sinking by inches with luminaries from all over the world. It is a story of a network of wireless operators on land and sea who desperately sent messages back and forth across the dark frozen North Atlantic to mount a rescue mission. More than twenty-eight ships would be involved in the rescue of Titanic survivors along with four different countries. At the heart of the rescue are two young Marconi operators, Jack Phillips 25 and Harold Bride 22, tapping furiously and sending electromagnetic waves into the black night as the room they sat in slanted toward the icy depths and not stopping until the bone numbing water was around their ankles. Then they plunged into the water after coordinating the largest rescue operation the maritime world had ever seen and thereby saving 710 people by their efforts. The race to save the largest ship in the world from certain death would reveal both heroes and villains. It would begin at 11:40 PM on April 14, when the iceberg was struck and would end at 2:20 AM April 15, when her lights blinked out and left 1500 people thrashing in 25-degree water. Although the race to save Titanic survivors would stretch on beyond this, most people in the water would die, but the amazing thing is that of the 2229 people, 710 did not and this was the success of the Titanic rescue effort. We see the Titanic as a great tragedy but a third of the people were rescued and the only reason every man, woman, and child did not succumb to the cold depths is due to Jack Phillips and Harold McBride in an insulated telegraph room known as the Silent Room. These two men tapping out CQD and SOS distress codes while the ship took on water at the rate of 400 tons per minute from a three-hundred-foot gash would inaugurate the most extensive rescue operation in maritime history using the cutting-edge technology of the time, wireless.

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321

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield

Published Date

ISBN 10

1633886980

ISBN 13

9781633886988

Henry Knox's Noble Train

The Story of a Boston Bookseller's Heroic Expedition That Saved the American Revolution

By: William Elliott Hazelgrove

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Henry Knox's Noble Train

The Story of a Boston Bookseller's Heroic Expedition That Saved the American Revolution

By: William Elliott Hazelgrove

The inspiring story of a little-known hero's pivotal role in the American Revolutionary WarDuring the brutal winter of 1775-1776, an untested Boston bookseller named Henry Knox commandeered an oxen train hauling sixty tons of cannons and other artillery from Fort Ticonderoga near the Canadian border. He and his men journeyed some three hundred miles south and east over frozen, often-treacherous terrain to supply George Washington for his attack of British troops occupying Boston. The result was the British surrender of Boston and the first major victory for the Colonial Army. This is one of the great stories of the American Revolution, still little known by comparison with the more famous battles of Concord, Lexington, and Bunker Hill. Told with a novelist's feel for narrative, character, and vivid description, The Noble Train brings to life the events and people at a time when the ragtag American rebels were in a desperate situation. Washington's army was withering away from desertion and expiring enlistments. Typhoid fever, typhus, and dysentery were taking a terrible toll. There was little hope of dislodging British General Howe and his 20,000 British troops in Boston—until Henry Knox arrived with his supply convoy of heavy armaments. Firing down on the city from the surrounding Dorchester Heights, these weapons created a decisive turning point. An act of near desperation fueled by courage, daring, and sheer tenacity led to a tremendous victory for the cause of independence.This exciting tale of daunting odds and undaunted determination highlights a pivotal episode that changed history.

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273

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield

Published Date

ISBN 10

1633886158

ISBN 13

9781633886155

Dead Air

The Night That Orson Welles Terrified America

By: William Elliott Hazelgrove

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Dead Air

The Night That Orson Welles Terrified America

By: William Elliott Hazelgrove

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277

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Rowman & Littlefield

Published Date

ISBN 10

1538187175

ISBN 13

9781538187173

Al Capone and the 1933 World's Fair

The End of the Gangster Era in Chicago

By: William Elliott Hazelgrove

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Al Capone and the 1933 World's Fair

The End of the Gangster Era in Chicago

By: William Elliott Hazelgrove

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281

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Rowman & Littlefield

Published Date

ISBN 10

1442272279

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9781442272279

Greed in the Gilded Age

The Brilliant Con of Cassie Chadwick

By: William Elliott Hazelgrove

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Greed in the Gilded Age

The Brilliant Con of Cassie Chadwick

By: William Elliott Hazelgrove

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213

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Rowman & Littlefield

Published Date

ISBN 10

1538142910

ISBN 13

9781538142912

The Pitcher

By: William Hazelgrove

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The Pitcher

By: William Hazelgrove

The Pitcher, is a classic story of baseball, the price of dreams, and the lessons of life. A mythic baseball story about a broken down World Series Pitcher is mourning over the death of his wife and an underprivileged Mexican-American boy who lives across the street and wants to learn to pitch. This is a mainstream contemporary novel about dreams lost and found. In the great tradition of books like, The Natural. This is a novel with the mythic themes, readability, and appeal to be a mainstream bestseller.

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Page Count

252

Publisher

Koehler Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

1938467590

ISBN 13

9781938467592

The Last Charge of the Rough Rider

Theodore Roosevelt's Final Days

By: William Hazelgrove,William Elliott Hazelgrove

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The Last Charge of the Rough Rider

Theodore Roosevelt's Final Days

By: William Hazelgrove,William Elliott Hazelgrove

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357

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Rowman & Littlefield

Published Date

ISBN 10

1493070916

ISBN 13

9781493070916

Morristown: Darkest Winter of the Revolutionary War

By: William Hazelgrove

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Morristown: Darkest Winter of the Revolutionary War

By: William Hazelgrove

The winter of 1779 to 1780 would mark Washington's darkest hour where he contemplated the army coming apart from lack of food, money, six years of war, desertions, mutiny, the threat of a devastating attack by the British, and incredibly, a plot to kidnap him. Yet Morristown would mark a turning point"--

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256

Published Date

ISBN 10

149305662X

ISBN 13

9781493056620

Sally Rand

American Sex Symbol

By: William Elliott Hazelgrove

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Sally Rand

American Sex Symbol

By: William Elliott Hazelgrove

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281

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Rowman & Littlefield

Published Date

ISBN 10

1493038605

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9781493038602

Wright Brothers, Wrong Story

How Wilbur Wright Solved the Problem of Manned Flight

By: William Elliott Hazelgrove

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Wright Brothers, Wrong Story

How Wilbur Wright Solved the Problem of Manned Flight

By: William Elliott Hazelgrove

How did two high-school dropouts figure out the secret of manned flight? Hazelgrove reveals the differences in Orville and Wilbur Wright's personalities and abilities. He examines how the Wright brothers myth was born when Wilbur Wright died early and left his brother to write their history with personal friend John Kelly. Though Orville's role was important, he generally followed his brother's lead and assisted with the mechanical details to make Wilbur's vision a reality. Hazelgrove shows that, at Kitty Hawk, Wilbur cracked the secret of aerodynamics and achieved liftoff on December 17, 1903. -- adapted from jacket.

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Page Count

334

Published Date

ISBN 10

1633884589

ISBN 13

9781633884588

Tobacco Sticks

By: William Hazelgrove

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Tobacco Sticks

By: William Hazelgrove

In the South, a white community turns against a lawyer who decides to defend a black maid accused of stealing a silver tea service from her mistress. The story, which is set in Virginia in the final year of World War II, is narrated by the lawyer's 12-year-old daughter.

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Page Count

208

Publisher

The eBook Sale

Published Date

ISBN 10

1906806926

ISBN 13

9781906806927

Mica Highways

By: William Elliott Hazelgrove

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Mica Highways

By: William Elliott Hazelgrove

A stockbroker abandons the rat race in Chicago to return to the South and devote himself to the history of his family. In this way Charlie Tidewater discovers an interesting grandfather and a murder. By the author of Tobacco Sticks.

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