Cyrus S. Eaton was born on December 27, 1883, in the quiet Nova Scotian village of Pugwash. He often visited Cleveland, Ohio, spending summer vacations from college with his uncle and was employed in 1905 by his first teacher, John D. Rockefeller Sr., as a clerk and troubleshooter for the East Ohio Gas company, one of the Midwest’s major utilities in which Rockefeller had an interest. Eaton became a U.S. citizen in 1913 and passed away at age ninety-five on May 9, 1979.

Robert Worth Bingham (1871-1937) rose to great heights as a newspaper publisher, political leader, and ambassador, but his life is surrounded by controversy to this day. Charges that he contributed to the death of his second wife, an heiress whose bequest of five million dollars helped purchase the Louisville Courier-Journal and Times, followed him to the grave. William E. Ellis’s Robert Worth Bingham and the Southern Mystique is an evenhanded, well-researched, and comprehensive biography of a controversial man. Ellis reveals Bingham’s strengths as well as his frailties, and he specifically refutes some of the charges made against Bingham.

Born in 1911 to an unconventional, free-spirited artist mother and an eminent paleontologist father, Margaret Matthew chose a career as an artist specializing in restorations of extinct animals. She began her career at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City drawing fossil bones, and there she met her husband, the noted paleontologist Edwin (Ned) Colbert. Charming the Bones portrays Margaret’s life as the wife of a famous man and the mother of five sons and, later in her life, as a respected restoration artist, illustrator, and sculptor.

Fighting the Unbeatable Foe is the first biography of Metzenbaum, a fascinating individual who, against the odds, rose from humble beginnings to become a multimillionaire businessman and one of the most effective and powerful senators in the land. By conducting interviews with Metzenbaum’s friends, foes, political scientists, and journalists and consulting primary-source materials, Tom Diemer provides new details about Metzenbaum’s business deals, his successes on Capitol Hill, and also his embarrassing failures and miscalculations. Metzenbaum remains among the most interesting and paradoxical figures in the history of Ohio politics. His story will be enjoyed by anyone interested in Ohio history and politics.

Nelson A. Miles began his military service as a volunteer officer in the Civil War. He later earned the appellation “the idol of the Indian fighters” and capped his controversial career by serving as Commanding General of the Army from 1895 to 1903. During his long and distinguished career, Miles made numerous enemies, including Theodore Roosevelt. Peter DeMontravel contends that the comments made by these enemies influenced the way historians have viewed Miles’s career. This reassessment of that career restores him to a degree of prominence.

Forbes Watson, art commentator for the New York Evening Post and New York World, was probably best known as the editor of The Arts, the liveliest and most influential art magazine of the 1920s. He quickly gained a reputation as an outspoken ally of progressive American artists and a caustic annihilator of those who got in their way. This charming, confrontational connoisseur, with a knack for offending officialdom, captivated readers and attracted loyal adherents. This same anti-authority streak cost him position after position, however, and ultimately blurred his historical legacy. But Watson’s ideas were important and his life was interesting, making him a fascinating subject for this interpretive biography.

Charles Doolittle Walcott (1850-1927) is a highly respected figure in the history of geology and paleontology. Perhaps his most notable contribution to his field was his discovery of the Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale, one of the most important fossil discoveries ever made. In addition to his distinguished field work, Walcott’s career included years of service as an administrative leader in the scientific community: as director of the U.S. Geological Survey, as secretary of the Smithsonian Institute, as organizer of the National Space and Aeronautics Administration, as a founding member of the National Academy of Sciences.

“The Civil War was a crucial experience in shaping the character and political life of William McKinley. In this engrossing and well-researched study, William H. Armstrong provides the most thorough treatment of McKinley’s military career and shows how his wartime record influenced his emergence as the first modern president. Armstrong is balanced and fair-minded, and his work should become the definitive account of the Civil War years of an important figure of the Gilded Age.” —Lewis L. Gould, author of The Presidency of William McKinley

During his term, which ran from his inauguration in January 1959 to January 1963, when Republican James Rhodes replaced him, DiSalle passed sorely needed tax increases, but he was less successful in his attempts to pique the conscience of Ohioans on social issues such as the poor conditions in state mental hospitals and the abolishment of capital punishment. His tours of the state’s dismal mental institutions were widely publicized, but the public showed little interest in the details concerning the warehousing of the state’s most-neglected wards. His agonizing over death-penalty cases that he was legally obligated to review alienated many in the legal and law enforcement communities.

Women’s studies has been inclined, unintentionally, to create a new elite. Historians have preferred to emphasize progress, particularly when created by women themselves, and biographers have chosen strong, successful women. But the vast majority of women were not activists. Susan Clay Sawitzky’s life shows that tradition and modernity can and did exist simultaneously, creating tremendous complexity in the lives of individuals. Her experiences suggest that compromise may result as much from fatigue as from lack of desire or courage.