Mark Kelley – författare

Lydia Hamilton Smith (1813–1884) was a prominent African American businesswoman in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and the longtime housekeeper, life companion, and collaborator of the state’s abolitionist congressman Thaddeus Stevens. In his biography of this remarkable woman, Mark Kelley reveals how Smith served the cause of abolition, managed Stevens’s household, acquired property, and crossed racialized social boundaries.Born a free woman near Gettysburg, Smith began working for Stevens in 1844. Her relationship with Stevens fascinated and infuriated many, and it made Smith a highly recognizable figure both locally and nationally. The two walked side by side in Lancaster and in Washington, DC, as they worked to secure the rights of African Americans, sheltered people on the Underground Railroad, managed two households, raised her sons and his nephews, and built a real-estate business. In the last years of Stevens’s life, as his declining health threatened to short-circuit his work, Smith risked her own well-being to keep him alive while he led the drive to end slavery, impeach Andrew Johnson, and push for the ratification of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments.An Uncommon Woman is a vital history that accords Lydia Hamilton Smith the recognition that she deserves. Every American should know Smith’s inspiring story.

Long before he left the television news industry, Mark Kelley was concerned about the trends he saw developing in the business. Commercial pressures (exacerbated by the relentless meddling of consultants) were making it increasingly difficult for professional news workers to do a competent job of delivering important information to readers, listeners, and viewers. He conceived the notion of writing a book that analyzed all news media, connecting it to the quest for truth that drives people of faith and spirituality.Engaging News Media explores the state of the news media and their audiences today, attempting to examine whether or not truth could be found there, and if so, how people of faith and people in general might be more successful in extracting it.