W. David Lewis – författare

A significant chapter in the history of American social reform is traced in this skillful account of the rise of the New York penitentiary system at a time when the United States was garnering international acclaim for its penal methods. Beginning with Newgate, an ill-fated institution built in New York City and named after the famous British prison, W. David Lewis describes the development of such well-known institutions as Auburn Prison and Sing Sing, and ends with the establishment of Clinton Prison at Dannemora. In the process, he analyzes the activities and motives of such penal reformers as Thomas Eddy, the Quaker merchant who was chiefly responsible for the founding of the penitentiary system in New York; Elam Lynds, whose unsparing use of the lash made him one of the most famous wardens in American history; and Eliza W. Farnham, who attempted to base the treatment of convicts upon the pseudoscience of phrenology.The history of the Auburn penal system—copied throughout the world in the nineteenth century—is the central topic of Lewis's study. Harsh and repressive discipline was the rule at Auburn; by night, the inmates were kept in solitary confinement and by day they were compelled to maintain absolute silence while working together in penitentiary shops. Moreover, the proceeds of their labor were expected to cover the full cost of institutional maintenance, turning the prison into a factory. (Indeed, Auburn Prison became a leading center of silk manufacture for a time.)Lewis shows how the rise and decline of the Auburn system reflected broad social and intellectual trends during the period. Conceived in the 1820s, a time of considerable public anxiety, the methods used at Auburn were seriously challenged twenty years later, when a feeling of social optimism was in the air. The Auburn system survived the challenge, however, and its methods, only slightly modified, continued to be used in dealing with most of the state's adult criminals to the end of the century.First published in 1965, From Newgate to Dannemora was the first in-depth treatment of American prison reform that took into account the broader context of political, economic, and cultural trends in the early national and Jacksonian period. With its clear prose and appealing narrative approach, this paperback edition will appeal to a new generation of readers interested in penology, the history of New York State, and the broader history of American social reform.

This pathbreaking book tells the dramatic story of a unique manufacturing complex and the city that it helped to create. The events recounted and  interpreted by W. David Lewis are of more than local or regional significance. The rise of Sloss furnaces and Birmingham epitomized the emergence of the United States as the world''s foremost economic power.  Similarly, the closing of a once-profitable ironmaking installation amid social and technological changes that convulsed Birmingham nine decades after the city''s founding typified challenges that were facing America at the dawn of the postindustrial age.   Above all,  Sloss Furnaces resonates with the class of competition and the frenetic energy with which southerners joined other Americans in a rush to transform a continent after a fratricidal drive for independence had failed. The sweeping narrative that Lewis has produced amply justifies its subtitle, An Industrial Epic.

Beginning in the 1920s as a lowly crop-dusting operation in Louisiana, Delta Air Lines had, by its fiftieth anniversary, down to become one of the largest companies in the industry and one of the most consistently profitable. First published in 1979, this is a comprehensive account of the growth and development of Delta’s strategy and style, the steady expansion of its routes, its relationship with federal regulatory agencies, and the everchanging composition of its fleet. Because the underlying spirit of the Delta enterprise owed so much to its founder, C.E. Woolman, this is also an engaging portrait of the man who came to be classed alongside Eastern’s Eddie Rickenbacker and Pan American’s Juan Trippe as a pioneer of commercial aviation.

This book chronicles the history of All American Aviation of western Pennsylvania, a commercial airline pioneer. The brainchild of self-styled inventor Dr. Lytle S. Adams and Richard C. du Pont, the company began as an airmail delivery carrier, taking advantage of the Experimental Air Mail Act passed by Congress in 1938. The Airway to Everywhere relates the exciting early days of airmail delivery—hair-raising tales of courageous pilots who scooped mail bags tethered to wires strung between poles on makeshift airfields. The story of this airline is placed within the context a typical twentieth-century American business pattern-where technological innovation is followed by development and commercial application, followed by government subsidies and corporate takeovers. In that vein, All American Aviation would become Allegheny Airlines, and later, U.S. Air.

Eddie Rickenbacker epitomized the American spirit in the twentieth century. Daring, skilled, and rugged-moving fast and defying death-he drove race cars in the early days of the automobile, then flew canvas-over-wooden-frame aeroplanes in the Great War, downing twenty-six enemy flyers and emerging at war's end as the nation's ace of aces. Only Gen. John J. "Black Jack" Pershing and the much-decorated Sgt. Alvin York emerged from that struggle as equally lauded American heroes. Failing as an automobile maker after the war, Rickenbacker returned to aviation, joined Eastern Airlines in 1934, and quickly reached the top of the corporate ladder. With the start of World War II, he took on special missions to theaters of combat, surviving twenty-one days adrift on a small rubber raft after his plane went down at sea. But the seemingly indestructible Eddie did not thrive well under the new competitive conditions in the postwar airline industry. Despite having built Eastern into a major carrier, he departed the company under pressure in 1963. W. David Lewis's biography of Rickenbacker reveals both the achievements and the vulnerability of this quintessential American hero.Rickenbacker embodied what was new, exciting, and romantic about the country in the postwar years. His poignant story also sheds light on the ephemerality of American success and the fragility of celebrity. Capturing Rickenbacker's life in rich and vivid detail, W. David Lewis has written the definitive biography of America's ace of aces.