Washoe County Library System

“Simmons’s evocative account of her remarkable trajectory from Jim Crow Texas, where she was the youngest of twelve children in a sharecropping family, to the presidencies of Smith College and Brown University shines with tenderness and dignity.”&#٬٢٠١٤؛The New York Times Book Review (Editors’ Choice) “A riveting work of literature, destined to take its place in the canon of great African American autobiographies.”&#٬٢٠١٤؛Henry...

The former second lady describes her marriage to Joe Biden and the role of politics in her life and teaching career, sharing intimate insights into the traditions, resilience, and love that have helped her family establish balance and endure tragedy.

A portrait of the man who wrote the first U.S. dictionary traces his youth as a bookish Connecticut farm boy and his twenty-year effort to write the all-American dictionary that was published in 1828 when he was seventy years old.

A brief biography of the man who was born a slave and worked in salt mines as a youth but went on to become a national leader for the education of African-Americans and founder of Tuskegee Institute.

"In this inspiring memoir, Curry tells her story for the first time, beginning with her childhood in rural Virginia and moving through the peaks and valleys of an incredible life--from raising her immensely gifted but sometimes headstrong children, to becoming an educator and founding a Montessori school, to discovering a profound, life sustaining connection to God and faith"--

"A picture book biography of Noah Webster"--

A portrait of the wartime scientist, Harvard University president and presidential advisor, written by his granddaughter, places his life against a backdrop of key historical events to offer particular insights into his oversight of the Manhattan Project and subsequent campaigns in support of atomic weapon control at the international level.

"Noah Webster may be best remembered the enormous and ambitious task of writing his famous dictionary, but for him, this accomplishment was a means to an end. His true goal was to streamline the language spoken in our newly formed country so that it could be used as a force to bring people together and be a source of national pride. Though people laughed at his ideas, Webster never doubted himself. In the end, his so-called foolish notions achieved...

Learn how a slave became one of the leading influential African American intellectuals of the late 19th century. African American educator, author, speaker, and advisor to presidents of the United States, Booker Taliaferro Washington was the leading voice of former slaves and their descendants during the late 1800s. As part of the last generation of leaders born into slavery, Booker believed that blacks could better progress in society through education...