Juniata County by Thomas Patterson

Juniata County by Thomas Patterson

Three children journey toward self-understanding and forgiveness in Juniata County, a chapbook collection of 18 poems that spans ninety years; World War I and the post-war era is a backdrop for the experiences many of the losses common to us all, throughout the collection; the setting, Juniata, Pennsylvaia, is an area rich in heritage with its Altoona railroad yards, back alleyways, summer porches, Valley of the Sesquehanna, Little Juniata River, Lakemont Amusement Park, and the Church of the Blessed Sacrament, which all weave through and around their childhood experiences.

Patterson is the Bradlee Professor of Government and the Press at John F. Kennedy School of Government. Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government He was previously a distinguished professor of political science at Syracuse University's Maxwell School of Citizenship. He was educated at South Dakota State University and the University of Minnesota, where he got his Ph.D., and grew up in a small Minnesota hamlet on the Iowa and South Dakota borders. Tom is the author of six books and dozens of articles on the media and elections. He is currently the director of the Vanishing Voter research at the Kennedy School of Government, which has been widely used in the media and on college campuses.

When President Bill Clinton declared that every politician and journalist should read his book, 'Out of Order,' it gained national notice. 'The Mass Media Election,' published in 1980, won a 'Choice' award for Best Academic Book, 1980-81. Another of Patterson's works, 'The Unseeing Eye' (1976), was recently named one of the fifty most influential books in the field of public opinion by the American Society for Public Opinion Research. A study of White House communication and a study of the function of the news media in Western democracies are among his ongoing projects.

Major funding from the National Science Foundation, the Markle Foundation, the Smith-Richardson Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the Pew Charitable Trusts have supported his research.