Westfield’s Patterson Library presents Jacob Ludes, A Thread in the Fabric: The Chautauqua-Erie Region to 1865.

A New History of Western New York
Jacob Ludes, III, a western New York native and internationally respected educator, has published a micro-history of America. The history recounts the full scope of American history from first people to 1865 through the lens of the Chautauqua-Erie Region of western New York State.

A Thread in the Fabric: The Chautauqua-Erie Region to 1865 is Ludes’s first book. In commenting on it he said: “America’s history is a colorful tapestry embroidered with threads representing many regions. Those individual threads are sometimes brilliant and sometimes dark. Because this American history focuses on a single thread in the fabric, that is the Chautauqua-Erie Region, it is a micro-history of the whole of America. The full sweep of American history is reflected in the development of this single thread. I hope that local historians throughout America take to the idea that their own local history is, in fact, the larger American story.”