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August 2017

We can feel significant satisfaction in the quality of historical scholarship being published today, considering the seven books nominated for this year's George Washington Book Prize. Each of the seven in its own way is an important contribution to the large body of writing about the Founding Era. And a pleasure to read!

By arrangement with the organizers of the Prize, we have created a special issue of American Heritage with excerpts from each of the seven finalists, enabling us to create an impressive  lineup of essays.

The George Washington Book Prize is one of the nation’s largest and most prestigious literary awards. Now in its tenth year, the $50,000 prize honors our First President by recognizing the year’s best new books on early American history. The Prize is administered by Mount Vernon, the Gilder Lehrman Institute, and the C.V. Starr Center at Washington College.

Skookum jim
A Tagish Indian known as Skookum Jim Mason discovered gold in the Klondike in 1896.

Before August 17, 1896, Americans had little interest in Alaska, a far off “district”—not even a territory—full of wolves and ice and forests. That attitude started to change 121 years ago today, when a Tagish Indian known as Skookum Jim spotted something shimmering among the stones in a creek near the Yukon River. The Klondike Gold Rush began as soon as news of the discovery reached the states, and between 1897 and 1899 1 in every 700 Americans abandoned home and set out for the “Golden River.”

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The James Minano Cabin in Yukon was photogrpahed for the 1933 Historic Buildings Survey. Library of Congress.
The remains of the James Minano Cabin in the Yukon was photographed for the 1933 Historic Buildings Survey. Library of Congress.

 

Chin Lee Menu from the 1940s.
A 1940s menu from Chin Lee Restaurant in New York.

It’s winter of 1939 and the big, bamboo-style letters on the sides of a building at Broadway and 49th Street blaze forth the name “CHIN LEE” late into the night. Around them, the words “DINING,” “DANCING” and “NO COVER CHARGE” are spelled out by blinking yellow bulbs. The entrance is on 49th Street, under a movie-theater-style awning that lures you up a brightly-lit flight of stairs to a coat check, a crowd of people milling about and the clatter of plates and the noise of a frantic jazz band.

Today, Arthur Clarke is remembered as a writer of science fiction and the screenplay for the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey. But Clarke was also a serious futurist and one of the first writers to suggest that rockets could be used for communication, not just military purposes.

In the 1962 essay reprinted below, Clarke made extraordinary predictions about the coming communications revolution.
In the 1962 essay reprinted below, Clarke made extraordinary predictions about the coming communications revolution.

We hope you enjoy our work.

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