August/September 1980
Features
With astonishing tenacity, the people of the rich river-mouth region of the Mississippi have remained what and where they are through two and a half centuries
Americans first learned to read to save their souls, then to govern themselves. Now the need is not so clear.
It was fifty years ago that Bobby Jones won his Grand Slam, making him the only man who ever has—or probably ever will—conquer the “Impregnable Quadrilateral” of golf
“They tell me I have a beautiful boat,” said the challenger, Sir Thomas Lipton. “What I want is a boat to lift the Cup.”
It’s our most important, profitable, and adaptable crop—the true American staple. But where did it come from?
When The Great Earthquake struck New England, learned men blamed everything from God’s wrath to an overabundance of lightning rods in Boston. Two hundred and twenty-five years later, geologists are at last discovering the true causes.
When old James E. Taylor exercised his powers of near-total recall to set down memories of the Shenandoah campaign, he left us a unique record of a very new, very hazardous profession
Departments
A HERITAGE PRESERVED
AMERICAN CHARACTERS
Good Reading
LETTER FROM THE CHAIRMAN
POSTSCRIPTS
READERS’ ALBUM
American Heritage is proud to host the
National Portal to
Historic Collections
Recently added:
- American Revolution Center
- National Museum of Civil War Medicine
- National Museum of the U.S. Navy
- Manassas National Battlefield
- Maryland State House
In association with the
American Association for State and Local History
Why do we need a national nonprofit membership society for American history?
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“Save America’s Treasures” has been totally eliminated—the largest Federal program supporting preservation of such treasures as the original Star Spangled Banner and George Washington’s tent.
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65% of Americans don’t know what happened at the Constitutional Convention, according to a recent survey by Newsweek.
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The “Teaching American History” grants—the largest Federal program supporting history education—have been completely eliminated.
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Visits to the Top 20 Civil War battlefields have dropped in half from 1970 to 2009 according to official National Park Service statistics.
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40% of Americans can’t identify whom we fought in World War II, according to a recent survey by Newsweek.
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A quarter of Americans believe Congress shares power over U.S. foreign policy with the United Nations, according to a recent Annenberg survey.
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“There is little that is more important for an American citizen to know than the history and traditions of his country,” John F. Kennedy wrote in American Heritage.
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The “We the People Program,” which touched some 30 million students and 90,000 teachers over 25 years, has been completely eliminated.
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Two-thirds of Americans could not correctly name Yorktown as the last major military action of the American Revolution, according to a recent national Gallup survey.
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The National Heritage Areas and Scenic Byways program, the only major Federal program encouraging visits to historic places, has been completely eliminated in Congressional committee.
