Footnotes To History
Not every memorable historic moment is on a grand scale. Here, a look at some of the bizarre, true sidelights that add sparkle to the larger picture.
February 1990 | Volume 41, Issue 1
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I like to think that had I been born in an earlier time, I would have been a great historical painter. I have a real gift for composing epic scenes, I enjoy rendering minute detail, and I would have had no moral conflicts about portraying people as handsomer than they really were. How I would have loved to paint the coronation of Napoleon, or an allegorical homage to the opening of the Erie Canal with joyous angels looking down from the heavens. Ah, well …
The truth is, the world no longer needs artists to record its momentous events. It has the camera. The camera does an adequate job, I suppose. It certainly produces pictures faster than an artist can—even an abstract expressionist needs more than a tenth of a second to complete a painting—but the camera has one serious limitation; it can only record what appears before its lens.
The creative artist, on the other hand, can reproduce anything he can imagine. His mind’s eye can see through brick walls and closed doors, and can even travel back through time. Of course, not every creative artist can conjure up the past convincingly. It takes someone with enthusiasm for pictorial research, biography, and history, and an understanding of the human psyche. It also takes someone who owns at least one book on How to Draw Hands.
I own three.
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.
