October/november 1985
Features
The Wyoming photographer Joseph Stimson proudly portrayed his region in the years when it was emerging from rude frontier beginnings
A brilliant demagogue named Huey Long was scrambling for the Presidency when an assassin’s bullets cut him down just fifty years ago
A former Marine recalls the grim defense of Guadalcanal in 1942
At a time when our civilization is trying to organize itself on scientific principles of mathematical probabilities, statistical modeling, and the like, is traditional narrative history of any real use? Yes, says a distinguished practitioner of the discipline; it can always help us. It might even save us.
John White Alexander began his career as an office boy at Harper’s Weekly and rose to be a leading painter of his generation, especially of its women
He re-created with perfect pitch every tone of voice, every creak and rattle of an America that was disintegrating even as it gave birth to the country we inhabit today
It didn’t just change the way we buy our groceries. It changed the way we live our lives.
A leader in the emerging field of technological history speaks about the inventors who made our modern world and tells why it is vital for us to know not only what they did, but how they thought
Departments
CORRESPONDENCE
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
MATTERS OF FACT
POSTSCRIPTS TO HISTORY
READERS’ ALBUM
THE BUSINESS OF AMERICA
THE TIME MACHINE
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?
-
“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.
-
65% of Americans don’t know what happened at the Constitutional Convention, according to a recent survey by Newsweek.
-
The “Teaching American History” grants—the largest Federal program supporting history education—have been completely eliminated.
-
Visits to the Top 20 Civil War battlefields have dropped in half from 1970 to 2009 according to official National Park Service statistics.
-
40% of Americans can’t identify whom we fought in World War II, according to a recent survey by Newsweek.
-
A quarter of Americans believe Congress shares power over U.S. foreign policy with the United Nations, according to a recent Annenberg survey.
-
“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.
-
The “We the People Program,” which touched some 30 million students and 90,000 teachers over 25 years, has been completely eliminated.
-
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.
-
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.
