Winter 2011
Features
Most associate Ronald Reagan with California, but he spent his formative years in the midwest. On the centennial of his birth, a handful of small Illinois towns want a share of the limelight.
A junior Army officer, acting on secret orders from the president, bluffed a far stronger Mexican force into conceding North America's westernmost province to the United States
On a 1947 trip up north with his son, Ansel Adams took a remarkable photograph that brought Alaska's grandeur to the American public on a large scale for the first time
A preeminent author reports on his experience as one of America's first combat historians, among a handful of men who accompanied soldiers into the bloodiest battles to write history as it was being made
Civil War Chronicles
South Carolina severed ties with the Union not out of concern for states' rights but because of slavery
Departments
Book Reviews
Editor’s Letter
History News
Letters to the Editor
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.
