Ellen Feldman
Ellen Feldman is an author, historian, and 2009 Guggenheim Fellow who has written three books: Scottsboro, The Boy Who Loved Anne Frank, and Lucy. Feldman frequently writes for The Huffington Post and American Heritage, and has lectured across the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany.
Articles by this Contributor
July/August 2000
For centuries the Newport rich have been commissioning portraits of themselves—and sometimes getting a surprise when they see the results
November 2000
It has been with us since Plymouth Colony. But that’s not why it’s an American institution.
October 2001
From its birth in pagan transactions with the dead to the current marketing push to make it a “seasonal experience,” America’s fastest-growing holiday has a history far older (and far stranger) than does Christmas itself
March 2003
A novelist who has just spent several years with them tells a moving story of love: public and private, given and withheld
February/March 2004
Cosmetic surgery was born 2,500 years ago and came of age in the inferno of the Western Front. The controversy about it is still growing.
February/March 2005
When the single most famous document to come out of the Holocaust was published in America half a century ago, it caused a sensation that made and ruined reputations and ignited furious arguments that resonate today

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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.




