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Genealogy Continued

March 2023
1min read

Genealogy can be a powerful enlivener of history, and not only for grown-ups. Children love family stories, and if they know that Grandfather was a carrier flier in the Pacific or that Grandmother’s grandparents had the first car in their neighborhood, they will absorb a personal sense of the past that will make history classes more exciting.

Even as a small boy I knew that I was descended from the Mayflower’s John Rowland, which puts me one up on your Judson Hale, who only wishes he were. I can still remember the thrill of reading Bradford’s history about Howland’s falling overboard and wondering, “Where would I be if he hadn’t been rescued?”

I knew about Quaker ancestors on Nantucket and in Pennsylvania and their migration south and to the Midwest. And I knew that my grandfathers had fought, one for the North and one for the South, in the Civil War, which made that war more vivid—though they were both most uncommunicative about it!

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Stories published from "February/March 1983"

Authored by: Alfred Kazin

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Authored by: James P. Johnson

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Authored by: The Editors

An all-but-forgotten San Francisco photographer has left us a grand and terrible record of the destruction and rebirth of an American city

Authored by: Richard C. Wade

A noted historian argues that television, a relative newcomer, has nearly destroyed old—and valuable—political traditions

Authored by: Edward Sorel

The decline and fall of the lamppost

Authored by: Harold Holzer

…so Lincoln joked. Actually he was eager to pose for portraits.

Authored by: Warren P. Trimm

To get started as a prairie homesteader in the 1870s you needed uncommon reserves of strength, sanity, courage, and luck. Trimm had the first three.

Authored by: Lois Dinnerstein

As painting became a respectable profession in America, artists began to celebrate their workplaces

Fifty years ago this March, Roosevelt took the oath of office and inaugurated this century’s most profound national changes. One who was there recalls the President’s unique blend of ebullience and toughness.

Authored by: Jacques Barzun

One of America s truly great men—scientist, philosopher, and literary genius—forged his character in the throes of adversity

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