Our American Heritage 

By S.K. Stevens, President, AASLH

Our American heritage of freedom, with its emphasis upon tolerance, with its opportunity to achieve the utmost liberty of thought and action consistent with the good of all, with its “government of the people, by the people, for the people” is our most precious possession. 

I believe we are at long last appreciative of the fact that it is worth more to us than all the gold at Fort Knox, or the wealth represented in all our bank deposits and the value of our products of farms, mines, and factories. If our freedom is ever lost, all of these material things would mean little.

The most of us are likewise conscious today that this heritage of freedom could be lost to us in the future. Our way of life is threatened by other concepts of society and government which rest essentially upon the denial of our ideals of individual liberty. We believe in law and in order, as applied to the control of our society, our economy, and our political life. But we cannot accept totalitarianism which strangles the freedom of the individual to achieve and to exercise his basic liberties. That is the real difference between the American way of life and all the “isms” which exist elsewhere.

What is needed in America today is a new appreciation and understanding of our American heritage and its advantages over the ways of totalitarianism and dictatorship. This understanding must rest upon a greater diffusion of popular knowledge about the historic roots of our national progress and development. The best place to begin is at home; for local history is truly living history, close to the experience of our people. A deeper loyalty to our institutions and our way of life must rest upon a firm bedrock of love of our home communities, and the translation of our national ideals and aspirations into individual and community experience and history.

AMERICAN HERITAGE is launched at this time by the American Association for State and Local History in the firm hope that it can contribute something to this objective. Within these pages we hope to interpret all of the richness and the fullness of the heritage that is ours. This we shall attempt in terms of historic events, personalities, expressions of our folkways in art, lore, and song, the triumphs of enterprise in business, the genius of our people in science and invention, and other manifestations of the American spirit.

We believe that the American heritage has these local roots — deep and wide spreading like the patriarchal tree’s. It is there we shall find the great stories of achievement in building America which can stir the people to an appreciation of the precious nature of that heritage. We expect to tell also the story of the historical societies, the museums, and the libraries which are the conservators of the record of our heritage throughout this fair land.

AMERICAN HERITAGE is not just another historical quarterly. It will be devoted to the history of this country and our neighbor, Canada. It expects to interpret history in broadest terms of the full range of our culture and way of life. It intends to roam from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from the Mexican border into Canada in search of stories which can bring home to the people the range of achievement which has created lands of freedom and enterprise where men can still work, think, write, speak, and worship without fear of arbitrary restraint. It will bring news of books, of motion pictures, articles, happenings, and achievement in the world of historical endeavor in keeping with the interpretation of our heritage to our readers. Its audience will be the American people, as well as their educators and historians. We hope we can aid in the great task of bringing history to the people as a foundation for a stronger Americanism.

S. K. STEVENS, Pres. AAS&LH