Trusted Writing on History, Travel, and American Culture Since 1949
SEARCH 75 YEARS OF ESSAYS!
Culture
A longtime contributor and former editor introduces the special anniversary issue.
READERS, I HAVE THE honor of introducing this birthday banquet of essays on critical moments in our nation's story by some of its ablest current thinkers. I even get to follow on the distinguished heels of President John F.
In June, Baltimore’s Sailabration kicked off the War of 1812 commemoration (see page 10). What a defining moment it was 200 years ago when our our tiny democracy was threatened by the world’s most powerful army and navy, hardened by 20 years of global warfare.
Andrew Wyeth reflects on his father, the artist N. C. Wyeth.
From "N.C", by Andrew Wyeth
From very personal experience, I can tell you it’s tough to sail against winds of change in publishing and the difficult economic times of recent years.
1812: The Navy's War
By George C. Daughan
1812: The Navy's War
By George C. Daughan
A New York Public Library program asks the public to help transcribe 10,000 historic menus.
TO READ THE MAY 13, 1900 dinner menu at Rector’s, the midtown-New York lobster house, is to engage in a little virtual hedonism: the fare includes 57 cuts of meat, 24 oyster dishes, 16 variations of lobster, and five kinds of duck.
America's oldest recorded music goes online at a new Library of Congress website.
This May, the Library of Congress started streaming some of America’s oldest recorded music on its new National Jukebox website, which features more than 10,000 audio tracks produced by the Victor Talking Machine Company between 1901 and 1925.
A Lincoln-commissioned naval hospital opens its doors in its newest reincarnation as a vibrant community center.
IN 1864, THE SAME YEAR that Congress mandated funds for Arlington Cemetery, Abraham Lincoln commissioned $25,000 for construction of Washington, D.C.’s first naval hospital, just blocks from the Capitol.
We are delighted to welcome an old friend back into our pages.
The business of forging George Washington’s signature and correspondence to sell to unwitting buyers goes back 150 years.
As the editor of the papers of George Washington at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, I have the privilege of meeting with many people who come bearing documents supposedly signed by the first president.
American artist Augustus Saint-Gaudens finds inspiration in France to create one of America’s most iconic sculptures, a memorial to the Civil War hero Admiral David Farragut.
“I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of the president of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.
St. Louis's Washington University has discovered that it owns a trove of the third president's books.
Recently, while conducting some routine internet research for her biography on a granddaughter of Thomas Jefferson, historian Ann Lucas Birle stumbled upon an obscure but intriguing reference: an 1880 bequest recorded that St.
Long-lost American silent films have been found in Russian archives.
In a masterstroke of cultural diplomacy this past October, the Russian-American Working Group on Library Cooperation engineered an exchange of rare films between the Library of Congress and Gosfilmofond, the Russian state film archive in Moscow.
The Floor of Heaven: A True Tale of the Last Frontier and the Yukon Gold RushBy Howard Blum
The Floor of Heaven: A True Tale of the Last Frontier and the Yukon Gold RushBy Howard Blum
The Floor of Heaven: A True Tale of the Last Frontier and the Yukon Gold RushBy Howard Blum
Young, naive, and irrepressible, a turn-of-the-20th-century Iowa teacher documented her coming-of-age in letters home.
In these letters, we encounter 18-year-old Elizabeth “Bess” Corey, a plucky school teacher in rural Tennant, Iowa, at the turn of the 20th century.
Strict codes of conduct marked the relationships of early American politicians, often leading to duels, brawls, and other—sometimes fatal—violence.
Fur, Fortune and Empire: The Epic History of the Fur Trade in America
by Eric Jay Dolin
Fur, Fortune and Empire: The Epic History of the Fur Trade in America
by Eric Jay Dolin
A two-part traveling exhibit, “Discovering the Civil War,” which opened at the end of April in Washington, D.C., offers visitors a peek into the National Archives’ 160 million war-related documents, the most comprehensive collection in the nation.
Amidst the frenetic events leading up to the Civil War, the 16th president took a moment to write a letter, now on display, to a young student named George Patten.
The great American wit, who died 100 years ago, patented a history board game.
“Many public-school children seem to know only two dates—1492 and 4th of July; and as a rule they don’t know what happened on either occasion,” lamented American writer and wit Samuel L. Clemens (alias Mark Twain), whose star went out 100 years ago this April.
Plain, Honest Men: The Making of the American Constitution
by Richard Beeman
(Random House)
Regarding the painting Washington and “Friends”
1. Martin Luther King Jr.
In 1962, the president wrote for American Heritage that the study of history is no mere pastime, but the means by which a nation establishes its sense of identity and purpose.
Producer Thomas Allen Harris is launching a web initiative that seeks to digitize, archive, and interpret thousands of African-American photographs that have, until now, been hidden in attics and shoeboxes.
Family photographs have long played an important role in accessing the past—and now an innovative web-based multi-media project has started archiving thousands of African-American family photos in an attempt to explore lives and history through this uniquely intimate lens.
For the first time in a long time, the 58-year-old American Heritage Archives and History Library are under one roof in our new offices.