An Ellis Island portraitist dignifies the transition from huddled masses to U.S. citizens. They boarded the great ships that took them from their homes, and they left forever their cultures and contexts, their sense of themselves as weft of a social fabric. It was this, the richness of what people left behind when they set …
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The new French stove is installed. The dumbwaiters are operational. Housemade cider, beer and French wine fill the cellar at Monticello in anticipation of Thomas Jefferson’s homecoming. After serving two terms as president, Jefferson is ready to retire from public life for good. “Never did a prisoner, released from his chains, feel such relief as …
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Let’s put this as charitably as possible and simply say that Lyndon Baines Johnson was comfortable with his body. The 36th president of the United States wasn’t shy about belching or breaking wind audibly. He sometimes summoned his aides to talk while perched on the commode. He famously yanked up his shirt to show photographers …
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Edward L. Ayers, the president of the University of Richmond, has written 10 books about the Civil War, the South and American history. He also co-hosts the public radio program Backstory. Ayers advocates linking commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the Civil War to the end of slavery and argues that America should acknowledge the …
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The bald, big-eared, bucktoothed Yellow Kid took a swipe at the hard-knock life in Gilded Age New York for the working-class readers of Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World. Creator R.F. Outcault introduced the Kid, aka Mickey Dugan, to the World on February 17, 1895, and the imp in the bright yellow nightshirt led eager fans …
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Most congressional elections simply tweak the House of Representatives, shifting a few seats in toss-up districts, but every so often a partisan or generational shift occurs that produces a brand new thing. The 112th Congress that took office this January is the latest example: It has a large new Republican majority (49 seats) and an …
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Ike’s Military-Industrial Complex Speech Deconstructed Dwight Eisenhower’s military prowess made him a war hero and a president. But on January 17, 1961, three days before he left the White House, Eisenhower told the American public, in a televised address, to “guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.” …
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