Category: American History
Guest post by Marc Ferris The story of how The Star-Spangled Banner became America's national anthem and what took Congress so long to designate it as such is a fascinating tale that reflects the give and take between the rulers and their subjects over national symbols, the symbiotic relationship between patriotism and religion, and the song’s…
From the Preface to the forthcoming Renegade Amish: Beard Cutting, Hate Crimes, and the Trial of the Bergholz Barbers: Amish. Hate. Crimes. These three words suddenly linked arms in the fall of 2011 when a string of beard-cutting attacks startled the Amish community in eastern Ohio. The fact that the perpetrators were Amish generated an…
From the Preface to the forthcoming Renegade Amish: Beard Cutting, Hate Crimes, and the Trial of the Bergholz Barbers: Amish. Hate. Crimes. These three words suddenly linked arms in the fall of 2011 when a string of beard-cutting attacks startled the Amish community in eastern Ohio. The fact that the perpetrators were Amish generated an…
Guest post by Ralph Eshelman and Burt Kummerow On June 14, 1777, the Continental Congress approved the design of a national flag. Since 1916, when President Woodrow Wilson issued a presidential proclamation establishing a national Flag Day on June 14, Americans have commemorated the adoption of the Stars and Stripes by celebrating June 14 as…
Guest post by Ralph Eshelman and Burt Kummerow On June 14, 1777, the Continental Congress approved the design of a national flag. Since 1916, when President Woodrow Wilson issued a presidential proclamation establishing a national Flag Day on June 14, Americans have commemorated the adoption of the Stars and Stripes by celebrating June 14 as…
Guest Post by Michael C. C. Adams Before Gettysburg and Vicksburg, we had Cincinnati and, more especially, Sharpsburg, Maryland. The repulse of Robert E. Lee at Gettysburg and the fall of Vicksburg to Ulysses S. Grant in early July 1863 are often seen as marking the high tide of the Confederacy. Yet any real hope…
By Robert J. Brugger It will be a great pleasure to welcome members of the Society of Civil War Historians to Baltimore, scene of so many events leading up to the sectional conflict and such deep division during and after the war itself. William Lloyd Garrison stood trial here for supposedly defaming the character of…
Guest post by Mame Warren Reading other people’s mail, particularly when one of the correspondents is George C. Marshall, provides an absorbing opportunity to delve into stories behind the official history. One of the towering figures of the twentieth century, Marshall helped orchestrate the Allied victory in World War II as chief of staff of…
Guest Post by Robert C. Post This year, 2014, marks the golden anniversary of the National Museum of American History, a familiar presence that has changed somewhat since 1964. After 9/11, the driveway curving in from Constitution Avenue was blockaded; a cabbie can no longer drive you up to the door. Also, the museum has a different…
Guest post by David Curtis Skaggs On May 11, 1814 the most successful US Army general so far in the War of 1812 tendered his resignation in a dispute with the secretary of the army. The man many expected to become commander of the misled, disorganized, and unsuccessful soldiers on the Lake Ontario-St. Lawrence River…