In his article “Presidential Farewell Addresses,” Gleaves Whitney notes that before Harry Truman only three presidents had composed formal farewell addresses to the nation. As Whitney tells us, three factors likely account for this circumstance. First, some of the early chief executives held George Washington and his farewell address in such esteem that they deemed…
Red Flags, Bright Hopes: Four Presidential Farewell Addresses
April 17, 2023
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American EssenceArts & CultureArts & TraditionBrightDwight D. EisenhowerHarry S. TrumanHistoryRonald Reagan
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Horace Mann Pioneers Change in the American Education System
Although Horace Mann grew up poor and without a solid means of education, he went on to become a pioneer that would change the way Americans received education for centuries to come. In fact, Mann was a lawyer, politician, and educator who had many beliefs and ideals that were well ahead of his time. His…
Book Review: ‘The Madman in the White House: Sigmund Freud, Ambassador Bullitt, and the Lost Psychobiography of Woodrow Wilson’
Woodrow Wilson was possibly the most consequential president of the 20th century. His presidency has alternatingly been praised and condemned throughout the century since he left office in 1921. Wilson has been looked upon through an almost bipolarized lens as a man of dignity, integrity, wisdom, brilliance, pride, condescension, unconstitutional perspective, and self-destruction. Woodrow Wilson…
Alexander Hamilton Helps the Nation Become a Major Economic Force
April 15, 2023
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"Father of American Capitalism"Alexander HamiltonAmerican EssenceArts & CultureBrightHistoryThe Federalist Papers
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Many people know Alexander Hamilton as the man whose face is on the 10-dollar bill, but many do not know why. Even though he was never a president like George Washington on the one-dollar bill or Abraham Lincoln on the five, Hamilton’s contributions in the nation’s early years earned him the nickname the “Father of…
Profiles in History: William Harlow Reed: Wyoming’s Fossil Hunter
April 15, 2023
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American EssenceArts & CultureBrightHistorypaleontologyUniversity of WyomingWilbur Clinton KnightWilliam Harlow Reed
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William Harlow Reed (1848–1915) was the eldest of 10 children born to Scottish parents. Born in Connecticut at the start of the California Gold Rush, he grew up hearing stories about western expansion, Indian fights, great discoveries of natural fortunes and fossils, and battles of the Civil War. He ran away from home several times…
The First Shot That Signaled the Birth of America’s Revolution
Summoned by riders from Boston—William Dawes, Samuel Prescott, and the more-renowned Paul Revere—in the early morning hours of April 19, 1775, a motley crew of armed farmers and shopkeepers gathered on Lexington Green to face hundreds of British regulars marching out from Boston. The British had come to confiscate or destroy the militia’s stores of…
How Rodgers and Hammerstein Ushered in Broadway’s Golden Age
April 13, 2023
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American EssenceArts & CultureBrightHistoryRodgers and Hammerstein musicalThe King and IThe Sound of Music
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On the evening of March 31, 1943, American musical theater entered its Golden Age. That was the night the curtain at Broadway’s St. James Theatre rose on an old woman churning butter and a cowboy praising the beauty of the morning. It was the night “Oklahoma!” proclaimed the arrival of composer Richard Rodgers and librettist/lyricist…
George Washington’s Dilemma: To Be Cato or Caesar
In August 1755, George Washington had been made commander in chief of Virginia’s colonial forces. A year later, however, the 25-year-old commander became incensed at being passed over for a royal commission. He was also bitter over the manner in which his fellow Virginians, those who had “behaved like men and died like soldiers,” had…
Book Review: ‘If a Poem Could Live and Breathe: A Novel of Teddy Roosevelt’s First Love’
Author of “Dear George, Dear Mary: A Novel of George Washington’s First Love,” Mary Calvi offers readers another fascinating fictional novel crafted from primary source material. “If a Poem Could Live and Breathe,” which was released earlier this year, is at once a historical novel and a romance novel centered on young Theodore Roosevelt and…
Alexis de Tocqueville: America’s Social and Political French Connection
On April 30, 1789, George Washington stood on a balcony in New York, his hand on the Bible. Before a large crowd at Federal Hall on Wall Street, he took the oath of office to be the nation’s first president under its new constitution. Less than three months later, the nation that practically assured America’s…
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