Download or read book Independence Hall in American Memory written by Charlene Mires and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2015-11-04 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Independence Hall is a place Americans think they know well. Within its walls the Continental Congress declared independence in 1776, and in 1787 the Founding Fathers drafted the U.S. Constitution there. Painstakingly restored to evoke these momentous events, the building appears to have passed through time unscathed, from the heady days of the American Revolution to today. But Independence Hall is more than a symbol of the young nation. Beyond this, according to Charlene Mires, it has a long and varied history of changing uses in an urban environment, almost all of which have been forgotten. In Independence Hall, Mires rediscovers and chronicles the lost history of Independence Hall, in the process exploring the shifting perceptions of this most important building in America's popular imagination. According to Mires, the significance of Independence Hall cannot be fully appreciated without assessing the full range of political, cultural, and social history that has swirled about it for nearly three centuries. During its existence, it has functioned as a civic and cultural center, a political arena and courtroom, and a magnet for public celebrations and demonstrations. Artists such as Thomas Sully frequented Independence Square when Philadelphia served as the nation's capital during the 1790s, and portraitist Charles Willson Peale merged the arts, sciences, and public interest when he transformed a portion of the hall into a center for natural science in 1802. In the 1850s, hearings for accused fugitive slaves who faced the loss of freedom were held, ironically, in this famous birthplace of American independence. Over the years Philadelphians have used the old state house and its public square in a multitude of ways that have transformed it into an arena of conflict: labor grievances have echoed regularly in Independence Square since the 1830s, while civil rights protesters exercised their right to free speech in the turbulent 1960s. As much as the Founding Fathers, these people and events illuminate the building's significance as a cultural symbol.
Download or read book Myths of the Rune Stone written by David M. Krueger and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 2015-10-01 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What do our myths say about us? Why do we choose to believe stories that have been disproven? David M. Krueger takes an in-depth look at a legend that held tremendous power in one corner of Minnesota, helping to define both a community’s and a state’s identity for decades. In 1898, a Swedish immigrant farmer claimed to have discovered a large rock with writing carved into its surface in a field near Kensington, Minnesota. The writing told a North American origin story, predating Christopher Columbus’s exploration, in which Viking missionaries reached what is now Minnesota in 1362 only to be massacred by Indians. The tale’s credibility was quickly challenged and ultimately undermined by experts, but the myth took hold. Faith in the authenticity of the Kensington Rune Stone was a crucial part of the local Nordic identity. Accepted and proclaimed as truth, the story of the Rune Stone recast Native Americans as villains. The community used the account as the basis for civic celebrations for years, and advocates for the stone continue to promote its validity despite the overwhelming evidence that it was a hoax. Krueger puts this stubborn conviction in context and shows how confidence in the legitimacy of the stone has deep implications for a wide variety of Minnesotans who embraced it, including Scandinavian immigrants, Catholics, small-town boosters, and those who desired to commemorate the white settlers who died in the Dakota War of 1862. Krueger demonstrates how the resilient belief in the Rune Stone is a form of civil religion, with aspects that defy logic but illustrate how communities characterize themselves. He reveals something unique about America’s preoccupation with divine right and its troubled way of coming to terms with the history of the continent’s first residents. By considering who is included, who is left out, and how heroes and villains are created in the stories we tell about the past, Myths of the Rune Stone offers an enlightening perspective on not just Minnesota but the United States as well.
Download or read book Remembering the Revolution written by Michael A. McDonnell and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How conflicting memories of the nation's origins shaped the political culture of the early American republic
Download or read book Confederates in the Attic written by Tony Horwitz and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2010-08-18 with total page 425 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A Pulitzer Prize-winning war correspondent takes us on an explosive adventure into the soul of the unvanquished South, where Civil War reenactors, battlefield visitors, and fans of history resurrect the ghosts of the Lost Cause through ritual and remembrance. "The freshest book about divisiveness in America that I have read in some time. This splendid commemoration of the war and its legacy ... is an eyes–open, humorously no–nonsense survey of complicated Americans." —The New York Times Book Review For all who remain intrigued by the legacy of the Civil War—reenactors, battlefield visitors, Confederate descendants and other Southerners, history fans, students of current racial conflicts, and more—this ten-state adventure is part travelogue, part social commentary and always good-humored. When prize-winning war correspondent Tony Horwitz leaves the battlefields of Bosnia and the Middle East for a peaceful corner of the Blue Ridge Mountains, he thinks he's put war zones behind him. But awakened one morning by the crackle of musket fire, Horwitz starts filing front-line dispatches again this time from a war close to home, and to his own heart. Propelled by his boyhood passion for the Civil War, Horwitz embarks on a search for places and people still held in thrall by America's greatest conflict. In Virginia, Horwitz joins a band of 'hardcore' reenactors who crash-diet to achieve the hollow-eyed look of starved Confederates; in Kentucky, he witnesses Klan rallies and calls for race war sparked by the killing of a white man who brandishes a rebel flag; at Andersonville, he finds that the prison's commander, executed as a war criminal, is now exalted as a martyr and hero; and in the book's climax, Horwitz takes a marathon trek from Antietam to Gettysburg to Appomattox in the company of Robert Lee Hodge, an eccentric pilgrim who dubs their odyssey the 'Civil Wargasm.' Written with Horwitz's signature blend of humor, history, and hard-nosed journalism, Confederates in the Attic brings alive old battlefields and the new 'classrooms, courts, country bars' where the past and the present collide, often in explosive ways.
Download or read book Independence written by Constance M. Greiff and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 1987 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Carefully researched and fully documented, Independence chronicles the history of the "cradle of liberty" that is Independence National Historical Park, the historical site most closely connected with the nation's founding. Constance M. Greiff illustrates how the park was shaped by national events and conditions in Philadelphia, change and growth within the National Park Service, and the interpersonal and political struggles among the key people involved in the park's development. She traces the process by which the participants arrived at the ideas underpinning the park's creation and development, conflicting views about the purpose and scope of the park, and the resolution of those conflicts.
Download or read book Forgotten Patriots written by Eric Grundset and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 880 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By offering a documented listing of names of African Americans and Native Americans who supported the cause of the American Revolution, we hope to inspire the interest of descendents in the efforts of their ancestors and in the work of the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution.
Download or read book Myth Memory and the Making of the American Landscape written by Paul A. Shackel and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Penetrating insight into the processes by which our collective historical memory is constructed. Through a range of case studies, the authors explore how and why certain landscapes and monuments are intentionally endowed with specific messages, why certain stories are obscured or forgotten, and how collective memories change over time." --James Delle, Franklin and Marshall College The authors in this collection show how the creation of a collective memory of highly visible objects and landscapes is an ongoing struggle, their meanings always being constructed, changed, and challenged. The sites and symbols the authors address are nationally recognized and include a balance of places that illuminate class, ethnic, racial, and historical experiences. Focusing on material culture, they explore the tensions that exist among various groups--elite landowners, the National Park Service, preservationists, minority groups--who compete for control over the interpretation of American public history. CONTENTS Foreword, by Edward T. Linenthal Introduction: The Making of the American Landscape, by Paul A. Shackel Part I: An Exclusionary Past, by Paul A. Shackel 1. Of Saints and Sinners: Mythic Landscapes of the Old and New South, by Audrey J. Horning 2. The Woman Movement: Memorial to Women's Rights Leaders and the Perceived Images of the Women's Movement, by Courtney Workman 3. The Third Battle of Manassas: Power, Identity, and the Forgotten African-American Past, by Erika K. Martin Seibert 4. Remembering a Japanese-American Concentration Camp at Manzanar National Historic Site, by Janice L. Dubel 5. Wounded Knee: The Conflict of Interpretation, by Gail Brown Part II: Commemoration and the Making of a Patriotic Past, by Paul A. Shackel 6. Freeze-Frame, September 17, 1862: A Preservation Battle at Antietam National Battlefield Park, by Martha Temkin 7. The Robert Gould Shaw Memorial: Redefining the Role of the Fifty-Fourth Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, by Paul A. Shackel 8. Buried in the Rose Garden: Levels of Meaning at Arlington National Cemetery and the Robert E. Lee Memorial, by Laurie Burgess Part III: Nostalgia and the Legitimation of American Heritage, by Paul A. Shackel 9. Authenticity, Legitimation, and Twentieth-Century Tourism: The John D. Rockefeller, Jr., Carriage Roads, Acadia National Park, Maine, by Matthew M. Palus 10. The Birthplace of a Chief: Archaeology and Meaning at George Washington Birthplace National Monument, by Joy Beasley 11. Nostalgia and Tourism: Camden Yards in Baltimore, by Erin Donovan 12. Abraham Lincoln's Birthplace Cabin: The Making of an American Icon, by Dwight T. Pitcaithley Paul A. Shackel, associate professor of anthropology at the University of Maryland, is the author of Archaeology and Created Memory: Public History in a National Park; Culture Change and the New Technology: An Archaeology of the Early American Industrial Era; and Personal Discipline and Material Culture: An Archaeology of Annapolis, Maryland, 1695-1870.
Download or read book The Fourth of July Story written by Alice Dalgliesh and published by Aladdin. This book was released on 1995-06-01 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An accessible story of America’s birthday brings alive the history and spirit of the Fourth of July, with an introduction to the fight for independence and the events and people that shaped American tradition. What happened on the Fourth of July long before there were fireworks and parades? Alice Dalgliesh takes young readers back to revolutionary times, back to the colonists’ desire for freedom and the creation of the Declaration of Independence. Simple text captures the excitement of the era, telling how word of Independence traveled up and down the thirteen colonies, touching the lives of everyday people throughout the land. Like all of Alice Dalgliesh’s work, The Fourth of July Story remains an American classic.
Download or read book The Memory of 76 written by Michael D Hattem and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2024-07-23 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The surprising history of how Americans have fought over the meaning and legacy of the Revolution for nearly two and a half centuries Americans agree that their nation's origins lie in the Revolution, but they have never agreed on what the Revolution meant. For nearly two hundred and fifty years, politicians, political parties, social movements, and a diverse array of ordinary Americans have constantly reimagined the Revolution to fit the times and suit their own agendas. In this sweeping take on American history, Michael D. Hattem reveals how conflicts over the meaning and legacy of the Revolution--including the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution--have influenced the most important events and tumultuous periods in the nation's history; how African Americans, women, and other oppressed groups have shaped the popular memory of the Revolution; and how much of our contemporary memory of the Revolution is a product of the Cold War. By exploring the Revolution's unique role in American history as a national origin myth, Hattem shows how the meaning of the Revolution has never been fixed, how remembering the nation's founding has often done far more to divide Americans than to unite them, and how revising the past is an important and long‑standing American political tradition.
Download or read book Independence Hall written by Hal Marcovitz and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2014-11-17 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Some of the most important documents in American history were composed and debated within the Pennsylvania State House, now known as Independence Hall. In 1776, the Second Continental Congress voted to approve the Declaration of Independence, which said that the American colonies would no longer be subject to the British rule. In 1787, Independence Hall hosted discussions for a new Constitution, which even today remains the foundation of government for the United States. The Liberty Bell, which once hung in the steeple of Independence Hall, has also become an important American symbol. Today, millions of people visit Independence Hall each year to celebrate the origins of America.
Download or read book History of Independence Hall written by David W. Belisle and published by . This book was released on 1859 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Slavery and Public History written by James Oliver Horton and published by The New Press. This book was released on 2014-03-25 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A fascinating collection of essays” by eminent historians exploring how we teach, remember, and confront the history and legacy of American slavery (Booklist Online). In recent years, the culture wars have called into question the way America’s history of slavery is depicted in books, films, television programs, historical sites, and museums. In the first attempt to examine the historiography of slavery, this unique collection of essays looks at recent controversies that have played out in the public arena, with contributions by such noted historians as Ira Berlin, David W. Blight, and Gary B. Nash. From the cancellation of the Library of Congress’s “Back of the Big House” slavery exhibit at the request of the institution’s African American employees, who found the visual images of slavery too distressing, to the public reaction to DNA findings confirming Thomas Jefferson’s relationship with his slave Sally Hemings, Slavery and Public History takes on contemporary reactions to the fundamental contradiction of American history—the existence of slavery in a country dedicated to freedom—and offers a bracing analysis of how Americans choose to remember the past, and how those choices influence our politics and culture. “Americans seem perpetually surprised by slavery—its extent (North as well as South), its span (over half of our four centuries of Anglo settlement), and its continuing influence. The wide-ranging yet connected essays in [this book] will help us all to remember and understand.” —James W. Loewen, author of Sundown Towns
Download or read book Icons of American Architecture 2 volumes written by Donald Langmead and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2009-03-05 with total page 624 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What turns a building into an icon? What is it about some structures that makes their history and legend even more important than their original intended use, making them a part of American, and world, popular culture? Twenty four buildings and structures, including the Brooklyn Bridge, the White House, the Hotel del Coronado, and the Washington Monument are presented here, along with their roles in fiction, film, music, and the imagination of people worldwide. Approximately twenty five images are included in the set, along with sidebars featuring additional structures.
Download or read book CRM written by and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Memory of 76 written by Michael D. Hattem and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2024-06-11 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The surprising history of how Americans have fought over the meaning and legacy of the Revolution for nearly two and a half centuries Americans agree that their nation’s origins lie in the Revolution, but they have never agreed on what the Revolution meant. For nearly two hundred and fifty years, politicians, political parties, social movements, and a diverse array of ordinary Americans have constantly reimagined the Revolution to fit the times and suit their own agendas. In this sweeping take on American history, Michael D. Hattem reveals how conflicts over the meaning and legacy of the Revolution—including the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution—have influenced the most important events and tumultuous periods in the nation’s history; how African Americans, women, and other oppressed groups have shaped the popular memory of the Revolution; and how much of our contemporary memory of the Revolution is a product of the Cold War. By exploring the Revolution’s unique role in American history as a national origin myth, Hattem shows how the meaning of the Revolution has never been fixed, how remembering the nation’s founding has often done far more to divide Americans than to unite them, and how revising the past is an important and long‑standing American political tradition.
Download or read book Shaping North America 3 volumes written by James E. Seelye Jr. and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2018-08-03 with total page 1028 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This fascinating multivolume set provides a unique resource for learning about early American history, including thematic essays, topical entries, and an invaluable collection of primary source documents. In 1783, just months after the United States achieved independence from Great Britain, General George Washington was compelled to convince his officers not to undertake a military coup of the Congress of Confederation. Had the planned mutinous coup of the Newburgh Conspiracy gone forward, the American experiment may have ended before it even began. The pre-colonial and colonial periods of early American history are filled with accounts of key events that established the course of our nation's development. This expansive three-volume set provides entries on a wide variety of topics and themes in early American history to elucidate how the United States came to be. Written in straightforward language, the encyclopedic entries on social, political, cultural, and military subjects from the pre-Columbian period through the creation of the Constitution (roughly 1400–1790) will be useful for anyone wishing to deeply investigate the who, what, where, when, and why of early America. Additionally, the breadth of primary documents—including personal diaries, letters, poems, images, treaties, and other legal documents—provides readers with firsthand sources written by the men and women who shaped American history, both the famous and the less well known. Each of the three volumes also presents thematic essays on highlighted topics to fully place the individual entries within their proper historical context and heighten readers' comprehension.
Download or read book History of Independence Hall written by David W. Belisle and published by . This book was released on 2020-05-15 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a reproduction of the original artefact. Generally these books are created from careful scans of the original. This allows us to preserve the book accurately and present it in the way the author intended. Since the original versions are generally quite old, there may occasionally be certain imperfections within these reproductions. We're happy to make these classics available again for future generations to enjoy!
