Historians/History

Washington Weathered a Terrible Economy and Great Power Rivalry Before ... in 1842

by Alasdair Roberts

On March 9, 1842, a young Charles Dickens arrived in Washington D.C. He was lionized in the city, as he had been everywhere since landing in Boston seven weeks earlier.  Senators William C. Rives of Virginia and Nathanial P. Tallmadge of New York gave him a personal tour of the Capitol. Former president John Quincy Adams entertained him on a Sunday afternoon. President John Tyler honored him at a White House levee. "Mr. Dickens receives the best hospitalities in Washington," the Alexandria Gazette reported on March 17, "and is delighted with almost everything that he sees in our country."

The Forgotten Bomb: Interview with Documentary Producer Craig Collie on the Destruction of Nagasaki

by Robin Lindley

Kokura’s luck: Avoiding a catastrophic event you didn’t even know was threatened. Japanese expressionJust three days after Hiroshima was destroyed by the first atomic bomb attack in history, an American B-29 dropped a second nuclear device on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945, incinerating a large area of the city and killing an estimated 80,000 people.           If there is such a thing, the bombing of Nagasaki was a tragedy of errors. The original target of the second atomic bomb was the arms manufacturing city of Kokura but bad weather and mechanical failure saved Kokura and, rather than dropping the $2 billion bomb in ocean, the B-29 “Bockscar” flew onto and destroyed its secondary target, Nagasaki. That bomb, nicknamed “Fat Man,” was the first  plutonium weapon in history, made from material produced at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington State.

The Context Behind Hitler's WWI Lovechild

by Julian T. Saltman

Newspapers are abuzz over the news that Adolf Hitler may have fathered a son with a French teenager while serving in the German Army during the First World War. According to the initial story in the French magazine, Le Point, Hitler, while serving in a Bavarian infantry unit near Seboncourt, met a sixteen-year-old French girl named Charlotte Lobjoie. After meeting and becoming friendly, a night of drinking in 1917 led to the conception of a boy, Jean-Marie Loret, who later died in 1985.Whether or not this particular story is true is unclear; there is certainly a tremendous amount of anecdotal and circumstantial evidence to support the possibility, but the picture is still murky. What is perfectly clear, however, is that such incidents happened frequently during the First World War, and are an important part of the war’s lasting resonance.

Western Trailblazers of the Atomic Age and Beyond: Interview with John Findley and Bruce Hevly

by Robin Lindley

The strong man with the dagger is followed by  the weak man with the sponge. —Lord ActonDuring the Second World War, the Hanford Nuclear Reservation on the banks of the Columbia River in south central Washington State attracted thousands of workers to the desolate and sparsely populated area.  Few of the workers knew the aim of the Hanford project until an atomic bomb fueled with Hanford-produced plutonium incinerated the Japanese city of Nagasaki on August 9, 1945, and hastened the end of the war.

Why I Still Like Ike

by William Astore

The ongoing controversy over the national memorial to President Dwight D. Eisenhower provides us with an opportunity to recall Ike's legacy and his deeper meaning to America. Ike was of course a national hero, the supreme allied commander who led the assault at D-Day on June 6, 1944 and who later served as president during the height of the Cold War with the Soviet Union. His legacies are many and profound, from ending the Korean War to the interstate highway system that bears his name to advancing civil rights to creating the space program to the establishment of the department of health, education and welfare.As important as Ike's deeds were to our country, in some way his words were (and are) even more important, especially in this time of constant war and bloated budgets for "defense" and our burgeoning trade in deadly weaponry.

Rediscovering Walt Whitman's Soldiers

by Lenore Barbian, Paul Sledzik, and Jeffrey S. Reznick

It is a remarkable fact that the National Museum of Health and Medicine (NMHM) holds thousands of anatomical specimens from soldiers injured during the American Civil War. More remarkable is that four of these specimens originate from soldiers who the poet and essayist Walt Whitman nursed in the wartime hospitals of Washington, D.C. A study published in the January 2012 issue of the Museum History Journal unites these remains with Whitman’s words to yield a new interpretation of individual sacrifice during a time of unprecedented conflict in American history.The impetus for this study followed a reading of Roy Morris’s The Better Angel, in which Morris ties the development of Whitman’s Civil War writings to his experiences of caring for wounded soldiers. Morris’s discussion of these soldiers treated by Whitman and Whitman’s own writings about these soldiers prompted the authors—then curators at the NMHM—to explore the collections for evidence of these soldiers. A search revealed specimens from four soldiers—John Mahay, Oscar Wilbur, Oscar Cunningham, and Frank Irwin—still housed within the museum.

The Tortured History between Israel and the Left

by Colin Shindler

Why is the far Left so antagonistic towards Israel? Such fixation is no doubt fuelled to a great degree by the forty-year long settlement drive on the West Bank and the political inanities of a succession of right-wing governments in the country. But its deeper roots lie in the age of decolonization.

Channelling George Washington: America's Forgotten Blessing

by Thomas Fleming

 “I bet you can’t tell me one of the most important—and totally forgotten—blessings that enabled our American experiment to survive its first perilous decades.” “An electorate who could read and write?” “Important, but not in the way I’ve been thinking. I’ll give you a hint. I’ve got a birthday coming up—my 280th. Birthdays induce thoughts of births, of children, wouldn’t you say?” “Undoubtedly—but I can’t connect children to politics.” “They’ve always been powerfully connected, and never more so than in the eighteenth century. It was still the era of kings. We were the world’s first republic, trying to survive without a royal family to create loyalty and affection in the minds and hearts of the people.”

What Happened to the Statesman?

by Frank Uekoetter

Looking back on 2011 from the safe distance of February 2012, it seems that there are two things that one can safely state about last year: first, that it was a year full of epochal events, and second, that we have no idea about what they will mean in the longer term. From the Arab world to the eurozone, we see completely undecided states of affairs: established structures have been challenged or swept away, but the new is still evolving. Even more, it is difficult to imagine certainty about the new structures any time soon. 2011 may have been the overture for a decade of instability.

No Place Like Home—Interview with Historian Susan J. Matt on Homesickness in American History

by Robin Lindley

Our national mythology celebrates the exploits of swashbuckling adventurers and pioneers and explorers and immigrants who cut their ties to their homes and their past, traveled widely, and never looked back. Americans today see themselves as a dynamic and mobile people and often dismiss the sense of homesickness as juvenile and unrefined.But cultural historian Susan J. Matt presents a contrasting view of our past in her groundbreaking study of the profound sorrow and longing for home felt by the uprooted in America from colonial Jamestown to the present-day world of email and Skype in her new book Homesickness: An American History (Oxford). As Dr. Matt recounts, today’s marginalized condition of homesickness was once considered a fatal disease. She learned, for example, that the Union Army reported that 74 troops died of homesickness during the Civil War and thousands more were granted leave to go home and recover from severe symptoms. 

A Titanic Hero Made by History: Interview with Author and Commentator Chris Matthews on the Elusive John F. Kennedy

by Robin Lindley

Almost anyone who is a baby boomer or older has a vivid memory of where they were when they heard that President John F. Kennedy had been shot in Dallas on November 22, 1963. And many remember the slain young leader as an almost mythical character: witty, handsome, idealistic, energetic, inclusive. But the reality of John F. Kennedy was much more complex and much more intriguing.Just a few days after the assassination, on November 29, his widow Jacqueline Kennedy told journalist Theodore White: “History made him, this lonely, sick boy.. His mother never loved him. History made Jack, this little boy reading history.”

Rediscovering the History Uncertainty Principle

by Gil Troy

Tenure is intended to give academics freedom to question, to experiment, to risk. But this freedom to fail often becomes a license to go stale. Too many scholars stick to their usual methods, forgetting to question assumptions, take fresh looks, to think boldly. We should continue stoking our original curiosity, refined by experience over time.Three years ago, Dr. Andrew Gyory of Facts on File asked me to update and revise the classic History of American Presidential Elections, originally edited by the legendary historians Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. and Fred Israel. Flattered, I agreed. He had no idea how significant that collection was to me, nor did I realize how complicated the project would be. I ended up taking an intellectual journey that challenged a central assumption most modern American historians share: that the information we work with is accurate.

A History Lesson for Newt Gingrich: Andrew Jackson was a Savage Indian Killer

by William Loren Katz

"It's not that I'm a good debater. It's that I articulate the deepest-felt values of the American people," announced the victorious Newt Gingrich in South Carolina. Republican voters [only two percent were African Americans] saw his tough, angry, racial language as straight talking. He eagerly strummed racial themes—black urban pupils ought to serve as assistant janitors to learn what is really needed in school, which is how to stick to a job and make and spend money. He then suggested the urban poor need to get jobs and learn decent work habits rather than accept handouts from the “greatest food stamp president.”

1876: The Year When Things Went from Bad to Worse for Indians and Blacks

by William Loren Katz

As 2011 ended the U.S. Senate voted 92 to 6 for the McCain-Levin amendments [S 1867] to the National Defense Authorization Act.  In the name of fighting terrorism, an astounding majority of Democratic and Republican leaders granted unlimited authority to the president [and future presidents] and the Army to arrest anyone, citizen or foreigner, here or abroad, and imprison them in Poland, Pennsylvania, or Guantanamo or anywhere else—indefinitely.  Ninety-two of our Senators agreed the detained could be denied access to attorneys and loved ones, and “enhanced interrogation” rather than legal procedures would determine if they are guilty of terrorist plots.  True, some rigid constitutionalists and libertarians from Senator Rand Paul on the right to the ACLU on the left have condemned S 1867 as a threat to our core beliefs and democratic system.  But S 1867 swept through on the 235th anniversary of our Declaration of Independence. 

Richard Nixon, from Mean-Spirited Disgrace to Elder Statesman

by Yoav J. Tenembaum

Richard Nixon was a man of contradictions.He was brilliant at delineating a worldview and mean at describing his fellow human beings.  His political thoughts could be all-encompassing in their reach while his personal instincts could be very short-sighted in their horizon. He said his dream was to further the cause of world peace, but he did much to create discord with individuals.It should be noted, though, that Nixon had close friends and intimate political assistants who were loyal to him.  He did not discriminate.  His disdainful comments about minority groups applied to them all without discrimination:  Jews, Italians, Poles, African Americans, etc. He could be equally denigrating in his remarks about them all.On the other hand, he would have no problem whatsoever working with people who belonged to any of those minorities he disliked.  Nixon drew a line between his personal dislike of a minority group and the political allegiance of an individual.  If a person shared his worldview, Nixon was more than ready to have him on his staff, notwithstanding his ethnic or religious background.  The closest person to him in shaping foreign and national security policy was Henry Kissinger, a Jew with whom Nixon, in his twisted ironic manner, would share his anti-Semitic remarks.

Restoring Indian History at Jamestown and Williamsburg: Interview with Historic Anthropologist Buck Woodard

by Priscilla Hart

Passions for the past — and jobs — come alive at history convention

Crossing the lobby of the Chicago Marriott Downtown hotel later this week, you might hear enigmatic snatches of conversation, like:"I'm intrigued by 'Constructive Aspects of Mass Violence.' And you?""I'm off to 'Pirates, State Actors and Hegemonic Systems in the pre-Modern Mediterranean.'"Those would be the voices of historians choosing from among the 257 sessions of their annual gathering. Upward of 1,500 scholars are expected to attend the convention of the American Historical Association, which meets in Chicago every half-dozen years or so....

Upcoming Sessions of Interest at the American Historical Association Convention

by HNN Staff

Thursday, January 53:00 pm to 5:00 pmSession #10: Reshaping History: The Intersection of Radical and Women's History (Marriott Los Angeles Room)Session #17: Roundtable: John McCormick's Machiavellian Democracy (Marriott Addison Room)Session #31: U.S. State Archives and Government Information Secrecy: Access and Historical Research (Marriott Clark Room)8:00 pm to 10:00 pmPlenary Session: How to Write a History of Information: A Session in Honor of Peter Burke (Sheraton Ballroom V)Friday, January 69:30 am to 11:30 amSession #34: Interviewing in the Job Market in the Twenty-First Century (Sheraton Chicago Ballroom VIII)

Does Anybody Remember the Battle of An Loc?

by Thomas Fleming

The answer to that question is a big NO.  But for a few months in the spring of 1972, it looked as if An Loc would join the historic turning point victories of Saratoga and Gettysburg in the American pantheon.  As we withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan, perhaps we should remember why the message of hope An Loc sent to the free world faltered and failed so heartbreakingly.

Agent Orange is Still Killing People in Vietnam and America

by Fred A. Wilcox

Photographs by Brendan B. Wilcox WARNING: PHOTOGRAPHS BELOW ARE EXTREMELY GRAPHIC AND MAY DISTURB SOME VIEWERSIn the abominable history of war, with the sole exception of nuclear weapons, never has such an inhuman fate ever before been reserved for the survivors.—Dr. Ton That Tung, Vietnamese research scientist