A me rican Es s e nc e
American Essence
J U LY 2 0 2 2
FO R E V E RYO N E W H O LOV E S T H I S CO U N T RY
Inside the Capitol Dome Hidden in plain sight, frescoes illustrate the founding principles of our nation
Blueprint for a Capital J U LY 2 0 2 2
The leading architects whose classical designs laid the foundation for Washington, D.C.
VOLUME 2 | ISSUE 7
The Trust Principle The nation’s path forward, says business visionary and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Keith Krach, must be built on unshakeable integrity
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“Life is a great adventure … accept it in such a spirit.” —T H E O D O R E RO O SE V E LT
Parachuting in Florida.
“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.” —RONA L D REAGAN
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Galloping along Grover Beach, Calif.
“Lorem ipsum” —LO R EM IPSUM
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Contents Features 8 | Built on Trust
Tech entrepreneur and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Keith Krach on trust as the master key to leading multi-billion-dollar businesses and a meaningful life.
14 | The Inn at Little Washington
How chef Patrick O’Connell dreamed up the idea for the three-Michelin-starred culinary paradise, beloved by A-listers and statesmen alike.
18 | Tea for You, Tea for Me
Harney and Sons vice president Mike Harney on unraveling the fascinating world of tea, for not just tea lovers, but all of us.
22 | The Madison Table
This one-of-a-kind heirloom with alleged connections to Founding Father James Madison is an homage to the U.S. Constitution.
24 | The Sound of Music
A family band from the Ozarks shares their homegrown American Roots music with a global audience.
28 | American Polo Star
Nic Roldan demonstrates that by harnessing the power of your mind, you can surmount any challenge—even a high-stakes game of polo.
32 | Family Legacies
Powerhouse businesswoman Mitzi Perdue shares valuable lessons from her two family business connections: the Sheraton hotel chain and Perdue Farms.
36 | Through Thick and Thin
A tragic accident turned their world upside down, but this entrepreneurial couple pulled through with the power of love. 4
18 40 | Looking After Our Land
Farming guru Joel Salatin teaches young farmers how to respect the soil and the animals that live on it.
44 | Picky About Guitars
A look into the history of Gibson Guitars, an iconic brand that got its start by making fine instruments for country singers.
48 | Reliving the Past
History comes to life at a site in Montevallo, Alabama, where key moments from the founding of our nation are reenacted.
52 | Why I Love America
Even in times of darkness, America’s founding principles are a beacon of hope to help us weather any storm, John Briare reflects.
History 54 | America’s Favorite Comedian Beloved for his irreverent sense of humor and down-to-earth wisdom, Will Rogers was a witty cowboy philosopher.
58 | Miracle Construction
62 | The Railroad Baron
A visionary man with Napoleonic ambitions, James J. Hill forever transformed the American Northwest with his transcontinental railway.
68 | The Advent of Paper Grocery
Bags Meet the female inventor who created the humble grocery bag that is now ubiquitous in our daily lives.
72 | Divine Intervention
Against all odds, in a jacket riddled with bullet holes, young Col. Washington emerged unscathed from a 1755 battle.
76 | What’s in a Dollar?
Everything you need to know about the symbols on our good old greenback.
78 | Like Father, Like Daughter
How Sybil Ludington’s legendary midnight ride aided her father’s successful defense against the British during the Revolutionary War.
82 | For Peace and Harmony
How Robert E. Lee and Booker T. Washington rebuilt our war-torn nation, one school at a time.
An ingenious group of self-taught engineers brought the Erie Canal into being. AMERI CAN ESSE NCE
44 A Love of Learning
88 | Reasons to Write
86 | Transformation Through
Education Undeterred by the tremendous hardships of his youth, top ad executive Shelley Stewart is now dedicated to empowering kids through education.
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The written word still packs the biggest punch.
92 | Summer Learning
Some of life’s best lessons are learned away from the classroom.
94 | Serving One’s Country
A master’s program at Hillsdale College teaches public service with a purpose, through understanding the country’s founding principles.
98 | Celebrating the Nation’s Birthday From battle reenactments to museum visits, the Fourth of July can be a fun and educational holiday for the whole family.
100 | A Language Without Words
112 | Architects of the Capital
Arts & Letters
119 | Safe and Sound in the
Inside the complex and beautiful world of American Sign Language.
102 | Book Recommender
Find your next summer read: A book of fairytales with a modern twist; and a nonfiction account of an 18th-century naturalist’s journey through the American wilderness.
104 | Up Above, a Symbol of Hope
The deeper meaning behind a most breathtaking fresco within the dome of the Capitol building. ISSU E 7 | J U LY 2 02 2
120 Untold stories behind the monumental design and construction of iconic structures in our nation’s capital. White House Infrared cameras? Snipers on the roof? Here’s a peek into the unbelievable security features of one of the world’s most protected buildings.
The Great Outdoors 120 | Traveling the Old West
A guide to a classic stagecoach adventure in Yellowstone National Park. 5
Editor’s Note Dear Readers,
J
uly is America’s birthday month! To celebrate, the American Essence team thought it apt to include stories of people, places, and things that have become icons representing the values we all hold dear. Our cover story (page 8) is about Keith Krach, trailblazing tech entrepreneur and former State Department official who was nominated for the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize for his foreign policy initiatives, exemplifying integrity, trust, and ingenuity—these are the character traits that define American goodness, and what make our nation a shining beacon to many. We take a peek at how Patrick O’Connell (page 14) became the legendary chef who redefined American cuisine with the show-stopping Inn at Little Washington, a culinary paradise frequented by A-listers in the know. And in the realm of music, Gibson Guitars (page 44)—still widely cherished by musicians today—has a truly emblematic origin story that demonstrates our love for country music and fine craftsmanship. Don’t miss the miraculous story of how Founding Father George Washington (page 72) literally dodged bullets as a colonel during the French and Indian War, seemingly protected by the divine; and an exploration of “The Apotheosis of Washington” (page 104), a 19th-century fresco painted inside the dome of the Capitol building that is rich with iconography depicting the story of the nation’s founding. These stories remind us that there’s so much to love about our country’s past, present, and future. Finally, in appreciation of your support, I wanted to let you know that your American Essence subscription now gives you full digital access to The Epoch Times. Happy reading! Managing Editor Annie Wu Editor@AmericanEssence.net
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JULY 2022 | VOLUME 2 | ISSUE 7
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Features | Overline
Keith Krach in front of the Golden Gate Bridge, an iconic symbol of San Francisco, the city he calls home.
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Entrepreneurs | Features
IN THE
of
Business
Trust
Tech entrepreneur and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Keith Krach delves deep into the foundation of all successful relationships— whether that’s at the personal or national level WRITTEN BY
K
Emel Akan & Annie Wu
eith Krach, former undersecretary of state and current billionaire entrepreneur, first started working at his father’s Ohio mechanics shop when he was 12. As he worked alongside his father, those valuable lessons his father imparted became the principles by which Krach has conducted business, from the time he was the youngest vice president of GM to his Silicon Valley ventures. They also inspired the goal Krach wanted to achieve during his time in public service: propelling America’s tech innovations so that she can continue to be the world’s foremost economic power. Krach’s father and uncle were World War II veterans who were proud to serve their country. “They love telling stories about how America’s manufacturing might was a decisive factor in the war, and he also taught me that the key to America’s manufacturing prowess was fair competition in the marketplace. And that’s what drives productivity, and that’s what increased the standard of living throughout the world,” he said in a recent interview. That respect for America as a place that rewards hard work and integrity, coupled with his own boldness, led him to Silicon
Valley. Krach turned cutting-edge tech startups into multi-billion-dollar public companies, such as DocuSign, the popular platform for signing agreements on electronic documents, and Ariba, a software offering businesses a more straightforward way to procure goods and services. The latter went public in 1999 as one of the first e-commerce companies geared toward businesses to do an initial public offering. Later, while serving as undersecretary of state for economic growth, energy, and the environment, he spearheaded a campaign to protect American 5G innovations from authoritarian states that refused to play by the rules, earning him a Nobel Peace Prize nomination. A group of academics nominated him for developing a new model for countering unfair competition. Krach reflected that though he was sometimes advised against making such unprecedented moves, he felt that he had an obligation to serve his country. “I think sometimes people are afraid of consequences that aren’t really even going to be there. Besides, at the end of the day, you’ve got to look at yourself in the mirror and say, ‘Did I do the right thing?’ That’s the most important thing.” 9
Features | Entrepreneurs
vvv “People go, ‘What do you think your legacy is going to be?’ And I go, ‘Well, it’s not the companies I led. It’ll be the people that I mentor.’” — K E I T H K RACH, TECH EN TREPRENEU R
Integrity and Trust Growing up in Rocky River, Ohio, Krach learned “the beauty of free enterprise” from his father: small businesses like his were the economic engine of American manufacturing, he often explained. He also said, as Krach recalled, “‘The American dream is when the student surpasses the professor.’ … His goal was to have me be better off than him and my children better off than me.” 10
After graduating from Purdue University and Harvard Business School with full scholarships from GM, Krach entered the auto company with fresh ideas. At the age of 24, he gave a presentation to the board of directors, proposing that the company start a robotics division, a relatively unexplored area at the time, around the 1980s. He convinced them to enter a joint venture with Fujitsu Fanuc, the leader in programming the “brains” of robotic machinery. Through selling robotics to Silicon Valley, Krach was inspired by the risk-taking spirit of tech entrepreneurs. “[Silicon Valley] looked like the West Point of capitalism. You know—a United Nations, a total meritocracy.” He decided to go work for a software company. But on the second day of the job, he learned a hard lesson about what it meant to keep his integrity. “The CEO goes, ‘Keith, I want you to say this at the board meeting.’ I go, ... ‘I won’t do that. That would be lying.’” His experience at the company went downhill from there. But it was a critical lesson that motivated him to start his own companies based on trust and integrity. “Those values are the most important thing in any company, because people can say, ‘Hey, I don’t like how AMERI CAN ESSE NCE
Entrepreneurs | Features
LEFT Krach meets with South Korea’s then-foreign minister Kang Kyung-wha, in Seoul, November 2019. BELOW Krach speaks with Brent Christensen, thendirector of American Institutes in Taiwan, September 2020.
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you look. I don’t like where you went to school.’ But they can’t take away your integrity.” His experience in Silicon Valley taught him that trust should be the basis of every relationship, business or personal. “You do business with people you trust, you partner with people you trust. You love people you trust, and so the most important skill is your ability to build that trust, and your biggest strategic asset are your trusted relationships, particularly when you’re starting a company from total scratch, right? And because they have to trust in you, they have to trust in your product, your processes, your company, how you’re going to treat them as a customer,” Krach said. He further explained that trust is like a “four-legged stool.” Within the idea of trust is having integrity, the capability to perform well, good judgment, and empathy. Instilling these principles enabled the staff at his companies to work together smoothly. At DocuSign, where he was CEO and chairman for 10 years until he was confirmed undersecretary of state in 2019, the same values held true. During a meeting with employees, he told them, “We’re not in the software business. We’re in the trust business. We deal with people’s most important documents. … Trust is sacrosanct.” Serving America He carried this idea with him when he was
appointed to the State Department. He called it “the fastest decision I’ve ever made in my life, probably.” His father’s auto shop, and thousands of other small businesses in the Midwest, were gutted by China’s predatory trade practices. In Silicon Valley, he experienced first-hand having intellectual property stolen by Chinese state-backed companies. His father taught him to act if he witnessed something unfair. “It’s easy to sit back and think, somebody else can do this. But if everybody thinks that way, what do you got?” Krach developed a new model for foreign relations, especially to target adversarial nations like China that don’t follow the rule of law—one that would leverage America’s strengths as an economic superpower and driver of entrepreneurship. Called the Clean Network, it created an alliance of nations and international telecom companies that promise to follow standards for transparency and not to use distrusted Chinese vendors that threaten data privacy. These countries and companies would be encouraged to partner with each other for 5G technology. Krach said he wanted to beat the aggressors at their game. “I would just harness the U.S.’s three biggest areas of competitive advantage: by rallying and unifying our allies and our friends, leveraging the innovation and resources of the private sector, and amplifying the moral high ground of democratic values—those
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Features | Entrepreneurs
trust principles,” he said. After all, America always played fairly. His approach was seen as risky by some—many companies and countries are afraid of upsetting China for fear of retaliation, or because it may impact their China market. But Krach said he again believed in the importance of building trust among like-minded partners. By creating an alliance, “it gave them a security blanket, because there’s strength in numbers and there’s power in unity and solidarity.” For this approach to diplomacy, he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize earlier this year. He believes more tech executives should work together with the federal government—so they can counter foreign threats more effectively. In July 2021, he founded the Krach Institute for Tech Diplomacy at Purdue University, aimed at exactly this cross-section between foreign policy and tech. The institute conducts research on cutting-edge tech that could have implications for national security. Mentorship Krach firmly believes that entrepreneurship is what makes America the leader in innovation. 12
And at the heart of it all, Silicon Valley, “the secret sauce … I think is mentorship.” He recalled that after he took Ariba public, the board recommended that he seek out advice from then-CEO of Cisco, John Chambers. Krach was surprised that Chambers agreed and invited him to ask any questions. One day, Krach asked Chambers why he was willing to teach him. Chambers said that he was mentored, too, by then-CEO of HP Lou Platt. Chambers said, as Krach recalled: “‘So Keith, I don’t ask for anything in return. I just asked you to do it for the next guy.’” In 2019, Krach founded the Global Mentor Network, a program that matches young entrepreneurs with top Silicon Valley CEOs to teach them leadership skills and provide resources for succeeding. He hopes to inspire the next generation. “People go, ‘What do you think your legacy is going to be?’ And I go, ‘Well, it’s not the companies I led. It’ll be the people that I mentor.’” He thinks back to something his father said. “‘You never know if you’re a good father until you see your children’s children.’ You also don’t know if you’re a great leader until you see your mentees’ mentees, right?” •
ABOVE Krach is sworn in as UnderSecretary of State for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment, September 2019. RIGHT Krach with his wife, Metta, during during a White House state dinner in Washington, D.C., September 2019.
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overline | Features
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The Inn at
Little Washington
A Love Letter to France
Three-Michelin-star restaurateur Patrick O’Connell shares his journey of bringing the French reverence for the culinary arts to America WRITTEN BY
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Savannah Howe
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I ABOVE Chef Patrick O’Connell in the kitchen of The Inn at Little Washington.
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f you are a connoisseur of top-tier cuisine and an aficionado of the best dining experiences you can find, you’ll likely already know the name of acclaimed culinary trailblazer and chef Patrick O’Connell. He is the founder of The Inn at Little Washington, one of only 14 restaurants in the United States to hold the coveted three-Michelin-star status since 2018. But an often untold chapter in the story that is the Inn at Little Washington is how O’Connell set out to create a one-of-a-kind experience with global influences in a little slice of Virginia that he lovingly calls home. O’Connell’s and the Inn’s accolades are many, and easy to find. The restaurant has been raved
over in national publications for decades, was one of a few U.S. properties to join the prestigious hospitality association Relais & Chateaux in 1987, and became the longest-tenured AAA 5 Diamond restaurant in history in 2011. Most recently, the Inn received a Michelin Green Star for its ongoing dedication to sustainability. O’Connell himself has been decorated multiple times for his commitment to excellence in the culinary industry, and his cookbook has graced the New York Times bestseller list. The Beginnings Young O’Connell was an actor. As early as elementary school, he felt the most at home on a stage, 15
Features | Chefs
and he eventually went to university for speech and drama. Before he embarked on his theater education, O’Connell worked for a carry-out restaurant during the summers and continued to work at restaurants while in college. The dining experience was electrifying, and it filled the aspiring actor with an adrenaline that he couldn’t find in memorizing and reciting lines. It was the duality between hosting and cooking, presenting and preparing: on the one front, poise and put-togetherness, and on the other, action, high stakes, and sometimes a little chaos. At a fork in the road of his future, O’Connell embarked for Europe, where he would learn how much French culture treasured the work of chefs. At the time—the ’60s and ’70s—being a chef in America meant that you were unable to find a “real” job, while in France, cooks were highly esteemed. “Parents were not happy about their children going into the restaurant business [in America],” explained O’Connell. “That has thankfully changed.” France, in that era, considered cooking to be a noble art form, and “chefs were regarded the way sports heroes or famous celebrities were in America.” O’Connell was determined to bring the French relationship with the culinary arts and reverence for the dining experience stateside. A Smash Hit The Inn at Little Washington—located in the village of Washington, Virginia—is O’Connell’s best European memories come to life: eclectic, fresh, nourishing food; warm and authentic service; a sense of working with family rather than simply working with staff. The Inn harvests from its own farm, orchards, and livestock to create its own unbroken cycle of farm-to-table dining. Wildgrown ingredients like mushrooms and roots are foraged from the surrounding Virginian land. The restaurant’s six- or seven-course meals change daily based on seasonal harvests. While O’Connell did come back in the 1970s to open the Inn, he knew he wanted it to be more than just a place to come and eat. After all, with his acting history, he knew the value of a good performance, and at O’Connell’s restaurant, it is not just food that takes the stage but lighting, set design, presentation, body language, and staff interaction. This standard of service is credited to highly-trained waitstaff; as O’Connell explained, old habits of “just playing the waiter” must be broken so guests can be served by people being their truest selves. The Inn and O’Connell have made a splash globally, welcoming A-list guests like celebrities and politicians throughout the decades. 16
O’Connell will never forget hosting Queen Elizabeth II when she visited Richmond, Virginia, in 2007 for the 400th anniversary of the state’s founding. O’Connell had “distinct impressions of what she might be like” before the queen visited, but he was surprised by her amazing sense of theater. “That certainly stayed with me and was an inspiration,” he said. The queen came in the spring, prime time for harvesting the elusive wild morel mushrooms, which O’Connell prepared by combining with a delightful custard-like scrambled egg, fresh asparagus tips, and Virginia country ham. There were thousands of tiny cookies and pastries, traditional candied grapefruit
O’Connell went to school for theater, but found his true calling in the culinary world. ABOVE
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Chefs | Features
rinds, plates and plates of delicacies—which the Inn staff prepared twice so as to have an entire rehearsal run of eating the courses “to ensure that anyone eating it looks good,” ensuring that the Queen’s photo-ops would not get ruined. “No spaghetti,” O’Connell laughed. “It was great fun, and what we imagined would be fit for a queen.” Regardless of royal status, O’Connell’s goal is to make guests feel hosted as they’ve never felt hosted before. People are fascinating, the chef said, each filled seat a different guest from the night before. “All of that knowledge and fascination with theater I was able to bring with me into creating a restaurant experience. Today, that more than any other feature probably distinguishes us from all other restaurants—in that we regard it as performance art. Ultimately, we are attempting to elevate the service industry and create an entire immersive experience with the guest. … [We give] the guests a sense that they are the star performer, center-stage.” Like Home His culinary and hosting approach whispers of a scene most of us have only witnessed in movies: a French countryside chateau, a place of quality and stature where dozens of staff bustle about, harvesting in the garden, snapping bed sheets, and throwing open windows. The Inn employs 238 staff in a village of only 133 people—so his restaurant, O’Connell says, feels like a village within a village, a sense of family that he deeply cherishes. O’Connell does not need to consciously sustain personal joy and passion when in the kitchen. After decades of cooking professionally, he’s never worked a day in his life—or, at least, that’s how it feels. “I never really thought of it as work,” he explained. “Yes, it’s extremely challenging, but the whole property feels like home. Like my home. The staff feels like my extended family and the guests feel like company.” O’Connell, it seems, has a penchant for breathing life back into retired gas stations. The Inn once stood as a humble, early-1900s gas station, one of only three in the little village that served as the last refueling stop before Shenandoah National Park. O’Connell opened the Inn in 1978 after a year of renovations on the building. Over four decades later, O’Connell offered another one of the village’s gas stations a new life as Patty O’s Cafe—named after the chef’s childhood nickname. The cafe-bakery, with its charming blue-andwhite awnings, intimate al fresco seating, and freshly-made-this-morning croissants that will enchant your taste buds, also deserves a spot on your bucket list. ISSU E 7 | J U LY 2 02 2
vvv “All of that knowledge and fascination with theater I was able to bring with me into creating a restaurant experience.” —PAT RIC K O ’C O NNELL, C HEF
The Inn at Little Washington is more than just O’Connell’s life’s work. It’s a forever nostalgic reminder of his childhood, a token of times past. “As a child, I would drive with my family through the town to go to the next village over the mountain, called Luray, where there was a fine old hotel at the time,” O’Connell, now 76, recalled. As a wide-eyed 6-year-old, he’d watch from the backseat as the storybook village passed quickly by: busy storefronts, cozy homes, Bel Airs and Coup de Villes lining up for gas at the filling stations that O’Connell would, decades later, transform. “My parents had had their honeymoon in that old hotel [in Luray], and we would drive out for Sunday dinner and drive right through Little Washington.” On its website, the Inn is referenced as O’Connell’s never-ending story. His next chapter is brimming with new adventures, including writing another book and adding guest rooms at the Inn. He also plans to breathe life back into an old country store he recently purchased, where he will roast coffee and sell quality cheese and wine. In the meantime, he hopes to watch his new bakery-cafe flourish. “It is absolutely beautiful. It’s got a big stone fireplace and gorgeous sidewalk patio that people sit out on. Even [in the winter], we have blankets out there and people are enjoying being in the center of town. So that was a long, long awaited dream of mine—to have the simpler foods. Even some of the things that we had on the menu when the restaurant first opened in 1978 could be brought back. And so, it’s very much like what you might encounter in a beautiful village in France.” And that—bringing a slice of the French countryside to the country he calls home—has been the chef’s goal all along. • 17
Features | Made in America
Teatime
With the Harneys The family tea brand is dedicated to bringing the best teas from around the world to America WRITTEN BY
T
ea is always there to comfort us, whether we’re feeling under the weather, needing a jolt of energy in the morning, or commiserating over a cuppa with friends. But as Americans, we haven’t quite adopted the appreciation for tea that other countries have long harbored. Harney and Sons has been passing on its knowledge of tea—in all its wondrous forms, from dif-
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Annie Wu
ferent tea-drinking cultures around the world—to Americans at large, through the company’s 300plus varieties of teas and tea blends, packaged in the iconic tin cans that many tea lovers have come to know. Vice president Mike Harney explained why tea is worth a deeper look: “It has an amazing heritage. It tastes great. Rumor has it, it’s good for you.” Tea and its complexities are akin to wine; AMERI CAN ESSE NCE
Harney and Sons offers a variety of classic and exotic tea blends, sourced from the finest tea regions around the world.
depending on the region where the tea is harvested, when it is harvested, and how it is processed, the end product will have markedly different flavors. Over the decades, Harney and Sons has introduced a wide variety, hoping to educate the American audience on the finer side of tea— beyond the Lipton tea bag. The company equally loves to perfect the classics like Earl Grey (it blends black and oolong teas from India and China ISSU E 7 | J U LY 2 02 2
for its aromatic drink) or loose leaf teas like pu-erh (a type of fermented tea from China known for its earthy, intense flavor) and invent creative blends, like the Organic Bangkok, green tea with lemongrass, coconut, vanilla, and ginger flavors. It even offers olive leaves from Tuscany as an herbal tisane, and yaupon, a native American shrub plant that is lightly caffeinated. Mike Harney jokingly said the breadth of offerings is because “no one’s figured out how to say no.” Family Heritage The tea company started with Mike’s late father, John Harney. He ran a small country inn in Salisbury, Connecticut. While there, he was introduced to a British tea salesman named Stanley 19
Mason, who taught John the ins and outs of the business, including how to blend different tea leaves into a final tea product. Later, John Harney and several partners bought Mason’s business. In 1983, John Harney dissolved the partnership and created Harney and Sons, hoping to one day pass the trade on to his children and create a family legacy. The dream came true; Mike and his brother Paul are now running the show, growing the brand from a trusted source of quality tea to one with an international presence. They opened a new café in Tokyo in 2021. They also frequently collaborate with famous institutions and movies, ranging from the Metropolitan Museum of Art to the 2019 film adaptation of “Little Women” (the latter collaborated with the Louisa May Alcott Orchard House museum, the family home where Alcott wrote the novel). The story of Harney and Sons is, in a way, a classic American tale. After John Harney bought out his partners, he started blending teas in his basement. He packaged the teas into tins himself. Paul, a teenager at the time, helped to carry tea shipments down into the basement. Mike Harney had worked in the wine business and ran a hotel in Chicago. When his father asked him to join the family business, he felt he was 20
ready for the challenge. Paul joined the company after serving in the Marines. A Tea Connoisseur Borrowing from his experience in the wine industry, Mike Harney began embarking on taste-testing trips to Asia to source teas; previously, as was
BELOW Mike Harney (R) and his brother Paul serve as vicepresidents of the company.
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Made in America | Features
common in the industry, the company was sent samples, and teas were mainly purchased and blended that way. He not only made wonderful memories, like visiting a beautiful garden at dusk in the village of Mamring, India, where darjeeling tea is grown; he’s also accumulated a wealth of knowledge about the highest-quality teas from top tea-producing regions. He then developed a scale, providing consumers with an understanding of tea’s key flavor components: briskness, body, aroma—rated from 1 to 5, printed on every tin. The first refers to the feeling of dryness in one’s mouth, depending on the amount of tannins in the tea. Body refers to whether the flavor fills the mouth up or feels thin. Finally, aroma is all about the scent. He also includes detailed tasting notes and brewing instructions. For their popular Paris blend, the tasting notes are: “Similar to the aroma, this tea smells sweet like caramel and has a fruity flavor of black currants.” The flavors get even more enticing descriptions in Mike Harney’s 2008 guidebook on the world’s major tea types and their history, distinctive characteristics, and production process. Most teas— black, green, white, oolong—come from the same plant, Camellia sinensis. The difference lies in how
they’re harvested (early buds or more mature, the season they’re plucked), or how they’re treated (some tea-makers sear leaves over woks or dry them in ovens; others are left to oxidize, or to be fermented). One description of a Chinese green tea variety called Pan Long Ying Hao (which translates to “dragon silver hair”) says: “Lightly sweetened cocoa in the top notes, sweet braised leeks in the base, and a long-lasting honeyed finish with the faintest hint of gardenia.” The exhaustive compendium illustrates Mike Harney’s passion for tea. He describes the creative process of extracting flavors and blending teas as a fun adventure. “We can get cocoa flavors, we can get fruity flavors, lemony flavors. Those are something that are naturally [occurring] chemicals inside the tea plant that are manipulated, and next thing you know, it tastes like that,” he said. Mike Harney acknowledges that there may still be a long way to go before Americans become fully acquainted with the intricacies of tea. “We just keep swinging the bat,” he said. He plans to keep the company a family business, run from a production factory in Millerton, New York, where all its teas are packed by staff. “My dad started something good and we’ve kept it up,” he said cheerily. •
The Paris, a black and oolong tea with flavors of vanilla, caramel, and a hint of lemony bergamot. This tea is one of the company’s most beloved blends.
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Features | Crafts
The Madison Table How a cedar slab from James Madison’s estate was artfully transformed into a celebration of the American Constitution WRITTEN BY
E
ric Horton, manager of the Klingspor’s Woodworking Shop in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, was in for a surprise the day his lumber buyer came across some original tree slabs from Founding Father James Madison’s estate. The slab that really piqued Horton’s interest was a cedar one allegedly gifted by the Marquis de Lafayette to James Madison when he visited America in 1824. Oral history suggests that Lafayette brought cedar seeds with him as a gift to Madison from the country of France. Cedar trees are not native to North America, which makes the slab that much more special. The slabs arrived rough sawn and completely unfinished. They estimated to be around three inches thick. By the time Horton was done, they were two inches, flattened, leveled, and completely finished. Horton explained that it took him six or seven months of contemplating to decide the best project for the wooden slab. However, he always knew that he wanted it to be Constitution-themed. “And so I knew that somewhere I wanted to inlay 22
Skylar Parker
We the People, I just wasn’t sure what I was going to inlay,” he said. He finally kick-started the project in early April 2021 and decided on a copper inlay, inspired by Paul Revere, a coppersmith and significant figure in the American Revolution and the Boston Tea Party. Horton explained he had never dabbled in metalwork but was determined to make his vision come true. “That’s where the idea of the copper ‘We the People’ came from on the top of the table,” he said. But that wasn’t all. Horton had to also learn acid etching in order to
ABOVE & BELOW
The tabletop is inlaid with words from the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution. RIGHT Illustrations of the Liberty Bell and the U.S. Supreme Court are etched into the copper panels of the table.
AMERI CAN ESSE NCE
Crafts | Features
vvv The cedar slab was allegedly gifted by the Marquis de Lafayette to James Madison when he visited America in 1824. table. It often meant getting up early in the morning to work on the project. While challenging, it meant he would still have enough time in the day to attend to his family and work duties. As a history lover, Horton explains his dream job would be to someday start a woodworking business specialized in repurposing historic, sentimental pieces. Three years ago, Horton received a message from a lady who asked him to repurpose her son’s old, broken piano into something more practical. “I tore that piano apart and turned it into an entryway hall bench. She absolutely loved it because it still had hints of a piano but was actually useful and not just taking up space in her home,” he said. Horton considers the Madison table as his most time-consuming and expensive piece to date and wishes to someday sell it to the right person. •
illustrate the copper panels with images from the Revolution and the Constitution. That summer, he taught himself acid etching and created custom-made, hand-cut stencils featuring all of the images. Every design was carefully chosen, highlighting a particular part of America’s story. Key images incorporated into the Madison table include a central copper panel illustrating drummer boys and flag bearers, chosen to represent the American Revolution. A preamble to the Constitution is acid etched in constitutional script on a panel on the left, inner end of the table, while the right, inner side has an image of the Liberty Bell, representing Independence Hall. The outer three sides of the table portray all three branches of the federal government: the Supreme Court, the Capitol dome, and the White House. Accompanying these symbols are copper butterflies flowing across the top of the table. Half an inch thick, they are made of solid copper and outline the 10 amendments of the Bill of Rights. The entire project lasted seven months, and Horton dedicated nearly 500 hours to crafting the ISSU E 7 | J U LY 2 02 2
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The Sound of Music A family band from the Ozarks, The Petersens share their homegrown American Roots music with a global audience
J
WRITTEN BY
on and Karen Petersen and their four children started out like many family bands, playing for church audiences. “Our dad found the band to be a really great way to share his family and also his faith,” Ellen Petersen Haygood said. “He would take a moment to talk after the show and say why we
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J.K. Olson
do what we do, and the importance of serving other people together.” Today, The Petersens are one of the most popular shows in Branson, Missouri, with a growing following on YouTube, where several videos have more than a million views; their “Take Me Home, Country Roads” video has reached 30 million. AMERI CAN ESSE NCE
Family | Features
vvv “Somehow, the Lord has blessed us and seems to put our family in front of people when they’re going through a lot of hard times.” — EL L EN PETERSEN , BANJ O P L AYER
The Petersens (L to R): Emmet Franz, and family members Katie, Ellen, Karen, Julianne, and Matt. ABOVE LEFT
ABOVE RIGHT Matt and Katie perform together in Branson, Mo., 2018.
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Together as Family The journey is filled with persistence, a lot of juggling of full schedules, and some “lucky” breaks. The idea for the band came almost 20 years ago, when the family stumbled into their first bluegrass festival while vacationing in Gettysburg. When Jon saw the family atmosphere of the festival—multiple generations of families all hanging out and playing together with no video or TV screen in sight—he decided then and there that they would become a family band. The oldest, Katie, would play fiddle. She was already taking classical violin lessons and was not happy when her dad signed her up for the festival’s Fiddle Bootcamp. “Most large bluegrass festivals have workshops,” said Ellen. “It’s a great way for the performing bands to make some extra money and the hobby musicians to get some good instruction.”
After her first day of boot camp, Katie changed her tune. “She really, really loved it,” Ellen said. Ellen is the next oldest. She had been playing the drums at the time until Dad said at the festival, “Ellen, you look like a banjo player,” and bought one for her. Country singer Ricky Skaggs was headlining that year, and Jon was able to talk with him; Ricky’s banjo player, Jim Mills, came over and talked to Ellen. “My dad was impressed at the availability of the biggest stars in the genre and how humbly they interacted with the public.” Five years after their first performance as a family band at Mom’s home church in Mountain Grove, Missouri, the family won a gospel music “sing off,” and the timing couldn’t have been more perfect. Paul and Ann Bluto, owners of the Branson Imax Complex and the Little Opry Theater, were in the crowd, and they needed an act once a week. The family happily accepted the Blutos’ offer and started learning the ins and outs of performing on a Branson stage. The kids soon found themselves juggling three Imax shows every weekend and playing at local attractions, churches, and community events while continuing their education. The next big break came in 2015, when Ellen’s banjo and yodeling audition for “American Idol” was highlighted on television. She was cut while selections were made for the top 40, but the experience made her grateful for her upbringing. Contrary to what she witnessed among other contestants, Ellen knew her own happiness 25
Features | Family
and sense of personal worth didn’t depend on music and how our family presents it. We never advancing on the show. dreamed of this opportunity, but it has been The down-home music and traditional life valreally fun to watch it grow,” Ellen said. ues Ellen exuded on “American Idol” resonated Bluegrass Beginnings with thousands of people across the country, bringing a new wave of fans to Branson to see The origins of what would become bluegrass The Petersens. In May 2017, when Matt, their music was first heard echoing through England, third child, graduated with a business degree Scotland, and Ireland. The music brought by the from the College of the Ozarks, the Blutos immigrants who settled in the hills and hollers offered the band prime afternoon time slots of the Appalachian Mountains did have some during the week and Sundays. outside influences, like the banjo, a contribuThe siblings decided the opportunity was tion traced to Africa, and the Dobro, created and worth the risk. Katie and Ellen dropped their named after Slovakian immigrants, the Dopyera day jobs and The Petersens became a full-time brothers. The music has carried history and heriband. “Since we were all single, and had no oblitage for generations. gations, we realized it was now or never!” “One of our favorite things about bluegrass The Imax crowds were generous with their music is that it wasn’t until recently that people online reviews, and by the next year, 2018, The actually started recording these songs that everyPetersens became the No. body has known for a 1 Show to See in Branson, really long time and have vvv according to TripAdvisor. been passed down,” Ellen Since 2018, the band said. “I meet a lot of peo“One of our favorite has included Katie, Ellen, ple today who still have Matt on guitar, Julianne their grandpa’s fiddle.” things about bluegrass on mandolin, matriarch Going to bluegrass fesmusic is that it wasn’t Karen (who has a mastivals and local events, the ter’s in music education) Petersens have gotten to until recently that on the upright bass, and meet a lot of people who Emmett Franz on the have carried on the tradipeople actually started dobro. Emmett is a worldtion of music. “It’s really recording these songs class musician and brings fun to still be playing that a lot of great ideas to style of music, specifically that everybody has rehearsals. His presence in the Ozarks,” Ellen said. in rehearsals also proBut the family’s music known for a really long vides a buffer to potenstyle isn’t typical bluegrass. time and have been tial family drama, and he “We asked a lot of the peocan be the tiebreaker on ple who enjoy our music, passed down.” a musical choice. Jon is and they seem to think often at the shows when American Roots captures —ELLEN P ET ERSEN he can break away from more of our genre than the work, and he plays piano bluegrass style does.” and guitar with the band as needed, Karen said. Their style of music brings people home to the Off-stage, Matt oversees the business side; Ozarks who have never been there before. “Only Katie runs the music arena; and Ellen, who 31 percent of our YouTube audience lives in the earned her MBA in 2019, is head of marketing. United States,” Ellen said. “So, the rest of these Julianne handles video editing while continupeople live all throughout the world, and I think ing to balance school and performances. Karen they really enjoy the American culture aspect holds the title of band chaplain, and she assists of it, just how beautiful the Ozarks are. I think Katie by helping chart out songs for rehearsals everyone sees pictures of the United States, and and pick out harmony lines. She plays contentit’s like Niagara Falls, or LA, New York City, the edly from the back of the stage while the early Grand Canyon, but the Ozarks are like this hidden musical training she sowed into her children is gem in the heartland that nobody really has seen reaped under the spotlight. unless you’re from this area. It’s been really fun The band also has a steady following on to share our style of music and the scenery of this YouTube. “We have somehow attracted just area through our videos.” some really good people who like this style of Jon grew up in West Virginia, the grandson of a 26
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Family | Features
BELOW The family band is now one of the most popular musical acts in their hometown.
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former coal miner. After Jon’s mother, Mary, got an education, she helped her younger siblings get their education, then moved the family out of coal mining. Jon inherited his mother’s drive. He became a pilot and joined the Air Force, but in the middle of his military career, he felt the Lord calling him into medicine. He completed a residency in family medicine, trained as a flight surgeon for the Special Forces, then did a second residency in preventive medicine. As the band has gotten older, Jon has taken a step back, which is rare in this business. “My dad built this whole bluegrass band, then, as soon as we were ready to take over any aspect of the band—like leading the rehearsal, and then booking the shows—he just handed it over to us so gracefully. He still travels with us on road shows, and the operator will come up to him and say, ‘Okay, here’s the plan—’ And he’ll say, ‘I’m not in charge here, you have to go talk to my son Matt, he’s the one over there.’”
Jon travels with the band and continues to serve behind the scenes. “When we played at National Harbor in D.C., there was like a 110-degree heat index, and my mom was really struggling. Between every song, he would bring her water out on stage, and replace the cool towel around her neck,” Ellen said. Serving together continues to help define and motivate the band. “Somehow, the Lord has blessed us and seems to put our family in front of people when they’re going through a lot of hard times. I hear that at almost every show: someone lost their job, or they lost a parent. ... People have come with a third ticket that was for their child who passed away, and they did the trip for their kid. I just sit there and cry listening to these stories. I think the Lord somehow introduces this little family in the Ozarks to them during some really dark times. And they just listen to us and can sense a peace. It’s been a huge honor for us to be a part of.” •
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Features | Athletes
King of the Game For polo star Nic Roldan, excelling in the high-stakes sport starts with harnessing the power of the mind WRITTEN BY
A
Tara dos Santos
polo player must have great control not only of his body, but also over his horse. The two must be able to turn together on a dime. In the ancient game of polo— one of the oldest-known team sports, originally crafted as a mock battle for training cavalry—the speed is fast, the strategy is sharp, and the maneuvers are precise. With horse power driving the action, the players’ lives are at stake. “People don’t understand … that we literally put our lives on the line every time we step out on the polo field,” said Nic Roldan, current captain of the U.S. national polo team. He balked at discussing further the dangers or injuries he’s witnessed. “I never like to talk about it or even think about it,” he said. He compared polo players to NASCAR drivers; neither can afford to be paralyzed by fear. “The moment you start thinking about those things and having that fear, it’s probably the moment you need to quit,” he said. Roldan keeps a tight rein on his thoughts. He directs them toward positivity, gratitude, and achieving his goals. At the age of 15, he became the youngest player to win the U.S. Polo Open. Now, at 39, he not only continues with polo, but also models, has his own apparel line, and founded a property development company. He spoke of the perseverance that’s key to his success. “There have been challenging moments in my career—where either I’ve lost a job, or I didn’t get hired one year, or I wasn’t on a really good team— and you get really frustrated. You just go through it. I’ve always dug deep and had faith and a strong
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belief that I could do it. The mind is a very powerful muscle.” An Early Start Roldan starts his busy days with meditation and prayer. He takes an hour and a half of peaceful time to himself, and it’s his favorite part of the day. But going to the “office” is pretty good, too. “Coming to my barn every day and knowing that this is sort of like my office and being able to hang out with these incredible animals, … I’m obviously incredibly blessed,” he said. As a fourth-generation professional polo player, Roldan has been around horses for as far back as he can remember. His father, Raul Roldan, played polo for the Sultan of Brunei. His father is Argentinian and Roldan was born in Argentina, though he has lived most of his life in Wellington, Florida. “What I learned the most [from my father] was his dedication, his passion for the sport,” Roldan said. “He was always extremely humble. I think that was a really great quality of his. He was always very kind. I think at the end of the day, those are the most important things.” Roldan’s account of what led to his success shows humility as well: “It’s a little bit of luck; it’s having the right team, the right organization, and the right horses under you.” He says that the relationship with horses is one of the most important parts of playing polo. “What defines an elite polo player is being at-one with your horse, ... flowing with each horse in sort AMERI CAN ESSE NCE
Nic Roldan plays for Seminole Casino at the World Polo League All-Star Challenge semi-finals.
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Features | Athletes
intensity, the understanding of each horse and the control of each horse—all while you’re trying to hit a ball 25 to 30 miles an hour, [and] you’ve got four other guys trying to chase you. It’s incredible.” Roldan added: “We don’t just get out onto the polo field and run around like a bunch of chickens without heads. Every play is thought out. … It is really like a chess game.”
of an artistic way, like a ballerina.” It’s not easy to learn that level of synchronization, Roldan said. It’s partly innate, and it also develops naturally by spending a lifetime with horses. The Horses A game of polo typically lasts more than an hour, and players switch horses every several minutes. A player must thoroughly understand each horse’s unique characteristics, Roldan said. For example, some are light in the mouth, so the player must be mindful of how hard he pulls to have the horse respond as he needs. Some horses have more stamina than others. He must be aware of how the horse is feeling that day. “You could have your best horse, but that day he doesn’t feel that great,” Roldan said. He describes what it’s like taking all this into consideration in the moment: “It’s the relationship with the horse you have to have, the speed and the 30
Holistic Life Polo works the mind and the whole body. “The most important thing for polo is having strong legs, strong core, and strong shoulders and upper body,” Roldan said, laughing as he admitted that he listed pretty much every part of the body. “It’s the whole body. … If you look at most polo players, we’re not bulky. You need to be lean, flexible.” Roldan also exercises his creative side. His mother, Dee Roldan, is an interior designer, and Roldan began working with her on flipping houses as a side project during his 20s. “My mom has always had an artistic palette. She’s always been very unique and very distinctive in the way she’s dressed and in her designs,” Roldan said. He set his mind to excelling in this pursuit and started building from the ground up. He founded a development company, Roldan Homes, and recently became a realtor for Equestrian Sotheby’s International Realty. His equestrian experience melds with his real estate ventures. His hometown of Wellington is a large equestrian community, with many housing developments centered on equestrian facilities. One of his projects was a horse barn in the Grand Prix Village that sold for $8.8 million. The stalls are a clean, crisp white, contrasting with black wrought iron. Neat cobblestones pave the passageway through the barn. The staff accommodations are modern and roomy, and the owner’s lounge is centered around a large fireplace. “As an athlete, your career ends at some point. Thankfully, in polo, you can play until your late 40s at a competitive level. As my career starts to wind down, I have to have other things to do,” Roldan said. “I love to stay busy. I love to work hard.” Gratitude He also loves to give back. Roldan has dedicated himself to philanthropy, including working regularly with the Boys and Girls Club in Wellington and Kids With Cancer. “First and foremost, my motivation is what life has given to me. I feel deep down in my heart that, because of what I was given, that I should give back,” he said. “For me, anything to do with kids is AMERI CAN ESSE NCE
Athletes | Features
The polo player is committed to keeping his mind and body in peak condition at all times. FAR LEFT
ABOVE Roldan at a meet-and-greet with the champion racehorse California Chrome.
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really important.” At the Boys and Girls Club, he spends time with children who are less fortunate, who need extra support as their parents struggle to provide for them. “We throw pizza parties there. I love going over there and seeing the smiles on the kids’ faces and playing ball with them. We do karaoke. It’s a lot of fun,” Roldan said. Through Kids With Cancer, he spends time with children who are either going through treatment or in remission. He recalled a boy named Johnny
who was in remission. “He was an entertaining little boy to be around. He was always smiling and having fun.” Roldan keeps his mind on gratitude. “I’m obviously incredibly blessed to be where I am today, to have had such a great career. I get to travel the world, and I get to do something I love, I get to meet incredible people,” he said. It has taken hard work to excel to the level he has in polo, and “there’s the gray times and struggles,” but in the end, “it’s built me to who I am today.” • 31
Features | Family
MITZI PERDUE Means Business Shaped by the powerhouse entrepeneurs behind two American mega-businesses—Sheraton Hotels and Perdue Farms—the humble heiress and businesswoman is carrying on her family legacy WRITTEN BY
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Rachael Doukas & Laura Doukas
itzi Perdue represents over 280 years of the American Dream. She’s the daughter of one business titan—her father, Ernest Henderson Sr., founded the Sheraton hotel chain—and the widow of another—her late husband was the magnate behind Perdue Farms, Frank Perdue. The Henderson Estate Company was started in 1840, while Perdue Farms was started in 1920. Mitzi is also a powerhouse businesswoman in her own right, starting her own wine grape business, Ceres Farms, that supplies some of California’s largest wineries. She was surrounded by the world’s most successful entrepreneurs for most of her life, yet she is as unpretentious as she is charming. Mitzi credits her humble aura solely to her parents, who were instrumental in the shaping of her character. Reflecting on her childhood, Mitzi fondly recalled her parents’ desire to establish a household that valued character over commodities. Frugality was—and still remains—an unde-
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niable value of the Henderson clan. “My parents put a lot of effort into having their children not be spoiled,” she said. “They didn’t want us to grow up in a bubble of wealth. I value that endlessly.” At the start of World War II, the Hendersons made the decision to relocate the family from Boston, Massachusetts, to an idyllic farm 30 miles away in Lincoln. This decision came as a result of their desire to immerse their children in a lifestyle that valued hard work, self-respect, and togetherness. It deviated from the society living that the family was used to, but Lincoln became the setting where many of Mitzi’s most cherished childhood memories would be made. Farm life, albeit simple, certainly wasn’t easy. When not in school, Mitzi and her four siblings were responsible for daily chores like mucking (removing manure); feeding the cows, pigs, and ducks; and cleaning the home. In an effort to provide their children with a well-rounded upbringing, the Hendersons AMERI CAN ESSE NCE
Family | Features
Mitzi Perdue has her own wine grape business that supplies some of California’s largest wineries.
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Features | Family
vvv As a further testament to Ernest’s devotion to his employees, the first areas of the hotel under renovation would always be the employee dining hall and lockers.
enrolled them in both public and private schools. As a result, Mitzi developed friendships with debutantes and daughters of dairy farmers alike. Having a foot in both camps was, as Mitzi described it, “the most beneficial upbringing.” Until she reached her teens, Mitzi was clothed in hand-me-downs from her siblings. “The idea of getting my identity from buying designer clothes—not going to happen,” she said proudly. Instead, the Hendersons stressed the importance of forming one’s identity through service. “The best life isn’t lots and lots of money; it’s lots and lots of values.” There is no doubt that the most important influence on Mitzi’s life was her father. Besides instilling extraordinary values in his children, Ernest was a business pioneer with incredible foresight; at the time of his passing, he owned 400 hotels. Despite the family’s incredible wealth, Mitzi recalled: “If I ever wanted anything, my father’s answer was always the same: ‘Earn it.’” In the 1930s, the real estate business was an absolute catastrophe; hotels were filing for bankruptcy daily. In an effort to transform them into successful organizations, Ernest purchased 34
many of the failing properties. Upon acquiring the assets, his first task would be to gather the entire staff—who most likely feared losing their jobs to new hires—into the hotel’s ballroom. “The first words out of my father’s mouth would always be, ‘Every one of you gets to keep your job. I believe in you,’” Mitzi recalled. As a further testament to Ernest’s devotion to his employees, the first areas of the hotel under renovation would always be the employee dining hall, lockers, and other areas that the public would never see. “My father always felt that a leader’s job was to give people a better vision of themselves.” Mitzi remembered a moment she shared with her father that, as she described, “deepened [her] soul.” It was a Saturday afternoon, and she was no more than 10 years old. Mitzi wandered into her father’s home office to see him fully immersed in ledgers, books, and paperwork. On such a beautiful morning, her father should have been enjoying a day on the golf course like his friends. When Mitzi asked what he was up to, her father revealed that he was reviewing requests for charitable donations. “He said the most pleasure his money ever gave him was in giving it away.” In addition to a devotion to charitable giving, the Hendersons also have a deep respect for legacy. As a result, they, as Mitzi put it, “never air their dirty linen in public.” Though the Henderson family has been around since the 1800s, it is nearly impossible to locate a story, or even a rumor, of a public family spat. When asked how this is possible for a family of such stature, Mitzi answered, “One of the things that our parents instilled in us was that jealousy AMERI CAN ESSE NCE
Family | Features
FAR LEFT An old family photo of Ernest Henderson Sr., Mitzi’s father, who co-founded the Sheraton hotel chain with his Harvard University roommate.
Mitzi with her late husband, Frank Perdue.
ABOVE
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didn’t play a part in how we interacted with each other. Our job was, if someone did well, to rejoice for them, not to be jealous for them. When one was doing well, it enriched all of us.” In 1988, at a Washington, D.C., party, Mitzi’s life forever changed. Frank Perdue arrived late and Mitzi arrived early; their schedules overlapped by only 10 minutes. Those 10 minutes soon became the start of an iconic love story that spanned over two decades. At the time, Mitzi lived in California and Frank was based in Maryland. The pair was immediately drawn together; the connection was instant. They found similarities in the trust issues that stemmed from each of their past relationship woes. In the middle of their conversation, Frank’s demeanor changed. He studied Mitzi’s face and paused. Frank said he believed he could trust her. “And I looked up at him,” Mitzi remembered, “and said, ‘I believe I could trust
you.’” They spent the remaining four minutes of their conversation discussing what their marriage might be like. Their decades-long marriage grew into the most loving relationship Mitzi had ever experienced. Today, Mitzi’s focus is to carry on the legacy of both the Henderson and Perdue families. She has written a handful of books based entirely on the lessons she learned from her father, husband, and friends. Once a woman with a debilitating fear of public speaking, Mitzi has grown into a powerhouse presenter, and she has been commissioned to speak across the globe. If you ever have the pleasure of crossing paths with Mitzi at the airport, don’t expect all of the pomp and circumstance that comes along with being an heiress. “When flying internationally, you’ll find me in coach [class],” Mitzi said. “I’d much rather donate the thousands of dollars for a first class upgrade to charity.” • 35
Features | Love Stories
McKenna Weinstein and Anthony Zhang at their Malibu wedding, October 2021.
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Love Stories | Features
The Power of Love An accident irrevocably changed the lives of two student entrepreneurs, but the young couple never stopped moving forward—together WRITTEN BY
Rhonda Sciortino
M
cKenna Weinstein, 26, is the daughter of a prominent Orange County orthopedic spine surgeon and a successful realtor in what’s known as the California Riviera, in a community called Newport Coast. McKenna is a bright, funny, strong, and determined young woman. In 2013, she entered the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California and quickly made the dean’s list and honor society. Before long, McKenna and two other classmates created a company called Topiku, which manufactures hats from recycled materials. Topiku was named by The Huffington Post as one of the top 10 companies to watch in 2016. The company also caught the attention of Inc. Magazine, Tech Cocktail, GrindTV, and others. One of the other co-founders of Topiku was an enthusiastic young man from China named Anthony Zhang, now 27. He lived down the hall from McKenna in the USC dorms. He was alone in the United States without family, and it wasn’t long before Anthony and McKenna became friends as well as business partners. One evening, Anthony overheard other students talking about how hungry they were after the campus had closed down for deliveries. Anthony sensed an opportunity. He started a food delivery business for students who wanted to eat after 8 p.m., which was the cut-off time for outside delivery. The business was so successful that Anthony expanded it into other college campuses. When Anthony was 21, one of his professors invited to the campus investors from the television show “Shark Tank,” which connects entrepreneurs with investors seeking to fund the next big startup. None of the students expected to be
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McKenna and Anthony in their sophomore year at the Marshall School of Business.
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Features | Love Story
able to speak to any of the “sharks,” much less pitch to them, but at the end of the session, Mark Cuban and Mark Burnett asked if any of the USC students attended business school. A few students raised their hands. Then they asked the students if any of them had already started a business. Anthony was the only one whose hand remained in the air. Mark Cuban, Anthony’s idol, invited him to pitch his business idea right on the spot. Completely unprepared and terrified of being humiliated, Anthony tried his best to sound confident as he made the biggest pitch of his life. His impromptu pitch was accepted. To celebrate, Anthony, McKenna, and a group of their friends went to Las Vegas for the weekend. That’s when everything changed. Anthony dove into a swimming pool that was more shallow than it appeared and broke his neck. He nearly drowned before his friends suddenly realized that he hadn’t come back up. When he was finally rescued, he was almost gone. He 38
spent months in intensive care and then in a rehabilitation center for spinal cord injury victims. Anthony worked hard to regain some basic function, but it was clear that he would remain a quadriplegic for the rest of his life. Throughout all those months, McKenna remained by his side. She took a leave from USC because she couldn’t imagine leaving him alone. While in the rehab center, McKenna and Anthony watched as people walked away from long-term relationships, overwhelmed by the extent and permanency of the injuries sustained by their loved ones. Rather than drifting apart like the others, McKenna and Anthony got closer. They fell in love and married in October 2021. In 2017, McKenna returned to USC to complete her business degree, graduating in December 2018. Anthony has become a serial entrepreneur. He founded Vinovest, which allows the average person to invest in wine as an asset and enjoy high annualized returns with lower volatility than
ABOVE The couple on their trip to Mammoth Mountain, Calif., 2022.
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the stock market. Another new business venture is the Know Your VC platform, which helps would-be entrepreneurs find the right venture capitalists. Anthony and McKenna are heroes. Anthony demonstrates to everyone within his influence the power of perseverance and resilience. McKenna is a hero for demonstrating to us all what authentic love truly means. Love is so much more than a feeling. Real love shows in our actions. • ISSU E 7 | J U LY 2 02 2
vvv Rather than drifting apart, McKenna and Anthony got closer. They fell in love and married in October 2021. 39
Features | Farms
Tending the Earth At Polyface Farm, Joel Salatin teaches the next generation how to be stewards of the land WRITTEN BY
Bob Kirchman
“No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth.”
P
—THOMAS JEF FERSO N
olyface Farm lies gently among the rolling hills of the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, near Little North Mountain and Elliott Knob, in Augusta County. This land beneath the mountains is a beautiful
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patchwork quilt of fine pastures and forests, and it nurtures a dream as old as America yet as young as the many faces stewarding it. In the early days, a large number of Americans lived connected with the soil. Even lawyers and professional people raised crops. Washington, Jefferson, and Charles Carroll of Carrollton not only helped found our nation; they were instrumental in developing its agriculture. Today, only AMERI CAN ESSE NCE
Farms | Features
a small percentage of our population farms—as crop yields have increased, fewer of us need to. This in itself is not a bad thing, as more people are freed up for other important and creative endeavors. But the average farmer today is aging, and going it alone. Farm children often have gravitated to cities, looking to make more money with less risk and shorter hours. The family farm will die with its farmer. At the same time, young people are discovering their love for the land. Ironically, many of them come from non-farming backgrounds. They want to work the land—but they don’t have any. Land is prohibitively expensive these days. An aspiring farmer will often be told, “You have to get a factory job to afford to farm.” The sad truth is that even with land, only pennies are made per bushel of crop after expenses. Farmers today are merely producers of commodities. They don’t engage in marketing, sale, or distribution of the commodities—but that’s where the profit is. Joel Salatin understands this, and he’s on a mission to teach young people the joy of farming. To do so, he addresses the barrier that many next-generation farm families face: The reality they’ve inherited is simply not sustainable. Salatin is a “voice in the wilderness,” a man ready to show aspiring young farmers “a more excellent way.”
Joel Salatin is a fierce advocate for farming that is in tune with nature.
ABOVE
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A Bit of History Upon visiting Polyface Farm, I stepped into the farm store and was warmly greeted by Grace, a young lady and a student of people. “I remember speaking to you on the phone,” she said. Many have learned that we ought to know our food producers, and she wanted to know her customer. People skills underlie the mission statement of the farm itself, as my pleasant first contact illustrated. In addition to fresh eggs and pasture-fed meats, the store features 11 farming methodology books, written by Salatin so he supposedly wouldn’t have to keep explaining how to build mobile chicken shelters or maintain pastures. Farming methodology is important, but it turns out there’s much more to it than that. When I sat down with Salatin, he led with a lesson in economics. “Back in the 1960s, you could buy farmland for $95 an acre or less. An acre of land was needed for a feeder calf to produce $95. That meant the first-year sale covered the cost of the land, essentially.” Today, land may cost thousands per acre, while selling an animal nets only
a few hundred dollars; it’s not sustainable, and families are tempted to sell their land to developers. Neighboring farms disappear while older farmers continue making pennies on the dollar. “You cannot survive by merely being a producer. You need to produce two incomes,” explained Salatin. “A farm needs to support two generations or it cannot survive.” One way to achieve that is by filling more roles. Processing, marketing, sales, and distribution are great moneymaking opportunities, but tapping them takes people skills. “You can’t be this old guy who loves being alone on his place—who gets along better with his tractor than with people,” said Salatin. When the Salatins settled in Virginia in 1961, the farm was eroded and rocky, but Joel’s parents prioritized conservation. Eschewing chemically dependent, high-volume, low-margin commodity agriculture, they built a pasture-based, direct-marketing farm, composting and selling directly to customers. At 10, Joel bought his own flock of chickens, and within a few years he had a nice little business selling eggs. In summertime, he’d sell his own vegetable crops at the farmers market. Young Joel developed his entrepreneurial skills under the mentorship of his father. He also developed relationship skills; his life revolves around serving people, and it keeps him busy on many fronts. “Quality must always go up,” said Salatin. Moreover, “good relationships must be built with customers, and with those who work alongside you. You cannot be driven by sales targets.” The Heart of a Farmer Around the farm, several young people tend to chores, working happily and respectfully. They come to Polyface Farm to learn by joining its stewardship program. Many discover the opportunity online; the farm’s website is briefly open for applications every year during the first 10 days of August. By answering 10 questions and submitting a video recording, applicants have a chance to be invited to the farm for a two-day trial visit. While eating, sleeping, and living at the farm, they demonstrate whether they’re likely to be the right fit for the farm’s culture, community, and character. Most don’t have farming backgrounds; it’s more likely that their previous experience is urban. “They come with MAs and MBAs,” Salatin reported. The first two questions applicants answer establish what they’ve been up to and how they got interested in farming. Those 41
Features | Farms
looking to “find themselves, right some wrong, or ‘have an interesting experience’ are weeded out— hopefully pretty quickly,” said Salatin. “The single biggest way relationships fail is unexpressed expectations.” Considerable effort goes into outlining leadership’s expectations for the would-be mentees. “If you expect them to get up at 5 o’clock, you need to spell it out,” said Salatin. Along those lines, participants aren’t bound to stay for the entire session if it isn’t a good fit for them, and leadership may dismiss them as well. As Salatin put it, “One of the biggest problems business owners tell me about is prolonging a situation that should have been nipped in the bud.” The stewardship program runs from May through September, and late arrivals aren’t permitted. Stewardship is an apt description: gathering eggs, moving cattle to fresh pastures, building mobile chicken shelters—it’s a summer of learning by doing. Participants work hard and acquire many skills. Halfway through, they can apply for apprenticeships, but only a handful are accepted each year. Apprentices spend winter in intensive study and can follow their own interests. For example, “One of them gravitated toward helping Leona in the freezers, freeing her up for more computer work in the shipping department,” said Salatin. The American entrepreneurial spirit is always encouraged. Many apprentices develop business
ideas that can be pursued at the farm—like farm tours. After one young lady began giving school tours, she thought to herself, “People will pay to tour this farm.” Now, she regularly gives tours to all kinds of people. It’s her business; she pays a percentage to the farm, but she works for herself. Helping young people pursue their passions is one of Salatin’s own passions. Each winter is a time of intense personal development. Apprentices work on their skill sets, and Salatin’s son Daniel leads them through each chapter of “Extreme Ownership,” a book written by Navy SEALs. Stephen Covey’s “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” is also referenced quite a bit. “You have to have the heart of a teacher to do this well!” said Salatin. “You can’t be doing it to get free labor—it doesn’t work.” Apprentices learn to teach others and then go on to help the next year’s stewards. Success, Today and Tomorrow While farm internships run the gamut from simple immersion to detailed instruction, Polyface Farm addresses the complex nature of farming today, exploring business skills and strategies for sustainable farming in the real world. Topics range from establishing operations on rented land and negotiating a minefield of regulations that can hamper food processing or sales, to building a house from harvested timber. “You make the stars align by immersing yourself in your passion, now,”
BOTH PAGES Scenes from Polyface Farm, where Salatin instructs the next generation of farmers how to farm sustainably.
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Overline | Features
said Salatin. The strategies he encourages apply to anyone with a vision, not just aspiring sustainable farmers. Others have advised Salatin to charge thousands for this education, but he refuses. Instead, stewards are paid small stipends, covered by workman’s comp, and provided with comfortable housing and meals prepared by a professional chef. At dinner—where cell phones are prohibited—they bond as a team. They also attend weekly meetings to keep everyone apprised of expectations, and there are monthly formal lectures. Salatin said that while new stewards cost the farm money, they’re making money by the end. Apprentices are well-compensated, and a few find entrepreneurial ideas that mesh with the fabric of Polyface. They’re encouraged to develop those plans as personal businesses, and some strike out on their own. A local church recently prayed a blessing over one such couple and their infant. They were heading for Kansas, where they secured land leases to pasture cattle. They also planned to raise sheep and have more of their ISSU E 7 | J U LY 2 02 2
vvv “You make the stars align by immersing yourself in your passion, now.” —J O EL SA L AT IN, FA RMING GURU
family join them. Salatin said, “You can begin mentoring at any stage.” New mentors should openly say, “We’ll learn together.” Salatin was sad for a moment. “You know, most farmers my age are alone,” he said. “There is no one for them to mentor.” After reminiscing for a bit, however, his face lit up as he spoke of how wonderful it is to still be surrounded by young people. His smile said it all. His passion is for more American farmers to share their expertise with the next generation—anyone eager to keep small farming alive. • 43
Features | Made in America
Gibson Guitars:
An American Icon From its origin as a supplier of mandolins, the company Orville Gibson founded became known for guitars that shaped musical styles, ranging from those of cowboy singers to rock ’n’ rollers
I
WRITTEN BY
t was Ray Whitley who started the excitement. Throughout the 1930s, Whitley traveled with the World’s Championship Rodeo, providing musical entertainment with his band, the Six Bar Cowboys. In 1937, he prodded the Gibson Mandolin-Guitar Manufacturing Co. to develop a “super jumbo” instrument, one that could go lick for lick with the nearly 16-inch-wide, rosewood-and-mahogany Dreadnought guitar
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Ronald Ahrens
issued by C.F. Martin & Co. “Of course, what somebody at Martin saw, and what no one at Gibson apparently did, was that players were forsaking banjos for guitars and demanding louder instruments,” wrote Walter Carter in his history of the Gibson company. There was no other way to match the volume of the singer and microphone. Playing live dates, Gene Autry, a star at Chicago’s WLS radio station, was
ABOVE Singersongwriters Redd Harper (L) and Ray Whitley at a 1951 recording session in the Armed Forces Radio Service studio in Hollywood, Calif.
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Made in America | Features
vvv It all started with Orville Gibson and his carving tools in Kalamazoo, Michigan.
LEFT Elvis Presley’s Gibson J200 on display at his home, the Graceland mansion in Memphis, Tenn. BELOW A 1964 Gibson Country Western acoustic guitar (L) and a 1963 Southern Jumbo SJ.
already strumming an elaborately ornamented Martin D-45, which replaced the smaller Martin that had been stolen along with his Buick the year before. Whitley’s demands of Gibson resulted in a 17-inch-wide body with a mosaic pickguard and the slogan “Custom Built for Ray Whitley” inscribed on the headstock. The Super Jumbo 200 took its name from its generous size and steep list price: $200 (a 1938 Ford could be purchased for just over three times that amount). After World War II, the model would be known simply as the SJ-200, and Elvis Presley cradled one when he appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1957. “The Gibson-made instruments were louder and more durable than the competitive, contemporary fretted instruments, and were the go-to instruments demanded by players of the day,” explained ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons in an email. Whitley carried his SJ-200 to Hollywood, where he wrote “Back in the Saddle Again” for the cinematic mystery-romance “Border G-Man.” Meanwhile, Gibson made a dozen more SJs for key influencers. Autry bought two at the discounted price of $150 each, and his biographer, Holly George-Warren, wrote of one guitar that it was “embellished with a two-tone mother of pearl border; horses and bucking broncos inlaid with ISSU E 7 | J U LY 2 02 2
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Features | Made in America
pearl; and his name writ large alongside horseshoes inset on the fingerboard.” It was a spectacular instrument and showpiece, indeed, making a lasting impact. In 1939, Autry recorded his version of Whitley’s tune and adopted “Back in the Saddle Again” as his enduring theme song. Heard today, the lyrics still evoke feelings of truth and triumph, but cowboy singers would soon fall out of fashion. The music made by electric guitars took over radio airwaves. Autry finished his career with landmark recordings of holiday songs, namely “Here Comes Santa Claus,” “Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” and “Peter Cottontail.” The integration of Gibson guitars into the upper echelons of popular music deserves some explanation. The company’s founder, Orville Gibson, had migrated from his native New York state to Kalamazoo, Michigan, by 1881, when he was 25 years old. After more than a dozen years as a clerk in a shoe store and a restaurant, he started manufacturing musical instruments. In his small workshop, he made mandolins from a patented design. The patent application of 1895 said existing instruments were made of too many parts, “to the extent that they have not possessed that degree of sensitive resonance and vibratory action necessary to produce the power and quality of tone and melody.” He boasted of having achieved “a sound entirely
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new to this class of musical instruments.” The first Gibson catalog offered a family of mandolins for the popular mandolin orchestras, as well as roundor oval-hole guitars and harp guitars with 12 or 18 strings. Five stages of ornamentation, from plain to fancy, were available. By 1902, an investor group took over Gibson’s enterprise, and the next year the founder—who had become a consultant for the company—quit, in order to teach music and collect royalties. Eventually, Gibson returned to New York; he died in 1918. His namesake company adopted an innovative marketing approach, turning music teachers into salesmen and letting customers pay small monthly installments. The Gibson banjo was introduced, but the 1911 L-4 and 1923 L-5 guitars were better fits with Jazz Age outfits like Duke Ellington’s Washingtonians at a time when people were losing their heads dancing the Charleston. With the finest materials and craftsmanship, the 1934 Super 400 extended the trend of successful rhythm instruments. Gibson’s first electric, the hollow-body ES-150, made its debut in 1936 and was popularized by the ill-fated jazz player Charlie Christian. Extolling “electrical amplification,” Christian showed the world how to perform a proper solo, before he died—too young at 25—of tuberculosis. While worthy competition came from the 1950 Fender Telecaster and 1954 Stratocaster—solid-body electrics made in Southern California— Gibson made a wily move in advance of the era of rock ’n’ roll and electric blues: In order to avoid the disdainful label of “plank” guitar, the solid-body 1952 Gibson Les Paul was developed with collabAMERI CAN ESSE NCE
Made in America | Features
FAR LEFT
A Gibson magazine advertisement from around 1939 to 1940. ABOVE LEFT
An Orville by Gibson guitar, a line of instruments made for the Japanese market. Singers Ray Whitley and Redd Harper, and actor Frank Seeley (far R), with fellow musicians at the Armed Forces Radio Service studio. ABOVE
RIGHT A Gibson L-4 CES, fit for jazz players.
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oration from Les Paul (Lester Polsfuss), who was a master player and something of a mad scientist. The guitar that bore his name had a carved maple top with no sound holes, and the gold color was intended to disguise a trade secret: the mahogany back. Like Orville Gibson’s mandolins, the new guitar was an innovative departure and an instant classic. The challenge was to figure out what to do with it, but players stepped to the fore. Bluesman John Lee Hooker, to name one, extracted grit and passion from his Les Paul. Billy Gibbons dubbed his own 1959 example “Pearly Gates,” explaining that the guitar “possesses those rare qualities found in a precise combination of elements which miraculously came together on that fateful day of fabrication.” Renamed Gibson Guitar Corp., and now Gibson Brands, Inc., the company moved operations from Kalamazoo to Nashville by 1985, with acoustic guitars produced in Bozeman, Montana, since 1989. The company has experienced ups and downs in conjunction with fickleness in the national economy and the guitar industry—even restructuring in Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2018. However, the pandemic has brought about a surge in guitar sales— “Did Everyone Buy a Guitar in Quarantine or What?” asked Rolling Stone—putting the company in a good position to capitalize on the upswing. Gibson guitars continue to lend their great sound and seriousness of intent to new musical acts. And it all started with Orville Gibson and his carving tools in Kalamazoo. • 47
Where History Comes Alive At American Village, the country’s enduring history is brought to life via historical reenactment WRITTEN BY
T
Karim Shamsi-Basha
he hall is grand, with hardwood floors and a high ceiling. A large portrait of George Washington greets visitors from the center of the main wall. The country’s first president looks regal, majestic. After all, he and a few leaders of the American Revolution penned a constitution that has given the United States a democratic legacy and history. Many places around this country celebrate
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America, but down in Alabama near a small town called Montevallo, American Village beckons visitors to the country’s past with live demonstrations. “American Village is a snapshot of our country,” said Public Relations Manager Jeremy Ward. “Our history is for all of us. We are passionate about telling how our country came to be. As Americans, we all share the same story, and we want to tell this story here at American Village.” AMERI CAN ESSE NCE
Lessons From History | Features
vvv “As Americans, we all share the same story.” —J EREMY WA RD, PUBLIC REL AT IO NS MA NAGER AT A MERICA N VILL AGE
LEFT American Village boasts 20 historically inspired sites and structures. ABOVE & RIGHT Staff at the American Village keep history alive through period costumes and battle reenactments.
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American Village sits on 188 acres in central Alabama with 20 historically inspired sites and structures. Founder and President Emeritus Tom Walker dreamed up the project back in the 1980s. The popular attraction opened its doors on November 30, 1999, with a specific mission in mind. “We are here to teach American history and create informed citizenship. American Village helps make our history more exciting and meaningful,” said Ward. “We do this with eight historical interpreters who approach this job with academic vehemence. They take on the roles seriously, dive in, and research to make their representation of these historical figures authentic.” American Village hosts two to three school groups per day on its campus. These groups 49
Features | Lessons From History
The assembly room at American Village.
come from all over Alabama and the surrounding Southern states. Each year, 35,000 students get to experience our exciting history come alive, and another 35,000 public visitors come to learn about our country’s founding. “Over the past 22 years, we have served around 800,000 students from schools in Alabama and surrounding states, and many more public visitors. We have also entertained high-profile people. Laura Bush wrote a message to our annual prayer breakfast one year, and Condoleezza Rice came and spoke another time,” noted Ward. The mission statement for the nonprofit American Village Citizenship Trust says it all: “The American Village serves the nation as an educational institution whose mission is to strengthen and renew the foundations of American liberty and self-government by engaging and inspiring citizens and leaders, with a special emphasis on programs for young people.” At the end of a visit to American Village, folks may pass again through the grand hall where George Washington’s huge portrait hangs; this time though, their appreciation and understanding of what this man and his compatriots did will endure. • 50
HISTORICAL INTERPRETATION
“I have done this for five years, and I love it. Performing and teaching kids is so rewarding, and seeing them get involved in our historical plays is a lot of fun. I came here when I was their age, and I remember how engaging it was. It made me more attached to our history. Experiencing our history like this is so unique.” —R I CHARD E VANS, W H O PL AYS JO H N TA ZE W ELL, CLER K O F TH E 17 76 VI RG I N IA CO NVENTI O N
“My favorite part of this job is bringing these historical characters to life by telling their stories, which connect our visitors with the human side of history. When that connection is made, I can see the students stepping into the shoes of these people who made sacrifices to give us the liberties we enjoy today. By bridging this gap between America’s past and its present, we can create a better future for all of us.” —NAN CY MOOR E ESTES, O FFI CER O F I NTER PR ETED PROGR AMS
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A figure representing liberty stands outside the Veterans Shrine, a memorial for those who gave their lives to the country.
THE WOMAN ON THE SHIP
Sarah Bradlee Fulton was a crucial player in many critical events during America’s fight for independence. She lived in colonial Boston before moving to Medford in 1762. • While in Boston, she observed firsthand many struggles and conflicts between the colonists and Great Britain before the war began. She was visiting her family in Boston upon the night of the infamous Tea Party. Sarah was at her brother
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Nathaniel’s home, where she and Nathaniel’s wife, Ann, created crude Indian disguises for her brothers and husband, John. Sarah followed them to the Boston harbor and afterward helped them get rid of their disguises. • During the Battle of Bunker Hill, Sarah served as a nurse in a field hospital in Medford, right across the street from her house. • Her most notable act of service happened in March 1776. Maj. John Brooks came to her home
needing urgent dispatches from Gen. Washington to be delivered behind enemy lines into Boston. Sarah’s husband could not go, so Sarah volunteered to go in his place. She hid the message in the hem of her skirt, successfully delivered it, and made it safely back to her family. No one knows what the letter said, but it must have been of great importance. Soon after that, Dorchester Heights was fortified, forcing the British out of Boston.
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Features | Why I Love America
My Beloved Is Not Just a Nation—It’s an Idea WRITTEN BY
I
have loved my country ever since I was a small boy. I cannot recall exactly how that love affair first began—but unlike so many other schoolboy crushes that pass with time, this love never passed.
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John Briare
I grew up in New York City during the time of the Vietnam War, race riots, moon landings, Watergate, oil embargoes, the Cold War, and severe economic recession. By the time I was 13, my father had died and my mother was raising three children on her own. It was a time of turmoil and of uncertainty, in many ways similar to our own times. Life was tough, and America was bruised and hurting. If America were a young woman, it would have been like falling in love with one of the ugliest girls in the class. Yet despite what she looked like AMERI CAN ESSE NCE
Why I Love America | Features
vvv Ordinary people can create a land filled with opportunity, guaranteeing life and liberty for all.
to the rest of the world, I did fall in love with her. I knew her, she captivated me. She inspired me. I can still remember the words she first whispered to me so many years ago. Words that captured my heart and, in times so challenging, words that gave me hope: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Imagine that! A country where all are born equal—no kings, no queens, no dictators, no hereditary titles. Every life, a sacred life. From a child sleeping safely in the womb of its mother, to the street peddler in the city. Black, white, male or female, rich or poor. Every life—even the most inconvenient or wretched—mattered. A land where Liberty was not a right reserved only for kings, or only bestowed upon the privileged. Liberty as an inherent, sacred right of all men, granted by the Creator himself, and codified in our U.S. Constitution. Second only to the right to life, it is liberty that protects the first. And it is liberty that gives the oppressed the sacred right to end their oppression. And it is through liberty that a person gains the sacred right to pursue happiness, to become what God had given him or her the talents to be. America did not guarantee me happiness—just the ability to pursue it. Simple words, simple concepts that reflect the very essence of who we are as a nation, as a people, and as brothers and sisters on this tiny piece of land we call our home. This simple declaration, our mutual declaration, of what we hold sacred and, in the end, what separates us from the evil that lurks in this world. Some 50 years have now passed since first falling in love with my country. And even though I am older and a bit more weathered than when I ISSU E 7 | J U LY 2 02 2
was a boy, I am still the same person, yet hopefully wiser. My beloved country has also grown older; lines of aging born out of life’s struggles and the sacrifices of her children on the battlefields now mark her once innocent and youthful face. Still an adolescent in the realm of kingdoms, she too has made many regrettable mistakes but is also now the wiser. Others who have resented her beauty continue to attack her and bruise her. The selfish squander her riches. Other nations resent her. But she is still glorious and magnificent, and she carries the torch of freedom so that others, who are oppressed, may see in the darkness. So here we now stand, on the precipice of history, facing our own critical moment in time. Will this generation, which has enjoyed the fruits of life and liberty, deny these very same fruits to future generations? I, like so many others, will never give up on my beloved. The principles on which she was founded are too strong to be shaken by a passing storm. Grounded deep within the bedrock of liberty, her foundation of freedom and liberty is unwavering. There will be those who think she is weakened. They are wrong. Her people are strong. This storm will pass. And just like she captured my fancy 50 years ago, she will continue to cry out to the world: “Give me your tired, your poor, / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, / The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.” And the oppressed will answer. For America is not just a nation—it’s an idea. The simple idea that ordinary children, born out of the wombs of average folks, can take down tyrants, dethrone kings, and create a land filled with opportunity, guaranteeing life and liberty for all. May God always bless my beloved: “America.” • 53
History | Wit & Wisdom
WIL L RO GERS,
America’s Cowboy Philosopher From Wild West shows to vaudeville to motion pictures, Will Rogers was loved across America in the 1920s and ’30s WRITTEN BY
Debi DeSilver
T
here isn’t just one word that can describe famed American folk hero Will Rogers. Born on a ranch in Indian Territory in 1879, he became a cowboy, a ranch hand, a rodeo rider, a vaudeville performer, a film star, a columnist, an author, a public speaker, a humorist, a radio personality, and a social commentator. He was an early-20th-century sensation. Oklahoma’s favorite son became adored by the nation. Rogers’s quips, quotes, and gems of wisdom live on today in the 21st century. “I never met a man I didn’t like.” “Well, all I know is what I read in the papers.” “Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.” “Don’t let yesterday use up too much of today.” “Worrying is like paying on a debt that may never come due.” “What the country needs is dirtier fingernails and cleaner minds.” Early Life America’s cowboy philosopher was practically born in the saddle with a rope in his hand. William Penn Adair Rogers was the eighth child of Clement “Clem” Vann Rogers and Mary America (Schrimsher) Rogers, born in Cherokee Nation, Indian Territory, which became Oklahoma after the 46th state was admitted to the Union in 1907. He was born on a ranch 2 miles east of Oologah; however, he claimed the nearby town of Claremore as his birthplace “because nobody but an Indian can pronounce Oologah,” Rogers once said. “My father was one-eighth Cherokee Indian and my mother was a quarter-blood Cherokee. I never got far enough in arithmetic to figure out how much ‘Injun’ that made me, but there’s nothing of which I 54
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Wit & Wisdom | History
vvv “Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.” —W I L L ROGERS
LEFT An autographed photo of Will Rogers from 1912. ABOVE The charismatic performer is famous for his homespun humor and down to earth philosophies.
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am more proud than my Cherokee blood.” His father, Clem, became one of the wealthiest ranchers in Indian Territory, and Rogers began riding horses at a young age with the ranch hands and one of his older brothers. A pillow was tucked behind the saddle horn to keep him in place. Before the age of 7, when he was sent to the Cherokee Nation school called Drumgoole, Rogers sought his education with a cowboy on the Dog Iron Ranch who had a reputation for being the best roper in the district. Rogers was fascinated by the lariat and learned the art of accurately spinning loops with style. It was a skill that eventually landed him gigs with the Wild West shows and launched his entertainment career. Dark Cloud Oologah is a Cherokee word meaning “dark cloud,” which may have foreshadowed Rogers’s loss of his
mother due to typhoid fever when he was a young boy, casting a shadow over the next several years of his life. “My own mother died when I was 10 years old. My folks have told me that what little humor I have comes from her,” Rogers told a radio audience in 1930. “I can’t remember her humor, but I can remember her love and her understanding of me.” He was extremely close to his warm, loving mother and extremely distant with his father, who has been described by biographers as harsh, insensitive, and stern. In addition to the loss of his mother, three of Rogers’s older sisters who had helped care for him married, and his father spent long periods of time traveling on business. Although there were other families on the ranch with children, he was described as lonely and gloomy. Rogers wouldn’t apply himself to the many schools he was sent to through the next seven years and eventually was sent to a military school, 55
History | Wit & Wisdom
which he ran away from to go work on a Texas cattle ranch. After a short time, he began to just drift throughout the Southwest and illegally rode trains as a vagabond, commonly known as a hobo. Rogers even went oversees to Argentina and then on to South Africa, where his show business career found its beginning with Texas Jack’s Wild West Circus. Cherokee Kid “I was hired to do roping in the ring,” he said in a letter to his father, “but the man who rides the pitching horse is laid off and I have been riding the pitching horse ever since I have been with the show. He also has a lot of plays showing Western life. … I do all the roping and am called the ‘Cherokee Kid—The Man Who Can Lasso the Tail off a Blowfly’ on the program. I have learned to do quite a bit of fancy roping.” Rogers considered the nine months he spent with Texas Jack as one of the most important periods of his life. In another letter to his father, Rogers described Texas Jack as a “much finer shot than Buffalo Bill.” After two years of working in Wild West shows in South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand, Rogers finally returned home. His father wanted his wayward son to finally settle down to business, but Rogers got word that Col. Zack Mulhall was putting on a Wild West show at the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis, and he took off again. His disappointed father told friends that any boy who wasted his time around Wild West circuses could never amount to anything. However, his show business mentor, Texas Jack, suggested to Rogers that his single roping act might be successful on the vaudeville stage.
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Fame and Faith His charm and humor and genuine portrayal of an average person is what caught the audience’s approval. “I’m just an old country boy in a big town trying to get along,” he once wrote. “I have been eating pretty regular and the reason I have is, I have stayed an old country boy.” From vaudeville he went on to the Ziegfeld Follies and then silent films and then to the “talkies,” where he eventually starred in over 70 features and shorts. In 1934, Rogers was voted the most popular actor in Hollywood. He wrote a popular syndicated newspaper column, “Will Rogers Says,” that millions of Americans read. He also authored books, magazine articles, and was featured on the radio. Rogers found success with every media avenue available. He was described as the voice of an average citizen. “I suspect that Will’s modesty had its origin in a tremendous respect for his father and a knowledge that, at least in early manhood, he was a disappointment to his family,” wrote his wife, Betty
LEFT Poster for the 1930 film “Lightnin’” starring Will Rogers with Louise Dresser.
A 1920 portrait of Will Rogers.
ABOVE
RIGHT A scene from “Doubling for Romeo,” a 1921 American silent comedy co-written by and starring Will Rogers. FAR RIGHT A still from the 1923 comedy short film “Uncensored Movies.”
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Wit & Wisdom | History
(Blake) Rogers in a biography of her late husband. His son, Will Rogers Jr., remembered his father setting a spiritual example and teaching moral lessons through examples rather than lectures. Prayer was a reality in their home. In a July 1957 article for Guideposts magazine, Rogers Jr. told of the time his father was sick. His mother, Betty, reminded the children of a time when all the children in the house were sick with diphtheria and “your father was down on his knees praying for all of you. Now let’s kneel and pray for him.” Although Rogers’s mother wanted him to become a Methodist minister, the famed cowboy said he “slipped up and became an actor” and was thankful she never knew it. In their short, close time with each other, the two had often sung Methodist hymns together. Rogers’s father, the successful, domineering businessman that he was, often pointed out that there wasn’t much money to be made as a minister. Rogers was never a regular church member as an adult, but he insisted that his children attend Sunday school every week. When the family lived in Beverly Hills, California, Rogers pitched in and helped raise money to build a community church. As for his own faith, Rogers once wrote, “I was raised predominantly a Methodist but I have traveled so much, mixed with so many peo-
vvv “I’m just an old country boy in a big town trying to get along.” —WILL RO GERS
ple in all parts of the world, I don’t know just now what I am. I know I have never been a non believer.” He became tolerant of all faith traditions and religions. Rogers died on August 15, 1935, at the age of 55, in an airplane crash in Point Barrow, Alaska, with famed Oklahoma aviator Wiley Post. Headlines screamed as the world came to a shocked standstill. “Traffic halted, movie theaters darkened, storekeepers locked up, housewives cried on their front steps. Congress came to a shocked standstill. The world grieved,” wrote author Joy SchalebenLewis in a 1990 article for the Chicago Tribune. “What constitutes a life well spent, anyway?” Rogers once asked his readers. “Love and admiration from your fellow man is all that anyone can ask.” It was reported that over 100,000 mourners walked by his casket at an ecumenical funeral service. • ISSU E 7 | J U LY 2 02 2
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The Miracle of the Erie Canal How a team of self-taught engineers overcame obstacles to open a waterway between the Great Lakes and the Atlantic Ocean WRITTEN BY
B
Rachel Pfeiffer
oom! Canon fire echoed across the state of New York on October 26, 1825. Men listened carefully at their posts, firing their canon once they heard the distant sound of another. This relay stretched from Buffalo to Manhattan, where the final canon proclaimed that the Seneca Chief had departed Buffalo and was making its way to the coast. The waterway on which it traveled had not even existed a decade before, but now this boat would sail from the eastern shore of Lake Erie to the
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Atlantic Ocean. It was the first to travel the entire length of the Erie Canal. The Impossible Feat As the 19th century dawned and pioneers journeyed west into the Great Lakes region, some advocated for a safer, faster, more reliable form of transportation from the resource-rich land to the coast. As early as 1800, the founding father Gouverneur Morris advocated for a great canal. He wrote: AMERI CAN ESSE NCE
Building the Nation | History
Does it not seem like magic? One-tenth of the expense born by Britain in the last campaign would enable ships to sail from London through Hudson’s river into Lake Erie. Hundreds of ships will in no distant period bound the billows of those inland seas. … We only crawl about on the outer shell of our country. The interior excels the part we inhabit in soil, in climate, in everything. The proudest empire in Europe is but a bauble compared to what America will be and must be, in the course of two centuries, perhaps of one.
vvv The state of New York stepped in to bear the cost.
However, some thought that such a large canal would be impossible to complete. “Talk of making a canal 350 miles through wilderness is little short of madness,” Thomas Jefferson declared in 1809. Though Jefferson spoke for many, a powerful man in New York became one of the canal’s greatest allies. DeWitt Clinton served in the state legislature, as a U.S. senator, as mayor of New York, and as governor of New York state. He advocated for a canal while working in the state legislature and as New York mayor. Clinton believed the canal could launch his city toward prosperity. “The city will, in the course of time, become the granary of the world, the emporium of commerce, the seat of manufactures, the focus of great moneyed operations,” Clinton said. The proposed canal would stretch from the eastern shore of Lake Erie to the Hudson River, a length over twice as long as the longest canal in the world at the time. The federal government declined to fund it, so the state of New York stepped in to bear the cost. This massive project was made even more difficult by the fact that the United States had no formal engineering schools at the time. When construction on the canal began in 1817, the men serving as engineers were entirely self-taught.
An original lithograph of the Erie Canal at Lockport, N.Y., circa 1855. ABOVE
RIGHT A boat passes through one of the Erie Canal’s many locks.
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History | Building the Nation
Sweat and Ingenuity Benjamin Wright loved math from a young age, which led to a career as a surveyor. He helped determine the route for the canal and was hired as the chief engineer for the project. One of the brilliant assistant engineers Wright hired was Canvass White. White built inventions growing up on his parents’ farm. He started working as a clerk at 17, but in his early 20s, he left on a sea voyage. He traveled to Russia and then England, seeing distant lands he had only heard of. On the return from England, a ferocious storm drove the ship aground. An inspection revealed much of the bottom of the ship was rotten. White recommended replacing the rotten planks and digging a channel to the ship so the tide could reach it. The crew soon found themselves sailing toward home, the happy beneficiaries of Canvass White’s ingenuity. A few months after his return, White enrolled at Fairfield Academy. He completed studies in mathematics, astronomy, chemistry, mineralogy, and surveying. A brief stint in the Army interrupted his advanced studies. He served as a lieutenant in the siege of Fort Erie, which was one of the last engagements of the War of 1812, but after being wounded he returned home. In 1816, Wright hired White for the canal project. White quickly earned his trust and impressed DeWitt Clinton as well. From 1817 through the spring of 1818, White traveled Europe collecting notes and drawing detailed sketches of canals, which would prove invaluable. While the engineers were more than capable of digging the ditch for the canal, several components posed problems. Locks, which raise or lower the water level to get boats up or down inclines, and aqueducts, which carry the canal over obstacles such as a road or a river, created difficulties for amateur canal builders. White’s research equipped them to construct these features. Upon his return, White was soon hard at work
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improvising and problem solving alongside the other brilliant canal engineers. Benjamin Wright grew to rely on him. Perhaps White’s greatest contribution was his invention of hydraulic cement. This cement hardened underwater and held up just as well as the much more expensive European cement. “I have no hesitation in saying that the discovery of hydraulic cement by Mr. White has been of incalculable benefit to the State,” Wright declared. White continued to work on the canal through its completion, and years later Wright reflected on how invaluable a resourceful and inventive engineer like White was to the canal project. “To this gentleman I could always apply for counsel and advice in any great or difficult case, and to his sound judgment in locating the line of the canal, in much of the difficult part of the route, the people of this State are under obligations greater than is generally known or appreciated,” Wright wrote Zeal and Ability The engineers and crew made slow but sure progress, and as 1825 neared, so too did the completion of the canal. The eastern section proved to be
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ABOVE LEFT An engraved portrait of Canvass White published in “Lives and Works of Civil and Military Engineers of America” in 1871. LEFT An 1851 statistical profile showing the Western Division of the Erie Canal.
A bird’s-eye view of the Erie Canal and Railroad connecting to Cayuga Lake, the longest of the Finger Lakes. ABOVE
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particularly difficult. “None but those who have examined the line previous to the commencement of the work; who had seen the rude and undulating surface which is traversed, the rocks which were to be blasted, the irregular ledges, filled with chasms and fissures … can easily appreciate the efforts which it has required to surmount these serious obstacles,” the Canal Commission reported in 1824. Even with the obstacles of topography, finances, and expertise, the Erie Canal reached completion in 1825. The finished canal was 40 feet wide and 4 feet deep. It featured 83 locks and 19 aqueducts, stretching 363 miles from Buffalo to the Hudson. DeWitt Clinton sailed across this vast, manmade waterway in the fall of 1825. Upon reaching New York, Clinton emptied a keg of water from Lake Erie into the Atlantic. The “wedding of the waters” marked a new era, one that would bring prosperity to the state that risked much to see the canal to completion. In just eight years, tolls paid the cost of the canal. A small group of men made an impossible project a success. “The engineers have devoted themselves to the management and superintendence of the works with a zeal and ability. … When it is considered that they could have had no experience, that the science they acquired must have
THE ERIE CANAL TODAY The state expanded the Erie Canal to 70 feet wide and 7 feet deep in 1835 and then to 150 feet wide and 12 feet deep in 1915. The 1915 overhaul also included changes to the canal’s route. As railways and other forms of transportation grew, the use of the canal shrank. Today, the canal is used primarily for recreational purposes such as boating, and many people drive, hike, and bike along its banks. For more history and information, visit ErieCanalMuseum.org and ErieCanalWay.org
been in a great measure the result of mental application, … they deserve a commendation, to which anything we could say would be very inadequate,” the Canal Commissioners wrote. “No eulogy could do so much justice as an appeal to their works. It has been said, and it is believed truly, that they have completed, in the shortest time, and at the least expense, the longest uninterrupted canal in the world.” • 61
History | Entrepreneurs
The Empire Builder James J. Hill refused government dollars in building his railroads, yet thrived through efficiency and good service WRITTEN BY
O
W. Kesler Jackson
f Irish heritage, James J. Hill grew up on the Canadian frontier. Despite the loss of vision in his right eye after a hunting accident at age 9, little “Jim” was a savvy fisherman and expert hunter, both with his handmade bow and his rifle. Raised by a Catholic mother and a Baptist father, Hill was educated by Quakers, under whose tutelage he mastered surveying and geometry at a young age. His great love, however, was reading, whether it was Walter Scott’s “Ivanhoe” or the great volumes of Shakespeare kept on the family bookshelf. These humble beginnings belied the fact that, one day, James J. Hill would be known far and wide by the sobriquet “The Empire-Builder” and live in the largest private residence—22 fire-
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places, a two-story art gallery, 13 bathrooms, a hundred-foot-long reception hall—in the state of Minnesota. When Hill was 14, his father died, and the teenager abruptly became his family’s primary earner. Working for a dollar a week as a clerk, he honed his mathematics skills and became acquainted with the world of commerce. As time passed, Hill became fascinated by the prospect of trade with Asia and determined to visit the Far East some day. First, though, he wanted to see the United States, and so, still in his mid-teens, he packed his bags and embarked upon a tour of America’s eastern seaboard, from New York all the way to Savannah, then inland to Chicago and, eventually, St. Paul. AMERI CAN ESSE NCE
Entrepreneurs | History
vvv Without railroads, commerce in the Old Northwest would forever be limited to when the rivers were passable, from spring into the fall.
ABOVE LEFT Countess of Dufferin, the first steam locomotive in Western Canada, arrives at Winnipeg, Oct. 8, 1877. ABOVE RIGHT Rail baron James J. Hill, 1909.
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Doing Business on Minnesota’s Rivers and Rails Hill arrived a couple of years before Minnesota achieved statehood; St. Paul became its capital. Here, Hill quickly found work as a clerk and letter-writer for a steamboat company, then for several wholesale merchants. For the next seven years, James J. Hill learned the ins and outs of the freight business on the Mississippi and the Red River of the North. He also married Mary Mehegan, a union that would eventually produce 10 children, though only after Hill paid for Mary to go to finishing school. By the 1870s, Hill had become an ambitious entrepreneur, known for soliciting feedback from clients and customers in order to identify
areas of needed improvement. His warehouses protected the flour mills’ flour during the winter months, his freight terminals bustled with constant loading and unloading, his steamboats plied the Mississippi—powered by coal furnished by his own fuel company! All the while, Hill began exploring the possibility offered by railroads in the Old Northwest. Without railroads, commerce in these latitudes would forever be limited to those months when the rivers were passable, from spring into the fall. Several major east–west rail routes had already been constructed—at great expense to the federal treasury. The prevailing attitude in Washington, D.C., was that such massive “inter63
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vvv Hill expanded his railroad west across the far northern United States, facilitating settlement in the Dakotas, then in Montana.
nal improvements” could only be carried out with substantial help from the government. That help came in the form of subsidies, favorable loans, monopolies, and, especially, land grants to the tune of millions and millions of acres. But government involvement often incentivized shoddy design and construction practices, to say nothing of out-and-out corruption. Since the construction companies—owned by the railroads—were paid by the mile, they often laid a slew of extra track; more track meant more money, regardless of the route’s efficiency. Builders often overcharged for their services, then used cheap materials, like iron rails instead of steel rails, in order to pocket more in profits. In this way, the construction companies (and, by extension, the railroad companies who owned them) amassed great wealth before transporting a single passenger. The central transcontinental route was completed first when the Union Pacific and Central Pacific lines met in Utah Territory in 1869. But in the early 1870s, scandal rocked the nation when The New York Sun revealed that the Union Pacific’s construction company, Crédit Mobilier of America, was vastly overcharging the government, then kicking back some of those gargantuan profits in the form of bribes to key government officials in order to keep the scam going. Those involved pocketed the equivalent of hundreds of millions in modern-day dollars. 64
Hill’s Vision for Railroads In Hill’s own backyard, the same story seemed to be unfolding. The north–south St. Paul and Pacific Railroad, which had begun construction in 1857 and, like its bigger counterparts, had received millions of acres in land grants from the federal government, floundered. Builders cut corners and used cheap materials, and progress was slow. Within five years of its founding, and despite all of the government largesse, the railroad was already bankrupt. Things looked up when the Northern Pacific bought up the St. Paul and Pacific. The Northern Pacific, recipient of the largest land grant of all (around forty million acres), connected the Great Lakes to Seattle. But in 1873, the Northern Pacific went bankrupt, too. Chronic scandal and mismanagement thus plagued the railroads. But Hill had a vision for the diminutive St. Paul and Pacific. After securing the backing of wealthy Canadian investors, Hill managed to purchase control of the railroad in 1878. He immediately began raising more money so that the railroad’s cheap iron rails could be replaced by more expensive, but higher quality, steel. Soon Hill’s railroad—now called the St. Paul, Minneapolis, and Manitoba Railway, or “the Manitoba” for short—connected St. Paul in the south to Winnipeg, Canada, in the north. As it turned out, Hill was just getting started. Next, Hill began construction of a rail line, the Canadian Pacific railway, connecting Winnipeg AMERI CAN ESSE NCE
Entrepreneurs | History
LEFT Railway executive James J. Hill (L) converses with his son Lewis W. Hill, 1910. BELOW Railroad tracks run across the Marent Trestle in Missoula County, Mont., circa 1883.
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in the east to Canada’s Pacific coast. The city of Vancouver was largely the result of this effort. Throughout the 1880s, too, Hill expanded the Manitoba west across the far northern United States, facilitating settlement in the Dakotas, then in Montana. Now Hill’s line, which he renamed the Great Northern Railway in 1890, directly competed with the government-supported Northern Pacific. Confident in his own enterprise, Hill pressed west to the base of the Rocky Mountains. Braving blizzards and high mountain passes, Hill’s engineer (John Stevens, who would go on to design the Panama Canal) discovered a convenient route through the Rockies, and by 1893 the Great Northern finally stretched all the way to the West
Coast. His was now the only transcontinental railroad in the United States that was privately funded. Attracting Settlers and Improving Service Hill took personal interest in all of the territory adjacent to his beloved Great Northern. Rather than building quickly like his heavily subsidized competitors, Hill was careful to build with high-quality materials and along the most efficient route, minimizing elevation changes and curves. Unlike his competitors, too, Hill traveled back and forth along the proposed route, surveying, observing, checking and double-checking, and making changes in route plans when necessary. He supplemented the main line with a host
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Section | Overline
line. In the meantime, Hill established a steam freighter business to carry trade from the Great Northern’s western terminus across the Pacific to the Japanese islands and China, thereby fulfilling a dream of his adolescence. From his papers and speeches, it is clear that Hill gained great satisfaction not just in making a profit, but in “progress,” in “real advance,” in “development.” He relished the opportunity to play his part. His Great Northern, especially, was a “Highway of Progress” (he used this phrase in the title of his own 1910 book). He wrote: of feeder lines, hoping to facilitate trade on as widespread a basis as possible. His great desire was for his railroad to attract settlement—and with this in mind, he charged uniquely low rates to immigrant passengers. Since most of these settlers would be farmers, Hill developed experimental farms—at his own personal expense—to research the latest in agricultural methods, freely sharing his findings on grain strains and cattle-breeding with farmers all along the line. Sometimes, he even gave away his own cattle to new arrivals. His freight prices were likewise uniquely low—so low, in fact, that rival, government-supported lines tried to shut him down for making their own services uncompetitive! Despite his rock-bottom prices, Hill’s lines were so well run that they remained highly profitable, and his freight and passenger cars were almost always full. Along the way, Hill helped develop the Pacific Northwest’s timber industry almost as soon as the railroad penetrated the region (the American timber industry was soon centered here). When fire burned down most of Fargo, North Dakota, Hill himself played a key role in the town’s rebuilding. His personal speeches—usually on the subject of agricultural innovation—were well attended in every county all along the 66
Nations, like men, are travelers. Each one of them moves, through history, toward what we call progress and a new life or toward decay and death. As it is the first concern of every man to know that he is achieving something, advancing in material wealth, industrial power, intellectual strength and moral purpose, so it is vital to a nation to know that its years are milestones along the way of progress. Thriving When Other Railroads Went Under When recession rocked the U.S. economy in 1893, many of Hill’s competitors—the Northern Pacific, the Union Pacific, the Santa Fe, all lavishly supported in a variety of ways by federal assistance—went bankrupt. His own workers, impacted by wage cuts, went on strike, but Hill met most of their demands and they returned to work. The Great Northern thus survived the “panic.” Working with investors and financiers (now including J.P. Morgan), Hill gained control of the Northern Pacific—despite a federal campaign to stop him—and, in short order, the railroad was running smoothly and profitably. Later, Hill acquired control of the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Railroad, too, which, by 1908, had expanded to Denver in the west and the Gulf of Mexico in the south. AMERI CAN ESSE NCE
Entrepreneurs | History
“The wealth of the country, its capital, its credit, must be saved … above all from the predatory politician,” Hill said. No one could see he didn’t live these words himself. His secret, he insisted, was merely “work, hard work, intelligent work, and then more work.” Resisting the temptation to profit from the government weal, Hill had built a railroad empire unrivaled in American history. And, in the process, he fundamentally transformed much of the country. • FAR ABOVE LEFT A 1900 map of the Northern Pacific Railway, spanning from the Great Lakes to the Pacific Ocean.
A postcard for James J. Hill’s Great Northern Pacific Steamship Company.
ABOVE LEFT
A train depot and residence owned by the Great Northern Railway in Edmonds, Wash.
ABOVE
RIGHT In 1907, James J. Hill (L) began turning over the management of the Great Northern Railway to his son Louis W. Hill.
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History | Inventors
Gone Shopping:
How the Paper Grocery Bag Was Invented As an entrepreneur in several fields, Margaret Knight held many patents, including one for the humble paper bag WRITTEN BY
Andrew Benson Brown
I
f you’ve ever carried your groceries home in a paper bag, you can thank Margaret E. Knight. It is a name that you have almost certainly never heard of, associated with an invention that seems too obvious to notice. But the brown paper bag is one of many useful modern conveniences that, trivial in hindsight, was by no means self-evident before its conception. The sweat and sacrifice its creator endured to bring this apparently simple object into our lives deserves our admiration. In a time where it was assumed that women were not smart enough to invent things, Margaret Knight showed a spirited resolve to realize her ingenuity and not allow others to take credit for her original work. Curiosity and a Toolbox Her father died not long after she was born in 1838, leaving her family in poverty. But he left something behind—an old toolbox—and from this container the natural aptitude of young “Mattie” blossomed. She used it to build toys for her brothers and local children, later recalling, “I was famous for my kites, and my sleds were the envy and admiration of all the boys in town.” In a notebook titled “My Inventions,” she started a lifelong habit of making
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drawings of her ideas. At the age of 12, she left school to work in a textile mill, suffering grueling hours under appalling conditions. One day, a thread snapped on a nearby machine, causing a steel-tipped shuttle (the part of the loom used to weave threads) to break loose. A girl who lived next door to Mattie was hit in the head and badly injured, an occurrence all too common in cotton mills at the time. Mattie sketched a solution to the problem in her notebook, which involved adding a metal guard to the box plate that would prevent a shuttle from flying off its track. She showed the drawing to a worker in a local machine shop, who passed the idea up the corporate ladder. Soon this “shuttle restraint” became a standard incorporation in looms across the nation. Mattie, however, received no compensation for her life-saving invention, since she was too young to register one. She continued to work in the mill until she was 18, then dabbled in a variety of trades over the next 10 years—daguerreotype, photography, engraving, upholstery, and house repair, among others. But it was after the Civil War that she landed the job that changed her life: a machinist at the Columbia Paper Bag Company AMERI CAN ESSE NCE
Inventors | History
in Springfield, Massachusetts. While there, she received two thirds of the wages of male employees who performed the same work; it was thought that women were not only less competent with machinery than men, but also wore “objectionable” clothing that took up too much room and posed a hazard to the workplace (according to one of the superintendents). During her employment at the company, she studied the machines and noted shortcomings in their efficiency, as well as problems with the then-current paper bag, which was shaped like an envelope and could neither stand upright nor hold much weight without tearing. Over the next two years, working in the basement of her living quarters, she proceeded to sketch improvements
and make elementary models for her designs. When the time came to make a wooden prototype, Knight opened up her father’s old toolbox. She had kept it with her all these years, taking it with her everywhere she went, keeping his memory alive. Using only the rusty objects in this cherished, decaying heirloom, she built a device that could successfully cut, fold, and glue paper to make the flat-bottomed brown bags we know so well today. It was a machine that could do the work of thirty factory laborers in a fraction of the time. These new bags could stand upright and hold more weight than the current ones being produced, potentially revolutionizing the industry—if only Knight could acquire the necessary rights to sell the machine.
vvv “I was famous for my kites, and my sleds were the envy and admiration of all the boys in town.” —MA RGA RET KNIGHT
LEFT An ingenious engineer, Margaret Knight held 22 patents in her name at the time of her death.
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History | Inventors
vvv She built a device that could successfully cut, fold, and glue paper to make the flatbottomed brown bags we know so well today.
Fighting Discrimination Intent on obtaining a patent, she traveled to a machine shop in Boston and gave instructions to have an iron model built from her wooden prototype. After this was done, she headed to the patent office, only to discover that someone else had just submitted a design for the same invention a few days prior. Knight was baffled, then outraged. She learned that a man named Charles F. Annan had made frequent trips to the machine shop, studied Knight’s prototype under false pretenses, and passed it off as his own. She filed a lawsuit against Annan, using the last of her savings to hire a lawyer. During a trial that lasted over two weeks, she spent a hundred dollars per day (in 1870 currency) as witnesses were brought out to testify to Knight’s priority of invention. The defense tried to build a case against her based on feminine inferiority, with Annan stating under oath that “Miss Knight could not possibly understand the mechanical complexities of the machine.” To counter these accusations, Knight took the stand, telling the court, “I have from my earliest recollection been connected in some way with machinery.” She described her history of employment in manufacturing before exhibiting her blueprints, early models of the design, and intimate diary entries detailing her work progress over a two-year span. 70
Faced with proof that a woman had indeed invented the thing, the defense lawyer tried to pivot the case in Annan’s favor by arguing that too much time had passed in between Knight’s conception of the machine and its patent application. The process should have taken months, not years. The Patent Office examiners, however, took into account the hindrances of Knight’s circumstances and gender, adding that she had exerted a “proper diligence” of “most notable character” in seeing her project through. The judge ruled in her favor, then closed the case with the remark, “Mr. Annan shall be forever disgraced in history.” After the trial, Knight attracted international attention. She refused an offer of $50,000 to purchase the patent from her and partnered with a financial backer to open the Eastern Paper Bag Company. Included in the business agreement was an up-front payment to her, as well as royalties on each bag made and shares in the company’s stock. Later Inventions and Legacy Over the next four decades, Knight expanded into the shoe, rubber, and automobile industries. She obtained patents for (among other things) a machine that cut shoe soles, tires that were “non-skiddable,” an internal combustion engine, and a rotary engine that was dubbed the “Knight AMERI CAN ESSE NCE
Inventors | History
vvv She embodied the American Dream of achieving material prosperity through creativity and diligence.
A 1912 newspaper cutout of Knight at work in her experiment room. ABOVE LEFT
ABOVE A patent drawing of Knight’s paper bag machine.
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She concluded by saying, “I’m not surprised at what I’ve done; I’m only sorry I couldn’t have had as good a chance as a boy.” In a time when a woman’s role was not associated with entrepreneurship and when the small number of other female inventors out there were mostly submitting patents related to the domestic sphere (even then concealing their gender on the patent paperwork), Knight was contributing to the manufacturing industry under her own name. Her success story makes her one of the first women to embody the American Dream of achieving material prosperity through creativity and diligence. Parents who are interested in teaching their children about this inventor have several resources at their disposal. Two excellent chilSilent Motor.” Still other inventions included a dren’s books have been written on the subject: numbering machine, a machine that made win“In the Bag!: Margaret Knight Wraps it Up,” and dow sashes, and a “dress and skirt shield.” At the “Marvelous Mattie: How Margaret E. Knight time of her death in 1914, she held 22 patents in Became an Inventor.” The second of these illusher name, and she is credited with an additional trated biographies, by Caldecott Medal win65 inventions under patents held by her investors ner Emily Arnold McCully, tells Knight’s story and employers. After passing away at the age of through watercolors and includes panels of da 76, a local obituary called her the “woman Edison.” Vinci-esque designs similar to those sketched in In an 1872 interview with “Woman’s Journal,” her famous notebook. Knight was asked how a woman with no formal The paper bag design has undergone a few education could have invented her paper-bag improvements since Knight patented her machine. In response, she cited her inborn dispomachine. Most notably, today’s versions have sition: pleated sides that make folding more compact. In essence, though, they remain the same, and I was only following out nature. As a child I Knight would still be able to recognize her invennever cared for the things that girls usually do; tion that, over 150 years after it was patented, dolls never had any charms for me. … The only remains widely used everywhere. So the next things I wanted were a jackknife, a gimlet, and time you go grocery shopping, give a thought to pieces of wood. My friends were horrified. the inventor Margaret Knight. • 71
Bulletproof Washington A young Col. Washington escaped injury while surrounded by the enemy in a 1755 battle in what is now Pennsylvania WRITTEN BY
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Andrew Benson Brown
very schoolchild once knew the story by heart: how a beleaguered George Washington became one of the sole surviving officers in a massacre that killed most of his army, but left him unscathed. How he took command when his general fell, rallied his troops as two horses were shot out from under him, and walked away with four bullet holes in his coat. While a modern reader is likely to think Washington merely lucky, his own account of the event ascribed a very different reason for his continued existence: it was nothing less than destiny.
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A Doomed Expedition At only 22, Washington became a distinguished veteran of the French and Indian War’s earliest engagements. His main talent? Surviving a siege by a much larger force at Fort Necessity and living to tell about it. Now a year later in 1755, he joined Gen. Edward Braddock’s newly arrived British army as an aide-de-camp. In late May, they set out through Ohio Country on a mission to capture Fort Duquesne (where Pittsburgh now stands). Braddock’s campaign was hopeless from the start. His arrogant attitude AMERI CAN ESSE NCE
Founding Fathers | History
LEFT An engraving depicts the fall of General Braddock. It is part of the Emmet Collection of Manuscripts Etc. RIGHT A 19th-century portrait of George Washington by John Chester Buttre.
vvv Washington gathered the scattered soldiers, restored discipline, and obtained needed supplies.
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alienated both the local colonial governments and the Indian tribes, and his knowledge of warfare was based entirely on his experience of European battlefields. Washington recorded his view of Braddock in his diary: “He looks upon the country, I believe, as void of honor or honesty. We frequently have disputes on this head … as he is incapable of … giving up any point he asserts, be it ever so incompatible with reason or common sense.” Their force dragged wagons and women 73
through the wilderness in a line extending for several miles, “like a thin, long party-colored snake, red, blue, and brown,” as historian Francis Parkman described it in his classic account, “Montcalm and Wolfe.” The terrain worsened, and stalking Indians scalped stragglers. Braddock took Washington’s advice to leave the baggage and push forward with an advance column of 1,300 British regulars and Virginia militiamen. Suffering dysentery, Washington cushioned his saddle to alleviate a case of hemorrhoids, but he could barely ride on account of his fever. 74
On July 9, they crossed the Monongahela River. While marching through a clearing, they encountered a reconnaissance detachment from Fort Duquesne. The smaller force of 300 French troops and 600 Indians formed a semicircle around the field, used the forest as cover, and started firing. Captain Thomas Gage formed the British vanguard into ranks and returned fire, wasting their volleys on bushes, rocks, and gullies. They loaded cannons and wounded trees. The Virginians ran into the woods to fight at close range as Braddock yelled orders to get back in AMERI CAN ESSE NCE
Founding Fathers | History
vvv “A power mightier far than we shielded Washington from harm.” —U NN AMED I NDI AN C HIEF
LEFT “The Death of Braddock. G.W. Placed the General in a Small Covered Cart” by Howard Pyle and engraved by C.W. Chadwick, 1893.
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line. Invisible but for brief puffs of smoke, the unseen Indians made terrifying war whoops as they decimated the British ranks. The regulars mistook the source of some musket smoke and killed many of the militiamen in friendly fire. Faced with a new and savage kind of warfare, they panicked, broke formation, and huddled together in a dense, frightened mass as they were cut down like “sheep before hounds,” as Washington put it. Gen. Braddock stormed to the front, moving here and there, shouting and swearing. Realizing all was lost, he ordered a retreat just before a bullet pierced his shoulder and entered his lungs. Other officers tried to lead their men in vain, falling one by one. Two of Braddock’s aides were wounded. Only one remained. Col. Washington charged forward. Riding back and forth to deliver orders, his horse was shot. He mounted another. Musket balls whizzed by his head and caught his flailing coat flaps. Amidst the mayhem, his second horse was hit. He mounted a third and continued rallying troops. An observant soldier later reported, “I expected every moment to see him fall.” Washington attempted to organize the mob fleeing like “wild bears” through the field and across the river. Equipment was abandoned. In the long retreat that followed, he gathered the scattered soldiers, restored discipline, and obtained needed supplies. Braddock died three days after the battle. Washington buried him in the road, flattening his grave with wagons to prevent discovery. The French and Indians had lost a handful of men. By contrast, Braddock’s force suffered over 900 casualties. Barely 30 Virginians returned from the three companies that had set out. In a twist of historical irony, one of the few surviving officers, Capt. Thomas Gage, would face Washington again 20 years later as the British commander-in-chief during the early months of the Revolution. Another survivor, assigned to watch the horses, was none other than the future pioneer and folk hero Daniel Boone.
Luck—or Destiny? Washington’s actions saved Braddock’s entourage from annihilation, and he was lionized as “the hero of the Monongahela.” He had learned that the European methods of waging war were irrelevant in the rugged wilderness conditions of North America. It was a lesson he would soon apply: The following month, he was given command of the newly formed Virginia Regiment. And he had learned something about himself, too. He examined his uniform, tattered but unstained by blood (his own, at least). Taking up a quill, he wrote a letter to his brother John to assure him that “a circumstantial account of my death and dying speech” was exaggerated. Then, he explained his belief for his survival: “By the All-powerful Dispensations of Providence, I have been protected beyond all human probability or expectation; for I had four Bullets through my Coat, and two Horses shot under me; yet escaped unhurt, although Death was leveling my Companions on every side of me!” Nor was he the only person to see the divine hand at work here. In August of that year, the Reverend Samuel Davies delivered a sermon to a company of colonial volunteers, noting that “God had been pleased to diffuse some sparks of martial fire through our country.” As proof of this assertion, he mentioned “that heroic youth Col. Washington, who I cannot but hope Providence has hitherto preserved in so signal a Manner for some important Service to his Country.” Textbooks written before the mid-20th century included another story supporting this view. Fifteen years after the Battle of the Monongahela, an old Indian chief who had been there—so the legend goes—sought out the future president. The chief said he had instructed his braves to fire at Washington, but they were unable to hit “the tall and daring warrior.” Their repeated failure could only mean that “a power mightier far than we shielded him from harm,” so the chief told the braves to switch targets. He then bid Washington listen to his prophecy: “The Great Spirit protects that man, and guides his destinies—he will become the chief of nations, and a people yet unborn will hail him as the founder of a mighty empire!” This story is probably apocryphal (for one, its nameless chief is never identified). Its invention and subsequent exclusion from modern biographies, nevertheless, reveals the changing values behind appraisals of Washington’s life and character. Whether one believes in chance, or in fate, it is hard to resist seeing something extraordinary in the early military career that launched his image as a living legend. • 75
Decoding the
Dollar Bill Buck. Greenback. Cheddar. Whatever you call the 6.14-by-2.61-inch rectangular sheet that is the U.S. $1 bill, there’s more to learn about it than you’d ever guess WRITTEN BY
Signature of Treasurer of the U.S.A. Since 1949, every treasurer has been female, and 7 out of the past 11 treasurers have been Hispanic. The official has oversight over the U.S. Mint and Fort Knox.
Pamela Beiler
Bill Series
Signature of Secretary of the Treasury
Year the bill design was implemented. A new design occurs when a change occurs, like when a new treasury secretary is appointed.
The principal economic adviser to the president of the United States.
Federal Reserve District Seal and Serial Number Minneapolis
Notes are currently printed by the Federal Reserve. The letter indicates which of the 12 banks around the country printed the bill.
Indicates the note’s location on the plate where it’s printed (a 4-by-8 sheet comprising 32 notes). The latter is the serial number of the plate. If an “FW” is also present, the bill was printed at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing in Forth Worth, Texas. If a star is the final “letter,” it means the bill is a replacement note due to a printing error on the original.
Boston New York Philadelphia Richmond San Francisco St. Louis
Kansas City Dallas
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Cleveland Chicago
Note Position Letter and Plate Serial Number
Atlanta
Seal of U.S. Department of the Treasury Appears over the printing of the word “one”; includes key, chevron with 13 stars, and balance scales.
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The Great Seal of the United States & Pyramid An eagle holds an olive branch and arrows to signify that while desiring peace, the United States will defend itself when necessary. The unfinished pyramid is topped with a triangle framing an eye, representing the eye of Providence. Together, they symbolize independence and self-government.
Above and Below the Pyramid Annuit Coeptis: “He has favored our undertakings”; Novus Ordo Seclorum: “A new order of the ages.”
MDCCLXXVI Roman numerals at the base of the pyramid signify the year that the United States declared independence from England, 1776.
Symbolism of ‘13’ in the Great Seal The 13 pyramid steps, 13 stars, 13 arrows, 13 leaves, 13 berries, and 13 stripes all represent the original 13 colonies.
E Pluribus Unum
“Out of many, one.”
In God We Trust Official motto of the United States since 1956.
Did You Know? “In God We Trust” was added in 1963.
Dollar Bill Fun Facts Paper money (or fiat currency) has faced skepticism since its inception, with many, including our Founding Fathers, claiming it has no actual value aside from what humans have ascribed to it and that the government has accepted it in good faith.
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A torn or taped bill can be exchanged for a whole bill at the bank—as long as at least half of it is intact.
Shredded bills are often sold by The Fed to be recycled into building materials.
It costs about 6.2 cents to produce every $1 bill.
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History | Revolutionary War
TH E FATH E R-DAU GHTER DU O WHO BECAME
Revolutionary War Heroes Henry Ludington and his daughter Sybil played important roles at key moments during the war WRITTEN BY
I
David W. Swafford
n the early years of the American Revolution, after the British evacuated Boston and took control of New York, the area encompassing historical Westchester and Dutchess counties in lower New York Colony became a uniquely dangerous zone, particularly for residents. The little region wedged between Long Island Sound and the Hudson River, and farther to the north between Connecticut and the Hudson, was a frontier of sorts. To the south was British-controlled Manhattan Island, and to the northwest was the Continental Army’s stronghold in the Hudson Highlands. In between was “neutral” ground. In this particular neutral ground, foraging parties from both armies took foodstuffs and other supplies from area homesteads, each army
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looking to satisfy its own needs and deprive its enemy of any surpluses. Opportunistic raiders and robbers pretended to side with either the Tories (Loyalists) or the Whigs (Patriots) to further loot, plunder, and steal from local residents. New York Colony, and lower New York especially, was probably the most evenly and bitterly divided politically of the all the colonies along the entire Atlantic coast. Not even close friendships or family ties could quell the strong emotions that arose from time to time in casual conversations. Henry Ludington In the Philipse Patent of lower New York Colony, which became South Duchess County before becoming Putnam County, Henry Ludington and his growing family made their home. Ludington AMERI CAN ESSE NCE
Revolutionary War | History
vvv “The Ludingtons represented ordinary people who had performed extraordinary feats during times of adversity.” — PAU L A D. HU NT
BELOW A 1796 map shows the military positions of the Battle of White Plains.
was a young veteran of the French & Indian War who moved to the Philipse Patent from New Haven in 1760. He had quit school at 17 to join the British army and fight in the war. For enduring harsh trials and for voluntarily re-enlisting several times, he was made a lieutenant. Before he was awarded the rank, however, he was made to take the Oaths of Fidelity and Abjuration, which pledged loyalty to King George III and disavowed any loyalty or connection to the Pope. Family members writing his memoir recall that as a lad, Henry was not suited for studies. “The school boy became a man of action halfway through his teens.” “He had a daring disposition and a strong appeal for adventure,” the memoir states. It also described him as having a “more than ordinary” force of character. One can infer, then, that Henry Ludington was well suited for leadership and authority. In coming to New York, Lt. Ludington settled near Frederickstown on a leased tract of land comprising over two hundred acres. The property was located on a busy road connecting Hartford and New Milford in upper Connecticut with Fishkill and West Point in the lower Hudson Valley. After his arrival there, he very soon married his younger cousin, Abigail Ludington, who was not yet 15. She was the daughter of his father’s younger brother. The couple’s oldest child, Sybil, was born the following year. Sixteen years after Sybil’s birth, in April 1777, the teenage girl and her by-then-accomplished father would make valuable contributions to this nation’s struggle for independence. Paula D. Hunt, writing in The New England Quarterly (June 2015), described the pair as “two unsung American heroes who had been, in their own ways, important to the fulfillment of the country’s promise.” She added, “The Ludingtons represented ordinary people who had performed extraordinary feats during times of adversity.” Reversing His Allegiance In 1763, when Sybil was 2 years old, Henry was appointed justice of the peace and deputy sheriff. He also had built a gristmill and sawmill on the property and was doing so well that years later he purchased the land from then-owners Samuel Gouverneur and his wife. Until 1765, Henry showed no indication that his allegiance to the king would ever falter. The initial fissure came when Parliament imposed the hated Stamp Act upon the Thirteen Colonies. Ludington resigned his officer’s commission in protest.
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History | Revolutionary War
Later, in 1773, he accepted a captain’s commission in a Loyalist Militia from New York’s Royal Governor William Tryon, but as relations between Britain and America worsened, he would not keep that rank long. By late 1775 or early 1776, he switched his allegiance definitively to the Patriot cause. By the time of the Battle of White Plains (October 1776), he was Colonel of the Dutchess County Militia in the Patriot army and served as an aide-de-camp to Gen. George Washington at that battle. Following White Plains, British Commander William Howe announced a bounty of three hundred guineas for Col. Ludington’s capture, dead or alive. Therefore, by early spring 1777, yet another persistent threat loomed over the Ludington family—aside from the sacrifices of wartime and the lawlessness of the neutral ground. The added stressor was the encroachment of bounty hunters. Sybil looked out for her father’s welfare and safety. One night, she and Rebecca, her next oldest sibling, on some quick thinking managed to discourage a group of 50 men from attempting to capture or kill her father. Daughter Sybil By the nature of Henry’s growing family, he depended on his eldest daughter for help in many different ways. His wife, Abigail, was too busy with the younger children to be of much direct support to her husband. Meanwhile, Sybil had
vvv By late 1775 or early 1776, he switched his allegiance definitively to the Patriot cause. been born with the same lust for action that her father had, and she grew up with a passion for action. Henry had carefully taught her how to do many things, including riding a horse and firing a musket. He taught her the local countryside, the lay of the land, and pointed out where his militiamen lived. On the eve of April 26, 1777, an exhausted messenger arrived at the Ludington home from Danbury, Connecticut. A British contingency of 2,000 men commanded by former Governor William Tryon had come ashore at Compo Beach the day before, marched to Danbury, and started burning much of the town. Col. Ludington asked the messenger if he could summon his militiamen to muster, but the lad and his horse were already too spent. The Ludington memoir states that, given the emergency situation, he bid Sybil to take her horse and make the necessary trek to
LEFT A document notes Henry Ludington’s promotion to Captain in 1773 by the New York Royal Governor, William Tryon.
A monument of Sybil Ludington, by Anna Huntington, on the shores of Lake Gleneida in Carmel, N.Y. ABOVE RIGHT
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Revolutionary War | History
summon all of his militiamen to muster by daybreak at the Colonel’s house. She took off into the darkness, in the cold rain, and would travel some 40 miles in a circuitous route before arriving back home. “There is no extravagance in comparing her ride with that of Paul Revere and its midnight message,” the memoir states. “Nor was her errand less efficient than his. By daybreak, thanks to her daring, nearly the whole regiment was mustered before her father’s house at Fredericksburg, and an hour or two later was on the march for vengeance on the raiders.” While the men couldn’t defend Danbury, they did come upon the Redcoats at Ridgefield, Connecticut. Combined Patriot forces prevented the British from making farther advances inland, and the militia under Henry Ludington’s comISSU E 7 | J U LY 2 02 2
vvv Henry taught Sybil how to do many things, including riding a horse and firing a musket. mand harassed the enemy column as it began retreating toward the sea. It was the first and only time during the entire war that the British army attempted a landing and offensive action in Connecticut. The Hudson Highlands had been defended, and Sybil Ludington played a large part in their defense. It is said that George Washington paid Sybil a visit at her home afterward to thank her for her service. • 81
History | Civil War
Rebuilding the Nation
Through Education Robert E. Lee and Booker T. Washington served as college presidents after the bitter Civil War
I
WRITTEN BY
f we slip back in time to the late 1860s, we find an America torn apart by war and suffering. In the spring of 1865, the North had defeated the Southern Confederacy. Less than a week after Confederate forces surrendered at Appomattox, Abraham Lincoln, whose policies might have changed the course of American history following that defeat, lay dead, a victim of assassination. The Radical Republicans in Congress were now calling the shots and were intent on breaking what remained of the governments of the South, pushing for Republicans and blacks to take over state legislatures. Meanwhile, the war had torn apart the South’s infrastructure. The plantation system was erased, at least for the time being, and the railroads were wrecked. Many industries, such as they were, had either closed their doors or were in ruins. The political and economic fall-out of that post-war era were immense. For years,
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Jeff Minick
Southerners resented the North for its Reconstruction policies, the military occupation, the flood of Northerners seeking to win their fortunes in that prostrate land, and the rights granted to blacks. Some Southern leaders organized groups like the Ku Klux Klan, loose-knit organizations designed to drive out Northern “Carpetbaggers” and to intimidate African Americans. On the other hand, Northerners regarded the South as a backwater, a region scarcely identifiable as American. Worst of all, after a brief springtime of African Americans being granted their civil and legal rights, up rose the Jim Crow policies that snatched away those liberties for nearly a century. Wisdom, forgiveness, and reconciliation were missing on both sides of this political battleground. Indeed, we’re still living today with the consequences of those post-war mistakes and vendettas. Yet some men of that time devoted their lives to rebuilding and reunifying the country. AMERI CAN ESSE NCE
Civil War | History
LEFT President Theodore Roosevelt (L) and Booker T. Washington at the Tuskegee Institute on Oct. 24, 1905. BELOW An 1890 illustration of the Robert E. Lee Monument in Richmond, Va. RIGHT An 1864 portrait of Gen. Lee, a brilliant military leader and a dedicated mentor to young Americans.
A Man of War Becomes a Man of Peace After leading the Army of Northern Virginia, Robert E. Lee was a hero to Southerners and was highly regarded for his brilliance on the battlefield by many Northerners. The defeated general might have found lucrative employment in any number of capacities. Instead, Lee moved his family to Lexington, Virginia, and became the president of Washington College. Faced with financial ruin and low enrollment, the college wanted Lee both for his name recognition and his leadership skills. Moreover, he had once served as superintendent of the United States Military Academy and so had some experience with academia. By choosing Lee for this post, the college’s trustees were handsomely rewarded. During the five years of his tenure, donors from both the
South and the North sent money to the school. The faculty grew from 4 to 20, and enrollment climbed from 50 to almost 400 students. These young men entered the school not only because of Lee’s already legendary wartime exploits, but also because of his personal interactions with his students. On accepting the college’s offer of the presidency, Lee had written, “It is the duty of every citizen, in the present condition of the Country, to do all in his power to aid in the restoration of peace and harmony.” He bore that idea constantly in mind as he counseled and guided his students and others. When one Confederate widow, for example, wrote to him of the bitterness she felt toward the North, Lee responded, “Dismiss from your mind all sectional feeling, and bring [your children] up to be Americans.” On October 12, 1870, Lee died from a massive stroke, his heart strained during the war and from the long hours he’d put in at the college. In 1955, his pre-war home, Arlington House, became a monument dedicated to Lee’s memory for his military genius and because after the war he had “fervently devoted himself to peace, to the reuniting of the Nation, and to the advancement of youth education and the welfare and progress of mankind.” ISSU E 7 | J U LY 2 02 2
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History | Civil War
Ambassador of Education and Goodwill Two years after Lee’s death, a young black man, a slave as a child, arrived penniless at Virginia’s Hampton Institute, the recently opened college and trade school for African Americans. Over the next few years, Booker T. Washington so distinguished himself as both a student and a teacher that in 1881 the school’s founder, Gen. Samuel Armstrong, asked his 25-year-old protégé to found a similar institution in Tuskegee, Alabama. By the time of his death, Washington left behind a school with a student body of 1,500, a faculty with more than 80 members, and more than 100 classrooms and dormitories built mostly by the students themselves. Across the American South were hundreds of graduates of the Tuskegee Institute, doctors and teachers as well as men and women in the trades. During those years, Washington also became a figure highly revered for his wisdom, his poise, and his attempts to bring peace and harmony between the races. Though some of his contemporaries bitterly accused him of being too accommodating and slow in his advocacy for full rights for African Americans, many blacks and whites applauded his ideas and regarded him as the greatest living man of his race. Theodore Roosevelt, for instance, was an admirer of Washington’s work, called on him for counsel, 84
In 1881, Washington founded the first institute of higher learning for African Americans. ABOVE
LEFT Washington was a lifelong advocate for peace and harmony between the races.
A history class in session at the Tuskegee Institute, 1902. ABOVE RIGHT
and considered him a friend. In a speech at the town of Hale’s Ford, Virginia, delivered later in his life to a black and white audience, Washington stressed that there was “opportunity … in this country for every man, whether he was white or black, if he had the heart and courage to work.”
RIGHT Washington’s residence at the Tuskegee Institute, Ala., 1906.
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Civil War | History
It Starts With Love Confronted by hard times and embittered people, Lee and Washington worked to bring people together. In his renowned address in Atlanta in 1895, for instance, while speaking to an audience of whites and blacks, Washington said of the races, “In all things that are purely social we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress.” At the end of his monumental trilogy “The Civil War,” another important person of that era, Shelby Foote, reports this exchange between former Confederate president Jefferson Davis in his last days and a visitor, “a reporter who hoped to leave with something that would help explain to readers the underlying motivations of those crucial years of bloodshed and division.” Davis pondered briefly, then replied. “‘Tell them—’ He paused as if to sort the words. ‘Tell the world that I only loved America,’ he said.” • ISSU E 7 | J U LY 2 02 2
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A Love of Learning | Hope & Inspiration
A Promise to Educate Once a homeless kid, Shelley Stewart became CEO of a multi-million-dollar firm, but his greatest impact might well be helping youths stay in school WRITTEN BY
Karim Shamsi-Basha
S
helley Stewart was 6 years old when he watched his alcoholic father, Huell Jerome Sr., kill his mother, Mattie C., at their Rosedale home in Alabama. This was back in 1939, and there was never an investigation. Shelley ran away shortly after and became homeless. A family took him in to live in their basement, and he remained in school at Rosedale Elementary. Mamie Foster, his firstgrade teacher, told him what would turn his life around: “If you learn how to read, you can be anything you want to be.” Shelley did well in school and became a successful radio DJ, hanging out with BB King, Nat King Cole, and Odis Redding. During the ’60s, the outspoken radio star became a target for the KKK. They spray-painted his studio with death threats, but Shelley continued the fight. In 1967, his friend Cy Steiner asked him to partner with him. They started O2ideas, which became one of the leading advertising agencies in the country. On a recent day, Shelley gazed from his office window at what used to be a lake—now Lakeshore Boulevard in Birmingham. He pointed out the window and said, “I used to catch catfish from this creek when I was homeless. I spent a lot of hours trying to catch what I ate that day.” Now the former homeless kid is the Chief Executive Officer of a multi-million dollar firm. Shelley knows the key to this incredible transformation: education, which is his current mission with The Mattie C. Stewart Foundation. Shelley admits he had what some 86
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Hope & Inspiration | A Love of Learning
www We don’t preach to these kids; we listen. –SHELLEY STEWART
LEFT Shelley Stewart’s Choice Bus program teaches students the power of education and its positive impact on one’s life. FAR ABOVE The program is rooted in the belief that education is the key to staying away from a life behind bars. ABOVE The spirit of Mattie C. Stewart, Shelley’s mother, lives on through the educationfocused foundation made in her name.
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folks might call a guardian angel watching over him during his entire life. “Mattie C. looked after me since that day in Rosedale. Her lovely spirit has guided me and protected me. [When I was 65,] she said to me, ‘You have not done what I asked you to do, I want you to teach and share a message of education.’” Shelley softened his gaze out of the window, summoning her spirit upon the memory. “I was not a teacher. I questioned her, but she insisted. A few days later, The Mattie C. Stewart Foundation was born.” The mission statement of The Mattie C. Stewart Foundation says it all: “Created to help educators, community leaders, and other interested groups reduce the dropout rate and increase the graduation rate through the creation of relevant and effective tools and resources.” Shelley got to work. In 2008, he created the Inside Out documentary film from his interviews with prisoners serving a life sentence without parole. He discovered a considerable connection between dropping out of high school and incarceration. “I found out that 75 percent of prisoners were high school dropouts. Imagine, had they stayed in school, we would have much fewer folks in prison,” Shelley said. To promote staying in school, Shelley started the Choice Bus program through The Mattie C. Stewart Foundation later the same year. The
bus has a dramatic effect. Half of it is a classroom, while the other half is a jail cell with metal bars—showing the grim reality of what could happen if you dropped out of school. Over 3 million high school students on 7,300 campuses across the country have visited the Choice Bus. Sherri Stewart is the Executive Director of The Mattie C. Stewart Foundation. “We don’t preach to these kids; we listen. Most adults tell kids what to do. We ask them about their lives, about their hopes, about their dreams,” Sherri said. “Then we show them that staying in school is the best way to achieve these dreams. Working with The Mattie C. Stewart Foundation has humbled me greatly. To know that we’re touching lives, it’s incredibly gratifying.” At the age of 88, Shelley continues to carry on the mission of The Mattie C. Stewart Foundation with documentary films, speaking opportunities, and other programs. “What The Mattie C. Stewart Foundation provides are tools to fight poverty and lack of education. The Choice Bus is a tool. The Inside Out documentary is a tool. We give folks the tools to improve their quality of life. We are a grassroots effort. We appeal to the masses, not the classes.” From a homeless kid to a business leader to an education promoter, Shelley Stewart’s legacy will help high school students achieve their thriving hopes and their burgeoning dreams. • 87
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Writing | A Love of Learning
Why We Learn To Write The importance of the written word and its impact on society WRITTEN BY
Poppy Richie
P
arents may be challenged by their child’s homework frustration—“Why do I have to do these writing assignments? I don’t like to write! I’ll never be a writer, so why do I need to learn this?” How can we answer that? Talking about examples of how writing has always helped us, both long ago and today, could motivate a more serious attitude about this important academic subject. Being able to write now is even more essential for most jobs than it ever was. A brief history of why people even started writing in ancient times might be a good place to begin to persuade this reluctant writer.
www Humans want to be in touch, so we need language, both spoken and written.
A tablet with ancient Sumerian script, one of the earliest forms of writing. ABOVE RIGHT
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The earliest signs of people trying to communicate are pictures in caves and on rock walls. What did early humans paint, and what prompted them to draw these simple sketches? Archaeologists guess that because they had Shamanistic beliefs, they may have used pictographs to communicate with the spirit world about their lives as hunters, since most of the paintings are of animals. “Cave Art” by Jean Clottes, one of many books on this topic, features colorful photographs of Paleolithic art for anyone who is captivated by these curious efforts to leave a record. All we have, though, are guesses about their purpose. We may not understand much about the cave drawings, but if we fast forward a few thousand years to the ancient written language systems, such as that developed by the Sumerian civiliza-
tion (present-day Iraq) around 3,400 B.C., there’s more information available to us. We know that merchants needed a written language for commerce. Initially, they were motivated by the need to keep track of transactions, which they did on clay tablets with a script called cuneiform. Later on, by the third millennium B.C., Sumerian scribes were also copying down essays, hymns, poetry, and myths. Ewan Clayton writes on the British Library website, “The earliest form of writing was pictographs—symbols which represented objects—and served to aid in remembering such things as which parcels of grain had gone to which destination or how many sheep were needed for events like sacrifices in the temples. These pictographs were impressed onto wet clay which was then dried, and these became official records of commerce.” Writing is filled with purpose, sometimes practical as in the Sumerian civilization, and sometimes for other reasons. The basic need to express ourselves in writing is because we are inherently 89
A Love of Learning | Writing
www Sometimes, the act of talking and writing is even necessary to stay alive. social beings by design, and we need to communicate. From a religious perspective, God created us as His children, and we are like a big family of brothers and sisters. We depend on one another. Science defines us as social beings that coexist in order to survive. Either way, humans want to be in touch, so we need language, both spoken and written. Words convey important messages—the information can be very useful, and even more importantly, words can profoundly move us. Sometimes, the act of talking and writing is even necessary to stay alive, as in the case of Holocaust survivors. My sister-in-law’s Jewish parents endured a frightening imprisonment in a Czechoslovakian concentration camp. Her mother told her about how victims saved scraps of paper on which to write down favorite recipes. They were starving, so food was one of the most popular topics in their conversations. As they remembered better times by sharing favorite recipes, they kept each other sane in that crazy, inhumane environment. In Germany, a Hungarian Jew named Edith Peer composed the Ravensbrück Cookbook while she was a prisoner at the Ravensbrück concentration camp in 1945. Peer, only 16 at the time, listened to older women comforting each other by sharing their favorite recipes. This inspired her to take the risk of stealing paper and pencils so the women could record family dishes and recipes for special Jewish celebrations. That cookbook miraculously survived and is now in the Sydney Jewish Museum. Writing under such difficult circumstances provided life-saving stimulation for the women in the concentration camps. Likewise, POWs in Vietnam supported one another through a tapping language they used to comfort and give hope to one another. In June 1965, four POWs imprisoned in Hoa Lo, the famous “Hanoi Hilton”—Capt. Smitty Harris, Lt. Phillip Butler, Lt. Robert Peel, and Lt. Cmdr. Robert Shumaker—invented and used a secret code they shared with other prisoners. Aired on November 13, 2000, on PBS’s American Experience, a video production called “Return with Honor” highlighted their life and death experience in the prison camp. Much like texting 90
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Writing | A Love of Learning
ABOVE LEFT A copy of Homer’s “The Odyssey,” translated into Latin. LEFT A 15th-century manuscript of “The Odyssey,” currently housed at the British Museum.
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today, the prisoners created abbreviations for words since they had to tap their language. “GBU” meant “God bless you.” The men provided comfort and companionship with a sense of humor at times, using abbreviations such as “DLTBBB”— “Don’t let the bed bugs bite!” POW Vice Adm. Stockdale wrote about the significance of the code in his book, “In Love and War”: “Our tapping ceased to be just an exchange of letters and words; it became conversation. Elation, sadness, humor, sarcasm, excitement, depression—all came through.” Stockdale demonstrates the power of language when he describes how the abbreviated writing of the POWs conveyed the most profound emotions. Even though it was tapping and not writing, important communication happened and might have even saved lives. What about sentences and paragraphs, chapters and pages of words—what
kind of an impact can that have on us? Consider the lengthy book that is the all-time, No. 1 bestseller, the Bible. It would be interesting to be able to have a count of how many people’s lives have been profoundly changed over the past 2,000 years by reading this book. Words can transform lives. That is why writing is so important. What about other books that were written a long time ago, even before the Bible? Is Homer’s “Odyssey” or Dante’s “Inferno” antiquated and useless? People still read these books and reference them over and over again. Aesop’s fables, written around the fourth century B.C., are often used in our modern age as an enjoyable way to teach morals to children. Shakespeare’s plays are pretty old, too, written in the late 1500s and early 1600s, yet many universities have classes on the most famous playwright in the history of literature. His genius is in his ability to convey universal themes of life and relationships, along with moral instruction. Most of us are familiar with one of his most famous plays, “Macbeth,” about a man who suffers a fall from grace and thus has a need for redemption. We can all identify with this dramatic message about the value of resisting temptation and upholding a virtuous life. It may be old, but it’s powerful! Without writers who are guided by a moral compass like Shakespeare, Thomas Merton, C.S. Lewis, Victor Frankl, Lao Tsu, and so many others, civilization would surely decline. In fact, we exist and flourish as a nation because of essential pieces of writing, such as the Declaration of Independence, the American Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. Without these defining words for governance, we’d live in a chaotic nation that would inevitably self-destruct. The writers of these crucial documents will always be remembered for their sage and prayerful attention to every word they wrote. All American students should study these works and others that have so powerfully affected the development of our nation, such as Lincoln’s famous Gettysburg Address and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech. When Dr. King gave his immortal speech, he encouraged humanity to believe his vision for a better world. Words that convey optimistic messages are easily found in books, poetry, and songs. The written word is one of the most important gifts we have. When we get stuck in our efforts to express ourselves on paper, we can remember how fortunate we are to receive the words of those who came before us, and perhaps this can inspire us to want to leave our own written legacy. • 91
A Love of Learning | Summertime
School’s Out, but Learning Isn’t The other classroom of childhood is where we learn some of life’s most important lessons—all wrapped up in sweet summer memories WRITTEN BY
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ummertime—the dream of every school-age child, and to be honest, even some adults still to this day. It is often a time of fond memories, fun, vacations, warm weather, and relaxation. As children, it was a time when we were finally able to, in our minds, “take a break” after a long year of learning. After a year full of tests, projects, homework, schoolwork (this list could go on and on), we came to think of it as a time we could finally relax, refresh, and have a well-deserved rest from the rigors of education. The days were longer, and as children, we spent them with our neighborhood friends going from one adventure to another. Our parents never really worried what we were up to, and many days, my mom saw me for lunch with the instruction that I be back home for dinner. The days were carefree and, for many of us, epitomized all that was good with childhood. Family vacations were the norm for many of us, and for me, they always included a trip to the beach. Yet what I (and I am sure others) failed to realize at the time was that some of the most important learning of our young lives was occurring in those three short months each year. Think back on your childhood days: When did some of your sweetest memories occur— were they inside the classroom, or during those months of “vacation” each summer? Most likely you have sweet memories from both, but for me, at least, many of those most cherished times 92
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occurred during the summer months, when I did not even realize what I was learning. In recent years, we have begun to hear terms like “Summer Learning Loss,” “Summer Setback,” or “Summer Slide”; each used to express a concern in student learning progress. In a society obsessed with testing scores and student achievement, summer break to some seems obsolete and unnecessary, as people try to cram ever more “classroom” learning into what some considered “wasted” summer learning time. If we look at it this way, though, we forget some of the very necessary learning that does and can occur outside of the classroom during these warm summer months. I remember sitting in my office with parents several years ago and being asked repeatedly, “When do our children have time just to be kids?” The longer I sat in that principal’s chair, the more I came to realize just how important that question, and our answer as a society, really was—“When do our children just get to be kids?” In that question was also the answer. “Just to be kids”—when did being a kid mean that learning was not occurring? For some reason, there is this idea that learning can only take place in a formal, “school” type setting—that for children to learn, they must be in the classroom— but in reality, nothing could be further from the truth. As I looked back on my childhood, so many times the most important lessons I learned had noth-
ing to do with the classroom, but rather with the daily experiences of my early life—experiences that many times took place outside of the schoolhouse. The classroom of summer for us was the classroom of adventure, experiences, and any number of activities. The reality was that we were learning, not even realizing that we were learning. During the summer, we had time for activities and experiences that the busyness of the school year did not afford. As I have grown, I have realized that the learning of those months, in many ways, was more necessary and needed than the book report or homework assignment that I had done months before. For me and others, many of those summertime experiences like vacations, play, and fun taught us lessons that have helped sustain and guide us throughout our lives, lessons like: 1.
Family is important, and time with them is fleeting and will never come again, so make the most of it. 2. Friendships and relationships are the things that will sustain you even when other things are gone. Building those is just as important as building your mind. 3. Fun and play is not just fun and play. It is our early lessons in learning to enjoy life and find the “fun” in each day. Play also helps us build relationships, learn to work with others, and function in a more realistic social activAMERI CAN ESSE NCE
Summertime | A Love of Learning
4.
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ity than the formal classroom at times provides. Nature and creation are beautiful, and it is important to spend time enjoying them. They are also full of wonder and discovery—think of the wonderful, hands-on, discovery science lessons you learned just exploring nature in the woods, on the beach, and everywhere you went. Imagination, as we grow and play, is what will allow us to dream and hope, even when our eyes cannot see it. Developing and exploring our imagination gave us the tools to hope and dream as adults. Cause and effect (natural consequences) are keys for adult success. Some of my greatest learning came through the games and activities of summer and doing something and seeing the result. How many days I would “rig something up” and then simply
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7.
watch and see what happened. Slowing down and resting is important. We cannot always go at a breakneck speed. Sometimes, we just need to stop, rest, and enjoy life.
There are certainly many, many more lessons and experiences that we could cite, and for each of us, these lessons were different and helped shape us into the adults we have become. For you, what are some lessons you learned outside the classroom just “being a kid”? What fond memories of summer do you have, and how have they shaped you as an adult? Sam Cooke once sang, “Summertime, and the living is easy…” The question as parents that we must ask ourselves must be, “Is this statement still true for us, and is it true for my children and family?” As a child, this was the time of year we lived for. School was out, the weather was nice, and it was, for many of us, the most glorious three-month
vacation one could ask for. No papers, no tests, no homework, and most importantly, no school! Yet even without all of those things, for most of us, learning still took place, and some of the sweetest memories and most valuable learning experiences happened during those few short months. As parents, and educators, we need to ensure that our students and children have the opportunity for these same developmentally crucial experiences. When we do, we will find that “education and learning” have not really stopped occurring during the summer, but instead, another just as valuable learning experience is taking place. As parents, we need to celebrate summertime, just as we did as children, and be sure that we are a conduit for this different type of learning for our children, so that one day, they too may look back on these days of fond memories as some of the most impactful learning experiences of their young lives. •
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Nurturing Future Statesmen A graduate program at Hillsdale College seeks to instill the Founding Fathers’ principles into the next generation WRITTEN BY
F
“
ather of the Constitution” and fourth President of the United States James Madison once stated, “A well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people.” And a well-instructed people is exactly what Dr. Matthew Spalding envisioned when he took the helm as Dean of the Steve and Amy Van Andel Graduate School of Government. Here,
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students seek serious study based at the very seat of policy-making in the United States: Washington, D.C. What draws these driven professionals to classes in the evenings and on weekends? Student after student says it’s the scholarly and intellectual reputation of the flagship institution, Hillsdale College. The D.C. campus opened in 2010 near Union Station on Capitol Hill as AMERI CAN ESSE NCE
Citizenship | A Love of Learning
www The program is highly selective but for good reason.
ABOVE Hillsdale College opened The Kirby Center in 2010, based in Washington, D.C., to nurture the next generation of bright minds in government.
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the Allen P. Kirby, Jr. Center for Constitutional Studies and Citizenship. Since then, thousands have embraced various programming that instills a deeper understanding of America’s constitutional roots. According to Dr. Spalding, this new graduate school, situated in the heart of the nation’s capital, teaches instruction with “an avowed purpose to essentially offer a much older and more profound understanding of politics and thought in America.” He proposes to engage professionals in the authentic, intellectual pursuit of America’s founding principles. In fact, the very original source documents that George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison read unite students to the fundamentals of the Constitution and its principles. It’s the kind of graduate school devoted to the civic and religious liberty that America was founded on. “We wanted to do something different, something consistent with the Hillsdale College teaching mission,” Dr. Spalding explained. “We really are trying to give a complete and proper
understanding of politics with moral and intellectual grounding. The whole establishment of a Washington, D.C., campus is really an outward activity of Hillsdale College—to shape, restore, and revive the principles of the country which can reshape how we think of the education of its citizens.” Political thought, literature from Aristotle to Shakespeare, American history, and statesmanship courses are incorporated into a core curriculum that makes up 36 credit hours. Though challenging, credits are earned through courses offered on weekday evenings or as learning weekends. It’s ideal for working professionals who labor as government staffers, analysts, lawmakers, media professionals, attorneys, and policy experts. He believes that many great people live and work on Capitol Hill who are not going to leave for a graduate degree elsewhere. Because the program is designed for nighttime and weekends, students can study and graduate in 2–3 years at their own pace. Unlike other institutions, courses are designed to teach how to be excellent statesmen, to become great thinkers like Churchill and George Washington. “I love politics, but the essence of politics is the understanding of deep principles. The way you do that in the American regime is by studying Lincoln, Washington, and other great statesmen—and the Constitution. Hillsdale has that understanding already; so to build that core idea 95
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in the heart of the nation’s capital is to create a “We should care about the actual education unique program for working professionals,” he you get. Hillsdale’s School of Government is an stated. accredited program where you dive deep into Dr. Spalding’s own professional acumen conrelevant texts, Socratic discussions with classsists in scholarly work and study grounded in mates. This focus on religious liberty and a the Constitution and American history. And his proper understanding of church and state made wife is a graduate of Hillsdale College. It was me a better thinker and communicator.” Larry P. Arnn, President of Hillsdale College, And that matters. who convinced him to participate in the grand Armed with a new graduate degree, he is vision of building the Washington, D.C., campus determined to advocate harder for organizaand, subsequently, create the graduate school. tions facing activists set on eroding freedoms. His expansive leadership role as Vice President Holdenried assists religious nonprofits in workfor Washington Operations also requires him to ing as better, smarter nonprofits. From tax comoversee all operations and educational programs. pliance to operating within the law, he helps “At that point in my career, I wanted to shift to executives and staff fulfill their apostolic misthe most important thing and create this unique sion and ensure liberty protections as sophistiprogram which is this gradcated organizations in the uate school,” he added. public square. www In May 2022, the first His time at the Hillsdale working scholars earned Washington campus con“We really are their Master’s degrees in nected him to his peers, a trying to give government after completcross-section of working ing many intense semesters professionals spanning gova complete of intellectual exceptionalernmental agencies, advoand proper ism based on the principles cacy organizations, and polof freedom, liberty, classiicy-focused nonprofits. understanding cal politics, and America’s “A healthy amount of of politics founding documents. With folks working on Capitol a liberal arts understandHill admire the program,” with moral and ing of the Western tradihe said. “It’s a diverse intellectual tion, graduates are able to group of people working defend American constiin government or outside grounding.” tutionalism in the public of government who teach square. –DR. M AT THEW SPALDIN G or take classes.” In other Joshua Holdenried wasn’t interested in a graduate program for credentials. He said it was clear that Hillsdale’s School of Government would provide an in-depth education. “I craved intellectual formation. It was clear that only Hillsdale could provide a thorough understanding of statesmanship and governing from tradition that has historical respect and accuracy to the Founding Fathers’ vision.” Holdenried currently serves as Vice President and Executive Director of Napa Legal. Though determined to muscle his way through the program, the recent graduate was impressed by how accommodating the program was for balancing work and life commitments. “You can’t actually be a student unless you are a full-time working professional. With a baby, time is limited as a parent, executive, spouse, and student. But they were great to work with to figure out a schedule that works for my schedule to complete the program and graduate,” he said. 96
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BOTH PAGES The graduate program allows students to complete degrees at their own pace.
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words, it is common for a chief of staff or senator or congressional member to take part in the graduate mission of the Graduate School of Government. Holdenried admits the program is highly selective but for good reason. “Because they are investing in you, unlike other institutions in which you pay for the diploma. Thankfully, through the generosity of donors, I was offered a full tuition scholarship. I knew that Hillsdale’s education was what I wanted. I wanted it more than the credential itself.” Steve Van Andel, for whom the graduate school is named, is a graduate of Hillsdale and on the college’s board of directors. His gift of endowment for graduate scholarships and graduate school operations makes it possible for students to study in this unique program and continue to work without the
worry of financing the education. The role of a great education in statesmanship cannot be overstated. The value of a Hillsdale education through the School of Government, he added, is that you understand, appreciate, and then apply the principles of statesmanship, whereas other programs do not necessarily accomplish this. Holdenried, like other graduates of Hillsdale’s educational formation, are so appreciative as former students that the next students are often recruited by the graduates themselves. Who then was the first person Holdenried recruited for studies at the Graduate School of Government? His senior counsel. And the adventure of forming well-instructed people in authentic governing arts proves to be a cascading blessing for Dr. Spalding and for America. • 97
A Love of Learning | Hands-On Learning
A Patriotic Lesson How the nation’s birthday can be an education opportunity for the entire family WRITTEN BY
Dawn Duran
ILLUSTRATED BY
Bird of Bliss
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arked by fireworks and barbecues while Washington lived at Mount Vernon. As the across the country, Independence Day time for the fireworks approached, we walked takes on a special significance when around the main house in time to observe a one lives near Washington, D.C. This swearing-in ceremony for newly naturalized U.S. year will mark our eighth holiday in the D.C. area, citizens. It was a powerful moment to witness, and our family will be continuing our tradition and it was inspiring to consider that these new of visiting a site of historical significance on July citizens would now have such a personally mean4th. For our family, Independence Day is a time of ingful reason to celebrate our nation’s founding remembrance in which to reflect on stories of our with the gathered crowd. nation’s founding, and we emphasize with our The following year, we visited Fort McHenry, children the insights of gifted where we spoke with men in forming a government “Frederick Douglass” before www that has been a beacon of libentering the grounds to parerty and freedom to the world ticipate in a flag raising cereIndependence ever since. We also remind mony. This is a truly spectacuour children of sacrifices lar event at Fort McHenry; all Day is a that were made by previous guests are invited to partake generations, which secured in a hands-on experience as wonderful freedoms and liberties that we they unfurl the flag prior to time to take all too often take for granted attaching it to the flag pole today. We look for opportunito raise over the Fort. It is all advantage ties to visit sites of historical the more impactful when the significance so that our sons weather permits the crowd of the many can learn the stories that to raise a flag equivalent in museums that unite us all as Americans. size to the one that inspired Our first July 4th in the Francis Scott Key to write make up the D.C. area found us at Mount “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Vernon, where we experiKey penned his famous Smithsonian in enced daytime fireworks over poem after seeing the stars D.C. the Potomac River just after and stripes still flying after receiving a warm welcome an overnight battle with the from “George and Martha British during the War of 1812. Washington,” who spoke from the veranda of This flag had 15 stripes and 15 stars, and it was their home. We observed a reenactment of a 30 by 42 feet in size. (For comparison, most flags Revolutionary War battle on the green in front of that are flown over garrisons today are 20 by 38 the mansion while sitting beneath a tree planted feet. In times of stormy weather or high winds,
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Hands-On Learning | A Love of Learning
the flag over Fort McHenry is 17 by 25 feet.) Another enjoyable Independence Day foray was our visit to Fort Washington, located across the river from Mount Vernon. An active fort through World War II, it was built in 1809 to defend the river approach to Washington, D.C. Because this is a significantly less-visited site than others in the metro area, my family had the run of the fort to explore, and we had a fabulous time pretending to use the cannons against the imaginary boats attempting to descend on our nation’s capital. While these are some of the most enjoyable activities my family has had over the years, one will never run out of opportunities for such visits in the D.C. area, which pulls out all the stops for Fourth of July celebrations. With free admission every day of the year, Independence Day is a wonderful time to take advantage of the many museums that make up the Smithsonian in D.C. It is a particularly fitting time to visit the National Museum of American History, where you can visit the very flag that flew over Fort McHenry during the Battle of Baltimore. Its size has been reduced to 30 by 34 feet due to decay over time, and it is now kept in an environmentally controlled chamber to preserve what remains of this impressive flag. Another meaningful visit might include a visit to view the American Presidents exhibit in the National Portrait Gallery. I remember how awestruck I was when I first saw the famous Lansdowne portrait of George Washington, which Dolly Madison removed from its frame and rolled up when she fled the White House as the British approached in 1814. This event during the War
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of 1812, in which the White House was set afire, was a retaliation for the American burning of the Canadian capital, and it marks the only instance in history when the American capital was captured (and occupied) by a foreign entity. The National Archives traditionally hosts a Fourth of July celebration, and I can’t imagine anything more memorable than viewing the original remnants of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution on Independence Day. Surrounded by the incredible portraiture in the rotunda in which these founding documents are housed would only add to the majesty of such an experience. The cornerstone of the Washington Monument was laid on Independence Day in 1848, and it would be a wonderful site to visit on the National Mall in anticipation of the Independence Day fireworks that are preceded by the annual “A Capitol Fourth” concert. If you live in the D.C. area, then you have no limit to the options you can choose for celebrating this sacred moment in our nation’s history. Sites of historical significance are to be found all over the country, though, and I encourage you to seek one out to visit on Independence Day this year. While you are there, be sure to share stories of our nation’s founding with your children, and emphasize to them the rich heritage we share as fellow Americans—and urge them to preserve it. •
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Learning From a Language Without Words Why studying American Sign Language has benefits to deaf and non-deaf people alike WRITTEN BY
Poppy Richie
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hen Shelby Harrison went to college, she walked onto the William Woods University campus with plans to be an education major and work as a classroom teacher the way two of her aunts did. Along the way, Harrison needed a foreign language in order to complete her degree requirements, and her academic adviser encouraged her to take American Sign Language (ASL). That’s when Harrison’s life story changed. Her first ASL teacher at WWU was a member of the deaf community. Harrison said, “I will never forget how much time and care he put into his classes. He is the reason I decided to change my major from education to interpreting!” When Harrison stepped into the world of ASL, she became part of a rich language tradition. “I was fascinated by sign language and felt like it was a great fit for me, so I decided to change my major to interpreting/deaf studies. And I am forever thankful to the deaf/hard of hearing (HOH) community for everything they have taught me regarding ASL and learning their beautiful language.” History of ASL American Sign Language originated in the early 1800s after Thomas Gallaudet returned from
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France, where he had met with Laurent Clerc, a deaf instructor of sign language. Gallaudet convinced Clerc to come to the United States, and together they founded the American School for the Deaf in West Hartford, Connecticut. Here, they established a sign language unique to the United States. Since that time, ASL has developed into what is considered a “natural language,” meaning a language which has developed naturally without conscious planning. Today, ASL is an organized, three-dimensional visual language that is complete unto itself and used by as many as 500,000 people. In addition to the deaf/hard of hearing community and their families, ASL is used by many non-verbal individuals. Learning ASL When asked what’s the best way to learn American Sign Language, Jessica Brown, Assistant Professor of ASL English Interpreting at William Woods University, doesn’t hesitate. Brown, who is deaf herself, said by far the easiest way to learn ASL is by taking in-person classes. “I acquired ASL at the early age of 3 years old, learning from teachers at Texas School for the Deaf. AMERI CAN ESSE NCE
Language | A Love of Learning
Because ASL is a 3D language, it’s easier to show culture is truly amazing to learn about, and to be in person. Video portrays me as flat 2D, and I have invited in as a hearing individual learning their to rotate and pan in and zoom out to show one language is a privilege.” sign.” ASL as Foreign Language In-person classes make a huge difference in being able to pick up the language quickly. As she Still, there are many people who question studied ASL, Harrison quickly discovered a depth whether ASL is a real foreign language. she hadn’t anticipated. “There’s a misconception Jessica Brown is quick to say: Yes! Brown said, out there that ASL is just a few signs or letters “ASL should be considered a foreign language in that make up some random gestures. This could K–12 actually. Some high schools are implementnot be further from the truth,” Harrison said. ing it, and I think that’s great! But I still think The 26 signs in the American Manual Alphabet K–12 benefits from it more.” each correspond to an A-Z letter, but to become Just like with learning any second language, the fluent, there are thousands of individual signs to earlier the language acquisition occurs the easier learn, each based on one of it is. Brown said, “ASL is benthe 18 different hand shapes eficial to all babies—ones that integral to ASL. As far as can hear and ones that don’t. www becoming fluent in ASL, Medical professionals encourHarrison quickly pointed age babies to acquire speech Facial out, “ASL is its own lanbefore trying ASL.” Brown expressions, guage entirely; it has syntax, disagrees. “The population a special grammatical strucwho can hear promotes ASL head tilts, instruction for babies who ture when producing sencan hear. We need to educate tences. It’s a very detailed, raised others on this. Our future gencomplex language with eyebrows, and eration rely on us to educate many pieces and linguistical others and keep ASL and deaf features that make it unique other body culture alive and thriving.” and challenging to learn. In Brown also said that while most cases it takes several language add ASL can be considered a foryears for a hearing person to eign language, it is not an learn ASL as a second lanmeaning to the international (universal) language and become fluent. It signs being guage. ASL “has its own set is not something that can be of grammar structure, syntax, learned overnight.” used. and grammatical rules belongAnd even beyond learning to ASL, in America. Other ing the individual signs, countries have their own signed languages, that acquiring ASL is also about understanding the are different from ASL. They even have several non-manual markers of ASL, meaning the facial signed languages in different regions!” expressions, body or eye shifts, head tilts, raised From her position as an assistant professor, eyebrows, and other body language that add Brown is able to see all the ways learning ASL meaning to the signs being used. benefits people. William Woods University is That’s the reason Harrison is adamant that anyproud to say, “We have students who graduated one learning ASL as a second language also spend [with ASL degrees] who went off to be intertime interacting with native speakers. “When you’re learning ASL, it’s vital to be immersed in preters, law enforcement officers, lawyers, social the deaf community and socialize with deaf indiworkers, teachers, and the list goes on.” viduals because ASL is their language.” Harrison Samuel Johnson said, “Words are but the said, “Members of the deaf and hard of hearing signs of ideas,” and when it comes to learning and deaf-blind community are the best way to American Sign Language, this is doubly true. learn the language and to gain valuable feedback As Jessica Brown so passionately said, “ASL is from those who know the language the best. Deaf for all—deaf and those who can hear.” • ISSU E 7 | J U LY 2 02 2
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Arts & Letters | Book Recommender
Rapunzel and the Frog Prince, Updated for Today ‘Odd Magics’ takes old fairy tales and gives them a gentle, modern spin while retaining traditional values WRITTEN BY
Mark Lardas
“Odd Magics: Tales for the Lost” by Sarah Hoyt (Goldport Press, 2022).
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airy tales served as medieval entertainment. They were cautionary tales, with advice about how to live your life, as much as they were fables. They were not just for children. “Odd Magics: Tales for the Lost,” by Sarah Hoyt, is a dozen updated fairy tales, snatched from traditional roots and garbed in modern clothing. Hoyt has taken stories you read as children, giving them her unique spin. They are all there, the Frog Prince, Cinderella, Rumpelstiltskin, Rapunzel, Sleeping Beauty, and seven more. No longer set in never-never land, they take place in 21st-century America (mostly Colorado). They are delightfully weird. Some start out
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with the protagonist wondering if he or she might be hallucinating or imagining things. There is often no other way to explain what occurs in our world; a giant frog dropping out of the sky, a missing glass slipper, oddly-behaving mirrors. Others begin normally before segueing into something remarkable: trips into fairyland or an enchanted ball, discovering your beloved is a fairy-tale dwarf. A few start normally, but with a fairy-tale plot. In one, a husband and wife going through a divorce rediscover their love for each other. In another, a man alienated from his father rediscovers the magic—in a figurative sense—in the old family farm, abandoning the fast lane in New York to return. As with the original fairy tales, these stories have lessons. They show the importance of family and love. (Most end with the “happily ever after,” enumerating the children the featured couple later have.) They underscore the impermanence of life. They demonstrate the futility of blindly pursuing material gain or current fashion. Indeed, Hoyt highlights traditional values with these stories. This is a book for all ages. A teen or tween could benefit from the lessons that subversively undermine the siren song of today’s anti-traditional trends. They may not realize they are reading something more than an entertaining story. Yet you have to be an adult to appreciate all the nuances Hoyt layers into each story. Each story is a morality play concealed within entertainment innocent enough to read to a child. These stories were originally published on Hoyt’s blog, over the course of several years. If you are a regular reader of it, you will not find anything new here, although it is collected into one body. For those who missed reading them there, “Odd Magics” is a delightful read, worth the time to explore. • AMERI CAN ESSE NCE
Book Recommender | Arts & Letters
The Flora and Fauna of America’s Southeast Naturalist William Bartram took notes rich in sensory and reflective details on his 18th-century journey through Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas, capturing flora, fauna, and humanity WRITTEN BY
Deena C. Bouknight
“Travels of William Bartram” edited by Mark Van Doren (Dover Publications, 1955).
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ohn Bartram, touted as America’s first professional botanist, had a son named William in 1739. William followed closely in his father’s footsteps by keenly understanding botany. He also demonstrated adeptness at drawing and penning the details of his observations. He decided in 1765 to document plant life in the new Spanish-acquired territory of Florida. His explorer streak whetted, William set out again in 1773 on a nearly-four-year botanizing journey that involved collecting seeds and specimens, sketching comprehensive drawings of flora and fauna, and making notes about habitats, growth patterns, etc. But William concentrated just as much on people and culture. His intuitive writings take us with him on well-worn footpaths,
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atop a borrowed mount on native peoples’ horse trails, or inside canoes down rivers and streams. He shares personally and enthusiastically each time he approaches a new species: “The Cupressus disticha [bald cypress] … its majestic stature is surprising; and on approaching it, we are struck with a kind of awe, at beholding the stateliness of the trunk, lifting its cumbrous top towards the skies.” But William doesn’t just appreciate nature, he credits unabashedly the Creator. “The world, as a glorious apartment of the boundless palace of the sovereign Creator, is furnished with an infinite variety of animated scenes, inexpressibly beautiful and pleasing, equally free to the inspection and enjoyment of all his creatures.” He often thanks God when considering perils, such as lightning storms or aggressive alligators. “I now, with a high sense of gratitude, presume to offer up my sincere thanks to the Almighty, the Creator and Preserver.” And, while William could have embellished and boasted when he completed his arduous journey, he instead presented his book in 1791 as a literary hybrid of natural history, travelogue, and religious allegory that is boyish in wonder and humility. For instance, his fascination with meeting American Indians never waned. “They all whooped in chorus, took me friendly by the hand … and laughing aloud, said I was a sincere friend of the Siminoles [Seminoles].” “The prince is the chief of Whatoga [Cherokee], a man universally beloved, … and revered for his exemplary virtues.” William left us his account so that even in modernity we can journey at any time with him to a less adulterated America. The original title of Bartram’s book was close to 50 words long. Over the more than two centuries of multiple printings, the book’s title has been shortened to either “Travels of William Bartram” or “Bartram’s Travels.” • 103
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Looking up at the Capitol Rotunda.
WRITTEN BY
Kara Blakley
Decoding the symbols that represent our nation’s founding principles in the iconic fresco, ‘The Apotheosis of Washington,’ painted inside the Capitol dome
America’s Vault to
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Glory
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he U.S. Capitol Rotunda is one of the most iconic spaces in the nation. High above its well-trod floors, the dome features a glorious fresco painting, replete with symbols of American democracy. Suspended 180 feet in the air, “The Apotheosis of Washington” is the master work of American artist Constantino Brumidi. The fresco was completed in 1865, commemorating the end of the Civil War. The painting depicts George Washington, flanked by female figures representing Liberty and Victory, ascending to the heavens. Appropriately, the term apotheosis means the glorification and deification of an individual, and 106
Washington was just as revered in the 19th century as he is today. Washington wears a presidential suit while he is draped in a purple fabric. Brumidi subtly connected the president to Roman generals, who wore purple cloaks when they returned victorious from battle. The rainbow arch at Washington’s feet is also a Classical symbol of peace and victory. Liberty wears a Phrygian cap, an ancient Roman symbol of freedom. Throughout the fresco, the artist meticulously created an intricate iconographical scheme connecting the United States to the immortal values of freedom and democracy through ancient Greek and Roman aesthetics. The artist, Constantino Brumidi, was an apt
ABOVE “The Apotheosis of Washington” by Constantino Brumidi, 1865. Fresco.
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Paintings | Arts & Letters
FAR ABOVE Detail of “War,” with an armed figure representing Freedom.
Constantino Brumidi, the artist who painted the murals and frescoes in the U.S. Capitol building.
ABOVE
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choice of painter: He was an immigrant of both Greek and Italian descent, and he served as a cultural conduit between the antique cradle of democracy and the New World. A master of the classical style of painting, Brumidi helped bring this important symbolism to the United States. Well-versed in Italian Renaissance art, he also modeled many of his figures on examples created by Raphael centuries prior. The artist masterfully connected Washington and American values to these timeless visual motifs. The significance of “The Apotheosis of Washington,” despite its title, extends well beyond the esteemed first president—it exalts values that are significant to the United States and to the American way of life. The six scenes that complete the fresco are Freedom (War), Science, Marine, Commerce, Mechanics, and Agriculture, which are detailed below. The fresco also pays homage to the country’s origins and history:
Thirteen young women, each with a star atop her head, encircle Washington, Liberty, and Victory. Notably, several figures turn their backs to Washington, symbolizing the states that seceded from the union. Two figures brandish a banner that reads “E Pluribus Unum” (meaning “out of many, one”), which is the motto of the United States. The motto appears on the Great Seal and has appeared on U.S. currency since 1795. Freedom Lining the perimeter of the fresco are the six aforementioned concepts, represented allegorically. Freedom is featured directly below Washington, reminding viewers of his role in securing the nation’s independence. Freedom is portrayed as a woman, specifically Columbia, who is the female personification of the United States (hence the capital, District of Columbia). Columbia wields a sword and a red, white, and blue shield as she vanquishes tyranny and kingly rule (symbolized by the red mantle famously donned by monarchs and emperors). A bald eagle carrying arrows and thunderbolts assists Freedom in her triumph. 107
Section | Overline
LEFT Detail of “Science.” BELOW
Detail of “Marine.” RIGHT
Detail of “Commerce.”
Science Science is symbolized by Minerva, the Roman goddess of wisdom. A profound deity, she also represents crafts, the arts, technology, and inspiration. In this scene, she is joined by several prominent American scientists and inventors, including Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Morse, and Robert Fulton. She gestures toward an electrical generator, and several children—the next generation of scientists—look on. Brumidi emphasized that innovation is an integral part of the American spirit. Marine The next scene, Marine, celebrates the importance of maritime trade and the ocean itself. Neptune, Roman god of the sea, is identified by his trident and crown of seaweed. He rides a sea chariot, alluding to oceanic crossings. Venus, the Roman goddess of love who was born from the sea, holds and helps lay the transatlantic telegraph cables that were being laid at the time of the fresco’s completion. These cables revolutionized intercontinental communications between the United States and Europe.
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vvv The artist masterfully connected Washington and American values to these timeless visual motifs. ISSU E 7 | J U LY 2 02 2
Commerce Marine gives way to the next scene: Commerce. Brumidi strategically placed these two scenes side-by-side as they are inextricably linked. Mercury symbolizes commerce, and he wears his iconic winged petasus (brimmed hat) and shoes and carries his caduceus. The caduceus represents trade, negotiations, and communications— all necessary tenets of commerce. On the right, the anchor and sailors lead into Marine, highlighting the growing importance of international trade as part of American commerce. 109
Mechanics Vulcan, Roman god of fire, the forge, and smithery, presides over the scene Mechanics. He holds a blacksmith’s hammer and stands at an anvil; his right foot rests upon a cannon situated near a pile of cannonballs. Behind Vulcan, there is a steam engine—one of the most significant mechanical innovations of the 18th century, which was indispensable to life and industry in the 19th century. Brumidi again created thoughtful continuity, as mechanics—and with it, industry—is connected to commerce. 110
vvv This vibrant, intense, and complex composition establishes a profound connection between Classical aesthetics and the newlyemerging American style. AMERI CAN ESSE NCE
Paintings | Arts & Letters
LEFT Detail of “Mechanics.” ABOVE Detail of “Agriculture.”
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Agriculture Lastly, Ceres, Roman goddess of agriculture, graces the scene of the same name, Agriculture. She holds a wreath of wheat (as she is also the goddess of grain crops) and a cornucopia, symbol of abundance. Ceres sits atop a McCormick mechanical reaper, connecting agriculture to mechanical innovation. A figure personifying Young America wears a liberty cap and holds the reins of the horses. Flora, Roman goddess of nature, flowers, and the springtime, picks flowers in the foreground. Her inclusion is a nod toward fecundity and renewed life. This vibrant, intense, and complex composition establishes a profound connection between Classical aesthetics and the newly emerging
American style. Brumidi created a reflective synthesis between the Classical and the American, an ingenious manifestation of the international Neoclassical style that is sometimes referred to as the Federal style in the United States. Notable examples of Neoclassical architecture in the United States include the White House and Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello estate. In American painting, ancient Greek and Roman motifs were reinterpreted for the dawning of a new era. American artists, philosophers, and political theorists revered the democratic values that flourished in antiquity and sought to emulate the artwork of the period as a way to affirm the visuals and ideals of American democracy. • 111
The Capitol dome at dusk.
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Architecture | Arts & Letters
Designing the
Nation’s Capital How a group of architects’ classical designs became the blueprint for Washington, D.C. WRITTEN BY
Bob Kirchman
“The Capitol ought to be upon a scale far superior to anything in this Country.”
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—G EORG E WASH I N GTO N, TO TH OMAS J EFFERSO N I N 1792
ames Hoban was born in 1762, in Callan, Ireland. As a boy, he was an apprentice to a carpenter and a wheelwright. He later trained in the neoclassical style of architecture at the Dublin Society School. Just after the Revolutionary War, Hoban immigrated to South Carolina. There, he designed the old state Capitol building in Columbia. At the suggestion of George Washington, Hoban entered the competition for the design of the President’s House in 1792. Not only did he win the design competition, but he received the commission to build the house as well. The President’s House in America was inspired by Leinster House in Dublin, where the Irish Parliament meets, as well as by James Gibbs’s “Book of Architecture” (published in 1728). The presidential mansion would be constructed between 1793 and 1801. At the same time, James Hoban was also enlisted as one of the supervisors of the construction of the United States Capitol. The Capitol was the design of physician and amateur architect Dr. William Thornton. He won the design competition in 1793. The prize was $500 and a building lot in the new federal city. Thornton had been born in the British West Indies and studied medicine at the University of Aberdeen. He became a United States citizen in 1787, moved to Washington in 1794, and was later appointed head of the Patent Office by Thomas Jefferson. The north wing of the Capitol was constructed first. The Capitol and the President’s House were both built of Aquia Creek sandstone, quarried near Stafford, Virginia. The government-owned quarry provided most of the stone for the early construction in Washington. Though the soft, porous rock was not ideal for constructing great public ISSU E 7 | J U LY 2 02 2
buildings, it was a wise and economical choice at the time. Rising above a pastoral landscape, the President’s House and the Capitol represented the promise of the new republic. On August 24, 1814, British troops marched into Washington and set fire to both the President’s House and the Capitol Building. Fortunately, Benjamin Henry Latrobe, who actually supervised the building of the Capitol, had specified fireproof materials inside. Though ravaged by fire, the structure remained—“a most magnificent ruin.” The President’s House was but a gutted shell. The outer sandstone walls remained, permanently charred by the flames. The option to rebuild, however, prevailed. Hoban supervised the rebuilding of the President’s House.
The architectural design for the White House by Benjamin Henry Latrobe, 1807.
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New timber framing went up inside the blackened sandstone walls. The walls themselves, hopelessly charred, were painted white. As the nation stretched westward in the mid-19th century, other great classical buildings were added to the nation’s capital. The landscape around the great buildings remained relatively undeveloped until the mid-19th century. Low brick and frame houses, as well as open farmland, made up the character of the District of Columbia. Born in 1781, Robert Mills came from South Carolina to Washington at the age of 19. He became an apprentice working on James Hoban’s President’s House. America’s first native-trained architect, Mills would design a number of significant buildings in the nation’s capital and throughout the country. Among them are the Treasury building, begun in 1837 to replace the original building, which burned in 1833. Mills’s design featured a massive Ionic colonnade, inspired by Greek classicism. It was not universally popular, and there were even calls for its demolition while it was being built. Still, the fireproof building’s strong facade was preserved, and Mills set a precedent for the architecture of the city. Mills went on to design the Washington Monument—the “first” Washington Monument, in Baltimore, Maryland. His design was a large Tuscan column, on a massive base, topped with a statue of the president. Begun in 1815, the monument was completed in 1825. When Pierre L’Enfant laid out the city of Washington, he had reserved at the west end of the National Mall a place for a large equestrian statue of the first president. In 1836, a competition was held to choose a design for a grander monument to Washington, to be erected on that spot. Robert Mills proposed a 600-foothigh square shaft, slightly tapered, rising from a large Greco-Roman peristyle (circular colonnade) wreathed with 32 Doric columns. Mills’s design would eventually be simplified to the great obelisk we know today. It would not be completed until 1884, when the aluminum capstone with the simple inscription “Laus Deo” (Praise be to God) would be placed, completing the point of the obelisk. The United States Capitol would be an ongoing work, under the supervision of a succession of architects—among them, Benjamin Henry Latrobe, Charles Bulfinch, and Thomas U. Walter. Upon the suggestion of Walter, the Capitol building began its architectural expansion of larger wings in 1850. Cross section of the revised dome design for the Capitol building by Thomas U. Walter, 1859. Pen, ink, and watercolor. ABOVE LEFT
LEFT A drawing of the dome with elevation markers by Thomas U. Walter, 1859. Pen, ink, and watercolor.
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Architecture | Arts & Letters
vvv The Capitol and the President’s House were both built of Aquia Creek sandstone, quarried near Stafford, Virginia.
Walter also envisioned a high, fireproof dome—the one we know today. The original dome, completed under Bullfinch, was simply not large enough for the expanded Capitol, and so it was removed in 1856. Construction of the larger Capitol and the large iron dome continued until the outbreak of the Civil War, when it was halted. President Lincoln, seeing the Capitol and its half-completed dome as symbolic of the needed restoration of the republic, ordered construction to continue. It was completed in time for his second inauguration in 1865. As the city approached the 100th anniversary of its founding, one man would make a discovery that would lead to a renaissance in the planning of the republic’s capital. Glenn Brown was a resident of Alexandria and the Executive Secretary of the American Institute of Architects (AIA). He did extensive research on the Capitol and rediscovered the work of L’Enfant, Ellicott, and Banneker. Brown was a pioneer in the documentation and
The design for the Corinthian columns by Thomas U. Walter, 1859. Pen, ink, and watercolor.
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RIGHT Drawings by Thomas U. Walter depict the details of the inner dome.
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Arts & Letters | Architecture
LEFT The original design for the “Washington Monument” by Robert Mills, 1846. RIGHT The east entrance to the Senate wing of the Capitol building features modified Corinthian columns and a carved pediment detailing the “Progress of Civilization.” The pediment was designed by Thomas Crawford and erected in 1863. BELOW RIGHT
An architectural stone design on the grounds of the Capitol, by landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted.
restoration of historic structures. It was his work that foreshadowed that of preservationists today. Brown visited the great White City Exhibition in Chicago in 1893 as the guest of Daniel Burnham, the fair’s lead architect. The fair inspired in him a vision. At the 1900 convention of the AIA, Brown launched an ambitious crusade to realize the L’Enfant plan (the urban plan developed in 1791 by Maj. Pierre Charles L’Enfant for George Washington). Senator James McMillan of Michigan picked up the torch. He served on the 116
Senate Committee on the District of Columbia. Although Congress was not willing to pass a comprehensive planning bill, McMillan was able to establish a parks commission for the city and secure the pro-bono participation of a number of important designers of the day. The group included architects Daniel Burnham and Charles McKim, landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted Jr., sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, and Charles Moore. Where Brown had found a National Mall crossed AMERI CAN ESSE NCE
by railroad tracks, and home to a gas plant and lumber mill, McMillan’s group created beautiful renderings and models of L’Enfant’s plan recast in light of the times. Beautiful classical buildings rose along a stately mall that intersected with the Ellipse in front of the White House. A corridor of trees grew to frame the grassy Mall as it extended to the Washington Monument. A new expanse of green extended to the station north of the Capitol, defined by Louisiana Avenue and First Street. The Mall itself extended to include a great Reflecting Pool and a monument to Abraham Lincoln, designed by Henry Bacon (1922). Government offices were housed in a “Federal Triangle,” styled after the great buildings of Paris such as the Palais du Louvre. John Russell Pope, the great beaux arts classicist, designed a number of beautiful buildings for the capital. His Jefferson Memorial, along the Tidal Basin, is a splendid marble Parthenon, reminiscent of the style Jefferson loved. He also designed the National Archives, where America’s founding documents are enshrined. In a career that spanned the 1930s, he gave life to Brown’s original vision. Pope’s 1941 West Wing of the National Gallery ISSU E 7 | J U LY 2 02 2
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vvv Rising above a pastoral landscape, the President’s House and the Capitol represented the promise of the new republic.
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of Art is considered by many to be his crowning achievement. The West Wing is built of Tennessee pink marble in a beautiful beaux arts adaptation of classical forms. The central portion is inspired by the Roman Pantheon and flanked by well-proportioned wings. When Pope designed the building, the majority of its collection was Italian Renaissance artwork. He created an ideal space for their display. The building rises above the Mall on a series of walled terraces. It is monumental yet subtle at the same time—a fitting statement for a nation that has chosen to place great cultural treasures on her greatest public space. It is a building that not only has stood the test of time, it defines the very concept. Nothing to compare with it has been built in Washington since. •
The “Peace Monument” was erected in 1878 by Franklin Simmons to commemorate naval deaths during the Civil War. The personification of Grief mourns on the shoulder of History, with Victory standing beneath. ABOVE
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White House:
The Stronghold of America The abode and workplace of every president of the United States since John Adams, there’s no question that the White House is one of the most protected buildings in the world. Here are some of its fascinating security features: WRITTEN BY
Pamela Beiler
In case of an emergency, a discreet underground bunker, complete with food and air supply, is strong enough to shield the president, even from a nuclear attack.
Washington, D.C., also has a “no drone zone”: flying an unmanned aircraft within a 15-mile radius of the city is absolutely prohibited.
Highly sensitive infrared cameras blanket the premises top to bottom, capable of tracking the thermal energy of anything in the surrounding area— down to a squirrel.
If you want to visit the White House, make sure to submit a request application and follow all regulations.
The White House welcomes around 6,000 enthusiastic tourists daily, but most are blissfully unaware of the vigilant snipers on the rooftop tracking the complex’s perimeters for potential threats. ISSU E 7 | J U LY 2 02 2
Architecture | Arts & Letters
Fun Fact: A Denver water meter reader snuck in with the Marine band and gave himself a tour of the mansion in 1985. 119
Trace the original route of the park’s stagecoach tours to visit iconic hotels and geological features WRITTEN BY
Jill Dutton
F O L LO W I N G
Yellowstone’s Horse-Drawn Path
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National Parks | The Great Outdoors
FAR LEFT The Grand Prismatic Spring in Yellowstone National Park. LEFT Rainbows seen at the Lower Falls of the Grand Canyon. BELOW Mammoth Hot Springs, which scientists believe is heated by a nearby volcano.
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he introduction of the train at Yellowstone National Park prefaced the increase in visitors to America’s first national park, which is celebrating 150 years in 2022. The opening of the Gardiner, Montana, train station in 1902 near the North Entrance made it easier to access the park and prompted a rise in tourism. Although the park was established in 1872, it wasn’t until 1886 that stagecoaches became the primary transportation through the park. At the train station, visitors would board a stagecoach heading for the Mammoth area of the park. From there, a five-day tour took guests to various—albeit primitive compared to today’s
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options—lodging and dining, with regular stops for sightseeing of the geysers, other hydrothermal features, and wildlife. Stagecoaches took guests until 1917, when park transportation converted to motorized vehicles. The end of the stagecoach era began in late 1915 after the addition of private cars into Yellowstone. Leslie Quinn, an interpretive specialist with Yellowstone National Park Lodges, said, “At the time, they were still running all the big tours on stagecoaches, but people in their private cars could also run around Yellowstone, and it was a disaster. The cars scared the horses. … So, ultimately, they had to block the park off into twohour segments of the day where horses are on the road. Then, they all get off the roads, and for two hours the cars are on the road. It would rotate like this every two hours, and the system wasn’t working well.” To fix the dilemma, the following summer the park eliminated stagecoaches and switched to motor coaches to follow the route. When the stagecoach tours were replaced by 121
motor coaches, Quinn said that unfortunately, a majority of the stagecoaches were destroyed, making any remaining ones valuable antiques. “At that time, they had over 100 stagecoaches, and nobody needed them anymore. … They took the stagecoaches to what’s called Swan Lake Flat,” which is located about 5 miles south of Mammoth. “They burned them all in one spot. As each one would finally burn to the ground, they would roll the next one on top of the embers.” Although the train station was demolished in 1954, visitors today can still follow a modified version of the five-day stagecoach route taken through Yellowstone. Follow the stagecoach route below, or board a replica stagecoach or the modern motor coaches for a guided experience through the park. 122
Day 1 Tourists arrived at the Gardiner train station to board the “Tally-Ho” six-horse stagecoaches that seated up to 36 guests. After a short ride to the Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel, guests were free to explore the mammoth terraces before spending the night at the hotel. The hotel still exists, and guests can stay in the original wing that was built in 1911 or in renovations built in 1936. Choose from a standard room, a suite, or one of the cabins.
FAR ABOVE A valley in Gallatin National Forest, located in south-central Montana. ABOVE A horsedrawn stagecoach within Yellowstone National Park offers leisurely transportation.
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National Parks | The Great Outdoors
Day 2 Early travelers would board a second, smaller, four-horse stagecoach the following morning. After a short ride in the open-air stagecoach designed to provide the best views, guests arrived at the Norris Geyser Basin for lunch. There, they would enjoy many multi-colored thermal features, wildlife, and the most popular Yellowstone geyser, Echinus. Following lunch and some exploring, it was back on the stagecoach for the Fountain Hotel, including a luxury at the time: hot baths from piped geyser water. Today, the Fountain Hotel is no longer there. Guests can still pack a lunch and stop at Norris Geyser Basin to view the oldest and most dynamic of Yellowstone’s thermal areas. Find rare acidic geysers as well as the tallest geyser in the world, Steamboat Geyser. Then, since the Fountain Hotel is gone, drive to Old Faithful Inn.
Day 3 Old Faithful Inn opened in 1904. Prior to that, stagecoach visitors would stop at Old Faithful for lunch, but once the hotel opened, it allowed guests to spend one or more nights there. The luxury hotel with fine dining and hot and cold running water was a great attraction at the park. Guests can still stay at Old Faithful Inn with its majestic wood interior—it’s considered the largest log structure in the world. Rest in the lobby with its massive stone fireplace and hand-crafted copper, wood, and wrought iron clock, plus antique furniture situated along the floor railings of the open floor plan. ISSU E 7 | J U LY 2 02 2
Day 4 On the fourth morning, guests were back onto the stagecoaches to visit West Thumb Geyser Basin for a stop at a lunch station and to view the geyser. After lunch, the tour continued to Lake Yellowstone Hotel. Guests today can still stay at Lake Yellowstone Hotel. Sit outside on the deck where you’ll possibly see wildlife, watch the sunset from the indoor lounge, or take a boat ride at this lakefront hotel. It’s the oldest Yellowstone hotel still in operation.
Day 5 The final day of the stagecoach tour took visitors to the Canyon Hotel. It was a short trip, and guests had time to visit the canyon and waterfalls. The sprawling resort was unfortunately lost to fire in 1960. Guests today can stay at the Canyon Lodge & Cabins, just a half-mile from the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone and its Lower Falls. •
CLOCKWISE FROM FAR ABOVE LEFT
Historical photos: Old Faithful Inn; Lake Yellowstone Hotel; Canyon Hotel.
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Photo Credits
On the cover Photo: Ian Chin Photography for American Essence Pictured: Keith Krach, near the Lyon Street Steps in San Francisco. 1 Caleb Hanson/Unsplash 2 Tim Mossholder/Unsplash 6 Top: Bird of Bliss for American Essence Bottom: R.W. for American Essence 8 Ian Chin Photography for American Essence 10 HEO RAN/POOL/AFP/Getty Images 11 HSU CHAO-CHANG/POOL/AFP/ Getty Images 12 Public domain 13 Paul Morigi/Getty Images 14–16 Courtesy of The Inn at Little Washington 18 Adi for American Essence 20 Courtesy of Harney and Sons 21 Tatsiana Moon for American Essence 22–23 Jason Byers 24–27 Courtesy of Ellen Haygood 29–31 Courtesy of Nic Roldan 33–35 Courtesy of Mitzi Perdue 36–39 Courtesy of Anthony and McKenna Zhang 40–43 Courtesy of Polyface Farm 44 Public domain
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45 Top: Mr. Littlehand (CC BY 2.0, CreativeCommons.org/ licenses/by/2.0) Bottom: Tony 1212 (CC BY-SA 4.0, CreativeCommons.org/ licenses/by-sa/4.0) 46 Public domain 47 Top: Public domain Bottom: Heath Brandon (CC BY 2.0, CreativeCommons.org/ licenses/by/2.0) 48 Courtesy of American Village 49 Top: Courtesy of American Village Bottom: Karim Shamsi-Basha for American Essence 50–51 Courtesy of American Village 52 JulPo/E+/Getty Images 54–60 Public domain 61 Matt Champlin/Moment/Getty Images 62–63 Public domain 64–65 Left: Library of Congress Right: Public domain 66–67 Public domain 68 Amili/Shutterstock 69–71 Public domain 72 New York Public Library 73 Library of Congress 74 Public domain 76–77 Jasmina Zhang for American Essence Small illustrations: R.W. for American Essence Dollar bills: flukesamed/iStock/ Getty Images Plus 78 Anesthesiia for American Essence
79–85 Public domain 86 Karim Shamsi-Basha for American Essence 87 Top: Karim Shamsi-Basha for American Essence Bottom: Courtesy of the Mattie C. Stewart Foundation 88 Darius Bashar/Unsplash 89–90 Public domain 91 Sixteen Miles Out/Unsplash 93 Robert Collins/Unsplash 94–97 Courtesy of The Kirby Center 102 Caitlin Walsh 104–106 Architect of the Capitol 107 Top: Architect of the Capitol Bottom: Public domain 108–112 Architect of the Capitol 113 Public domain 114–115 Architect of the Capitol 116 Public domain 117 Top: Rudy Sulgan/The Image Bank/Getty Images Bottom: Architect of the Capitol
118 dkfielding/iStock/Getty Images Plus 119 Yeen Weaver for American Essence 120 TerenceLeezy/Moment/Getty Images 121 Left: lucky-photographer/ iStock/Getty Images Plus Right: Jéan Béller/Unsplash 122 Top: Ed Freeman/Stone/Getty Images Bottom: Josie Weiss/Unsplash 123 Yellowstone National Park Photo Archives 124 Reba Spike/Unsplash 126 shutterjack/RooM/Getty Images 128 Public domain Correction: The article “She Inspired a General and Eli Whitney” in the April 2022 issue of American Essence contained an incorrect date of birth for Catharine Littlefield Greene. She was born in 1755. American Essence regrets the error.
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“Adopt the pace of nature. Her secret is patience.” —R ALP H WALDO E ME RSO N
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Rainbow Falls, Iao Needle State Park, Hawaii. ISSU E 7 | J U LY 2 02 2
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Bronco Buster WRITTEN BY
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Sharon Kilarski
ALTHOUGH ARTIST Frederic Remington was born in upstate New York (1861) and studied art at Yale, he is best known for capturing the Wild West. He came from a family of horsemen and soldiers, which likely contributed to his penchant for drawing, illustrating, and painting cavalrymen. Remington depicted Western subjects of all sorts. In capturing movement through his subjects’ often violent reactions, he was like a camera lens—but with a twist. He managed to portray, as in “Bronco Buster” (1895), both the tension of the bucking bronco, and the confident, relaxed pose of the rider. • AMERI CAN ESSE NCE
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