American Places Encounters with History

by Leuchtenburg, William E.

• ISBN13: 9780195152456
• ISBN10: 019515245X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-05-23
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

In American Places , more than two dozen of America's most gifted historians write about their encounters with historic places, bringing a personal viewpoint to bear on a wide variety of sites, ranging from Monticello to Fenway Park. Here James M. McPherson writes about the battlefield of Gettysburg, and how walking the ground of Pickett's Charge inspired one of his books. Kevin Starr visits the Musso & Frank Grill in Hollywood and finds many of the flavors of California history there. Joel Williamson takes a bemused tour of Elvis Presley's Graceland, and David Kennedy tells the story of the "Pig War" on San Juan Island, where a spat between Britain and America over a speck of land in the Pacific Northwest helped determine the shape of the U.S. and Canada. William Freehling compares two places, Charleston's Battery and New Orleans' Jackson Square, showing how each reveals the different spirit of the society that created it. And Edward Ayers talks about spending time in Cyberspace, U.S.A. Other pieces include Robert Dallek on the FDR Memorial, David Hackett Fischer on the Boston Common, and William Leuchtenburg on his native borough of Queens. American Places celebrates the career of Sheldon Meyer, who over his years at Oxford University Press has published some of America's most distinguished historians, including many Pulitzer Prize and Bancroft Prize winners, virtually all of whom have contributed to this volume.

Author Biography

William E. Leuchtenburg is William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of History at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He has served as president of both the Organization of American Historians and the American Historical Association. His books include The FDR Years and Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, 1932-1940, winner of the Bancroft and Francis Parkman Prizes.

Table of Contents

Preface	ix
William E. Leuchtenburg
Taking Place	xvii
Peter Ginna
Cyberspace, U.S.A.	3	(12)
Edward L. Ayers
Pennsylvania Avenue	15	(14)
The Avenue of the Presidents
Paul Boller Jr.
A Monument for Barre	29	(12)
Memory in a Massachusetts Town
T. H. Breen
Greensboro, North Carolina	41	(12)
A Window on Race in the American South
William H. Chafe
World War II Normandy	53	(14)
American Cemetery and Memorial
James C. Cobb
The Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial, Washington, D.C.	67	(12)
Robert Dallek
The Americanized Mannheim of 1945-1946	79	(14)
David Brion Davis
Vassar College	93	(12)
Carl N. Degler
A Fan's Homage to Fenway	105	(10)
(Or, Why We Love It When They Always Break Our Hearts)
John Demos
Finding History in Woodside, California	115	(10)
Paula S. Fass
Boston Common	125	(20)
David Hackett Fischer
Charleston's Battery and new Orleans's Jackson Square	145	(12)
William W. Freehling
Climbing Stone Mountain	157	(12)
Louis R. Harlan
Memphis, Tennessee	169	(16)
The Rise and Fall of Main Street
Kenneth T. Jackson
Illinois's Old State Capitol	185	(16)
A Tale of Two Speeches
Robert W. Johannsen
``A Little Journey''	201	(18)
Elbert Hubbard and the Roycroft Community at East Aurora, New York
Michael Kammen
San Juan Island, Washington	219	(14)
The ``Pig War'' and the Vagaries of Identity and History
David M. Kennedy
1048 Fifth Avenue	233	(8)
Alice Kessler-Harris
Queens	241	(20)
William E. Leuchtenburg
Gettysburg	261	(8)
James M. McPherson
Monticello	269	(14)
Merrill D. Peterson
The Musso & Frank Grill in Hollywood	283	(12)
Kevin Starr
The Polo Grounds	295	(16)
Jules Tygiel
Nassau Hall, Princeton, New Jersey	311	(14)
Sean Wilentz
Graceland	325	(14)
Joel Williamson
Montgomery	339	(14)
C. Vann Woodward
The Grand Canyon	353	(12)
Donald Worster
Sewanee--How to Make a Yankee Southern	365	(24)
Memories of the 1940s
Bertram Wyatt-Brown
Notes	389