December 2022

Spring 2023

The Best Essays of 2022

Every year, we look back on our published issues to see how we did with our readers. We like to look at which subjects were most popular, which essays elicited the strongest responses, and which were most read. The results are always different, and always fascinating.

This year, we asked our readers directly which articles were their favorites. Below you can find the top 10 titles based on the results of that survey. Again, the results are enlightening — while stories about Lincoln and the Civil War landing the top spots may be expected, we were happily surprised to find lesser-known topics like privateers during the Revolution and Olympic icon Jim Thorpe getting lots of play.

Take a look at the full list below, and feel free to email us with your own nominations or suggestions at editor@americanheritage.com.

— The Editors

1. Lincoln Walks a Tightrope, by David S. Reynolds, Spring Issue

The “Greatest Upset” in World Cup History

U.S vs Britian — *Mocked by observers at the time as "amateurs" and "ragamuffins," the U.S. beat a star-studded England 1-0 at the 1950 World Cup. U.S. Soccer and National Soccer Hall of Fame*

Editor's Note: Bruce Watson is a writer, historian, and contributing editor at American Heritage. You can read more of his work on his blog, The Attic.

BELO HORIZONTE, BRAZIL — JUNE 29, 1950 — No eyes of an eager world focused on the soccer squads as they took the pitch that afternoon. But to 30,000 onlookers in this Brazilian mining city, the game looked like it would be a rout.

John Brown’s Black Raiders Executed

“I am now in a few hours to start on a journey from which no traveler returns,” wrote Copeland to his family.

On December 16, 1859, two of John Brown's black comrades, John Anthony Copeland and Shields Green, were hanged in Charlestown, Virginia (now West Virginia) for their role in the raid on Harpers Ferry.

They were two of the five African Americans in “John Brown’s Army” whose stories are told in my book, Five for Freedom. The 18 raiders, led by Brown, seized the town’s federal arsenal and rifle works. Brown’s plan was to incite a slave insurrection that would topple the hated institution of chattel slavery. The raid failed in its immediate objective but, many say it sparked the civil war that ultimately abolished slavery.

Favorite Parks Designed by Olmsted

birkenhead park — *Birkenhead Park outside Liverpool, England, one of the first publicly funded civic parks in the world, inspired Olmsted to design a similar space in New York City. Ron Thomas*

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shelburne farms — *Around 1886, Olmsted was commissioned to design Shelburne Farms, a 3,400-acre property overlooking the Adirondacks in Burlington, Vermont.*

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*Often called "the birthplace of modern astrophysics," the Yerkes Observatory in Williams Bay, Wisconsin sits on 40 acres of park property designed by Olmsted in 1897. Idealimpressions.com*

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Olmsted's career in landscape architecture began in 1857 when he and his partner Calvert Vaux won a competition for the design of Central Park, an 843-acre greenspace in Manhattan that is still widely considered his crowning achievement. Central Park Conservancy

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bethesda fountain — *Central Park's design was notable for the way it combined naturalistic settings with architectural flourishes like Bethesda Terrace. Central Park Conservancy*

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sheep meadow — *Sheep Meadow in Central Park, New York City. Central Park Conservancy*

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jackson park — *The 551-acre Jackson Park, located on the South Side of Chicago, Illinois, was originally designed in 1871 by Olmsted and Vaux. Chicago Parks Foundation*

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shawnee park — Shawnee Park in Louisville, Kentucky was one of three flagship public parks designed by Olmsted in the late 1890s. Louisville's Olmsted park system, some of which was completed by Olmsted's firm in later years, encompasses 18 of the city's 123 parks. Olmsted Parks Conservancy

Ted Kennedy Passes the Torch

kennedy and obama — *"The torch will be passed again to a new generation of Americans,” Kennedy said on the eve of Obama's election. “The work begins anew. The hope rises again. And the dream lives on.”*

Editor’s Note: John Farrell turned to writing biography after a distinguished career as a journalist at the Boston Globe and other publications. His biography of Richard Nixon won numerous awards and was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize. Mr. Farrell adapted the following from his new book, Ted Kennedy: A Life.

The "Big" History of America

It was the lead-up to a presidential election, an unsettling late summer for many Americans since the hugely popular incumbent, Theodore Roosevelt, was declining to run for president a second time. The national gossip centered around whether portly William Howard Taft, who Roosevelt handpicked as his successor at Chicago’s Republican convention that June of 1908, could possibly follow the charismatic advocate of the strenuous life. Somehow Taft seemed an unlikely replacement for the president “who does not shrink from danger, from hardship.” So the news story out of the remote Southwest late that August initially seemed little more than a momentary distraction from politics, even if for some it might have been a reminder of the kind of heroic leadership the country was losing.