April 2023

TINKER CREEK, VA — The creek flowed for millions of years but the world beyond its banks was too busy to notice. Then in 1971, a young woman from nearby Roanoke began dropping by.  

She called herself “a fugitive and a vagabond, a sojourner seeking signs.”  “I am no scientist,” she wrote.  “I explore the neighborhood.“ She spent two years along the creek, wandering, studying, jotting thoughts. No body of water since Walden Pond had enjoyed such a loyal bard.  And when A Pilgrim at Tinker Creek came out in 1974, American letters had found the “true heir” to Thoreau.

Annie Dillard worried that she had "shot my lifetime wad. Pilgrim is not only the wisdom of my 28 years but I think it's the wisdom of my whole life.”  Yet she grew into “the writing life,” tapping her inquisitive soul to write essays, novels, poetry, a memoir of childhood, even a book about writing. Readers marveled. How could a mind contain such multitudes?

Editor’s Note: Michael Hill is a historical researcher and author who recently published his third book, Funny Business, a charming biography of Art Buchwald.

Before political comedians such as Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart, and Trevor Noah, there was Art Buchwald. For more than fifty years, his Pulitzer Prize-winning column of political satire and biting wit made him one of the most widely read American humorists of his day. In fact, many observers singled him out as the Mark Twain of his time. 

Editor’s Note: Art Buchwald was a syndicated columnist, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, and author of nearly 30 books. Erma Bombeck called him “the reigning genius of American satire for over 40 years.” The following is excerpted from Buchwald’s memoir, Leaving Home, which used humor to lighten the story of his troubled childhood in an orphanage and foster homes, his wartime experiences, and his adventures in Paris after the war, where he talked his way into a job with the International Herald Tribune. 

A group of us were in a bowling alley in Forest Hills, New York when the news of Pearl Harbor flashed over the radio. Everyone was certain of the brevity and outcome of the war, and fearful it would be over before we could serve our country.

Editor's Note: Over the last half century, American Heritage has published important writing on guns in American society and the right to own firearms. Here are some of the essays.

America as a Gun Culture, by Richard Hofstadter | October 1970

It's the only industrial nation in which the possession of rifles, shotguns, and handguns is lawfully prevalent among large numbers of its population.

Disconsolate and recently widowed, Marguerite Gifford penned a poem in 1937, summing up: “My thrill in life, has ceased to be... my husband will not come to me.”

The 61-year-old aspiring artist decided to leave Louisville and find subjects to use for her painting. She signed up with two dozen other aspiring artists for an eight-week program in eastern Europe. They would tour Austria, Poland and Hungary, paint peasants in costumes, and sketch scenes in markets, festivals and castles. In Budapest they would learn watercolor painting with the colorful Count Ludwig Batthyany, who had been badly burned trying to save his family’s art collection including van Dyck’s “Portrait of a Gentleman.” His palace had been a total loss.

Thirty-six years ago this month, rumors began circulating about the supposed extramarital affairs of Sen. Gary Hart, the leading candidate for the 1988 Democratic nomination for president.

In response, Hart challenged the media. He told The New York Times in an interview published on May 3, 1987 that they should "follow me around. . . . They’ll be very bored." As the NBC anchor John Chancellor explained a few days later, "We did. We weren’t."

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

The Bronx, February 14, 1922 — A beefy man steps into a lumber yard frosted with snow. Wielding a hefty bat, he takes off his overcoat and turns to face a reporter. The reporter throws ball after ball, and Babe Ruth slugs them deep, deep over the snowy expanse. The House that Ruth Built, still a blueprint, but not a ballpark, has been christened.