April/may 1980

Although it has been disparaged as “General Washington’s Sewing Circle,” this venture was the first nationwide female organization in America

said a New York newspaper when the Metropolitan opened its American Wing in 1924. This spring, a new, grander American Wing once again displays the collection that Lewis Mumford found “not merely an exhibition of art,” but “a pageant of American history.”

The Father of Psychoanalysis came, saw, conquered—and didn’t like it much

Presidential candidates stayed above the battle until William Jennings Bryan stumped the nation in 1896; they’ve been in the thick of it ever since

The Apotheosis of the Motor Coach

Newly Discovered Eyewitness Accounts of the War for Independence

The Shakers as a Nineteenth-Century Tourist Attraction

The Klondike Photographs of Clarke and Clarence Kinsey