December 1956

Mrs. Howe jotted down the “Battle Hymn” in haste, but she lived to hear a nation sing it, and went to her grave to its tune

Some became great, others stayed as they were-- and their story tells of the rise of the Midwest

It’s the sort of thing that couldn’t happen now, but in the Revolution Molly Corbin and Molly Pitcher were first-rate cannoneers

A special supplement prepared for American Heritage

A cultivated and subtle musical art form nourished the Puritans in the wilderness

If its day was brief, it raised the hem, leveled the classes, and widened a generation’s horizons

Brilliant Benjamin Thompson won world fame as Count Rumford the scientist but never dispelled his countrymen’s suspicions

The story of Manjiro, the shipwrecked waif; of the kindly captain from Fairhaven; and of how Japan, hidden away from the world, learned strange news of other lands

One of the saddest tales in American history tells how a well-intentioned President lost a dazzling opportunity

From his great-grandfather’s papers a poet re-creates that hard-working man of many parts—sailor, farmer, merchant financier—the New England sea captain

Washington was his idol, but he could not apply his American ideals to a France sliding into the Terror