December 1967

Many a book, a magazine, a play, a movie, has been banned in Boston. But Christmas?

A soldier in the American army being unfortunately surprised at a game of cards by a sergeant who owed him an old grudge, was carried before the colonel of the regiment, that he might be punished for gaming, against which general orders were very severe.

Had a tempest not thwarted his plans, George Washington might have lost the Revolution in the first major operation he commanded

In Henry Bergh—a reformed dilettante who founded the A.S.P.C.A.—many saw a latter-day Saint Francis of Assisi. But others, especially the cruel or the thoughtless, regarded him as The Great Meddler.

We are not sure exactly what it is that married women tell their little sisters about marriage nowadays, but it is certainly not very much like the letter we publish here. It was written in a spidery hand from a home on the newly settled upper Mississippi to a young bride, Mrs. Oliver Ormerod, back in Liverpool, England, and the advice it gives says more than any long treatise about the apologetic, indeed timorous, position of women only a century and a half ago. Mrs. Ormerod was the greatgrandmother of our editor. She is shown in an old miniature about the time she married her Anglican minister, and before she reared a large family of sons.

Forty years ago, American Marines tangled with a tough Latin-American guerrilla leader whose tactics against “the capitalists” would evoke an unhappy shock of recognition in Vietnam today.

Concerned lest history
overlook their triumphs, veterans of the Army of the Cumberland had them writ large -- on a canvas five hundred feet long.
of the Cumberland had them writ large—on a canvas
five hundred feet long

In the early days of the century, a fearless cowboy named Bill Pickett roused audiences on two continents by giving the fledgling sport of rodeo one of its most exciting events.

Giacomo Beltrami’s discoveries were mostly illusory, but he had a glorious time making them, and the people of Minnesota have never forgotten his name.

Nineteenth-century American courage and resourcefulness carried our merchant flag to the world's harbors and our nation to world prominence. The proud affection of a sea-conscious nation is reflected in our portfolio of ships by artists of three continents. Our essay, by C. Bradford Mitchell, former editor of Steamboat Bill and information director of the Merchant Marine Institute, charts the curious historic twists of public attitude and official policy that have alternately fostered and stunted our merchant navy.

Is it libel to say that the President of the United States tried to seduce his neighbor’s wife—even if he did? Thomas Jefferson tried to gag the venomous editor of upstate New York’s Wasp; Alexander Hamilton argued brilliantly in defense of journalistic candor.

It was the first time in history that British sovereigns had come to see what they lost in 1776. George and Franklin, Elizabeth and Eleanor, hit it off like old friends; even Texas congressmen melted under the royal charm. Brewing was a crucial World War II alliance