Homespun
Wilson argued that the wealth of America lay in its small businesses, its towns and villages. Its vitality does not lie in New York, nor in Chicago, he asserted; it will not be sapped by anything that...
White vividly recalled sitting pop-eyed with wonder at the edge of his chair while Roosevelt spoke with a kind of dynamic, burning candor about his plans.
While some men, he observed, were naturally fearless, he had to train his soul and spirit as well as his body. So, constantly forcing himself to do the difficult or even dangerous thing, he gradually...
When they returned home, he took his young son aside. Theodore, you have the mind but you have not the body, and without the help of the body the mind cannot go as far as it should, he admonished. You...
When angry at a colleague, Lincoln would fling off what he called a hot letter, releasing all his pent wrath. He would then put the letter aside until he cooled down and could attend the matter with a...
Until we address unequal history, we cannot overcome unequal opportunity. Until blacks stand on level and equal ground, we cannot rest. It must be our goal to assure that all Americans play by the sam...
There are two antagonistic elements of society in America, Seward had proclaimed, freedom and slavery. Freedom is in harmony with our system of government and with the spirit of the age, and is theref...
The story-high house of hewn logs is clean and neat, with many rooms, he wrote, so that one can be alone if one wishes to. The central room featured a massive stone hearth with trophy heads gazing dow...
The press of visitors, a New York Times reporter observed, never seemed to try the President’s strength or impair his good temper. At one o’clock, Roosevelt
The people placed me in an office of the highest dignity and charged me with the duty of maintaining that dignity and proper respect for the office on the part of my subordinates. . . . By your own co...
The only question now, he said, is which corpse gets the most flowers.
The media and pundits of the day instructed women that their only true fulfillment could be found as wives and mothers, that sexist discrimination was actually good for them, that the denial of opport...
The labor leader Samuel Gompers had long considered the production of cigars in unsanitary tenements one of the most dreadful, cancerous sores on the city of New York. Realizing
The failed deal crushed McClure, precipitating a nervous breakdown in April 1900 that propelled him to Europe to undergo the celebrated rest-cure devised by an American physician, S. Weir Mitchell. Pr...
The domestic scene, she admitted, referring not only to the coal dispute but to a rash of racial disturbances that had recently broken out, is anything but encouraging and one would like not to think...
The United States paid $7.5 million for the lands, which were divided into small parcels and sold to natives, creating a new landowning class.
The U.S. Senate presented the most powerful obstacle to any progressive reform.
Taft generally ate alone. Forever struggling to lose weight, he limited his midday meal to an apple or a glass of water.
Sometimes, sitting in the park with my boys, I imagine myself back at Ebbets Field, a young girl once more in the presence of my father, watching the players of my youth on the grassy fields below—Jac...