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In the News: Presidential debates
Last night in New York, Barack Obama and John McCain participated in the third and final presidential debate of this 2008 election. The focus was on domestic issues, including the economy. The debate transcript can be seen here, at the Web site of the Commission on Presidential Debates, the organization that conducts the debates. For [...]
16Oct2008 | mdblogger | 7 comments | Continued
Spotlight: Andrew Jackson
Andrew Jackson, the seventh president of the United States, was born on March 15, 1767, just south of the border between North and South Carolina. His birth marked the beginning of an extraordinarily eventful life. While an orphaned teenager, he was taken prisoner during the Revolutionary War, leading to a lifelong animosity toward the British. [...]
14Oct2008 | mdblogger | 1 comment | Continued
In the News: Vice-Presidential Debates
At first glance, yesterday’s vice-presidential debate between Joe Biden and Sarah Palin appears to have lacked any moments of historical importance. This, despite the fact that prior to the debate, political commentators noted that interest in the debate was unusually high. While most presidential historians would say that vice-presidential debates generally have very little if [...]
3Oct2008 | mdblogger | 0 comments | Continued
Chester Pach on Eisenhower and the Little Rock school crisis
Sometimes presidents take actions that surprise just about everybody, including themselves, and a good example is President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s decision fifty-one years ago to issue Executive Order 10730. Within hours after Eisenhower approved this document on September 24, 1957, U.S. Army troops arrived in Little Rock, Arkansas, to stop the violence that had prevented [...]
23Sep2008 | mdblogger | 1 comment | Continued
Karen Linkletter on political convention speeches
It is striking how many of the speeches at both the Republican and Democratic National Conventions used language to appeal to “average working folks.” Both of the presidential candidates, as well as their vice presidential nominees, positioned themselves as typical, everyday Americans (when this is, of course, not the case for any of them).
I was [...]
Jonathan Rees on Eugene V. Debs
On June 16, 1918, Eugene V. Debs gave a speech at Nimisilla Park in Canton, Ohio before 1,200 people. Read the speech today, and it is difficult to see why it led to his arrest and prosecution for sedition. As Debs’s foremost biographer, Nick Salvatore, explains, Debs had said many of the same things before [...]
19Aug2008 | mdblogger | 2 comments | Continued
Joan E. Cashin on LBJ and race
In August we observe the anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, signed by President Lyndon Johnson in 1965. The bill, one of the greatest achievements of LBJ’s term, is celebrated for making the suffrage a reality for millions of black voters.
Many people were surprised that Johnson turned out to be so progressive on the issue [...]
Charles L. Zelden on the Voting Rights Act of 1965
August 6 is the 43rd anniversary of the signing into law of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Designed to combat race-based (and as later amended, ethnic-based) discrimination in voting, the act has proven to be one of the most successful pieces of civil rights legislation ever adopted. In fact, one can argue that the [...]
6Aug2008 | mdblogger | 0 comments | Continued
Joan E. Cashin: Abraham Lincoln as Writer
Next year, the nation celebrates the anniversay of Abraham Lincoln’s birth in Kentucky in 1809, and many historical conferences will mark the event. Only two among many: one in Louisville, Kentucky, in October 2008 (see www.filsonhistorical.org/callforpapers%202008.html), when scholars will compare and contrast Lincoln with Jefferson Davis. (Both of them are Kentucky natives, believe it or [...]
30Jul2008 | mdblogger | 0 comments | Continued
Scott A.G.M. Crawford on Eisenhower and Civil Rights
In the article I wrote about Dwight D. Eisenhower’s farewell address for Milestone Documents in American History, I made the observation that Eisenhower’s presidency saw “very limited progress with respect to civil rights.” A cautionary tale: this comment needs revisiting. Last Christmas I visited Little Rock, Arkansas, and was exposed to the saga of what [...]
28Jul2008 | mdblogger | 0 comments | Continued