Authors

Daniel Aaron is a Victor S. Thomas Professor of English and American Literature, Emeritus of English at Harvard University and a founder of the Library of America.He received his B.A. in 1933 from the University of Michigan, and his Ph.D. in 1943 from Harvard University.Selected works include: The Americanist (2007); American Notes: Selected Essays (1994); Cincinnati, Queen City of the West: 1819-1838 (1992); Writers on the Left (1992); Episodes in American Literary Communism (1974); The Unwritten War; American Writers and the Civil War (1973);America in Crisis; and Fourteen Crucial Episodes in American History (1971).

Karin is an entrepreneur, author, and an expert on start-up strategies. She is the co-author of Birthing the Elephant: The Woman’s Go For It! Guide to Overcoming the Big Challenges of Launching a Business (Ten Speed Press). Karin speaks and writes widely on small-business issues and has appeared at forums including AWED’s Women in Business Conference, Women Inc., the National Association for Female Executives (NAFE), Equitable Life, the NY Institute of Technology, Babson College, and Columbia University.

Shirley Jean Abbott was an author and magazine editor, and served for 15 years as an editor of HORIZON Magazine, published by American Heritage Publishing, where she was for several years the magazine's editor-in-chief. Ms. Abbott wrote articles for American Heritage, Smithsonian, Lear’s, Gourmet, Harper’s, Southern Living, McCall’s, Glamour, and Boston Review. She was also the author of six books including Love's Apprentice: The Education of a Modern Woman, Historic Charleston, and The National Museum of American History (Harry N. Abrams, Inc.)

Elie Abel (October 17, 1920 – July 22, 2004) wrote extensively on communism, politics, and history during his six decades as a journalist. He led the New York Times' Belgrade office as bureau chief during the 1956 Hungarian revolts and covered the 1958 Chinese takeover of Tibet from his post in New Delhi. Upon returning to the United States in 1959, he took a broadcast position with NBC News that he would hold until his appointment as dean of Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism in 1970. He transferred from Columbia to Stanford in 1979 and remained with the university until 1994. Abel's books include The Missile Crisis (Bantam 1966), What's News: The Media in American Society (Institute for Contemporary Studies 1981), and The Shattered Bloc - Behind the Upheaval in Eastern Europe (Houghton Mifflin Company 1990).

Penelope Muse Abernathy is the Knight Chair in Journalism and Digital Media Economics at the University of North Carolina’s School of Media and Journalism, and the author of the 2018 report, The Expanding News Desert, which looked at the crisis in local news. Her research focuses on the implications of the digital revolution for news organizations, the information needs of communities and the emergence of news deserts in the United States. A former executive at The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, Prof. Abernathy has worked more than 30 years as a reporter, editor and senior media business executive.

Edward Abrahams, who lives in Washington, D.C., is the author of The Lyrical Left: Randolph Bourne, Alfred Stieglitz, and the Origins of Cultural Radicalism in America , which was published last year by the University Press of Virginia.

—Ellen Abrams is writing a novel loosely about the Dionne quintuplets.

Dean Acheson (1893-1971) was an attorney and statesman who served as Secretary of State from 1949 to 1953 under President Harry Truman. A key architect of the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan, Acheson stressed the importance of multilateral organizations in the fight against totalitarianism. Prior to his service in the Truman Administration, Acheson clerked for Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, worked at Washington law firm Covington & Burling, and served as Undersecretary of the Treasury for one year under President Franklin Roosevelt.

Mr. Ackerman, who is Sunday editor of the New Bedford, Massachusetts, Standard-Times , is a long-time railroad buff, as well as “the only man who ever sailed backward up the Wareham River.”

Stephen J. Ackerman is a freelance writer and a collector of American political memorabilia.

Kenneth Ackerman is an author and attorney in Washington, D.C. He has written extensively on Gilded Age America, including in his books Boss Tweed: The Corrupt Pol Who Conceived the Soul of Modern New York and Dark Horse: The Surprise Election and Political Murder of President James A. Garfield. When not writing, Ackerman practices law at Olsson Frank Weeda Terman Matz PC, where he specializes in agriculture risk management.  

Henry Adams is a Professor of American Art at Case Western Reserve University. A noted scholar of 19th century American Art, Adams has served as a curator at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, as a curator of American Art at the Cleveland Museum of Art, and at other prestigious posts across the country. He has been awarded the Distinguished Service Medal from William Jewell College for career contributions to Kansas City and the American Midwest, and was honored with the Frances Blanshard Prize from Yale University for the best doctoral dissertation in art history.

Scarritt Adams retired from the U.S. Navy as a Captain in 1960 after thirty years of distinguished service and subsequently was a lecturer in American history for the University of Maryland.

Dick Adler lives in Los Angeles; he is a writer and editor for magazines and television.

Daniel Akst is a writer whose work has appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Slate and other leading publications. His most recent book is We Have Met the Enemy: Self-Control in an Age of Excess (2011). The paperback edition was published under the title, Temptation.

A journalist and former advertising executive, Robert C. Alberts was a Contributing Editor of American Heritage and wrote several books. Alberts was primarily interested in 18th-century American history. His essay on a daring colonist who played a role in the British capture of Quebec during the French and Indian War was enlarged into a book, The Most Extraordinary Adventures of Major Robert Stobo (1965). His other books included The Golden Voyage: The Life and Times of William Bingham, 1752-1804 (1970), the story of a wealthy Philadelphia merchant who played a prominent role in the Revolutionary War and The Good Provider: H. J. Heinz and His 57 Varieties (1973), about the founder of the company that bears his name.

Dr. Alexander, who is chief of the Map Division of The New York Public Library, has particular interest in the cartography of the Age of Discovery.

Born in 1922, Oliver E. Allen was a Harvard graduate and a long-time editor and director of Time-Life Books.  

Richard Sanders Allen, postmaster of Round Lake, New York (population, 1,000), is an engineering historian. His specialty is covered bridges, but he has written on everything from colonial roads to pioneer aviation. His Covered Bridges of the Northeast was published in 1957; a companion volume, Covered Bridges of the Middle Atlantic States , is due out this fall.

Ralph Gilmore Allen (1934–2004) was an American producer, director, writer, lyricist, and professor. He is credited, along with Harry Rigby with having conceived of the Tony Award-winning musical comedy Sugar Babies, a tribute to the burlesque era. In 1965, Other musicals he wrote included Honky Tonk Nights and Scandals. Allen was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship in the category of Humanities.

Frederick E. Allen is the Leadership Editor of Forbes.com.  He was a long-time editor of American Heritage, and the Editor of Invention & Technology from 1984 to 2007. 

Gerald Allen is an architect and the author of Architectural Drawing: The Art and Process with Richard Oliver (Whitney Library of Design).

The late Thomas B. Allen, a freelance writer in Bethesda, Maryland, was the author of Tories: Fighting for the King in America’s First Civil War (Harper 2010). Allen published articles on espionage and military history along with frequently contributing to National Geographic Magazine. He served in the United States Navy before he took up positions with the Bridgeport (Conn.) Herald, The New York Daily News, as managing editor of Trade Book Division, Chilton Books, and as Associate Chief of the National Geographic Society’s Book Service.

Gay Wilson Allen is the author of the 1981 Ralph Waldo Emerson , a Biography.

Leslie Allen is independent writer and editor living in the Washington, D.C. area.  She was a staff writer and editor at National Geographic from 1982 to 1992, and has authored two books, LIBERTY: THE STATUE AND THE AMERICAN DREAM (Summit Books, 1986) and WILDLANDS OF THE WEST (National Geographic, 2002).

Patrick Allitt is the Cahoon Family Professor of American History at Emory University, specializing in political, religious, and intellectual history. Born in England, Allitt has written several books, including his most recent, The Conservatives: Ideas and Personalities Throughout American History, released in 2009.

Jonathan Alter is an award-winning author, political analyst, documentary filmmaker, columnist, television producer and radio host. He is the author of three New York Times bestsellers, including The Center Holds: Obama and His Enemies (2013), The Promise: President Obama, Year One (2010) and The Defining Moment: FDR’s Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope (2006), also one of the Times’ “Notable Books” of the year. His latest book, His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, A Life, was released on September 29th, 2020. Since 1996, Alter has been a contributing correspondent and political analyst for NBC News and MSNBC. In 2019, he co-produced and co-directed the HBO documentary, “Breslin and Hamill: Deadline Artists,” which won the 2020 Emmy for Best Historical Documentary.

Glenn C. Altschuler is the Thomas and Dorothy Litwin Professor of American Studies at Cornell and the author of All Shook Up: How Rock ’n’ Roll Changed America .

Stephen E. Ambrose (1936-2002) was a historian and professor who wrote on military history, presidential history, and American expansion and foreign policy. Ambrose has been praised for his biographies of Presidents Eisenhower and Nixon, and for helping to galvanize interest in World War II. His most noted works include D-Day, June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II, Band of Brothers, E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne: From Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest, later adapted into a HBO miniseries, and Americans at War. Ambrose was awarded the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service in 2000, and was honored by many institutions for his literary and historical work.

Cleveland Amory (1917 – 1998) was a prominent author and animal-rights activist. Among his best-selling books included The Proper Bostonians , Home Town, and The Last Resorts and his popular series on "Polar Bear," the cat he rescued from the streets of Manhattan on Christmas Eve in 1978.

—Kurt Andersen writes for The New Yorker , where his column, “The Culture Industry,” appears biweekly.

Fred Andersen’s account of the making of the famous musical Yankee Doodle Dandy appeared in the July/August 1997 issue.

Ross C. Anderson is chief curator of the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse, New York. He has organized a retrospective exhibition of the art of Abbott Thayer, which will appear at the National Academy of Design, New ‘York City, from November 24,1982, through January 23,1983. It will then travel to the Currier Gallery of Art, Manchester, New Hampshire, from February 18,1983, to April 3,1983.

Fred Anderson is an author and historian who has published many books on early modern colonial and military history. In 2006 Anderson completed The War That Made America: A Short History of the French and Indian War, which was rewritten as a PBS four-part series, and has written other books on American military history and the decline of the European imperialism in North America.

Wayne Andrews is Archives of American Art Professor at Wayne State University in Detroit. His next book, Architecture in New England , will be published by Stephen Greene Press in 1972.

Peter Andrews is a contributing editor to American Heritage ; his story of how the U.S. forces in World War II learned their business the hard way in North Africa appeared in the December 1991 issue.

Ralph Andrist was a former editor in the Book Division of the American Heritage Publishing Company. He graduated with Magna Cum Laude with a major in journalism from University of Minnesota in 1935. He passed away in 2004.

After leaving his father’s grocery store, Paul McClelland Angle went on to Ohio’s Miami University, and subsequently became one of the nation’s foremost scholars of Abraham Lincoln and his times. The first of his many books was Mary Lincoln, Wife and Widow , on which he collaborated with Carl Sandburg in 1932; the latest (with Earl Schenck Miers) is The Tragic Years , 1860-1865. since 1945 Mr. Angle has been Director of the Chicago Historical Society.

Carl Sferrazza Anthony is an author who has written a dozen books on political families and wives, including America's First Families: 200 Years of Private Life in the White House, and Heads of State: The Presidents as Everyday Household Items… He has interviewed Presidents Clinton and Bush, wrote speeches for Nancy Reagan, and has worked for the Smithsonian Institution and the White House Preservation Fund. 

Harvey Ardman, the author of several books, is writing a definitive history of the Normandie to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of her launching.

Doug Armstrong Reference librarian John Abbott College Montreal, Canada

A retired Foreign Service officer, Oscar V. Armstrong was born in China and specialized in Chinese affairs during his career.

From 1938 to 1943 Thurman Arnold was an assistant U.S. Attorney General in charge of antitrust matters, and subsequently served as an associate justice of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. He is now a member of a law firm in Washington. For further reading: Right-Hand Man: The Life of George W. Perkins , by John Garraty (Harper, 1960); The President Makers , by Matthew Josephson (Harcourt, Brace, 1940); Woodrow Wilson and the Progressive Era ; 1910-1917, by Arthur S. Link (Harper, 1954); The Era of Theodore Roosevelt; 1900-1912 , by George E. Mowry (Harper, 1958).