Douglas Southall Freeman

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Have Any U.S. Presidents Decided Not to Run For a Second Term?

Parsons Weems' Fable, oil on canvas by Grant Wood, 1939; in the Amon Carter Museum of American Art. Catalog entry: The historian Mason Locke Weems, commonly known by his clerical title, Parson Weems, pulls back a curtain to point at 6-year-old George Washington. Bearing an adult head and holding an axe, George gazes blankly up at his father, Augustine, who questions his son while holding a partially cut cherry tree. All of this takes place in front of a 20th-century brick building, which Wood modeled after his own home in Iowa. The scene illustrates the fable of Washington and the cherry tree, which Weems invented in 1806 for the first president's biography. Wood playfully suggests the artifice of the tale here, presenting the story in the manner of a costumed stage play rather than a real event. Amid the action, two Black figures pick cherries in the background, a reference to Washington' slaveholding past and a reminder of of what often gets left out in historical mythmaking.

Did George Washington Really Say, “I Can’t Tell a Lie”?

"George Washington before the Battle of Trenton" oil on canvas by John Trumbull, c. 1792-94; in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.

The Plot to Assassinate George Washington

9 Obscure Literary Terms

BALTIMORE, MD - AUGUST 16: People gather at the site where a statue dedicated to Robert E. Lee and Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson stood August 16, 2017 in Baltimore, Maryland. The City of Baltimore removed four statues celebrating confederate heroes from city

Pro and Con: Historic Statue Removal in the United States

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Was Santa Claus a Real Person?

Thanksgiving Celebration Traditional Dinner Setting Food Concept

Why Is Thanksgiving in the U.S. Celebrated on a Thursday?

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10 Greatest Baseball Players of All Time

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7 of History's Most Notorious Serial Killers

Secret Service Agent Listens To Earpiece

Secret Service Code Names of 11 U.S. Presidents

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12 Novels Considered the “Greatest Book Ever Written”

Los Angeles Police Department wanted flyer on Elizabeth Short, aka the "Black Dahlia," who was brutally murdered in January 1947. The FBI supported the Los Angeles Police Department in the case, including by identifying Short through her fingerprints that

America’s 5 Most Notorious Cold Cases (Including One You May Have Thought Was Already Solved)

Douglas Southall Freeman: Facts & Related Content

Written and fact-checked by The Information Architects of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Facts

Born	May 16, 1886 • Lynchburg • Virginia
Died	June 13, 1953 (aged 67) • Virginia
Awards And Honors	Pulitzer Prize
Subjects Of Study	Confederate States of America

Henry Adams

American historian

Robert Caro

American historian and author

David McCullough

American historian

Allan Nevins

American author

Samuel Eliot Morison

American historian and biographer

Albert J. Beveridge

United States senator and historian

Dumas Malone

American historian, editor, and the author

Charles Edward Russell

American writer

Laura E. Richards

American author

Leon Edel

American critic and biographer

Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.

American historian and educator

Justin Kaplan

American writer, biographer, and editor

Richard Ellmann

American scholar

Ralph Barton Perry

American philosopher

W. Jackson Bate

American biographer

Carl Van Doren

American critic

Ray Stannard Baker

American writer

Herschel Vespasian Johnson

American politician and jurist

Richard S. Ewell

Confederate general

Varina Davis

first lady of the Confederate States

Douglas Southall Freeman: Facts & Related Content

Facts

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