Beginning with George Washington, it has been a custom for the President of the United States to have an official portrait sculpted or painted during his time in office.
From the beginning artists were faced with conflicting demands of aesthetics, the need to evoke the significance of the nation’s highest office, and the personal inclination of the sitter (varying from modesty to pomposity). How to reconcile such different strands in a work of art? [Read more…] about Portraying Presidents: A Sketch of Cultural History
Theologically, I identify as an ecumenical pot luck supper observer.
Long Island Traditions has announced the release of TravelStorys; a series of self-guided cell phone tours focusing on Long Island’s historical and contemporary sites of cultural significance. 
Social Darwinism is an ideology that misapplied Charles Darwin’s ideas to the socio-political sphere. The theory proved fruitful to those who advocated the economic principle of laissez faire, and added an element of racial inequality as peoples were classified along an evolutionary scale.
The year was 1911, a new decade had just started. In spite of sharp social divisions and mass immigration, New York was bustling. The scientific revolution was making an impact, radically altering the nineteenth century vision of the world.
Charles Evans Hughes and Al Jolson shared a small stage at Marion, Ohio in 1920 as part of Republican presidential candidate Warren Harding’s “front porch” campaign.