This Civil War nurse devoted her life to taking care of injured soldiers, disaster victims, and those left behind in tragedy.
Clara Barton and her Red Cross colleagues have a picnic in 1898 in Tampa, Fla.
The office was quiet except for the scratch of a pen and the shuffle of paper. On Washington’s 7th Street, the Civil War was long over, but Clara Barton still lived in its shadow.
The North recorded about 360,000 deaths during the war, but only 315,000 burials. Of these, just 172,000 names were identified. Continue reading
Americans, living in what is called the richest nation on earth, seem always to be short of money. Wives are working in unprecedented numbers, husbands hope for overtime hours to earn more, or take part-time jobs evenings and weekends, children look for odd jobs for spending money, the family debt climbs higher, and psychologists say one of the biggest causes of family quarrels and breakups is “arguments over money.” Much of this trouble can be traced to our present “debt-money” system. 
Few have had as profound an effect on modern scientific understanding as Sir Isaac Newton.
I grew up in a little town about 25 miles north of Chicago called Northbrook, Ilinois at a time when everyone treated each other with respect. We didn’t eat a lot of fast food. We drank Kool-aid, ate lunch meat sandwiches, PB&J sandwiches, grilled cheese sandwiches, hot dogs, but mostly home made meal such as meatloaf, fried chicken, roast beef & pork chops, black eye peas, snap peas…
Despite the rapid pace of the digital age, it’s still too soon to toss the paper and pen. Actually, you may never want to stop writing for good as long as you want to further develop your brain.
I never took “social studies.” To this day, I’m not really sure what it even is! But every year when we took the state-standardized test as homeschoolers, my scores – as well as those of my siblings – came back in the 90th percentile or higher for all subjects, including social studies. This had nothing to do with luck or even smarts, but it had everything to do with the fact that we didn’t waste time on the social studies curriculum taught in schools in the first place.
The fire had burned down to a bed of glowing coals that night, the way fires do when the wood has settled into embers and the heat rises steady and quiet. My grandkids sat around me in a loose circle, wrapped in blankets, their faces flickering with amber light, their eyes wide the way young eyes get when they sense that the old man is about to say something he’s never said before. The cicadas hummed in the trees, and the air smelled of maple and river birch smoke, and for a moment I felt the years folding in on themselves – all the decades I’ve lived in Murfreesboro, all the changes I’ve watched come and go, all the things I’ve held in my chest because no one seemed to want to hear them.
Most Americans have no idea their state has a constitution. They cannot name a single right it protects. Ask where their rights come from, and they will either plead the fifth or point to the federal Bill of Rights. What they do not know is that colonies first, then states, had declarations of rights before the federal government existed, often more expansive than anything the federal document would guarantee. 
Parents of school-age children often see the same puzzle at home and at school: a capable kid hesitates, melts down over mistakes, or waits to be rescued. The tension is real, adult support can steady children’s emotional development, but too much steering can quietly teach doubt. Child self-confidence matters because it becomes the engine behind lifelong success traits like persistence, decision-making, and healthy risk-taking. With the right parental support strategies, confidence grows into everyday independence. 
Americans today have reached unprecedented heights of prosperity, but our economic system rests on a foundation that was built centuries ago under the direction of the nation’s first president, George Washington.