Aaron Burr Jr., the son of Ester Edwards Burr and Reverend Mr. Aaron Burr was born on February 6, 1756 in Newark, New Jersey. He was also the grandson of the famous theologian, Jonathan Edwards. His father earned his living as a pastor at The Newark Presbyterian Congregation and the president o...

Among the many comments received about the early selections collected in The Heath Anthology of American Literature, the plaintive comment, even from early Americanists, about the number of so-called new writers represented there strikes me as most honest and forthright. Indeed, more than a few coll...

Early in his life, former United States President Thomas Jefferson wrote on his gravestone: "Here was buried, Thomas Jefferson, Author of the Declaration of Independence of the Statue of Virginia for religious freedom, Father of the University of Virginia." He wrote these texts at the beginning ...

In 1798, there was a young Republican publicist named Benjamin Franklin Bache, the editor of the Philadelphia Aurora, who was known as "Lightning Rod, Junior" because he was the grandson of Benjamin Franklin and was known for his shocking phraseology. Impetuous, harsh, narrow-minded and d...