DOCSLIB.ORG

Rewriting the Masculine: the National Subject in Modern American Drama

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Rewriting the Masculine: the National Subject in Modern American Drama Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses Graduate School 1993 Rewriting the Masculine: The aN tional Subject in Modern American Drama. Francis Granger Babcock Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses Recommended Citation Babcock, Francis Granger, "Rewriting the Masculine: The aN tional Subject in Modern American Drama." (1993). LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses. 5557. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses/5557 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. INFORMATION TO USERS This manuscript has been reproduced from the microfilm master. UMI films the text directly from the original or copy submitted. Thus, some thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter face, while others may be from any type of computer printer. The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleedthrough, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send UMI a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Oversize materials (e.g., maps, drawings, charts) are reproduced by sectioning the original, beginning at the upper left-hand corner and continuing from left to right in equal sections with small overlaps. Each original is also photographed in one exposure and is included in reduced form at the back of the book. Photographs included in the original manuscript have been reproduced xerographically in this copy. Higher quality 6" x 9" black and white photographic prints are available for any photographs or illustrations appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly to order. University Microfilms International A Bell & Howell Information Company 300 North Zeeb Road. Ann Arbor. Ml 48106-1346 USA 313/761-4700 800/521-0600 Order Number 9405383 Rewriting the masculine: The national subject in modern American drama Babcock, Francis Granger, Ph.D. The Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical Col., 1993 Copyright ©1993 by Babcock, Francis Granger. All rights reserved. 300 N. Zeeb Rd. Ann Arbor, MI 48106 Rewriting the Masculine: The National Subject in Modern American Drama A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of English by Granger Babcock B.A., Hamilton College, 1981 M.A., Louisiana State University, 1985 August 1993 Dedication Because they believed in and supported my education, this dissertation is dedicated to my mother Gloria Sternicki (1932-1982) and my father Harry Babcock. Acknowledgments This dissertation would never have been completed without the support and encouragement of many people. I would like to thank Patrick McGee for his inspiration and labor— without him this was impossible. I would like to thank William Demastes for his patience and considerable skills as an editor and as an advisor. I would also like to thank Anthony Barthelemy for his support and encouragement and his talents as a reader and Dana Nelson for reading and commenting on early drafts. Thanks also to Mary Jane Smith for her advice oh readings in American history. Thanks to my friends Leslie Stratyner, Doris Macdonald, and Connie Porter, who were always supportive. Thanks also to Kevin Milliman, Phil Atteberry, Joanna Newman, and Patrick McGee for financial aid in times of need. I also owe a special debt of gratitude to Joan Espy McGee for her support and kindness and great food. Lastly, more recent thanks are due to Eve Perry and Norma Jenckes. Table of Contents Dedication and Acknowledgments ................... ii Table of Contents ..................................iii Abstract .............. .............................iv Chapter One: The Autonomy of the National Subject: An Overview .............................. 1 Chapter Two: Formations and Reformations of the National Subject .......... ........................ 26 Chapter Three: Eugene O'Neill and the Liminality of the National Subject ........................... 76 Chapter Four: Tennessee Williams and the Instrumentality of Reason ........................ 135 Chapter Five: "What's the Secret?": Willy Loman as Desiring Machine ............................... 195 Works Cited ........................................ 243 Vita ................................................ 256 iii Abstract This dissertation traces the development of an American masculinity, using the concept of the national subject (borrowed from Frantz Fanon), through three different stages of the American capitalism: mercantile, or market, monopoly, and corporate, or late-capitalism. It constructs a genealogy of American maleness and then examines how this genealogy was altered and reconstituted during times of economic crisis and technological innovation. It argues that successive technological revolutions in the symbolic apparatus of American culture allowed elite political and economic interests to gain consensus by deploying the national subject using various media. In the early national period Franklin and Crevecoeur used the national subject to encourage immigration and expansion; in the Jacksonian era, Jackson and his supporters used the national subject to sanction Manifest Destiny; and in the late 1880s, Andrew Carnegie and Horatio Alger, Jr. used the national subject to valorize the practices of industrial capitalism. In the forties, the national subject was resurrected to sanction the emergent structure of corporate capitalism, or what Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno called late-capitalism. The final three chapters of this dissertation examine the relationship between the writings of Eugene The final three chapters of this dissertation examine the relationship between the writings of Eugene O'Neill, Tennessee Williams, and Arthur Miller and the advent of late-capitalism. Specifically, I examine how O'Neill, Williams, and Miller challenge the dominant version of the national subject by offering a counter­ discourse to the consumerism and nationalism advocated by popular conceptions of American masculinity. Using the writings of Jacques Lacan and the Frankfurt School, I attempt to situate the drama of O'Neill, Williams, and Miller in a broader historical context, a context which has thus far been either ignored or repressed. v Chapter One The Autonomy of the National Subject: An Overview At 4:00 p.m. on January 13, 1982, Air Florida Flight #90 took off from Washington's National Airport in a snowstorm. Approximently twenty seconds later the Boeing 737 skidded across the 14th Street Bridge and crashed into the Potomac River. Seventy-seven people died instantly. Investigators later discovered that the plane had not been properly de-iced. In the hours that followed the crash, Washington and a national television audience watched as volunteers, park rangers, and police and firemen struggled to rescue six survivors floating in the icy water. Five would live. The dramatic images of Martin "Lenny" Skutnik diving into the water to save Patricia Tirado made him an instant celebrity. The footage of helicopter pilot Donald Usher and paramedic Gene Windsor hovering over the water and dragging the survivors to safety also made them instant heroes. In the days that followed the tragedy, the Washington media reported that the five survivors— Kelly Duncan, a flight attendant, Joe Stiley, a business executive, Patricia Felch, Stiley's secretary, Bert Hamilton, also a businessman, and Patricia Tirado, who lost her husband and child in the crash— were just "ordinary" Americans who had miraculously survived. 1 Two years later, on April 1, 1984, NBC aired a "docudrama" called Flight #90; Disaster on the Potomac. The movie starred Richard Masur and Dinah Manoff and was advertised as a "realistic dramatization" and a "fact- based account" of the Air Florida crash. According to the producers of the show, John McGreevey's teleplay was based on a 137-page federal report on the accident. In a review in The Washington Post on the same day, media critic Tom Shales called the movie "a loathsome, ghoulish production" filled with "third-rate Hollywood actors" (L:7). In the same review, Shales argued that "absolutely nothing in this pathetic recreation...can equal the impact or challenge the memory of the unforgetable news tape of the real rescue attempts and the aftermath of the crash" (L:7). Watching Disaster on the Potomac that night, one couldn't help but agree with Shales. Nothing in the movie represented my recollections of that day in Washington; nothing in the movie conveyed the sense of shock and loss I felt as I watched the crash coverage on local television. A blizzard had made travel in the city nearly impossible, but when the Air Florida jet crashed at the beginning of the afternoon rush hour— and a subway train crashed a half an hour later— the city was almost paralyzed. It took weeks for
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Election Division Presidential Electors Faqs and Roster of Electors, 1816
    Election Division Presidential Electors FAQ Q1: How many presidential electors does Indiana have? What determines this number? Indiana currently has 11 presidential electors. Article 2, Section 1, Clause 2 of the Constitution of the United States provides that each state shall appoint a number of electors equal to the number of Senators or Representatives to which the state is entitled in Congress. Since Indiana has currently has 9 U.S. Representatives and 2 U.S. Senators, the state is entitled to 11 electors. Q2: What are the requirements to serve as a presidential elector in Indiana? The requirements are set forth in the Constitution of the United States. Article 2, Section 1, Clause 2 provides that "no Senator or Representative, or person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector." Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment also states that "No person shall be... elector of President or Vice-President... who, having previously taken an oath... to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. Congress may be a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability." These requirements are included in state law at Indiana Code 3-8-1-6(b). Q3: How does a person become a candidate to be chosen as a presidential elector in Indiana? Three political parties (Democratic, Libertarian, and Republican) have their presidential and vice- presidential candidates placed on Indiana ballots after their party's national convention.
    [Show full text]
  • LEQ: Which President Served in Office for Only One Month?
    LEQ: Which President served in office for only one month? William Henry Harrison on his deathbed with Reverend Hawley to Harrison’s left, a niece to Harrison’s right, a nephew to the right of the niece, a physician standing with his arms folded, Secretary of State Daniel Webster with his right hand raised, and Thomas Ewing, Secretary of the Treasury sitting with a handkerchief over his face. Postmaster General Francis Granger is standing by the right door. This image was created by Nathaniel Currier circa 1841. It is titled “Death of Harrison, April 4 A.D. 1841.” This is a later, hand colored version of that image. LEQ: Which President served in office for only one month? William Henry Harrison William Henry Harrison on his deathbed with Reverend Hawley to Harrison’s left, a niece to Harrison’s right, a nephew to the right of the niece, a physician standing with his arms folded, Secretary of State Daniel Webster with his right hand raised, and Thomas Ewing, Secretary of the Treasury sitting with a handkerchief over his face. Postmaster General Francis Granger is standing by the right door. This image was created by Nathaniel Currier circa 1841. It is titled “Death of Harrison, April 4 A.D. 1841.” This is a later, hand colored version of that image. The Age of Jackson Ends Andrew Jackson (1767-1845) was said to have physically suffered at one time or another from the following: chronic headaches, abdominal pains, and a cough caused by a musket ball in his lung that was never removed.
    [Show full text]
  • A History of Maryland's Electoral College Meetings 1789-2016
    A History of Maryland’s Electoral College Meetings 1789-2016 A History of Maryland’s Electoral College Meetings 1789-2016 Published by: Maryland State Board of Elections Linda H. Lamone, Administrator Project Coordinator: Jared DeMarinis, Director Division of Candidacy and Campaign Finance Published: October 2016 Table of Contents Preface 5 The Electoral College – Introduction 7 Meeting of February 4, 1789 19 Meeting of December 5, 1792 22 Meeting of December 7, 1796 24 Meeting of December 3, 1800 27 Meeting of December 5, 1804 30 Meeting of December 7, 1808 31 Meeting of December 2, 1812 33 Meeting of December 4, 1816 35 Meeting of December 6, 1820 36 Meeting of December 1, 1824 39 Meeting of December 3, 1828 41 Meeting of December 5, 1832 43 Meeting of December 7, 1836 46 Meeting of December 2, 1840 49 Meeting of December 4, 1844 52 Meeting of December 6, 1848 53 Meeting of December 1, 1852 55 Meeting of December 3, 1856 57 Meeting of December 5, 1860 60 Meeting of December 7, 1864 62 Meeting of December 2, 1868 65 Meeting of December 4, 1872 66 Meeting of December 6, 1876 68 Meeting of December 1, 1880 70 Meeting of December 3, 1884 71 Page | 2 Meeting of January 14, 1889 74 Meeting of January 9, 1893 75 Meeting of January 11, 1897 77 Meeting of January 14, 1901 79 Meeting of January 9, 1905 80 Meeting of January 11, 1909 83 Meeting of January 13, 1913 85 Meeting of January 8, 1917 87 Meeting of January 10, 1921 88 Meeting of January 12, 1925 90 Meeting of January 2, 1929 91 Meeting of January 4, 1933 93 Meeting of December 14, 1936
    [Show full text]
  • K:\Fm Andrew\21 to 30\27.Xml
    TWENTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS MARCH 4, 1841, TO MARCH 3, 1843 FIRST SESSION—May 31, 1841, to September 13, 1841 SECOND SESSION—December 6, 1841, to August 31, 1842 THIRD SESSION—December 5, 1842, to March 3, 1843 SPECIAL SESSION OF THE SENATE—March 4, 1841, to March 15, 1841 VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES—JOHN TYLER, 1 of Virginia PRESIDENT PRO TEMPORE OF THE SENATE—WILLIAM R. KING, 2 of Alabama; SAMUEL L. SOUTHARD, 3 of New Jersey; WILLIE P. MANGUM, 4 of North Carolina SECRETARY OF THE SENATE—ASBURY DICKENS, 5 of North Carolina SERGEANT AT ARMS OF THE SENATE—STEPHEN HAIGHT, of New York; EDWARD DYER, 6 of Maryland SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES—JOHN WHITE, 7 of Kentucky CLERK OF THE HOUSE—HUGH A. GARLAND, of Virginia; MATTHEW ST. CLAIR CLARKE, 8 of Pennsylvania SERGEANT AT ARMS OF THE HOUSE—RODERICK DORSEY, of Maryland; ELEAZOR M. TOWNSEND, 9 of Connecticut DOORKEEPER OF THE HOUSE—JOSEPH FOLLANSBEE, of Massachusetts ALABAMA Jabez W. Huntington, Norwich John Macpherson Berrien, Savannah SENATORS REPRESENTATIVES AT LARGE REPRESENTATIVES 12 William R. King, Selma Joseph Trumbull, Hartford Julius C. Alford, Lagrange 10 13 Clement C. Clay, Huntsville William W. Boardman, New Haven Edward J. Black, Jacksonboro Arthur P. Bagby, 11 Tuscaloosa William C. Dawson, 14 Greensboro Thomas W. Williams, New London 15 REPRESENTATIVES AT LARGE Thomas B. Osborne, Fairfield Walter T. Colquitt, Columbus Reuben Chapman, Somerville Eugenius A. Nisbet, 16 Macon Truman Smith, Litchfield 17 George S. Houston, Athens John H. Brockway, Ellington Mark A. Cooper, Columbus Dixon H. Lewis, Lowndesboro Thomas F.
    [Show full text]
  • ELECTORAL VOTES for PRESIDENT and VICE PRESIDENT Ø902¿ 69 77 50 69 34 132 132 Total Total 21 10 21 10 21 Va
    ¿901¿ ELECTORAL VOTES FOR PRESIDENT AND VICE PRESIDENT ELECTORAL VOTES FOR PRESIDENT AND VICE PRESIDENT 901 ELECTION FOR THE FIRST TERM, 1789±1793 GEORGE WASHINGTON, President; JOHN ADAMS, Vice President Name of candidate Conn. Del. Ga. Md. Mass. N.H. N.J. Pa. S.C. Va. Total George Washington, Esq ................................................................................................... 7 3 5 6 10 5 6 10 7 10 69 John Adams, Esq ............................................................................................................... 5 ............ ............ ............ 10 5 1 8 ............ 5 34 Samuel Huntington, Esq ................................................................................................... 2 ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ 2 1027 John Jay, Esq ..................................................................................................................... ............ 3 ............ ............ ............ ............ 5 ............ ............ 1 9 John Hancock, Esq ............................................................................................................ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ 2 1 1 4 Robert H. Harrison, Esq ................................................................................................... ............ ............ ............ 6 ............ ............ ............ ............ ............ ...........
    [Show full text]
  • Presidents Worksheet 43 Secretaries of State
    PRESIDENTS WORKSHEET 43 NAME ________________________________________ SECRETARIES OF STATE (#1-24) Write the number of each president who matches each Secretary of State on the left. Some entries in each column will match more than one in the other column. Each president will be matched at least once. _____ Daniel Webster 1 George Washington 2 John Adams _____ William Marcy 3 Thomas Jefferson _____ Hamilton Fish 4 James Madison 5 James Monroe _____ John Quincy Adams 6 John Quincy Adams _____ John Clayton 7 Andrew Jackson 8 Martin Van Buren _____ Martin Van Buren 9 William Henry Harrison _____ Frederick Frelinghuysen 10 John Tyler 11 James Polk _____ Henry Clay (pictured) 12 Zachary Taylor _____ Lewis Cass 13 Millard Fillmore 14 Franklin Pierce _____ John Jay 15 James Buchanan _____ William Evarts 16 Abraham Lincoln 17 Andrew Johnson _____ John Forsyth 18 Ulysses S. Grant _____ James Buchanan 19 Rutherford B. Hayes 20 James Garfield _____ James Madison 21 Chester Arthur 22/24 Grover Cleveland _____ James Blaine 23 Benjamin Harrison _____ John Calhoun _____ Elihu Washburne _____ Thomas Jefferson _____ Thomas Bayard _____ James Monroe _____ John Foster _____ John Marshall _____ William Seward PRESIDENTS WORKSHEET 44 NAME ________________________________________ SECRETARIES OF STATE (#25-43) Write the number of each president who matches each Secretary of State on the left. Some entries in each column will match more than one in the other column. Each president will be matched at least once. _____ Cordell Hull 25 William McKinley _____ William Jennings Bryan 26 Theodore Roosevelt _____ Alexander Haig 27 William Howard Taft _____ Frank Kellogg 28 Woodrow Wilson 29 Warren Harding _____ John Foster Dulles 30 Calvin Coolidge _____ Madeleine Albright 31 Herbert Hoover _____ John Sherman 32 Franklin D.
    [Show full text]
  • Landscape and History at the Headwaters of the Big Coal River
    Landscape and History at the Headwaters of the Big Coal River Valley An Overview By Mary Hufford Reading the Landscape: An Introduction “This whole valley’s full of history.” -- Elsie Rich, Jarrold’s Valley From the air today, as one flies westward across West Virginia, the mountains appear to crest in long, undulating waves, giving way beyond the Allegheny Front to the deeply crenulated mass of the coal-bearing Allegheny plateaus. The sandstone ridges of Cherry Pond, Kayford, Guyandotte, and Coal River mountains where the headwaters of southern West Virginia’s Big Coal River rise are the spectacular effect of millions of years of erosion. Here, water cutting a downward path through shale etched thousands of winding hollows and deep valleys into the unglaciated tablelands of the plateaus. Archeologists have recovered evidence of human activity in the mountains only from the past 12,000 years, a tiny period in the region’s ecological development. Over the eons it took to transform an ancient tableland into today’s mountains and valleys, a highly differentiated forest evolved. Known among ecologists as the mixed mesophytic forest, it is the biologically richest temperate-zone hardwood system in the world. And running in ribbons beneath the fertile humus that anchors the mixed mesophytic are seams of coal, the fossilized legacy of an ancient tropical forest, submerged and compressed during the Paleozoic era beneath an inland sea.1 Many of the world’s mythologies explain landforms as the legacies of struggles among giants, time out of mind. Legend accounts for the Giant’s Causeway, a geological formation off the coast of Northern Ireland, as the remains of an ancient bridge that giants made between Ireland and Scotland.
    [Show full text]
  • Ogles Omnibus of \Qjes
    Ogles Omnibus of \Qjes N DECEMBER 4, 1839, Whig politicians assembled at the new Lutheran church in Harrisburg intent upon finding a vic- O torious candidate for the impending Presidential canvass of 1840. Three days of frenetic negotiation resulted in the rejection of Henry Clay and Daniel Webster, the acknowledged party leaders, in favor of a somewhat dubious military hero, a figurehead less encum- bered by embarrassing political ideas, William Henry Harrison of Ohio. "GRANNY'S GOT IT!" proclaimed gleeful Democratic headlines the morning after the nomination, for knowing Locofoco leaders viewed the aging Cincinnatus from North Bend as a highly vulnerable nominee. "Give him a barrel of hard cider, and settle a pension of two thousand a year on him," advised a tactless corre- spondent of the Baltimore T^epublicariy "and my word for it, he will sit the remainder of his days in his log cabin by the side of a 'sea coal* fire, and study moral philosophy."1 Astute Whig managers quickly exploited these Democratic asper- sions, which implied a certain superiority to "hairy headed patriots" on the great frontier. In a cozy drawing room on the banks of the Susquehanna one January evening, Thomas Elder, a Whig banker, and Richard S. Elliott, a Harrisburg editor, planned the first log cabin and hard cider transparency, concluding cynically that "pas- sion and prejudice properly aroused and directed, would do about as well as principle and reason in a party contest." Within a month, the welkin rang with shouts for "the Log-Cabin and Hard-Cider Candi- date," and cabins, coons, and cider were established as symbols of a resurgent Whiggery.
    [Show full text]
  • The Whig Campaign of 1840: the Editorial Policy of George D
    The Whig Campaign of 1840: The Editorial Policy of George D. Prentice Betty Carolyn Congleton” The loss of popularity suffered by the Democrats as a result of the Panic of 1837 was an obvious advantage for the Whig party in the presidential campaign of 1840. A combination of heterogeneous groups organized in opposition to Jacksonian Democracy, the Whigs were confronted with the necessity of selecting a candidate who could win the sup- port of the diverse groups within the party. The principal contenders for the nomination were William Henry Harrison, Daniel Webster, and the ever-ambitious Henry Clay. In previous presidential campaigns Clay’s staunchest editorial support in Kentucky had come from the pen of George D. Prentice, editor of the Louisville Daily Journal. Founded in November, 1830, to promote Clay’s candidacy in 1832, the Journal promptly became the most widely circulated newspaper west of the m0untains.l A warm personal friend and admirer of Clay, Prentice was also an astute politician who recognized the necessity for unanimity within the Whig party in the campaign of 1840. He believed that the Whigs must unite in favor of a candidate, chosen by a national convention, who could attract the vote of the diverse elements * Betty Carolyn Congleton is assistant professor of history at East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina. 1 The son of Rufus and Sarah Stanton Prentice, George D. Prentice was born in New London County, Connecticut, December 18, 1802. After graduation from Brown University in 1823, he taught school and later studied medicine and law before becoming editor of The New England Review in 1826.
    [Show full text]
  • H. Doc. 108-222
    OFFICERS OF THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH OF THE GOVERNMENT [ 1 ] EXPLANATORY NOTE A Cabinet officer is not appointed for a fixed term and does not necessarily go out of office with the President who made the appointment. While it is customary to tender one’s resignation at the time a change of administration takes place, officers remain formally at the head of their department until a successor is appointed. Subordinates acting temporarily as heads of departments are not con- sidered Cabinet officers, and in the earlier period of the Nation’s history not all Cabinet officers were heads of executive departments. The names of all those exercising the duties and bearing the respon- sibilities of the executive departments, together with the period of service, are incorporated in the lists that follow. The dates immediately following the names of executive officers are those upon which commis- sions were issued, unless otherwise specifically noted. Where periods of time are indicated by dates as, for instance, March 4, 1793, to March 3, 1797, both such dates are included as portions of the time period. On occasions when there was a vacancy in the Vice Presidency, the President pro tem- pore is listed as the presiding officer of the Senate. The Twentieth Amendment to the Constitution (effective Oct. 15, 1933) changed the terms of the President and Vice President to end at noon on the 20th day of January and the terms of Senators and Representatives to end at noon on the 3d day of January when the terms of their successors shall begin. [ 2 ] EXECUTIVE OFFICERS, 1789–2005 First Administration of GEORGE WASHINGTON APRIL 30, 1789, TO MARCH 3, 1793 PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES—GEORGE WASHINGTON, of Virginia.
    [Show full text]
  • List of Postmasters General Dates Prior to 1900 Are the Dates the Postmasters General Were Appointed Or Commissioned; Dates After 1900 Are the Dates They Took Office
    List of Postmasters General Dates prior to 1900 are the dates the Postmasters General were appointed or commissioned; dates after 1900 are the dates they took office. Appointments by the U.S. President were made with the advice and consent of the Senate. Postmaster General Date Appointed by the Continental Congress Benjamin Franklin July 26, 1775 Richard Bache November 7, 1776 Ebenezer Hazard January 28, 1782 Postmaster General Date Appointed by President . Samuel Osgood September 26, 1789 George Washington Timothy Pickering August 12, 1791 George Washington Joseph Habersham February 25, 1795 George Washington Gideon Granger November 28, 1801 Thomas Jefferson Return J. Meigs, Jr. March 17, 1814 James Madison John McLean June 26, 1823 James Monroe William T. Barry March 9, 1829 Andrew Jackson Amos Kendall May 1, 1835 Andrew Jackson John M. Niles May 19, 1840 Martin Van Buren Francis Granger March 6, 1841 William Henry Harrison Charles A. Wickliffe September 13, 1841 John Tyler Cave Johnson March 6, 1845 James K. Polk Jacob Collamer March 8, 1849 Zachary Taylor Nathan Kelsey Hall July 23, 1850 Millard Filmore Samuel D. Hubbard August 31, 1852 Millard Filmore James Campbell March 7, 1853 Franklin Pierce Aaron V. Brown March 6, 1857 James Buchanan Joseph Holt March 14, 1859 James Buchanan Horatio King February 12, 1861 James Buchanan Montgomery Blair March 5, 1861 Abraham Lincoln William Dennison September 24, 1864 Abraham Lincoln Alexander W. Randall July 25, 1866 Andrew Johnson John A. J. Creswell March 5, 1869 Ulysses Grant James W. Marshall July 3, 1874 Ulysses Grant Marshall Jewell August 24, 1874 Ulysses Grant James N.
    [Show full text]
  • I Introduction After Teaching Constitutional Law for More Than Twenty Years, I Often Think of It As a Collection of Stories. Th
    THIS WORK IS PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT AND SHOULD NOT BE CITED OR QUOTED WITHOUT THE AUTHOR’S PERMISSION. Introduction After teaching constitutional law for more than twenty years, I often think of it as a collection of stories. The stories are usually about one of two things. The first is great events in constitutional history, such as the framing and ratification of the Constitution or Reconstruction. The second is the institutions established by the Constitution or their leaders. There are many stories about Congress or its most colorful members but even more about the Supreme Court, especially its most famous decisions or justices. The presidency is the subject of more stories than the Court. Especially popular are stories about the few presidents commonly regarded as having had the greatest historical impact – notably, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin D. Roosevelt. More than a few stories are told about presidents who died in office, committed huge blunders, or presided over major scandals. This book tells a different set of stories. These stories are about the presidents whose constitutional impact has largely, if not wholly, been neglected in the study of constitutional law. These presidents’ stories are important for several reasons. First, they illuminate the richness of constitutional activity outside the Supreme Court. The Court is not, as most people suppose, the only institution that shapes constitutional law. Non-judicial actors often make monumental constitutional judgments that courts never review. Second, the forgotten presidents’ stories enrich our understanding of constitutional change. A popular theory is that constitutional changes result from the actions of a few people or events.
    [Show full text]