Dean Acheson was one of the most influential Secretaries of State in U.S. history, presiding over American foreign policy during a pivotal era – the decade after World War II when the American Century slipped into high gear. During his vastly influential career, Acheson spearheaded the greatest foreign policy achievements in modern times, ranging from the Marshall Plan to the establishment of NATO. Now, in this monumental biography, Robert L. Beisner paints an indelible portrait of one of the key figures of the last half-century. In a book filled with insight based on research in government archives, memoirs, letters, and diaries, Beisner illuminates Acheson’s policy-making, describing how he led the state department and managed his relationship with Truman. (Publisher).

Keywords: 20th century, American History, Cold war

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Catalogue for auction at Christie’s, London on Friday, May 5, 2000 includes illustrations and descriptions of photographs in the following genres: Daguerreotypes, Ambrotypes and Union Cases / Stereoscopic Photographs / Carte-de-Viste and Cabinet Photographs / 19th Century British Photographs / 19th Century French and Other European Photographs / Photographs by Eugene Atget / Topographical Photographs / 20th Century British photographs / 20th Century European Photographs / 20th Century North and South American Photographs

Keywords: American History, British History, European history, French History, History, Photographs, Photography, Topography

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Jay Cooke (August 10, 1821-February 8, 1905), American financier, was born at Sandusky, Ohio, the son of Eleutheros Cooke (1787-1864), a pioneer Ohio lawyer and Whig member of Congress from that state in 1831-1833 and member of the Ohio General Assembly.
Jay Cooke received a preliminary training in a trading house in St. Louis, Missouri, and in the booking office of a transportation company in Philadelphia. At the age of eighteen, he entered the Philadelphia house of E.W. Clark & Company, one of the largest private banks in the country. Three years later, he was admitted to membership in the firm and, before the age of 30, was also a partner in the New York City and St. Louis branches of the Clarks.

In 1858, he retired from the firm, and, for the next three years, he devoted himself to reorganizing abandoned Pennsylvania railways and canals and placing them again in operation. On January 1, 1861, he opened the private banking house of Jay Cooke & Company in Philadelphia and quickly floated a war loan of $3,000,000 for the state of Pennsylvania.
In the early months of the American Civil War, Cooke collaborated with the secretary of the treasury Salmon P. Chase in securing loans from the leading bankers in the Northern cities; his own firm was so successful in distributing treasury notes that Chase engaged him as special agent for the sale of the $500,000,000 of so-called “five-twenty” bonds—which were callable in 5 years and matured in 20 years—authorized by Congress on February 25, 1862. The treasury department had previously failed in selling these bonds.
Cooke secured the influence of the American press, appointed 2,500 sub-agents, and quickly sold $11,000,000 more in bonds than had been authorized. Congress immediately sanctioned the excess. At the same time, Cooke influenced the establishment of national banks, and organized a national bank at Washington and another at Philadelphia almost as quickly as Congress could authorize the institutions.
In the early months of 1865, with the government facing pressing financial needs in the wake of disappointing sales of the new “seven-thirty” notes by the national banks, Cooke’s services were again secured. He sent agents into remote villages and hamlets, and even into isolated mining camps in the west, and persuaded rural newspapers to praise the loan. Between February and July 1865 he disposed of three series of the notes, reaching a total of $830,000,000. This allowed the Union soldiers to be supplied and paid during the final months of the war.
It was in this effort that he pioneered the use of price stabilization. This practice, whereby bankers stabilize the price of a new issue, is still in use by investment bankers in IPOs and other security issuances. (Source: Wall Street by Charles Geisst) REALLY ??
In the Republican nominating process of 1868, which eventually saw Ulysses S. Grant as the Republican party standard-bearer, Cooke backed Radical Republican Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase for President. (Wikipedia)

Keywords: 19.Jahrhundert, 19th Century, American Civil War, American Civil War Pamphlets, American History, Pamphlets

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Keywords: American History

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Edward Everett (April 11, 1794 – January 15, 1865) was a Whig Party politician from Massachusetts. Everett was elected to the United States House of Representatives and United States Senate, and also served as President of Harvard University, United States Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Britain, and Governor of Massachusetts before being appointed United States Secretary of State by President Millard Fillmore to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Daniel Webster. Mentioned in the book “The Perfect Tribute,” Everett was an unsuccessful candidate for Vice President of the United States in the 1860 election on the Constitutional Union ticket. In 1863 he delivered a two-hour Gettysburg Oration that has been eclipsed in history by President Lincoln’s two-minute Gettysburg Address, which Everett praised as superior to his own. He was the father of congressman William Everett and the great uncle of Edward Everett Hale.
Born in Boston, Massachusetts, to the Rev. Oliver Everett and Lucy (Hill) Everett, he attended Boston Latin School and graduated as the valedictorian from Harvard University in 1811, studied theology under the urging of the Rev. Joseph Stevens Buckminster, and was ordained pastor of the Brattle Street Unitarian Church, Boston, in 1814. He was the first American to receive a Ph.D.. His brother Alexander Hill Everett was a noted diplomatist and man of letters.
Everett was a professor of Greek literature at Harvard University, an overseer of the University, and its president from 1846 to 1849. He was elected to the United States House of Representatives and served from March 4, 1825 to March 3, 1835. He declined to be a candidate for renomination in 1834.

Everett also had a love for mathematics as can be seen from his probably most famous quote: ‘In the pure mathematics we contemplate absolute truths which existed in the divine mind before the morning stars sang together, and which will continue to exist there when the last of their radiant host shall have fallen from heaven.’
Everett served as Governor of Massachusetts from 1836–1840. He was then appointed United States Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Great Britain from 1841 to 1845 and declined a commission to China in 1843. He served as president of Harvard University from 1846–1849.
In 1852 he was appointed United States Secretary of State by President Millard Fillmore to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Daniel Webster, and served until the end of the Fillmore Administration, March 3, 1853. He was elected to the United States Senate and served from March 4, 1853, until his resignation, effective June 1, 1854. On Thursday, April 6, 1854, he presented a petition from the people of Dedham against the Missouri Compromise and one from the people of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania in favor of securing religious freedom for Americans abroad.
Everett was an unsuccessful candidate for Vice President of the United States in the 1860 election on the Constitutional Union ticket.
Everett went to Germany to take courses and returned to this country as the first American to receive a Ph.D. degree. Eventually, 10,000 of America’s wealthiest families would send their sons to obtain the Ph.D. in Prussian universities.
Implementation of the Prussian education system was to become the goal of Edward Everett, America’s first Ph.D. As Governor of Massachusetts, Everett had to deal with the problem of the influx of poor Irish Catholics into his state (as a result of the Irish Potato Famine). In 1852, with the support of Horace Mann, another strong advocate of the Prussian model, Everett made the decision to adopt the Prussian system of education in Massachusetts.
Shortly after Everett and Mann began to adopt the Prussian system, the Governor of New York set up the same method in 12 different New York schools on a trial basis.
Evertt died in Boston and is interred at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts. (Wikipedia)

Keywords: 19.Jahrhundert, 19th Century, American Civil War, American Civil War Pamphlets, American History, Education, Pamphlets

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