Bibliography of the National
I. The Capitol:
William Howard Adams, ed., The Eye of Thomas Jefferson. 1976
, ed., Jefferson and the Arts: An Extended View. 1976
Henry G. Alsberg, The American guide: A Source Book and Complete Travel Guide
for the United States. 1949
Wayne Andrews, Architecture, Ambition, and Americans: A History of American
Architect of the Capitol et al, Art in the United States Capitol. 1976
, Compilation of Works of Art and Other Objects in the
United States Capitol. 1965
Ellis L. Armsrong, History of Public Works in the United States, 1776-1976. 1976
Glenn Brown, History of the U.S. Capitol, vols. I&II, 1970 (reprint)
Warren Cox, Guide to the Architecture of Washington, D. C.. 1965
Lois Craig, et al, The Federal Presence: Architecture, Politics, and Symbols in
United States Government Building. 1978
Charles Fairman, Art and Artists of the Capitol of the United States of America. 1927
Federal Writers Project, A Guide to the Nation's Capital. 1942
Fames Goode, The Outdoor Sculpture of Washington, D.C. 1974
Constance Green, Washington: Village and Capital, 1800-1878. 1962
Horatio Greenough, The Travels, Observations, and Experience of a Yankee
Alan Gowans, Images of American Living: Four Centuries of Architecture and
Furniture as Cultural Expression. 1964
George Gurney, Sculpture and the Federal Triangle. 1985
P. Haas, Public Buildings and Architectural Ornaments of the Capital of the United
States at Washington, D.C. 1839
George Hazelton, jr., The National Capitol: Its Architecture, Art, and History. 1914
Elizabeth Kite, L'Enfant and Washington: 1791-92. 1929
Joseph Leeming, The White House in Picture and Story. 1973
Joseph W. Moore, Picturesque Washington: Pen and Pencil Sketches. 1883
Donald Myer, Bridges and the City of Washington. 1974
John W. Reps, Washington on View: the Nation's Capital Since 1790. 1991
F.C. Rosenberger, ed., Washington and the Poet. 1977
Allvin Shuster, ed., The New York Times Guide to the Nation's Capitol, Washington,
Sally K. Tompkins, A Quest for Grandeur: Charles Moore and the Federal Triangle.
Randall B. Truett, ed., Washington, D.C. -A Guide to the Nation's Capital. 1942
U. S. Department of the Interior, Office of Archeology and Historic Preservation,
National Register of Historic Places. 1972
Crag Zabel and Susan Munshower, eds., American Public Architecture: European
Roots and Native Expressions. 1989
John E. Ziolkowski, Classical Influence on the Public Architecture of Washington and
Paris: A Comparison of Two Capital Cities. 1988
II. General Resources.
Note: This bibliography is meant to suggest directions for
further exploration as well as a guide to resources; please read it carefully,
with this in mind. Also,it
is intended to be the start of something larger and more useful. Throughout the
semester, as you discover resources you think should be added, pleaseemail
them to me.
Daniel Aaron, The Unwritten War: American Writers and the Civil War. 1973
Charles C. Alexander, Here the Country Lies: Nationalism and the Arts in Twentieth-
Century America. 1980
Alan Axelrod, ed., The Colonial Revival in America. 1985
R.R. Badger, The Great American Fair: The World's American Columbian
Exposition and American Culture. 1979
Karl Baedeker, United States: 1893. 1893
Martha Banta, Imaging American Women: Idea and Ideals in Cultural History. 1987
Joseph Barbato, "America Imagines the FBI," The Chronicle of Higher Education
27:5-6 January 1984
Roy P.Basler, The Lincoln Legend: A Study in Changing Conceptions. 1935
Gerald Baydo, The Evolution of Mass Culture in America. 1982
Jane S. Becker and Barbara Franco, eds., Folk Roots, New Roots: Folklore in
American Life. 1988
Susan Benson et al, eds., Presenting the Past: Essays on History and the Public. 1986
Maurice Berger, How Art Becomes history: Essays on Art, Society ,and Culture in
Post-New Deal America. 1992
John E. Bodnar, Remaking America: Public Memory, Commemoration, and Patriotism
in the Twentieth Century. 1992
Simon J. Bonner, ed., Consuming Visions: Accumulation and Display of Goods in
America, 1880-1920. 1989
Anthony Bridge, "The Life and Death of Symbols," Theology, January, 1958.
Ray B. Browne, Heroes of Popular Culture. 1972
, ed., Rituals and Ceremonies in Popular Culture. 1980
Ray B. Browne, Marshall W. Fishwick, Kevin O. Browne, eds., Dominant Symbols in
Popular Culture. 1990
Ray B. Browne and Marshall Fishwick, eds., Icons of America. 1978
Sarah Burns, Pastoral Inventions: Rural Life in Nineteenth-Century American Art and
Clive Bush, The Dream of Reason: American Consciousness and Cultural Achievement
from Independence to the Civil War. 1977
George Cantor, Historic Landmarks of Black America. 1991
John G. Cawelti, The Six-Gun Mystique. 1984
Compilation of Works of Art and Other Objects in the United States Capitol.
Thomas L. Connelly, The Marble Man: Robert E. Lee and His Image in American
Stephanie Coontz, The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia
James Fenimore Cooper, Notions of the Americans Picked up by aTravelling Bachelor.
Wesley Frank Craven, The Legend of the Founding Fathers. 1956
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and David Rochberg-Halton, The Meaning of Things:
Domestic Symbols and the Self. 1984
Marcus Cunliffe, ed.,The Doubled Images of Lincoln and Washington. 1988
, Mason Locke Weems, The Life of George
Merle Curti, "Dime Novels and the American Tradition,"Yale Review, 26 (1937).
William Darby, Necessary American Fictions:Popular Literature of the 1950s. 1987
Jan C. Dawson, The Unusable Past: America's Puritan Tradition, 1830-1930. 1984
Marshall B. Davidson, the Drawing of America: Eyewitnesses to History. 1983
Fred Davis, Yearning for Yesterday: A Sociology of Nostalgia. 1979
Michael Davis, The Image of Lincoln in the South. 1971
Jan C. Dawson, The Unusable Past: America's Puritan Tradition, 1830-1930. 1984
Philip Detweiler, "The Changing Reputation of the Declaration of Independence: The
First Fifty Years, WMQ, 19(1962).
Brian W. Dippie, Custer's Last Stand: The Anatomy of an American Myth. 1976
Webster Duncan, Looka Yonder!: The Imaginary America of Populist Culture. 1988
William Dunlap, History of the Rise and Progress of the Arts of Design in the United
States, vols. I&II, 1834.
Umberto Eco, Travels in Hyper Reality. 1986
Charles D. Elder and Roger W. Cobb, The Political Uses of Symbols. 1983
Emory Elliot, Revolutionary Writers: Literature and Authority in the New Republic,
Parry Ellwood, The Image of the Indian and the Black man in American Art, 1500-
Paul D. Erikson, The Poetry of Events: Daniel Webster's Rhetoric of the Constitution
and Union. 1986
George G. Evans, History of the United States Mind and American Coinage. 1888
Stuart Ewan, All Consuming Images: The Politics of Style in Contemporary
D.G.Faust, The Creation of Confederate Nationalism. 1988
Roger A. Fischer, "Political Cartoon Symbols and the Divergence of Popular
and Traditional Cultures in the United States," Ray B. Browne et al, eds.,
Dominant symbols in Popular Culture, pp. 181-208.
Sydney Fisher, The Legendary and Mythmaking Process of the American Revolution.
Stephen M. Fjellman, Vinyl Leaves: Walt Disney World and America. 1992
Cornelia Flora, "Roasting Donald Duck: Alternative Comics and Photonovels in Latin
America," Journal of Popular Culture 18:163-183 Summer 1984
George M. Frederickson, The Black Image in the White Mind: The Debate on Afro-
American Character and Destiny, 1817-1914. 1971
David Freedberg, The Power of Images: Studies in the History and Theory of
Vivian Green Fryd, Art and Empire: The Politics of Ethnicity in the United States.
Paul Fussell, Class. 1961
William H. Gerdts, Grand Illusions: History Painting in America. 1988
Lynn Glaser, comp., Engraved America: Iconography of America Through
David Glassberg, American Historical Pageantry: The Uses of Tradition in the early
Twentieth Century. 1990
Jennifer Grail, Cast in the Shadow: Models for Public Sculpture in America. 1985
Marcus Grail, Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock 'n'Roll Music. 1975
Karen Halttunen, Confidence Men and Painted Women: A Study of Middle-Class
Culture in Victorian America, 1830-1870. 1982
Louis Harap, The Image of the Jew in American Literature: from Early Republic to
Mass Immigration. 1974
Helen Harrison, ed., Dawn of a New Day: The New York World's Fair, 1939/40.
Henry A. Hawken, ed., Trumpets of Glory: Fourth of July Orations, 1786-1861. 1976
Barbara Hinckley, The Symbolic Presidency: How Presidents Portray Themselves.
Hugh Honour, The New Golden Land: European Images of America from the
Discoveries to the Present Time. 1975
Charles B. Hosmer, jr., Preservation Comes of Age: From Williamsburg to the
National Trust, 1926-1949. 1981
William H. Hoyt, Arguing with Historians: Essays on the Historical and the
Hans Huth, Nature and the American: Three Centuries of Changing Attitudes. 1957
Alfred Haworth Jones, Roosevelt's Image Brokers: Poets, Playwrights and the Use of
the Lincoln Symbol. 1974
Howard Mumford Jones, O Strange New World. 1966
Charles Kaiser, 1968 in America: Music, Politics, Chaos,
Counterculture, and the Shaping of a Generation. 1988
Michael Kammen, A Machine that Would Go By Itself: The Constitution in American
, Mystic Chords of Memory: The Transformation of Tradition in
American Culture. 1993
, People of Paradox: An Inquiry Concerning the Origins of American
, A Season of Youth: The American Revolution and the Historical
, Sources of Liberty: Changing Perceptions of Liberty in American
Peter Karston, Patriot-Heroes in England and America: Political Symbolism and
Changing Values over Three Centuries. 1978
John Kasson, Amusing the Millions: Coney Island at the turn of the Century. 1978
Alfred Kazin, On Native Grounds: An Interpretation of Modern American Prose
Jack Temple Kirby, Media-Made Dixie: The South in the American Imagination.
Annette Kolodny, The Lay of the Land: Metaphor as Experience and History in
American Life and Letters. 1975
Spiro Kostof, America By Design (Based on the PBS Series). 1987
John Kouwenhoven, The Columbia Historical Portrait of New York: An Essay in
Graphic History. 1953
, Made in America. 1949
Joseph J. Kwiat and Mary C. Turpie, eds., Studies in American Culture: Dominant
Ideas and Images.1960
William Leach, Land of Desire:Merchants, Money, and the Rise of a New American
Jackson Lears, Fables of Abundance: A Cultural History of Advertising in America.
, No Place of Grace: Anti-modernism and the Transformation of
American Culture, 1880-1920. 1990
Lawrence W. Levine, Highbrow/Lowbrow: The Emergence of Cultural Hierarchy in
Mark P. Leone, Roots of Modern Mormonism. 1978
Frank Leslie, Illustrated Historical Register of the Centennial Exposition, 1876
Edward T. Linenthal, Changing Images of the Warrior Hero in America: A History of
Popular Symbolism. 1982
Taylor Littleton, Advancing American Art: Painting, Politics, and Cultural
Confrontation at Mid-Century. 1989
George Lipsitz, Time Passages: Collective Memory and American Popular Culture.
Michael A. Lofaro, ed., Davy Crockett: The Man, the Legend, the Legacy, 1786-
Alison Lurie, The Language of Clothes. 1981
Jerre Mangione, The Dream and the Deal: The Federal Writers' Project, 1935-1943.
K. Marling, Cultural History of Post-Office Murals in the Great Depression.
Leo Marx, The Machine in the Garden.
,The Railroad-in-the-Landscape: An Iconological Reading of a Theme in
American Art, PAACS, 10 (1985).
Peter C. Mario, The Democratic Art: Pictures for a 19th Century America:
Chromolithography, 1840-1900. 1979
James M. Mayo, War Memorials as Political Landscape. 1988
John W. McCoubrey, The American Tradition in Painting. 1963
, et al, The Arts in America: The Colonial Period.
George McDaniel, Hearth and Home: Preserving a People's Culture. 1982
Elizabeth R. McKinsey, Niagara Falls: Icon of the American Sublime.1985
Marshall McLuhan, The Mechanical Bride. 1951
Hal Morgan, Symbols of America. 1987
Winifred Morgan, An American Icon: Brother Jonathan and the
American Identity. 1988
Lewis Mumford, Sticks and Stones: A Study of American Architecture and
, The Myth of the Machine. 1970
, Technics and Civilization. 1933
Paul Nathanson, Over the Rainbow: the Wizard of Oz as a Secular Myth of America.
Mark E. Neely, The Confederate Image: Prints of the Lost Cause. 1987.
Michael North, The Final Sculpture: Public Monuments and Modern Poets.
Barbara Novak, American Painting of the Nineteenth Century:
Realism, Idealism, and the American Experience. 1979
Michael O'Brien, The Idea of the American South, 1920-1941. 1979
Tom O'Brien, The Screening of America: Movies and Values from Rocky to Rain
Walter Ong, Orality and Literacy. 1982
Rollin G. Osterweis, The Myth of the Lost Cause, 1865-1900. 1973
Marc Pachter and Frances Wein, eds., Abroad in America: Visitors to the New Nation,
Erwin Panofsky, Studies in Iconology. 1938
Marlene Park and Gerald Markowitz, Democratic Vistas: Post Offices and Public Art
in the New Deal. 1984
Ellwood Parry, The Image of the Indian and the Black Man in American Art. 1974
Richard H. Pells, Radical Visions and American Dreams: Culture and Social Thought
in the Depression Years. 1973
Earl S. Pomeroy, In Search of the Golden West:The Tourist in Western America. 1957
Jonathan Purde and Steven Hahn, eds., The Countryside in the Era of Capitalist
Herbert Read, Icon and Idea.
Meyer Reinhold, Classica Americana. 1984
Russell E. Richey and Donnald G. Jones, eds., African Civil Religion. 1976
Robin Ridless, Ideology and Art: Theories of Mass Culture from Walter Benjamin to
Umberto eco. 1984
Daniel T. Rodgers, Contested Truths:Keywords in American Politics Since
Joseph G. Rosa and Robin May, Buffalo Bill and His Wild West: A Pictorial
Harold Rosenberg, The Tradition of the New.
Joan Rubin, Constance Rourke and American Culture. 1980
Richard Ruland, The Rediscovery of American Literature: Premises of Critical Taste,
David J. Russo, Keepers of Our Pst: Local Historical Writing in the United States,
Robert W. Rydell, All the World's a Fair: Visions of Empire at American International
Expositions, 1876-1916. 1984
Mark Sargent, "The Conservative Covenant: the Rise of the Mayflower Compact in
American Myth," NEQ, 51(1978).
William W. Savage, Comic Books and America, 1945-1954. 1990
Timothy Scheurer, Born in the U. S. A.: The Myth of America in
Popular Music from Colonial Times to the Present. 1991
Richard Schickel, The Disney Version: The Life, Times, Art and Commerce of Walt
Peter J. Schmitt, Back to Nature: The Arcadian Myth in Urban America. 1969
Jeffrey Schrank, Snap, Crackle, and Popular Taste: The Illusions of Free Choice in
Barry Schwartz, "The Social Context of Commemoration: A Study of Collective
Memory, " Social Forces, 61 (1982), 374-402.
, George Washington: The Making of an American Symbol. 1987
Allan Schwartzman, "Public Art--Corporate Trophies," Art in America 77:35-9.
Vincent Sculy, American Architecture and Urbanism. 1969
Harriet Senie, ed.,Critical Issues in Public Art: Content, Context, and Controversy.
Harold Shurtliff, Log Cabin Myth. 1939
Deborah Silverman, Selling Culture: Bloomingdale's Diana Vreeland, and the New
Aristocracy of Taste in Reagan's America. 1986
Kenneth Silverman, A Cultural History of the American Revolution. 1976
Daniel Singal, The War Within: From Victorian to Modernist Thought in the South,
Richard Slotkin, Regeneration Through Violence: The Mythology of the American
Henry Nash Smith, ed., Popular Culture and Industrialism, 1865-1890. 1967
, Virgin Land: The American West as Symbol and Myth. 1950
Robert Snyder, The Voice of the City: Vaudeville and Popular Culture in New York.
Fred Somkin, Unquiet Eagle: Memory and Desire in the Idea of American Freedom,
Donald Spivey, Sport in America: New Historical Perspectives. 1985
Gerald E. Stearn, Broken Image: Foreign Critiques of America. 1972
George B. Stewart, Names on the Land: A Historical Account of Place-Naming in the
United States. 1958
Susan Stewart, On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir,
the Collection. 1984
John Lawson Stoddard, Famous Parks and Public Buildings in America. 1902
Isaac Newton Stokes, The Iconography of Manhattan Island, 1498-1909.
Charles Strain and Steven Goldberg, eds., Technological Change and the
Transformation of America. 1987
Warren Susman, Culture as History:The Transformation of American Society in the
Twentieth Century. 1984
Anthony Synnott, "Pink Flamingos: Symbols and Symbolism in Yard Art," Ray B.
Browne et al, eds., Dominant Symbols in Popular Culture.
Robert Taft, Artists and Illustrators of the Old West: 1850-1900. 1953
Stephen Tatum, Inventing Billy the Kid: Visions of the Outlaw in America, 1881-1981.
Cecelia Tichi, Shifting Gears: Technology, Literature, Culture in Modernist America.
Alan Trachtenberg,The American Image: Photographs from the National Archives,
,Brooklyn Bridge: Fact and Symbol.
,The Incorporation of America. 1982
Marvin Trachtenberg, The Statue of Liberty. 1976
William H. Truettner, ed., The West as America: Reinterpreting Images of the
Victor Turner, The Forest of Symbols: Symbolic Action in Human Society. 1974
James B. Twitchell, Carnival Culture: the Trashing of Taste in America. 1992
Ron Tyler, The Image of America in Caricature and Cartoon. 1976
Wiley Lee Umphlett, Mythmakers of the American Dream: The Nostalgic Vision in
Popular Culture. 1983
Geoffrey C. Upward, A Home for Our Heritage: the Building and Growth of
Greenfield Village, 1929-1979. 1979
William L. Van Deburg, "The Battleground of Historical Memory: Creating
Alternative Culture Heroes in Postbellum America," Journal of Popular Culture,
20:49-62 Summer 1986
Herve Varenne, Symbolizing America. 1985
Wyn Wachhorst, Thomas Alva Edison: An American Myth. 1981
Roy Wagner, Symbols That Stand for Themselves. 1986
Duncan Webster, Looka Yonder!: The Imaginary America of Populist Culture. 1988
Raymond Weinstein, Disneyland and Coney Island: Reflections on the Evolution of the
Modern Amusement Park. 1986
H.G.Wells, The Future in America: A Search After Realities. 1906
Thomas Reed West, Flesh of Steel: Literature and the Machine in American Culture.
Marcus Whiffen, The Public Buildings of Williamsburg. 1958
Walter Whitehill, ed., A Cabinet of Curiosities: Five Episodes in the Evolution of
American Museums. 1967
Martin T. Williams, Hidden in Plain Sight: An Examination of American Arts. 1992
Raymond Williams, Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society. 1976
Gary Wills, George Washington and the Enlightenment. 1984
, The Invention of America.
, Lincoln at Gettysburg. 1992
Richard G. Wildon, The Machine Age in America, 1918-1914. 1986
Charles Reagan Wilson, Baptized in Blood: The Religion of the Lost Cause, 1865-
Edmund Wilson, Patriotic Gore: Studies in the Literature of the American Civil War.
Richard Guy Wilson, "Architecture and the Reinterpretation of the Past in the
American Renaissance, " WP,18 (1983).
Wilbur Zelinsky, Nation into State: the Shifting Symbolic Foundations of American
Lawrence Zimmerman, "World of Fairs: 1851-1976," Progressive Architecture, 1974
Michael Zuckerman, "Fiction and Fission: Twentieth-Century Writing on the Founding
Fathers, " in Religion, Ideology and Nationalism in Europe and America. 1986