In 2000, Uncle Ted and I went on a trek to Alaska. One of our stops was Mt. Rushmore. I expected to appreciate the grandeur of the monument much as I had also appreciated the technical skill and spectacle of Stone Mountain in GA. I also expected to view smugly the patriotic hype of the gift shops that would inevitably be there. I was not prepared to be deeply moved or to feel a renewed interest in my native country.

Yes, I was awed by the technical skill and accomplishment. But I was also inspired to learn more about the four presidents memorialized on this mountain. I set for myself a goal of reading a biography of each of the Rushmore presidents. As I read about Roosevelt and Washington, I realized that there was much that I had either never known or had forgotten about American history, and I thought that it might be interesting and enlightening to read American history through biographies of its presidents.

Phase I of the project is to read biographies of the four Rushmore presidents. Phase II will be to read biographies of the rest of our presidents.

Phase I: The Rushmore Presidents

• George Washington: His Excellency: George Washington by Joseph Ellis, 2005
• Thomas Jefferson:
• Abraham Lincoln: Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years and The War Years by Carl Sandburg, one volume edition, orig. 1926/1939.
• Theodore Roosevelt: The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris, 1979.
  Theodore Rex by Edmund Morris, 2001