In the closing years of the 19th century, as the United States struggled to reconcile its past and define its future, a Baptist minister named Francis Bellamy (1855–1931) composed a few lines that ...

"I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all," Bellamy’s American credo read it in its initial 22-word incarnation.

When the publishing firm Upham, Ford & Olmstead purchased The Youth’s Companion in 1857, the small children’s publication of about 7,000 subscribers had been around for 30 years. It had been launched ...

Like Prince Dracula or Glenn Close in "Fatal Attraction," the prolonged controversy over the Pledge of Allegiance refuses to die. With U.S. District Judge Lawrence Karlton's ruling last month that the ...

Click to open image viewer. CC0 Usage Conditions ApplyClick for more information. Letter to the editor of the New York Examiner from Francis Bellamy, dated April 20th, 1892 on letterhead from the ...