America’s first female physician, Elizabeth Blackwell, returned to New York to found a hospital run entirely by women. It amounts to a meaty collection of short stories, expertly and flavorfully assembled, free of gristly theory. These years were about shaping art and principles, tasks with which France assisted by dispatching the Statue of Liberty and Tocqueville in the opposite direction. It was as though this one picture had been worth the whole trip to France.” The New York sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens plays a leading role in “The Greater Journey.” He began as a cameo-cutter, an apprenticeship to which McCullough devotes several pages. McCullough’s is as much the splendid story of a nation growing up as it is that of a city coming into its own. Wine was cheaper than milk. In The Greater Journey, David McCullough tells the enthralling, inspiring—and until now, untold—story of the adventurous American artists, writers, doctors, politicians, and others who set off for Paris in the years between 1830 and 1900, hungry to learn and to excel in their work.
— but also an education, an invitation to see the world anew.
During a later Parisian stay, Saint-Gaudens cast the Sherman on horseback that stands today on the edge of Central Park. Any doctor worth his salt hoped to study there. Illustration by Misprinted Type, photographs from Getty Images
In The Greater Journey, David McCullough tells the enthralling, inspiring—and until now, untold—story of the adventurous American artists, writers, doctors, politicians, and others who set off for Paris in the years between 1830 and 1900, hungry to learn and to excel in their work. In the course of these pages, Paris acquires The two histories combine most powerfully in his account of the Franco-Prussian War and Elihu Washburne, America’s minister to France between 1869 and 1877. He took home with him in 1832 the germ of what would become the telegraph. In The Greater Journey, David McCullough tells the enthralling, inspiring—and until now, untold—story of the adventurous American artists, writers, doctors, politicians, and others who set off for Paris in the years between 1830 and 1900, hungry to learn and to excel in their work. As he points out, often the minor characters tell a story best. During this time of change; we hope to offer you a “virtual” respite. The Greater Journey is the enthralling, inspiring—and until now, untold—story of the adventurous American artists, writers, doctors, politicians, architects, and others of high aspiration who set off for Paris in the years between 1830 and 1900, ambitious to excel in their work. The colossal bronze statue of the Civil War hero was shipped back to New York, all 900 pounds of him, to be unveiled in May 1881.
The Greater Journey is the enthralling, inspiring—and until now, untold—story of the adventurous American artists, writers, doctors, politicians, architects, and others of high aspiration who set off for Paris in the years between 1830 and 1900, ambitious to excel in their work. David McCullough has stressed France’s pre-eminent role in American history for years.