This book about a year has been many years in the making. I am grateful to the Mellon Foundation for a Faculty Fellowship in the Humanities at Harvard University, where I first started thinking about 1831. Additional support has come from the Rifkind Center for the Humanities at City College as well as the PSC-CUNY Fund. Two short-term fellowships allowed me to complete the research for this work. I served as a Kate B. and Hall J. Peterson Fellow at the American Antiquarian Society, where the collections and staff are superb. I am indebted to Georgia Barnhill, Nancy Burkett, Joanne Chaison, Alan Degutis, Ellen Dunlap, John Hench, and Marie Lamoureux. I also profited from an Andrew Mellon Foundation Fellowship at the Library Company of Philadelphia. My thanks to Jenny Ambrose, Jim Green, Phil Lapsan-sky, Erika Piola, Jessy Randall, Nicole Scalessa, John Van Horne, and Sarah Weatherwax. At City College, Martin Tamny, Jim Watts, and Frank Grande helped make certain I would have time to write.
Over the years, a number of friends have contributed in different ways to this project. They include Bob Allison, John Brooke, Tom Brown, Peter Coclanis, David Gerber, Christine Herbes-Sommers,
David Jaffee, Keith Mayes, David Nasaw, Carol Quirke, Richard Skolnik, and Darren Staloff. I so wish John Phillips were here to share in this moment. I do not know where I would be without Dave at the Bagel Dish, Ed at Raritan Video, the BLRB, occasional Friday nights with the Whites, Allan Lockspeiser and all our teams, and Jesse Wolpert and the guys at the Center School. I appreciate the interest in my work shown by the entire Fox and Mallin families. A few years ago, my parents, Sarah and Seymour Masur, moved five blocks away. They always ask “How is the book going?”—and, if it is not too much trouble, could I run an errand? I am fortunate that they live nearby. Dave Masur, Bruce Rossky, and Mark Richman would not think to look for their names here, and that is only one of many reasons why I cherish them.
I am lucky that Arthur Wang first expressed interest in this project and even luckier that Lauren Osborne became my editor. I am grateful to Lauren for encouraging me to write the book that I envisioned and improving the one that I wrote. Her assistant, Catherine Newman, ushered me through the publication process with efficiency and wit.
Kathy Feeley, Jim Goodman, Doug Greenberg, Peter Mancall, Aaron Sachs, and Tom Slaughter read the manuscript and provided insight, encouragement, and bottomless cups of coffee. They also danced at my son’s bar mitzvah. For my fortieth birthday, Tom gave me a rock with the word CREATE carved in it, and soon thereafter I started writing. What I owe him can not be repaid with the next present I buy, but I will certainly try.
I promised Sophie that her name would go first this time. I promised Ben that I would not list all his accomplishments. And I promised Jani that for our twentieth wedding anniversary, we would vacation in Hawaii. Well, two out of three is not bad. Every day they show me that love is wild, love is real, love will not let you down.
LPM
Highland Park, N.J.
May 2000