Context is key for history buff Alexander Heffner ’08. Heffner, President and Editor-in-Chief of Scoop44, a national online newspaper that draws students from across the country to report on domestic politics, spent the last year and a half compiling documents to add to the newest edition of “A Documentary History of the United States”. Heffner collaborated with his grandfather, Richard Heffner, who wrote the first edition of the text in 1952, to produce the eighth edition. “The notion of being one of the scribes to put the nation into context for readers…is incredibly exciting,” said Heffner. Heffner said he and his grandfather began thinking about writing an eigth edition of “A Documentary History of the United States” almost a year and a half ago. “My grandfather has spent much time thinking in between editions as events are momentous and significant events occur,” he said. Heffner said that the process of selecting particular documents and sources “evolved organically as history has progressed.” While they began formal conversations a year and a half ago, “it has really been a decade long process” for his grandfather of analyzing events and their significance to United States history, Heffner said. Heffner drew national attention in 2007 when he launched Scoop08, Scoop 44’s predecessor, with a more specific focus on the 2008 presidential election. The newest edition of “A Documentary History of the United States” contains many additional documents, spanning chronologically all the way to Obama’s campaign speeches and inaugural address. Also new are several interviews from television that were transcribed and included in the text. “The eighth edition marks some of the most intriguing developments in our nation’s rich and complex history,” said Alexander Heffner. “It is a review of the last decade, its most telling and momentous speeches, ones that illuminate America’s history over the last several years. We witnessed a series of ground-breaking moments,” he continued. “It was Alexander who suggested to take text from interviews,” said Richard Heffner of the idea. The eighth edition will be available October 3, 2009 according to Heffner, who said the opportunity to collaborate with his grandfather was simply “attractive in the nature of the endeavor.” “[The collaboration] seemed to come naturally from Alexander’s interest in history, and his journalistic interest,” said his grandfather, Richard Heffner. The new edition also has a Facebook page, a marketing strategy that Richard Heffner attributes to Alexander. “Everything that is electronic is thanks to Alexander; that’s his generation, not mine,” said his grandfather, Richard Heffner. Alexander is hard at work on the next step into the electronic aspects of the text. “We’re currently thinking about possible digital or electronic adaptations of the book,” he said. Richard Heffner first decided to write “A Documentary History of the United States” when he was a teaching assistant to Kenneth Stampp, at the University of California, Berkeley. “It was difficult to make assignments and have students read historical documents, since access to the sources was so expensive,” said Richard Heffner. “I resolved there would be a real place for an inexpensive paperback documentary,” he continued. At its first publication, in 1952, “A Documentary History of the United States” cost only 35 cents. The eighth edition remains inexpensive, ringing in at $9.99. “The need for the text comes from the need for Americans to be familiar with their heritage; not to be familiar with these several key documents would be shameful,” said Richard Heffner. “A Documentary History of the United States” has been used in schoolrooms across the nation since its’ founding, and was also used by United States Information Agency, on the list of reference books, according to Richard Heffner. Alexander Heffner said that the text is targeted at “secondary school and college students, but I think it appeals to a wide range of teachers, history buffs and casual browsers.” Since the book will not be published until October, the newest edition will not be available for History classes this year. Each year the teachers have the choice to select their own course material, according to Peter Drench, Chair of the History Department. Drench said he plans to inform the teachers of “A Documentary History of the United States”, as the history department currently uses many of the documents found in the text.
