Picturing America for Public Libraries

Project Scholar
Suzanne Ozment, Ph.D.
Executive Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and Professor of English
University of South Carolina Aiken

Series Description
The story of the championship racehorse Seabiscuit as told by Laura Hillenbrand is the story of the American Dream realized. The central figures—the horse, the trainer, the jockey, and the owner—seemed destined for ordinary lives—for obscurity, if not for failure. Yet they came together in the gloomy years of the Great Depression and through a combination of determination, perseverance, and previously unrealized talent, they achieved greatness and captured the hearts of people worldwide.

But, of course, all American stories do not end happily. The images drawn from the Picturing America collection as well as the books selected for the Land of Opportunity series explore the extent to which we have fulfilled the promise of America.

Central Reading List
Ragtime by E. L. Doctorow
All the King’s Men by Roert Penn Warren
Seabiscuit by Laura Hillenbrand
Noon Wine by Katherine Anne Porter
Dreaming in Cuban by Cristina Garcia

Related Picturing America Images
3A—The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere
3B—George Washington
4A—Washington Crossing the Delaware
4B—Benjamin Franklin
7A—Ohio State Capital
7B—The County Election, 1852
9B—Abraham Lincoln
10A—Robert Shaw Memorial
11A—John Biglin in a Single Scull
12B—Allies Day, May 1917
14A—The Boating Party
14B—Brooklyn Bridge, c. 1919–1920
15A—American Landscape, 1930
15B—The Chrysler Building, 1926–1930
17A—The Migration Series
17B—The Dove
18A—The Sources of Country Music
18B—Migrant Mother
19A—Freedom of Speech