Edwin S. Grosvenor

Edwin S. Grosvenor is the Editor-in-Chief of American Heritage and Invention & Technology Magazines. He is also the editor of twelve anthologies of essays that appeared in American Heritage including Men of the Revolution, Hamilton, Lincoln, The Civil War, The Old West, New York, World War I, Roosevelt, Churchill, and The Vietnam War, as well as anthologies from HORIZON Magazine including The Middle Ages and History's Great Confrontations.

Mr. Grosvenor co-authored a biography of his great-grandfather, Alexander Graham Bell: The Life and Times of the Inventor of the Telephone, published by Harry N. Abrams Inc., and is also the co-author of 299 Things Everyone Should Know About American History.

Previously, Mr. Grosvenor was the President and Editor of Portfolio Magazine, the highest circulation fine arts publication in the U.S. at the time according to the Audit Bureau of Circulation, and a nominee for the National Magazine Award for General Excellence.

From 1991 to 1995, Mr. Grosvenor was the publisher of the literary magazine, Current Books, which published such authors as Norman Mailer, Bill Moyers, Garrison Keillor, David McCullough, Anne Tyler, and Vaclav Havel. Current Books was distributed in over 4,000 outlets making it one of the most widely distributed book-related publications in bookstores at the time. He also served as president and editorial director of Hotel Magazine Network, Inc., a publisher of magazines for business travelers with a total circulation of 330,000 copies distributed in the rooms of Marriott and Hyatt hotels.

The Grosvenor family founded the National Geographic Society, where Mr. Grosvenor worked as a photographer with assignments in such countries as Belize, Canada, France, Greece, Iceland, Kenya, Spain, Tonga, Turkey and the U.S.

Mr. Grosvenor also serves as the Historian of the Literary Society of Washington. He obtained his MBA and his MS (Journalism) degrees from Columbia University, and his BA from Yale University.

Twitter: @edwingro

Articles by this Author

Confederates Honored by the U.S. Army, June 2020 | Vol. 65, No. 3

The Army has named ten military bases in honor of men who killed 365,000 U.S. soldiers. Should they be renamed? Or left as they are, since the bases are part of a “great American heritage," as Mr. Trump says?

Confederates in Congress: Heritage or Hate? , June 2020 | Vol. 65, No. 3

Our research reveals that 19 artworks in the U.S. Capitol honor men who were Confederate officers or officials. What many of them said, and did, is truly despicable.

Vandalism in Lafayette Square, June 2020 | Vol. 65, No. 3

Both our Constitution and our historic monuments were trashed during recent protests.

Richard Reeves, Spring 2020 | Vol. 65, No. 2

The prolific author wrote several bestsellers about presidential power.

Major Renovation Unveiled at Mount Vernon, Fall 2019 - George Washington Prize Books | Vol. 64, No. 5

In looking at the restoration of the front parlor, we can learn a lot about the Washington family, life in colonial America, and the art of historic preservation.

What Do State Constitutions Say About "Bearing Arms"?, September/October 2019 | Vol. 64, No. 4

To find out what the Founding generation said about "well-regulated militias" and the right to bear arms, we researched all the colonial and state constitutions enacted before 1791.

Introduction: A Special Issue on the Right to Bear Arms, September/October 2019 | Vol. 64, No. 4

Given the recent tragic shootings, historians should play a role in providing dispassionate facts regarding the history of gun rights and gun control.

The Reasonable Right to Bear Arms, September/October 2019 | Vol. 64, No. 4

The Supreme Court left the door open for reasonable regulations of guns, if Congress has the will to act.

Building the Transcontinental Railroad , Summer 2019 | Vol. 64, No. 3

Completed 150 years ago this month, the railroad's construction was one of the great dramas in American history, and led to a notorious scandal.

Original “Cricket Clicker” Found for 75th Anniversary of D-Day, Summer 2019 | Vol. 64, No. 3

Authentic brass “crickets” issued to American paratroopers on D-Day are now quite rare. A worldwide search recently “unearthed a lost piece of sound history.”

McCullough's "The Pioneers", Summer 2019 | Vol. 64, No. 3

David McCullough’s latest book tells the story of a small group of Revolutionary War veterans and pioneers who set out on an extraordinary 800-mile journey through the wilderness to establish the first settlement in the Ohio Territory.

Rediscovering Hand-Drawn Maps from the American Revolution and the Duke Who Collected Them, Summer 2019 | Vol. 64, No. 3

A team from American Heritage helped document some of the most important maps of the Revolution — still stored in the medieval English castle where scenes from Harry Potter were later filmed.

A Nation with "Collective Amnesia", Summer 2019 | Vol. 64, No. 3

We will never learn from the past if we've forgotten it. Now there's been a dramatic decline in the number of college students studying history.

Descendant Sues Over Slave Photos, Spring 2019 | Vol. 64, No. 2

The famous photographs at Harvard, first published in American Heritage in 1977, are at the center of a difficult debate over who owns the images.

Blackface: The Sad History of Minstrel Shows, Winter 2019 | Vol. 64, No. 1

For most of the 1800s, whites in blackface performed in widely popular minstrel shows, creating racist stereotypes that endured for more than a century.

The War to End All Wars, Fall 2018 - World War I Special Issue | Vol. 63, No. 3

The Hello Girls, Fall 2018 - World War I Special Issue | Vol. 63, No. 3

America’s first female soldiers were Signal Corps telephone operators who made sure that critical messages got through, often while threatened by artillery fire.

The Heartbreaking Loss of Lt. Quentin Roosevelt, Fall 2018 - World War I Special Issue | Vol. 63, No. 3

What Germans Said About the Americans, Fall 2018 - World War I Special Issue | Vol. 63, No. 3

After World War I, Army Intelligence officers collected statements from German soldiers and citizens.

About the Special Issue for the George Washington Book Prize, Special Issue - George Washington Prize 2018 | Vol. 63, No. 2

Enjoy excerpts from seven great books about the founding era.

Secret Race to the Pole, Spring 2018 | Vol. 63, No. 1

In the early 1950s, top-secret efforts led to the first submarine trips to the North Pole by USS Nautilus and USS Skate in 1957 – dramatic successes that rivaled the Soviet Union's Sputnik that year – and shifted the balance of strategic power.

Tears for Marjory Stoneman Douglas , Spring 2018 | Vol. 63, No. 1

A sad footnote to the horrific shootings in Broward county Florida is the soiling of the name of the environmental pioneer for whom the Parkland high school was named.

Shocked by Sputnik Sixty Years Ago, Fall 2017 | Vol. 62, No. 5

Cover: Gilbert Stuart's Last Portrait of Washington, Fall 2017 | Vol. 62, No. 5

Holding Down the Fort, Fall 2017 | Vol. 62, No. 5

Members of the Maryland Forces guard the memories of the dramatic history at Fort Frederick, the best-preserved fort from the former English colonies in America.

Shedding More Light on the Founding Era, Special Issue - George Washington Prize 2017 | Vol. 62, No. 4

A special issue of American Heritage offers excerpts from seven books nominated for the prestigious George Washington Prize.

Standing Bear Goes to Court, Summer 2017 | Vol. 62, No. 1

When the Army arrested a chief of the Ponca Tribe in 1878 for leaving their reservation, he sued the federal government and won — the first time courts recognized that a Native American had legal rights.

It Wasn't Easy, But American Heritage is Back!, Summer 2017 | Vol. 62, No. 1

More than 600 donors chipped in to help fund the re-launch of the magazine.

Stop the War on History, Summer 2017 | Vol. 62, No. 1

The Trump Administration has proposed massive cuts to history programs whose mission is to teach Americans what made their country great

Baltimore's "Sailabration" Honors the War of 1812, Summer 2012 | Vol. 62, No. 2

Tall ships and U.S. Navy vessels sailed into Baltimore Harbor past Fort McHenry to commemorate the bicentennial of the War of 1812.

"WEB ONLY STORIES" BY THIS CONTRIBUTOR

How to Remember on Memorial Day

Sure, parades and picnics can be fun. But the best way to remember sacrifices made for the freedoms we cherish is to read about and remember what those heroes actually accomplished. That's an important part of what American Heritage has done for 70 years: tell those important stories. Here are some…

We Should Heed History's Lessons on Compromise

It's ironic that compromise has become a dirty word for many of the same politicians who profess such reverence for the Constitution and Founding Fathers. We are a nation conceived in compromise, whose very existence was saved at least three times by deals cobbled together by politicians bitterly…

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