Washington Gladden

This chapter is from the book Research Guide to American Historical Biography , which is designed to facilitate research (for secondary school and undergraduate term papers as well as students not well versed) in all areas of American history. Covers 278 Americans prominent in history. Each entry provides a synopsis of major events in the subject's life; activities of historical significance; overview of biographical sources (any difficulties that the subject's biographers have encountered and comments on changes in scholarly opinion that have occurred over the years); evaluation of principal biographical sources (an annotated bibliography that evaluates the most important secondary sources for content, readability, and accuracy); evaluation of biographies for young people (a separate listing of biographies written for a young audience); overview and evaluation of primary sources (autobiographical works by the subject, memoirs, documents, and manuscript collections); fiction and adaptations (novels, films, plays, or other creative interpretations of the subject's activities); museums, historical landmarks, societies; and other sources; a bibliography of journal and encyclopedia articles, monographs, and works). Works cited in the evaluation of sources and in the overview indicate whether the work is most appropriate for an academic, general, or young audience.