On this episode of Our American Stories, Marshall Field's favorite gift wasn't the one that caused his name to be forever associated with Chicago's premiere museum, or even his massive chain of department stores he built after years of trial, error, and fire--but a small library bearing his name in the small town of Conway, Massacussets--the hometown he left in search of prosperity. Hillsdale professor Kelly Scott Franklin tells the story of how one of America's foremost literary figures was a volunteer on both sides of our nation's Civil War.

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Time Codes:

00:00 - Marshall Feild, The Birth of the Modern Department Store, and a Small Town Library

35:00 - Walt Whitman Served the Union... And the Confederate!