The eye-catching cover girl for American Spirit’s March/April issue might surprise you — it’s a young Martha Washington! Is this really what the very first first lady looked like in her 20s?

Although it’s impossible to know for sure, the painting is a very educated guess at what Martha looked like as a young woman. Michael Deas painted the portrait based on a computer-generated image created by forensic anthropologists at Louisiana State University’s FACES (Forensic Anthropology and Computer Enhancement Services) Lab.

Starting with the bone structure from a miniature painted of Martha in middle age, anthropologists used age regression techniques to simulate how she would have looked decades earlier. The cover story in the magazine’s Women’s History Month edition examines her vital role of morale booster at Valley Forge and other Revolutionary War encampments.

If you’re behind on your American Spirit homework, here’s a quick recap of the latest three issues of the magazine Hammock publishes for the Daughters of the American Revolution.

The nation commemorated the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 anniversary with solemnity and remembrance, and American Spirit paid tribute with unique stories of the sites identified with the New York, Washington, D.C., and Shanksville, Pa., tragedies. The cover of September/October 2011 issue spotlighted St. Paul’s Chapel, a pre-Revolutionary War church in the shadows of Lower Manhattan skyscrapers. Many readers know of it as a place of healing and the epicenter for volunteers following the attack on the World Trade Centers, but few know that it functioned as a symbol of recovery as far back as 1776.

Holidays in the 18th century meant days of cooking, baking, roasting and stewing for the lavish feasts ahead. Tarts, candied orange peel and a frosted cake are a few of the holiday dessert dishes you might have been served by a well-off 18th-century hostess. Today, those early American feasts have been recreated in many historic homes and museums—from Philadelphia to Charleston. But just like the desserts on our November/December 2011 cover, they can’t be eaten.

Hammock provides content marketing services, which includes publishing print and digital magazines customized to meet our clients’ objectives. We study those objectives and work to ensure each issue of a client’s publication meets their specific goals. We accomplish this with expert writing about topics of interest to our clients’ target audience—and compelling design that brings to vivid life our writers’ stories. In the last month, these stories have included everything from historic re-enactors to the U.S. Marine Corps special ops and from the latest in pharmaceutical innovations to how health-care reform will affect supply chain managers. No matter the topic, our storytelling is tailored to the interests and passions of our clients’ customers and members. But we don’t just tell you that’s what we do—we’re always eager to show you. View our latest work for some of the publications we publish for our clients, including American Spirit, Semper Fi, The Source and Pharmaceutical Commerce.

Last week senior graphic designer Lynne Boyer and I took a couple of hours to shoot Nashville landmarks for a Lena Anthony-penned travel story for American Spirit, the magazine Hammock publishes for the Daughters of the American Revolution. Since the May floods, city leaders and volunteers have been doing their best to entice visitors to Nashville and try to recover economically. We thought the DAR magazine would be a fitting place to promote the city’s restoration–and spotlight the history that few outside the region know.

With Lynne, a native Nashvillian, in the driver’s seat, I jumped out and grabbed shots all around downtown, including at the State Capitol, Ryman Auditorium (Mother Church of Country Music), Fort Nashborough and historic City Cemetery. Caveat: I’m not a great photographer, but I’m building off a class I took a local art college and trying to improve! Check out some of the photos on my flickr page (still in process).

Water–or the overabundance of it–has been on my mind a lot this year. After the unprecedented rains of May 1 and 2 caused widespread flooding in Nashville, Tenn., many of us got our hands dirty on volunteer projects to rebuild our city. Six months after the flood, many families in our area are still putting their homes and lives back together. Though the nation’s attention quickly receded with the floodwaters, the economic burdens are far reaching and many people still need assistance. Hands on Nashville and the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee provide numerous ways to pitch in and get our community over these final hurdles.

Not only have lives been lost and homes wrecked, but Middle Tennessee’s natural resources have also taken a beating. This fall, as I’ve paddled down several of the area’s beautiful rivers (weekends have included a clean-up day on Swan Creek, a canoe camping trip down the Buffalo River and day paddles down the Harpeth River and on Center Hill Lake), I’ve witnessed the damaging effects of the flood–hundreds of downed trees, damaged banks and watersheds, piles of debris–on these ecosystems that we all depend upon.

You can help clean up and preserve these natural resources. Find out more by joining the Tennessee Scenic Rivers Association or volunteering at one of the many clean-water events sponsored by the Cumberland River Compact and the Harpeth River Watershed Association.

There are history buffs, and then there are re-enactors. Obsessive about getting every historical detail just right, these dedicated men and women volunteer their time and money to re-enact important events in our nation’s history. Whether it’s a Revolutionary War skirmish or a War of 1812 battle, the re-enactors in the November/December issue of American Spirit, which we publish for the Daughters of the American Revolution, serve as examples of how rewarding this hobby can be.
The DAR Magazine National Chairman, Pamela Marshall, and her family have been dedicated Civil War re-enactors for 15 years. “Our oldest sons took this hobby to a new level and became U.S. Army Artillery Officers,” she says. “One served in Afghanistan and the other in Iraq.”
Ms. Marshall’s sons are two of the brave military service members American Spirit salutes this Veterans Day for sacrificing so much for our freedom and the cause of liberty around the world.

How-to articles for using Twitter abound, but we liked the way this article from Connected Marketer zeroed in on helpful tips for tweeting responsibly and building a B2B community on Twitter. Blogger Jeremy Victor outlines the how Twitter can help “start conversations and build real life relationships” that will ultimately benefit your business.
Our favorite tips:
Don’t: Flood your audience with self- or company-promotional tweets. A balance is critical.
Don’t: Post negatively about a competitor. Don’t post negatively about anything for that matter.
Do: Provide value and be selective in your tweeting. Only tweet about things that the community of people whom you are working to attract will find interesting or valuable. A great place to start is to share links to industry news or new product announcements.

The Nashville community has come together in remarkable ways after the devastating Nashville Flood. The tech community, in particular, worked cooperatively over the course of one week to build and add content to an online tool called Donate Nashville. Launched on Saturday, May 8, the Craigslist-like tool helps fill in the gaps as Nashville starts to recover and rebuild from the flood.

While social media can be credited with numerous positive contributions to society, sometimes that sphere can feel impolite and harsh to folks diving in. Applying a little more politeness and a lot more dependability to your content marketing efforts can go a long way toward building trust and ensuring your success. Take a lesson from Grandma.

Next week the May/June 2010 issue of American Spirit, and its member companion, Daughters newsletter, will begin arriving in mailboxes of all 165,000 members of the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution. The increased circulation of the magazine and newsletter for this special issue enable NSDAR to promote subscriptions, encourage membership development and recount the achievements of the past three years of President General Linda Gist Calvin’s administration.