This volume traces the historical evolution of American academic thought concerning public address -- what it is, how it ought to be studied, and what can be learned by engaging rhetorical texts in an analytical fashion. To begin, one must distinguish among three separate but interrelated uses of the term "public address" -- as practice, theory, and criticism. The essays in this volume represent landmarks in the literal sense of that term -- they are marks on the intellectual landscape that indicate where scholars and ideas have passed, and in that passing left a mark for future generations....