American History Whose Story Gets Told

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American HistoryWhose Story Gets Told?
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The Ideal Textbookaccording to the American
Legion, 1925

• Must inspire children with patriotism,
• Must be careful to tell the truth optimistically,
• Must dwell on failure only for its value as a
  moral lesson, must speak chiefly of success,
• Must give each state and section full space and
  value for the achievements of each.
• From Lies My Teacher Told Me, page 272

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The Ideal Textbookaccording to social studies
educators, 1986

• Confront students with important questions and
  problems for which answers are not readily
  available,
• Be highly selective,
• Be organized around an important problem in
  society that is to be studied in depth,
• Utilize data from a variety of sources such as
  history, the social sciences, literature,
  journalism, and from students first-hand
  experiences.

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1970s Study

• Presented parents with a series of statements
• Asked whether they believed the statements
  andIf they wanted their children to believe them

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Findings for statementPeople in authority know
best

• 13 - believe and want children to believe
• 56 - have doubts but still want it taught
• 30 - dont believe and dont want it taught
• Conclusions

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(No Transcript)
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Thomas Jefferson quote 1

• I know no safe depositary of the ultimate powers
  of the society but the people themselves and if
  we think them not enlightened enough to exercise
  their control with a wholesome discretion, the
  remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform
  their discretion by education. This is the true
  corrective of abuses of constitutional power.
• Thomas Jefferson to William C. Jarvis, 1820

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Thomas Jefferson Quote 2

• The most effectual means of preventing the
  perversion of power into tyranny are to
  illuminate, as far as practicable, the minds of
  the people at large, and more especially to give
  them knowledge of those facts which history
  exhibits, that possessed thereby of the
  experience of other ages and countries, they may
  be enabled to know ambition under all its shapes,
  and prompt to exert their natural powers to
  defeat its purposes.
• Thomas Jefferson Diffusion of Knowledge Bill,
  1779.

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Evaluate the ability of the following claims to
reflect Jeffersons aims

• America is Great I love America
• America is Evil I hate America

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Quote from Mark Twain

• You see my kind of loyalty was loyalty to one's
  country, not to its institutions, or its office
  holders. The country is the real thing, the
  substantial thing, the eternal thing it is the
  thing to watch over, and care for, and be loyal
  to. . .

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Quote 2 Mark Twain

• Many public-school children seem to know only two
  dates--1492 and 4th of July and as a rule they
  don't know what happened on either occasion.

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Excerpt from a forwarded mass email

• An American is English, or French, or Italian,
  Irish, German, Spanish, Polish, Russian, or
  Greek. An American may also be Canadian, Mexican,
  African, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Australian,
  Iranian, Asian, or Arab, or Pakistani, or Afghan.
  An American may also be a Cherokee, Osage,
  Blackfoot, Navaho, Apache or one of the many
  other tribes known as native Americans. An
  American is Christian, or he could be Jewish, or
  Buddhist, or Muslim . . .

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Quotes about History

• The historian must have no country. John Quincy
  Adams
• American history is longer, larger, more various,
  more beautiful, and more terrible than anything
  anyone has ever said about it. James Baldwin
• History is a furious debate informed by evidence
  and reason. James Loewen

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Ideal History as a Pyramid
Synthesized inTextbooks Analyzed by
Historianswho produce Secondary Works Primary
Sources
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Loewens Claim What Really Happens

• High school history textbooks are clonesof each
  other
• Produced by publishers not scholars (ghost
  written)
• Contain factual errors because they are not
  reviewed
• Stifle meaning by suppressing causation
• Commit lies of omission
• Present history as propaganda (feel good history)

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Loewens Research

• Based on analysis of twelve high school history
  textbooks (representative sample)
• Attempts to reveal what has been left out,
  distorted, and/or based on little or no evidence

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Chapter 4 Red EyesLoewens Claims about
Textbooks

• American Indian people presented as stereotypes
• Fail to show how Indian and European immigrants
  not only traded goods but ideas (syncretism)
• Provide little information about Indian Wars

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Indian Wars significance

• Conflict was over land
• European technology and ideology escalated
  warfare to new dimensions- Indian people
  treated as non-human or other
• War was extensive and costly
• Tribes played pivotal roles in US wars

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More Textbook Myths

• Continue to portray Indian relationship to land
  as naïve- unable to understand its value or
  the role in conflicts between tribes and
  dominant society
• Continue to perpetuate the myth that Indian
  people refused to acculturate

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Historical Evidence

• Supports the view that Indians were well-aware of
  the complexity of the conflict with dominant
  European culture
• Supports the idea of syncretism both Indian
  cultures and the new immigrants traded both goods
  and ideas

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Historical Evidence (continued)

• Key area of syncretism - Indian cultures
  contributed significantly to core ideals of
  democracy and shape of US Constitution-
  Example Iroquois League
• Supports the view that social, political, and
  economic forces shaped Western dominance not
  inherent European superiority

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Westward the course of empire makes its way
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Nez Perce Man
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Chaiwa, Tewa girl
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Uyowutcha, an Eskimo child,
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PioPio-Maksmaks, Profile--Wallawalla
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Navajo Woman
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Navajo Medicine Man
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Indian Man from Wild West Show with Admirers
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Chapter 5 Gone With the WindLoewens Key Claims
about Textbooks

• Perpetuate two myths about slavery- system was
  good for blacks- after Reconstruction couldnt
  assimilate because they couldnt handle being
  free
• Erase one of the major causes of slavery
  - economic gain by those who practiced it
• Fail to show how key figures in American history
  were conflicted about slavery

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Chapter 5 Gone With the WindLoewens Claims
about Textbooks (continued)

• Erase how slavery influenced Foreign Policy in
  America- example Haiti
• Fail to show level of violence directed at blacks
  during Reconstruction and the nadir of race
  relations (late 1800s early 1900s)

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Chapter 6 John BrownLoewens Claims about
Textbooks

• Underplay racial idealism- deprive students of
  role models for antiracism
• Fail to present the controversy surrounding John
  Brown
• Erase the complicated attitudes about race as
  expressed by American leaders(example Abraham
  Lincoln)

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Photo and Title from PBS Program
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What was the Underground Railroad?
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Underground Railroad

• Network of people,
• From all walks of life,
• Who worked, often illegally,
• For the freedom of slaves in pre-Civil War
  America.

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Mass email message continued

• . . . Americans are not a particular people from
  a particular place. They are the embodiment of
  the human spirit and freedom. Everyone who holds
  to that spirit everywhere, is an American . . .
• Problem with vision of Americans as normative
  model for all people

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Quote from James Loewen

• The antidote to feel-good history is not feel-bad
  history but honest and inclusive history.

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Quote 1 Takaki

• Through their narratives about their lives and
  circumstances, the people of Americas diverse
  groups are able to see themselves and each other
  in our common past . . . And affirm the struggle
  for equality as a central theme in our countrys
  history . . .
• From A Different Mirror by Ronald Takaki

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Quote 2 Takaki

• At its conception, our nation was dedicated to
  the proposition of equality. What has given
  concreteness to this powerful national principle
  has been our coming together in the creation of a
  new society.
• From A Different Mirror by Ronald Takaki

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Takakis Questions

• How do we see our prospects for working out
  Americas racial crisis?
• Will Americans of diverse races and ethnicities
  be able to connect themselves to a larger
  narrative?

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Challenges

• To dominant group
• To minority group