Thinking through the past 4th edition

Thinking Through the Past

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Volume II: Since 1865 fifth edition

John Hollitz College of Southern Nevada

Thinking Through the Past A Critical Thinking Approach to U.S. History

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Thinking Through the Past: A Critical Thinking Approach to U.S. History, Volume II Fifth Edition John Hollitz

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Contents

Preface        xiii Introduction        1

1 Historians and Textbooks: The “Story” of Reconstruction 7 Setting    8 Investigation    9 Sources    10

Reconstruction (1906)    10 The Negro in Reconstruction (1922)    12 The Ordeal of Reconstruction (1966)    14 Reconstruction: An Unfinished Revolution (2001)    16

Conclusion    20 Further Reading    21 Notes    21

2 Using Primary Sources: Industrialization and the Condition of Labor 22 Setting    23 Investigation    24 Sources    25

Testimony of Workingmen (1879)    25 “Earnings, Expenses and Conditions of Workingmen and Their Families” 

(1884)    28 “Human Power. . . Is What We Are Losing” (1910)    35

v

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vi Contents

Why We Struck at Pullman (1895)    36 Colored Workmen and a Strike (1887)    37 “I Struck Because I Had to” (1902)    38 Women Make Demands (1869)    41 Summary of Conditions Among Women Workers Found by the  

Massachusetts Bureau of Labor (1887)    41 A Union Official Discusses the Impact of  

Women Workers (1897)    42 Work in a Garment Factory (1902)    43 Gainful Workers by Age, 1870–1920    44 Breaker Boys (1906)    45

Conclusion    46 Further Reading    47 Notes    47

3 Evaluating Primary Sources: “Saving” the Indians in the Late Nineteenth Century 49 Setting    51 Investigation    52 Sources    53

“Land and Law as Agents in Educating Indians” (1885)    54 The Dawes Act (1887)    56 A Cheyenne Tells His Son About the Land (ca. 1876)    58 Cheyennes Try Farming (ca. 1877)    59 A Sioux Recalls Severalty (ca. 1900)    60 Supervised Indian Land Holdings by State, 1881–1933    62 A Proposal for Indian Education (1888)    63 Instructions to Indian Agents and Superintendents  

of Indian Schools (1889)    65 The Education of Indian Students at Carlisle (1891)    67 Luther Standing Bear Recalls Carlisle (1933)    69 Wohaw’s Self-Portrait (1877)    72 Taking an Indian Child to School (1891)    73 A Crow Medicine Woman on Teaching the Young (1932)    73 Percentage of Population Over Ten Illiterate, 1900–1930    75

Conclusion    75 Further Reading    76 Notes    76

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viiContents

4 Evaluating a Historical Argument: American Manhood and Philippine Annexation 77 Setting    79 Investigation    81 Secondary Source    82

Male Degeneracy and the Allure of the Philippines (1998)    83 Primary Sources    89

“Recommended by Hoar” (1899)    90 “The Anti-Expansion Ticket for 1900” (1899)    91 “The White Man’s Burden” (1899)    92 “The Filipino’s First Bath” (1899)    93 “The Strenuous Life” (1899)    94 William McKinley on Annexation (1899)    96 “In Support of an American Empire” (1900)    97 Selections from the Treaty Debate (1899)    100 Value of Manufactured Exports, 1880–1900    104 Value of U.S. Exports by Country of Destination, 1880–1900    105

Conclusion    106 Further Reading    106 Notes    107

5 The Problem of Historical Motivation: The Bungalow as the “Progressive” House 108 Setting    109 Investigation    111 Secondary Source    112

The Progressive Housewife and the Bungalow (1981)    112 Primary Sources    117

A Victorian House (1875)    119 A Craftsman Cottage (1909)    120 The Craftsman Contrasts Complexity and Confusion

with Cohesion and Harmony (1907)    121 Craftsman Home Interiors (1909)    122 Gustav Stickley on the Craftsman Home (1909)    123 Edward Bok on Simplicity (1900)    125 Cover from The Bungalow Magazine (1909)    126

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viii Contents

“Standards of Living in the Home” (1912)    127 The Efficient and Inefficient Homemaker (1920)    129 Domestic Economy (1904)    130 Double Bungalow Plan, Bowen Court    131 Female Servants by Regions, per 1,000 Families,  

1880–1920    132 Clerical Workers in the United States, by Sex, 1870–1920    133

Conclusion    134 Further Reading    134 Notes    134

6 Ideology and History: Advertising in the 1920s 136 Setting    137 Investigation    139 Secondary Source    140

Advertising the American Dream (1985)    140 Primary Sources    149

“The Poor Little Bride of 1860” (1920)    150 Listerine Advertisement (1923)    151 Ford Motors Advertisement (1924)    152 Kotex Advertisement (1927)    153 Calvin Coolidge on the Economic Aspects  

of Advertising (1926)    154 Earnest Elmo Calkins, Business the Civilizer (1926)    155 Walter Dill Scott on Effective Advertisements (1928)    157 Advertising to Women (1928)    159

Conclusion    161 Further Reading    162 Notes    162

7 History “From the Top Down”: Eleanor Roosevelt, First Lady 163 Setting    165 Investigation    166

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ixContents

Secondary Source    167 Eleanor Roosevelt as First Lady (1996)    167

Primary Sources    176 Transcripts of Eleanor Roosevelt’s Press Conferences (1933–1938)    176 “The Negro and Social Change” (1936)    179 Letter to Her Daughter (1937)    181 This I Remember (1949)    182 My Parents: A Differing View (1976)    185 Letter from Barry Bingham to Marvin McIntyre (1934)    186 Excerpts from Letters to Franklin Roosevelt (1935)    186 It’s Up to the Women (1933)    187 Eleanor Roosevelt on the Equal Rights Amendment (1933)    188

Conclusion    189 Further Reading    189 Notes    189

8 History “From the Bottom Up”: The Detroit Race Riot and Los Angeles Zoot Suit Riots of 1943 191 Setting    193 Investigation    196 Secondary Source    197

The Detroit Rioters of 1943 (1991)    197 Primary Sources    208

A Handbill for White Resistance (1942)    209 Black Employment in Selected Detroit Companies, 1941    210 Black Workers Protest Against Chrysler (1943)    210 A Complaint About the Police (1939)    211 Changes in White and Black Death Rates, 1910–1940    212 An Explanation for Mexican Crime (1942)    213 “Zoot Suiters Learn Lesson in Fights with Servicemen” (1943)    213 Testimony of Zoot Suiters (1943, 2000)    215 Views of the News, by Manchester Boddy (June 11, 1943)    216 A Governor’s Citizen’s Committee Report  

on Los Angeles Riots (1943)    217 Conclusion    219 Further Reading    219 Notes    220

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x Contents

9 Popular Culture as History: The Cold War Comes Home 221 Setting    223 Investigation    224 Secondary Source    225

The Culture of the Cold War (1991)    225 Primary Sources    232

Advertisement for I Married a Communist (1949)    233 Promotional Material for Walk East on Beacon (1952)    234 A Game Show Producer Remembers the Red Scare (1995)    234 A Playwright Recalls the Red Scare (1995)    237 “This Land Is Your Land” (1956)    239 A Folk Singer Remembers the Early Fifties (1995)    240 Pogo (1952)    242 On the Road (1957)    243

Conclusion    245 Further Reading    245 Notes    246

10 History and Popular Memory: The Civil Rights Movement 247 Setting    248 Investigation    251 Secondary Source    252

I’ve Got the Light of Freedom (1995)    252 Primary Sources    258

A SNCC Founder Discusses Its Goals (1966)    259 Amzie Moore: Farewell to the N-Double-A (ca. 1975)    261 Chronology of Violence, 1961 (1963)    264 A Sharecropper’s Daughter Responds to the Voter  

Registration Campaign (ca. 1975)    266 A Black Activist Endorses White Participation (ca. 1975)    270 A SNCC Organizer Recalls Federal Intervention (ca. 1975)    271 “A Letter from a Freedom Summer Volunteer” (1964)    272 Examples of Freedom School Student Work (1964)    273 An “Insider” Recalls the Divisions in SNCC (1966)    276

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xiContents

Fannie Lou Hamer on the Lessons of 1964 (1967)    277 “What We Want” (1966)    277

Conclusion    279 Further Reading    280 Notes    280

11 Causation and the Lessons of History: Explaining America’s Longest War 281 Setting    283 Investigation    284 Secondary Sources    285

Fighting in “Cold Blood”: LBJ’s Conduct of Limited   War in Vietnam (1994)    285

God’s Country and American Know-How (1986)    290 Primary Sources    295

LBJ Expresses Doubts About Vietnam (1965)    296 LBJ Recalls His Decision to Escalate (1971)    296 The Central Intelligence Agency Reports on the War (1967)    298 McNamara Recalls the Decision to Escalate (1995)    298 Fighting a Technological War of Attrition (1977)    300 A Medical Corpsman Recalls the Vietnamese People (1981)    301 A Marine Remembers His Shock (1987)    302 A Foreign Service Officer Acknowledges American  

Ignorance (1987)    304 Conclusion    305 Further Reading    305 Notes    306

12 Gender, Ideology, and Historical Change: Explaining the Women’s Movement 307 Setting    308 Investigation    310 Secondary Sources    311

Cold War Ideology and the Rise of Feminism (1988)    311 Women’s Liberation and Sixties Radicalism (2002)    316

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xii Contents

Primary Sources    322 The Problem That Has No Name (1963)    323 Civil Rights and the Rise of Feminism (1987)    324 NOW’s Statement of Purpose (1966)    326 Redstockings Manifesto (1969)    327 “What’s Wrong with ‘Equal Rights’ for Women?” (1972)    328 The Combahee River Collective Statement (1986)    332 On Women and Sex (1972)    334 Our Bodies, Ourselves (1973)    335 The Politics of Housework (ca. 1970)    337 Sex Ratios of High School and College Graduates in the  

United States, 1940–1990    339 Women’s Labor Force Participation, by Marital Status, 1940–1990    340

Conclusion    340 Further Reading    341 Notes    342

13 Why Historical Interpretation Matters: The Battle over Immigration 343 Setting    344 Investigation    346 Secondary Sources    347

Unguarded Gates (2004)    347 Immigrant America (2006)    355

Primary Sources    361 “Illegal Immigrants: The U.S. May Gain More Than It  

Loses” (1984)    361 Immigration as a Threat to Social Cohesion (1985)    364 Undocumented Workers as International Workers (1997)    365 “The Secret of Success” (2002)    368 “Low Immigration and Economic Growth” (2007)    369 Two Illegal Immigrants Tell Their Story (1988)    372 A Cambodian Immigrant’s American Dream (1988)    375 A Chinese Immigrant Battles Jessica McClintock (1993)    377 An Illegal Immigrant Contemplates Citizenship (2004)    379

Conclusion    381 Further Reading    382

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Preface

The encouraging response to the fourth edition from students and instructors has prompted me to create a fifth edition of Thinking Through the Past. As before, this book is inspired by the idea that interpretation is at the heart of history. That is why learning about the past involves more than mastering facts and dates, and why historians often disagree. As teachers, we know the limita- tions of the deadly dates-and-facts approach to the past. We also know that encouraging students to think critically about historical sources and historians’ arguments is a good way to create excitement about history and to impart understanding of what historians do. The purpose of Thinking Through the Past, therefore, is to introduce students to the examination and analysis of historical sources.

F O R M A T

To encourage students to think critically about American history, Thinking Through the Past brings together primary and secondary sources. It gives stu- dents the opportunity to analyze primary sources and historians’ arguments, and to use one to understand and evaluate the other. By evaluating and drawing conclusions from the sources, students will use the methods and develop some of the skills of critical thinking as they apply to history. Students will also learn about a variety of historical topics that parallel those in U.S. history courses. Unlike most anthologies or collections of primary sources, this book advances not only chronologically, but also pedagogically through different skill levels. It provides students the opportunity to work with primary sources in the early chapters before they evaluate secondary sources in later chapters or compare historians’ arguments in the final chapters. Students are also able to build on the skills acquired in previous chapters by considering such questions as moti- vation, causation, and the role of ideas and economic interests in history.

At the same time, this book introduces a variety of approaches to the past. Topics in Thinking Through the Past include social, political, cultural, intel-

xiii

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xiv Preface

lectual, economic, diplomatic, and military history. The chapters look at history “from the top down” and “from the bottom up.” Thus students have the opportunity to evaluate history drawn from slave quarters as well as from state houses. In the process, they are exposed to the enormous range of sources that historians use to construct arguments. The primary sources in these vol- umes include portraits, photographs, maps, letters, fiction, music lyrics, laws, oral histories, speeches, movie posters, magazine and newspaper articles, car- toons, and architectural plans.

The chapters present the primary and secondary sources so students can pursue their own investigations of the material. Each chapter is divided into five parts: a brief introduction, which sets forth the problem in the chapter; the Setting, which provides background information pertaining to the topic; the Investigation, which asks students to answer a short set of questions revolv- ing around the problem discussed in the introduction; the Sources, which in most chapters provide a secondary source and a set of primary sources related to the chapter’s main problem; and, finally, a brief Conclusion, which offers a reminder of the chapter’s main pedagogical goal and looks forward to the next chapter’s problem.

C H A N G E S   T O   T H E   F I F T H   E D I T I O N

In the fifth edition, there are significantly revised chapters in both volumes on provocative topics that have been on the cutting edge of recent historical scholarship. These topics are intended to stimulate student interest in American history. In Volume I, chapters on the Constitution, the American West, and Andrew Jackson have been revised with the addition of new source material. As before, changes reflect more recent historical scholarship and have been designed with accessibility in mind. New primary source material in Chapter 8 reflects contemporary historical scholarship on the nineteenth- century American frontier, while Chapter 9 presents a new biographical assessment of young Andrew Jackson that introduces students to a “gambler” and “carouser” who matures into a “formidable leader of men.” In Volume II, a significantly re- vised chapter on racial and ethnic unrest on the home front during World War II is intended to provide students with a broader historical context and to excite a broader mix of contemporary students. Overall, the volumes have been revised with an eye toward making the book a more engaging learning tool. To this end, many other chapters contain new sources that provide additional insights for students as they conduct their historical investigations.

A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S

Many people contributed to this book, starting with my own students. Without them, of course, it never would have been created.

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xvPreface

I owe many thanks to the people who assisted in various ways with the revisions for this edition. At the College of Southern Nevada, Inter-Library Loan librarian Marion Martin, as always, provided cheerful and invaluable assistance. Numerous colleagues around the country,including many instruc- tors who have used the text over several editions, offered useful suggestions regarding revisions and chapter drafts. I am honored by their commitment to Thinking Through the Past and thank them for helping to make it a better book.

In particular, I’d like to thank the following individuals who reviewed the fifth edition: Guy Aronoff, Humboldt State University; Terrell Goddard, Northwest Vista College; Li Hongshan, Kent State University at Tuscarawas; Abigail Markwyn, Carroll University; Linda Mollno, Cal Poly Pomona; Craig Perrier, Fairfax County Public Schools; Emily Rader, El Camino College; Alicia Rodriquez, California State University, Bakersfield; Megan Seaholm, University of Texas at Austin; Rebecca Shrum, Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis; Garth Swanson, Genesee Community College; and Wendy Wall, Binghamton University. The reviewers of the fourth edition were: Andy Ginette, University of Southern Indiana; Terrell Goddard, Northwest Vista College; Charlotte Haller, Worcester State College; Jeffrey Johnson, Augustana College; Jennifer Mata, University of Texas Pan American; Sean O’Neill, Grand Valley State University; Phillip Payne, St. Bonaventure University; and Timothy Thurber, Virginia Commonwealth University. The reviewers of the third edition were Michael D. Wilson, Vanguard University; David A. Canton, Georgia Southern University; Paivi Hoikkala, California State Polytechnic University at Pomona; Kathleen Kennedy, Western Washington University; Monroe H. Little, Jr., Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis; Cathleen Schultz, University of St. Francis; Paul C. Rosier, Villanova University; Marsha L. Weisiger, New Mexico State University; and Katherine A. S. Sibley, St. Joseph’s University.

I owe thanks to many others as well for their contribution to the previous editions. Alan Balboni, DeAnna Beachley, Michael Green, Charles Okeke, the late Gary Elliott, colleagues at the Community College of Southern Nevada, of- fered sources, reviewed portions of the manuscript, shared insights, or simply offered encouragement. Richard Cooper and Brad Nystrom at Cal i fornia State University, Sacramento, listened patiently and offered helpful suggestions at the initial stages of this project. As usual, however, my biggest debt is to Patty. For her enduring support and abiding love, this book is once again dedicated to her.

J. H.

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Thinking Through the Past

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Introduction

“History,” said Henry Ford, “is more or less bunk.” That view is still shared by many people. Protests about the subject are familiar. Studying history won’t help you land a job. And, besides, what matters is not the past but the present.

Such protests are not necessarily wrong. Learning about ancient Greece, the French Revolution, or the Vietnam War will hardly guarantee employment, even though many employers evaluate job candidates on critical thinking skills that the study of history requires. Likewise, who can deny the importance of the present compared to the past? In many ways, the present and future are more important than the past. Pericles, Robespierre, and Lyndon Johnson are dead; presumably, anyone reading this is not.

Still, the logic behind the history-as-bunk view is flawed because all of us rely upon the past to understand the present, as did even Henry Ford. Besides building the Model T, he also built Greenfield Village outside Detroit because he wanted to re-create a nineteenth-century town. It was the kind of place the automotive genius grew up in and the kind of place he believed represented the ideal American society: small-town, white, native-born, and Protestant. Greenfield Village was Ford’s answer to changes in the early twentieth century that were profoundly disturbing to him and to many other Americans of his generation: growing cities, the influx of non-Protestant immigrants, changing sexual morality, new roles and new fashions for women, and greater freedom for young people.

Ford’s interest in the past, symbolized by Greenfield Village, reflects a dou- ble irony. It was the automobile that helped to make possible many of the changes, like those in sexual morality, that Ford detested. The other irony is that Ford used history—what he himself called “bunk”—to try to better the world. Without realizing it, he became a historian by turning to the past to explain to himself and others what he disliked about the present. Never mind that Ford blamed immigrants, especially Jews, for the changes he decried in crude, hate-filled tirades. The point is that Ford’s view of America was rooted in a vision of the past, and his explanation for America’s ills was based on his- torical analysis, however unprofessional and unsophisticated.

All of us use historical analysis all the time, even if, like Ford, we think we don’t. In fact, we all share a fundamental assumption about learning from the past: One of the best ways to learn about something, to learn how it came to be, is to study its past. That assumption is so much a part of us that we are rarely conscious of it.

1

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Think about the most recent time you met someone for the first time. As a way to get to know this new acquaintance you began to ask questions about his or her past. When you asked, “Where did you grow up?” or “How long have you lived in Chicago?” you were relying on information about the past to learn about the present. You were, in other words, thinking as a historian. You assumed that a cause-and-effect relationship existed between this person’s past and his or her present personality, interests, and beliefs. Like a historian, you began to frame questions and to look for answers that would help to establish causal links.

Because we all use history to make sense of our world, it follows that we should become more skilled in the art of making sense of the past. Ford did it crudely, and ended up promoting the very things he despised. But how exactly do you begin to think more like a historian? For too many students, this chal- lenge summons up images of studying for history exams: cramming names, dates, and facts, and hoping to retain some portion of this information long enough to get a passing grade. History seems like a confusing grab bag of facts and events. The historian’s job, in this view, is to memorize as much “stuff” as possible. In this “flash-card” approach, history is reduced to an exercise in the pursuit of trivia, and thinking like a historian is nothing but an exercise in mnemonics—a system of improving the memory.

There is no question that the dates, events, and facts of history are important. Without basic factual knowledge historians could no more practice their craft than biologists, chemists, or astrophysicists could practice theirs. But history is not a static recollection of facts. Events in the past happened only once, but the historians who study those events are always changing their minds about them. Like all humans, historians have prejudices, biases, and beliefs. They are also influenced by events in their own times. In other words, they look at the past through lenses that filter and even distort. Events in the past may have happened only once, but what historians think about them, the meaning they give to those events, is constantly changing. Moreover, because their lenses per- ceive events differently, historians often disagree about the past. The supposedly “static” discipline of history is actually dynamic and charged with tension.

That brings us to the question of what historians really do. Briefly, historians ask questions about past events or developments and try to explain them. Just as much as biology, chemistry, or astrophysics, therefore, history is a problem-solving discipline. Historians, like scientists, sift evidence to answer questions. Like scientists, whose explanations for things often conflict, historians can ask the same questions, look at the same facts, and come up with different explanations because they look at the past in different ways. Or they may have entirely different questions in mind and so come away with very different “pasts.” Thus history is a process of constant revision. As historians like to put it, every generation writes its own history.

But why bother to study and interpret the past in our own way if someone else will only revise it again in the future? The answer is sobering: If we don’t

2 Introduction

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write our own history, someone else will write it for us. Who today would ac- cept as historical truth the notion that the Indians were cruel savages whose extermination was necessary to fulfill an Anglo-Saxon destiny to conquer the continent for democracy and civilization? Who today would accept the “truth” that slaves were racially inferior and happy with their lot on Southern planta- tions? If we accept these views of Indians and black slaves, we are allowing nineteenth-century historians to determine our view of the past.

Instead, by reconstructing the past as best we can, we can better understand our own times. Like the amnesia victim, without memory we face a bewil- dering world. As we recapture our collective past, the present becomes more intelligible. Subject to new experiences, a later generation will view the past differently. Realizing that future generations will revise history does not give us a license to play fast and loose with the facts of history. Rather each generation faces the choice of giving meaning to those facts or experiencing the confusion of historical amnesia.

Finding meaning in the facts of the past, then, is the central challenge of his- tory. It requires us to ask questions and construct explanations—mental activi- ties far different and far more exciting than merely memorizing names, dates, and facts. More important, it enables us to approach history as critical think- ers. The more skilled we become at historical reasoning, the better we will understand our world and ourselves. Helping you to develop skill in historical analysis is the purpose of this volume.

The method of this book reflects its purpose. The first chapter discusses text- books. History texts have a very practical purpose. By bringing order to the past, they give many students a useful and reassuring “handle” on history. But they are not the Ten Commandments, because, like all works of history, they also contain interpretations. To most readers these interpretations are hard to spot. Chapter 1 examines what a number of college textbooks in American his- tory say and don’t say about the role of African Americans during Reconstruc- tion, the period immediately after the Civil War. By examining selections from several texts and asking how and why they differ, we can see that texts are not as objective as readers often believe.

If textbooks are not carved in stone, how can historians know anything? To answer this question, we turn next to the raw material of history. Chapter 2, on the living and working conditions of wage earners in industrializing America, examines the primary sources historians use to reconstruct and interpret the past. What are these sources? What do historians do with them? What can his- torians determine from them?

With a basic understanding of the nature and usefulness of primary sources, we proceed to Chapter 3 for a closer evaluation. This chapter on late-nineteenth-century efforts to reform the Indians shows how careful his- torians must be in using primary sources. Does a source speak with one voice or with many? How can historians disagree about the meaning of the same historical facts? By carefully evaluating primary sources in this chapter,

3Introduction

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you can draw your own conclusions about the nature of these Indian reform efforts. You can also better understand how historians often derive different conclusions from the same body of material.

Chapter 3 is good preparation for the evaluation in Chapter 4 of one historian’s argument about the decision to annex the Philippines after the Spanish-American War. In this chapter you can begin to use primary sources to reach a conclusion about a historian’s argument. In as much as historians still disagree about the American decision to establish an overseas empire, the essay and the primary sources in this chapter provide another opportunity to see how subjective historical interpretation can be.

One of the most important sources of disagreement among historians is the question of motivation. What drove people to do what they did in the past? The good historian, like the detective in a murder mystery, eventually asks that question. Chapter 5 illustrates the importance of motivation by examining what was behind the promotion of a new housing style in the early twentieth century known as the bungalow. That topic also demonstrates that historians often look in some unlikely places to understand the past.

Motives in history are, of course, related to ideas, the subject of Chapter 6. What power do ideas exert in history? What is their relationship, for example, to the motives examined in the previous chapter? In Chapter 6 we try to answer these questions by examining the role of ideology in advertising during the 1920s.

Chapter 7 turns from the influence of ideas in the past to the influence of a single individual. In this chapter we examine the activities of Eleanor Roosevelt as First Lady. Few First Ladies were more admired, or hated. What can histori- ans learn about an era by focusing on one prominent individual like Eleanor Roosevelt? In the past, many historians believed that history was nothing more than the biography of great people. How much can students of history learn about the past by looking at it this way, that is, “from the top down”? How much do they miss by doing so? Such questions are, of course, related to the topics of previous chapters: historical evidence, motivation, and the influence of ideas.

The next chapter examines history from the opposite perspective—“from the bottom up.” What can historians learn by looking at the people at the bottom of a society? What challenges face historians who try? During World War II, a good place for looking at history this way is in the slums of Detroit and barrios of Los Angeles, two of America’s greatest war-production centers. Chapter 8 examines the race riots that occurred there in 1943. We will see who the rioters were and why their lives are important to historians.

Having considered the questions of motivation and ideas in history and examined the past from different perspectives, in Chapter 9 we look at the impact of anticommunist hysteria on postwar popular culture. Aside from the question of causation, this chapter considers the problems historians face when they try to trace the influence of one large force in history. As we shall

4 Introduction

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see, this often requires historians to synthesize, that is, to combine small pieces into a large picture.

Chapter 9 examines the influences shaping popular culture. The next chap- ter, on the civil rights movement, looks at the way popular culture can influ- ence our views of the past. As with many episodes from the recent American past, popular memories of this movement have been shaped by images con- veyed by the media. Those images, however, may distort our view of the past. Often, historians attempt to make more accurate assessments of an event by relying on the accounts of those involved in them. Doing so usually requires that researchers synthesize many individual memories into an accurate and coherent collective memory. And, as we shall see, using the accounts of many people who participated in such a broad movement again illustrates that the past looks different depending on whether it is presented from the “bottom up” or the “top down.”

Many of the preceding chapters have used a single historical essay and an accompanying set of primary sources to examine problems of evidence, motivation, ideology, causation, grand forces, and writing of history from both the “top down” and the “bottom up.” The next chapter offers an opportunity to pull together the lessons of previous chapters. Chapter 11 compares what two historians have written about a single topic, the war in Vietnam. We will consider the way the United States fought this war, historians’ explanations for the way it turned out, and the lessons they draw from the experience. This requires that we examine the actions of a small but influential set of indi- viduals as well as the attitudes of many ordinary Americans. Thus, explaining America’s biggest military loss enables us to consider, in a single topic, such questions as motivation, the role of grand historical forces, and the role of the individual in history.

The goal of Chapter 12 is similar to that of Chapter 11: a synthesis, or pull- ing together, of lessons learned in preceding chapters. Here, however, the em- phasis is on the problems of historical evidence, causation, and the role of ideology. Chapter 12 contains two essays on the rise of the women’s move- ment in the 1960s and 1970s and a small collection of primary sources. It asks you to compare and analyze conflicting arguments, using not only primary sources but also insights drawn from previous chapters.

All of the chapters in this volume have a common purpose: to encourage you to think more like a historian and to sharpen your critical thinking skills. Chapter 13 returns to a point emphasized throughout this volume: The pursuit of the past cannot occur apart from a consideration of historical interpretation, and differences in historical interpretation matter not just to historians but to everyone. This final chapter examines differing interpretations about the im- pact of contemporary immigration. It contains two explanations of large-scale immigration today and primary documents that illuminate both interpretations. In addition, it underscores the way our view of the past can be used to justify policies and practices in a later time.

5Introduction

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By the end of this volume, you will have sharpened your ability to think about the past. You will think more critically about the use of historical evi- dence and about such historical problems as motivation, causation, and in- terpretation. Moreover, by exploring several styles of historical writing and various avenues to the past—from approaches that emphasize politics or eco- nomics to those that highlight social developments or military strategy—you will come to understand better not only the historian’s craft, but also the im- portance of the past. In short, you will think more like a historian.

6 Introduction

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7

The textbook selections in this chapter illustrate different assumptions about the meaning of post–Civil War Reconstruction history.

Sources 1. Reconstruction (1906), thomas w. wilson 2. The Negro in Reconstruction (1922), carter woodson 3. The Ordeal of Reconstruction (1966), thomas a. bailey 4. Reconstruction: An Unfinished Revolution (2001),

mary beth norton et al.

Chapter

1 Historians and Textbooks:

The “Story” of Reconstruction

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Chapter 1 Historians and Textbooks: The “Story” of Reconstruction8

n one of the most memorable scenes in movie history, Rhett Butler tells Scarlett O’Hara that he’s leaving her. When Scarlett asks what she will do, Rhett answers, “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” It was the climax of Gone with the Wind, starring Clark Gable as Rhett and Vivian Leigh as Scarlett. The David O. Selznick film, based on a best-selling novel set in the South during the Civil War and Reconstruction, was the biggest picture of 1939.

The film’s success should have surprised no one. It had all the right ele- ments: strong-willed characters, tempestuous romance, a deathbed scene that left audiences in tears, and courageous people struggling to rebuild lives and fortunes destroyed by war. Yet Gone with the Wind also offered an enduring image of life in the Old South and of Reconstruction’s “dark days.” On the O’Hara plantation, “chivalrous” whites and their loyal ex-slaves confronted “cruel and vicious” Yankee carpetbaggers in cahoots with “traitorous” scala- wags. It was a theme that made sense to mostly white movie audiences in 1939. As early as 1915, D. W. Griffith’s silent film The Birth of a Nation had told the story of the Ku Klux Klan’s violent but “valiant” efforts to throw off “carpetbag” rule. Like Griffith’s tale, Gone with the Wind found a sympathetic audience because it reflected their racial prejudices. As historical drama, it also fit comfortably with what they had learned in school, specifically, with interpretations imparted from history textbooks.

As we shall see in this chapter, however, those interpretations would change over time. In this chapter, you can consider what some twentieth-century his- torians have taught Americans about Reconstruction. In the process, you will have the opportunity to see that these books do not always necessarily con- tain the same past and that they, like such powerful movies as The Birth of a Nation and Gone with the Wind, reflect the biases of their producers. When done, you can judge how well Gone with the Wind’s picture of Reconstruction corresponds with those presented in textbooks today.

S E T T I N G

Moviegoers in 1939 may have remembered producer David O. Selznick’s name splashed across the screen. Far fewer recalled the author of their American his- tory textbook. More likely than not it was David S. Muzzey, whose American History (1911) and History of the American People (1927) were bestsellers by the 1930s. Among the most enduring American history textbooks, these books probably taught several generations of Americans more about their nation’s past than any other book. If audiences had learned anything about Reconstruction before Gone with the Wind’s opening credits, it was probably Muzzey who had taught them.

Muzzey had plenty to say about Reconstruction, and in no uncertain terms. The Republican governments established under congressional Reconstruction

I

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Investigation 9

he judged to be “sorry affairs.” The government “of the negro [sic] and his unscrupulous carpetbagger and scalawag patrons was an orgy of extravagance, fraud, and disgusting incompetence.” Muzzey, a New Englander, was sympa- thetic to the efforts of Southerners to “redeem” their states from “negro [sic] and carpetbagger rule.” Although he called white Southerners’ use of vio- lence against black voters “exasperating,” their response was understandable. “Congress,” he asserted, “did [Southern states] an unpardonable injury by hastening to reconstruct them on the basis of negro [sic] suffrage.”1 In short, his view of Reconstruction was that of the white Redeemers themselves.

Muzzey, of course, did not invent this “Redeemer” view of Reconstruction. How, then, had he come to these conclusions? It is impossible to be certain about the intellectual influences on this Columbia University professor. Yet we do know that two other Columbia historians had already written sympathetically about the white South’s plight under congressional Reconstruction. Ex-confederate John W. Burgess was an advocate of “Nordic” racial supremacy and the “white man’s burden.” In Reconstruction and the Constitution (1902), he declared that blacks failed to subject “passion to reason.” Reconstruction thus put “barbarism in power over civilization.”2 William A. Dunning, a Northerner, agreed. His Reconstruction history was peopled with corrupt carpetbaggers and blacks pursuing “vicious” policies. White Southerners had little choice but to fight back. “All the forces [in the South] that made for civilization,” Dunning asserted, “were dominated by a mass of barbarous freedmen.”3

Burgess and Dunning played a crucial role in transmitting a Southern view of Reconstruction into classrooms nationwide. At Columbia they trained sev- eral generations of historians, who wrote more books and trained still other historians. By the time Gone with the Wind captivated many moviegoers, the struggle for the hearts and minds of high school and college students was already over. Although a few black historians dissented, most notably W. E. B. Du Bois, the South had triumphed in the historical battle over the the- ory of Reconstruction. Rather than a new view of the past, Gone with the Wind offered white audiences a reassuring version of the past that had been embed- ded in the popular mind for several decades. In 1939, Hollywood ensured that it would endure for several more. Only in the second half of the last century would historians seriously challenge the established view of this era with new interpretations that turned Dunning’s view on its head.

I N V E S T I G A T I O N

This chapter contains four selections from American history textbooks published in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The first was published in 1906 and the last in 2001. Your primary assignment is to determine how these accounts of Reconstruction differ from one another and which one is most accurate. As you read them, keep in mind the questions that the authors attempt to answer about Reconstruction. These questions, mostly unstated, are

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Chapter 1 Historians and Textbooks: The “Story” of Reconstruction10

not necessarily the same. Also, be careful to note the most important facts of Reconstruction that each presents and the meaning each assigns to them. To see more clearly how these textbook selections differ from one another, it would be helpful to write down brief answers to the following questions as you read each account:

1. Does the author present the Republican governments in the Southern states as effective or ineffective? How are they described? Is the view of the “carpetbaggers” and “scalawags” positive, negative, or neutral?