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Role-Playing the Progressives of 1912: John Moser’s new Reacting to the Past Game

Professor John Moser is well known in the MAHG program for using carefully designed role-playing games to teach historical events and periods. Moser has co-authored a number of gamebooks in the Reacting to the Past (RTTP) series. These games begin in a pivotal moment of history, when citizen groups contest for power or face critical decisions. Each player assumes the identity of one historical actor, taking on this person’s motives, core beliefs and goals. The game unfolds as players declare their positions and appeal for others’ support.

This summer, Professor Moser will teach the “Progressive Era” course using a Reacting to the Past game he is currently developing with the help of another history professor at Samford University. We asked him how the game will illuminate the Progressive era.

You call this game Progressivism at High Tide, since it takes place during the only presidential election in US history when all of the candidates called themselves progressives. Yet the “historical background” in the gamebook discusses a diversity of progressive views. How do you define Progressivism?

The difficulty of defining progressivism in practice actually inspired this game. I’d been reading Sid Milkis’s book, Theodore Roosevelt, the Progressive Party and the Transformation of American Democracy, and realizing that it’s one thing to talk about progressive ideas in theory and another to talk about transforming those ideas into a political agenda.

[caption id="attachment_38351" align="alignleft" width="407"] Professor John Moser[/caption]

The Cold War historian John Lewis Gaddis divides scholars into “Lumpers” and “Splitters.” Lumpers point to commonalities; Splitters draw distinctions. From my perspective, the political theorists who have taught the Progressive Era in MAHG are very much lumpers. They ask, what do thinkers as different as Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Jane Addams believe in common? They answer: All these thinkers say that the republic established by the founders was designed for the conditions prevailing in the late 18th century. Now it must be revised to face the challenges of the modern world.

That’s a valid observation. But it glosses over some really huge differences. As a historian, I look at particular individuals, what they believed and did. The measures they proposed responded to galvanizing events. You should not be able to take the AHG 505 Progressive Era course without ever hearing mention of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire!

The question of big business divided the Progressive Party. Some, like Theodore Roosevelt, saw the trusts as an inevitable feature of the modern economy. They would allow the trusts to develop but regulate them in the public interest. Yet many of those who followed Roosevelt out of the Republican party in 1912 were dismayed by this language in the new Progressive Party platform. They agreed with President Taft, who saw US Steel violating the Sherman Antitrust Act and said, “the law is the law!”

Who was the real progressive? Taft, who thought US Steel a combination in restraint of trade and tried to break it up? Or Roosevelt, who would use the Sherman Antitrust Act strictly as a bludgeon, forcing those who act against the public interest to change?

Progressives disagreed on many other things. Some argued for civil rights laws or women’s suffrage; others opposed these reforms. Some supported labor unions and resented mandatory government mediation during strikes; others would improve labor conditions through government regulation.

I don’t see progressivism as one monolithic movement. But the differences between progressive factions can make you wonder if progressivism is even a meaningful term. This diversity leaves room for certain historians to define all the things that we like as progressive, and those we deplore as non-progressive. The truth is, some progressives pushed segregation and the disenfranchisement of blacks on what they saw as progressive grounds. They favored excluding the illiterate or ill-educated from the franchise. Prohibition is another instance. Some opposed it, but many favored it.

The progressive label is still used. How would you define progressivism today?

[caption id="attachment_38358" align="alignright" width="323"] Moser moderating the game "Kentucky, 1861: Loyalty, State and Nation"[/caption]

We say the Progressive Era ended around 1920, but by then they had fundamentally changed things. Still, certain social elements of what we call Progressivism today—the importance of personal liberation—only became important in the 1960s and 1970s.

In our last class sessions, after the game ends, we’ll discuss readings from recent history. In many ways, today’s progressives would look back on the progressives of the early 20th century and recoil. Early Progressives spoke of the need to move away from rights, toward duties; away from the interests of the individual toward those of the community. Today, much of the progressive social agenda supports the right of individuals to do pretty much as they please. Contrast that with Theodore Roosevelt. He comes out for women’s suffrage in an article that reminds women of their duty to bear and raise children.

For this game, have you selected many of the same documents you would use in previous seminars on the Progressive era?  

The core texts we use are all ones used in the past: Roosevelt’s “New Nationalism” speech, Wilson’s “Authors and Signers of the Declaration of Independence.” These get to the question of what progressivism is. I added Eugene V. Debs’ acceptance speech, because Debs is a character in the game, and everyone needs to understand that for Debs, socialism is a form of progressivism.

The supplemental documents take up particular issues. All the characters in the game who are not candidates for president are advocating policies on particular issues. For example, the student who plays George Perkins (an ally of Teddy Roosevelt who was a partner at J. P. Morgan and on the board of US Steel) will rely on Perkins’ speech “The Modern Corporation.” The person playing Victor Berger, the first socialist elected to the US Congress, will be able to read Berger’s piece arguing trusts should be nationalized. The readings cover eight issues: direct democracy (should measures like primaries, recall elections, and ballot initiatives be instituted?); big business; immigration; women’s suffrage, racial equality; labor reforms; the tariff; and organized labor.

Each player makes a speech advocating a position on one of these issues. Hence, different players will specialize in different issues and in effect teach them to the rest of the class. Everyone will read every reading, but those focused on a problem will have to know the related reading really solidly.

What other overall lessons does this way of studying history teach?

It helps you understand the calculations politicians and activists must make. No one begins this game as the member of a faction. But players will be listening for presidential candidates to support their particular issues. They’ll endorse candidates who do. Then they are on those candidates’ teams, working to get them elected.

Take the example of racial equality. A candidate who thinks W. E. B. Dubois’s endorsement is important might come out in favor of enforcing voting rights in the South, desegregating the schools, or passing an anti-lynching law. But if the candidate thinks the support of white Southerners is more important, he will not make statements in favor of civil rights. This was a dilemma for Teddy Roosevelt—and for W. E. B. Du Bois, who heard no one supporting his issues. In the game, Du Bois must decide which candidate is least objectionable—or whether to endorse no one at all.

Certainly the game teaches the value of teamwork. This game in particular also emphasizes civility. As American elections go, this was a fairly tame one. The speeches in the course of the game will be more like Chautauquas, with speakers talking about what is near and dear to their hearts.

The game concludes in the election of 1912. Might the candidate who won in history lose in the game?

It’s almost guaranteed the Democrat’s going to win the election. But that person will not necessarily be Wilson.  When the game begins, the Republican Party has already split and Taft and Debs have already gotten their parties’ nominations. The first session covers both the Progressive Party and the Democratic Party conventions. Historically, the candidate favored to get the Democratic nomination was Champ Clark of Missouri. He had a majority on the first ballot, but not the 2/3 majority the party required. So there will be a lot of negotiation during the Democratic Party convention.

I’ve built into the game victory conditions so that Taft, Roosevelt and certainly Debs don’t have to be elected president in order to win the game; they just have to do better than they did historically. If Eugene V. Debs gets any electoral votes at all he wins the game, because historically, Debs’ 200,000 votes gave him no votes in the electoral college. Conversely, Wilson doesn’t win the game just by being elected; he needs to win by a wider margin than was historically the case.

I’ve always found students compete to win. While some professors using RTTP games award a small number of points toward the final grade to the students on the winning team, I’ve never felt I had to do that.

Since you’ve begun using RTTP in the MAHG program, have you heard of teachers using or adapting the games to their classrooms at home?

I know that that there are certain teachers who now use the games, and others who adapt portions of them. They might design a lesson in which teams debate a particular issue, or in which students write editorials advocating a position on an issue of the era.

Every time I use RTTP, teachers ask me, “How do I use this in my class?” I have to be a little careful, because the RTTP consortium does not officially recommend use of the game in high schools. They don’t discourage it either, but they have a very small staff who lack the time to answer teacher questions. When teachers tell me they plan to use a game, I give them pointers if they want them and say that they can contact me later.

The post Role-Playing the Progressives of 1912: John Moser’s new Reacting to the Past Game appeared first on Teaching American History.

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Saturday Webinar: Douglas MacArthur

American Minds Webinar

Live show to air at 11am, Saturday, 4 APR 2020, exploring the truth and legend of Douglas MacArthur, perhaps America's most consequential 20th Century military leader.

REGISTER HERE

Readings

(doc)

(doc)

Panelists

Chris Burkett, Ashland University

John Moser, Ashland University

Thomas Bruscino, United States Army War College

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120 years of “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing“

We try to cover African American history throughout the year, rather than only during Black History Month. Yet before February ends, we want to commemorate an anniversary. A poem that went on to be adopted as the “national anthem for black America” – “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing” – was first publicly performed this month in 1900, at a segregated public school in Jacksonville, Florida. The principal of the school, James Weldon Johnson, wrote the song’s lyrics, while his brother John Rosamond Johnson wrote the musical setting. The 500-strong student body performed it in honor of Lincoln’s birthday, on the occasion of a visit from Booker T. Washington.

Johnson’s Remarkable Career

Although not quite thirty, Johnson had gained the attention of both Washington and W. E. B. Dubois because of a short-lived newspaper he had founded in 1895, The Daily American, the first American newspaper tailored for an African American audience. As Johnson’s remarkable career unfolded, he maintained good relationships with both men.

He lived a dual life in many ways, constantly trying various means to enlarge the educational and career options for black Americans, both through his own example and in various leadership positions. While directing Stanton School in Jacksonville, which was publicly funded only through the eighth grade, he expanded the curriculum, adding high school-level courses. At the same time, he studied to pass the Florida bar exam and then opened a small law practice.

At the turn of the century, however, Southern blacks’ options for self-fulfillment were narrowing as the Jim Crow regime tightened its grip. Shortly after writing “Lift Ev’ry Voice,” Johnson and his brother pulled up stakes in Florida and moved to New York City to write songs for Tin Pan Alley. With a colleague, Bob Cole, they produced about 200 songs for Broadway shows, while also performing as a trio. They elaborated African American musical idioms while trying to avoid the stereotypes familiar from minstrel shows. That they came to be called “those ebony Offenbachs” suggests they succeeded to some extent. Among their creations was a six-song suite, The Evolution of Ragtime.

A Literary, Political and Activist Life

During this period, Johnson studied creative writing at Columbia University and became active in Republican party politics. Owing to his connection with Booker T. Washington, he was appointed consul to Venezuela in 1906. Consular work in Venezuela was not very demanding, and Johnson used the three years he spent in Venezuela to write his only novel, The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man. This story of a light-skinned Negro who eventually decides to “pass” as white offered Johnson’s most pessimistic assessment of African American possibilities, perhaps because his ex-patriot situation gave him the distance to reflect on America’s failure to insure racial equality.

In 1909 Johnson was transferred from Venezuela to a more challenging consular position in Nicaragua, at a time when the Taft administration was anxiously monitoring political developments in the central American nation (it would eventually land troops there). Johnson resigned from the foreign service in 1913, returning to New York to become an editorial writer for The New York Age.

In 1916, Du Bois asked Johnson to become National Field Secretary for the NAACP. In this role, Johnson opened NAACP branches around the country and investigated incidents of racial violence. He went on to become executive secretary of the NAACP in 1920, holding the position during a decade of racist backlash against black veterans of World War I and black migrants from the South who were pursuing employment in Northern industry. Johnson worked successfully to build NAACP membership and political influence—but unsuccessfully to get a federal anti-lynching bill passed.

As always before, Weldon pursued a double career during these years of intense political advocacy. He published four books in the 1920s: an anthology of American Negro poetry, two collections of spirituals, and his own poetry collection, God’s Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse. In 1930 he published another poetry collection, Saint Peter Relates an Incident of the Resurrection Day, along with a survey of African American cultural contributions to New York life, Black Manhattan.

At the end of this year, Johnson, wanting more time to write, retired from the NAACP and took a part-time teaching position at Fisk University. He wrote his own autobiography, Along This Way, as well as an argument for racial integration, Negro Americans, What Now? before his accidental death in 1938, while riding in a car struck by a train at an unguarded rail crossing.

Johnson’s Legacy

One might argue that Johnson devoted his entire life—certainly his literary life—to raising awareness of and respect for African American culture. His poem “Oh Black and Unknown Bards” uses the elevated style of European poetry to marvel at the musical creativity of enslaved African Americans. In God’s Trombones he brought the musical rhythms of African American preaching into a new kind of American lyric, one that captured the Biblical insights of these same preachers.

From a musical point of view, I’d argue, Johnson’s most remembered composition, “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing,” also fuses Euro- and African-American styles. John Rosamond Johnson’s setting is a victory march in 6:8 time. In it one hears the steady tramp of feet—left, right, left—punctuated by triplets that make the melody skip, turning the march into a waltz. For me, it evokes a mass of dancing humanity ascending a celestial highway. The song can be sung slowly and magisterially or—as often in today’s performances—in cut time, with soaring classical harmonies. Well-loved for 120 years, it has been performed by musicians such as The lines of this song repay me in an elation, almost of exquisite anguish, whenever I hear them sung by Negro children.

No wonder. The poem assumes that victory over racist injustice is already won; yet it suggests that this victory belongs to the kingdom of God, once God’s will for justice on earth is finally done. One can understand why Johnson, hearing his song taken up by school children across the South, felt an “exquisite anguish” at so much hope, so joyously broadcast to a still-flawed world.

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The Supreme Court Debates Religious Freedom: A Conversation with Ken Masugi

Professor Ken Masugi has edited a new core document collection, the first in a planned series on the Supreme Court. Religious Liberty: Core Court Cases presents Supreme Court jurisprudence on the first guarantee of the Bill of Rights: freedom of religion, “the key element of republican citizenship,” according to Masugi.

[caption id="attachment_38221" align="alignright" width="389"] Professor Ken Masugi[/caption]

The conviction that human beings are endowed with free minds, and that their innermost beliefs can never be dictated by government, underlies all American freedoms. Nevertheless, this axiom of American liberty has coexisted since the time of the founding with the opinion, as expressed by President Washington in his Farewell Address, that “Religion and Morality are indispensable supports” to republican government. As Masugi explains in the interview below, legal questions arising from the tension between these two ideas did not enter Supreme Court jurisprudence until the latter part of the 19th century.

Before discussing the reasons for this, Masugi explained his purposes in selecting the excerpts collected in the volume.

How does this core document collection differ from other anthologies of Supreme Court cases?

What we have tried to do is not simply collect the most important opinions, as a law school “casebook” might, but to excerpt key cases reflecting important arguments that high school students—young citizens—ought to reflect on. That means developing a skill that is hard to come by for many students of government and politics: namely, seeing that strong arguments exist on both sides of controversial issues. And that there are often more than just two sides.

To keep this book at a reasonable length for its purposes, we sometimes use only excerpts of the majority opinion or, later in the book, only excerpts of the dissent—although an online link to the whole opinion is provided. I am confident that the collection presents the major judicial approaches to interpreting the religion clauses.We recommend starting the book from the most recent cases, since reading them will reveal why the earlier cases are significant.  Our study questions should help guide the teacher and student. I have my own perspective on the jurisprudence on religious liberty, as will become clear as we keep talking. Yet I hope readers of the book will be able to construct arguments for or against the views I hold.

The first Supreme Court ruling excerpted in your collection was written in 1879. The second was written in 1943. You write that the Court did not begin applying the First Amendment’s establishment and free exercise clauses “to state and local laws until the mid-twentieth century.” Why did such cases not arise sooner?

We should keep in mind that the Court comes to examine these issues after religious pluralism becomes accepted, at least more so than at the founding. Even so, from the beginning of the republic the founding principles of equality and liberty promoted a generous understanding of religious freedom, as we see in Washington’s notable letter to the Hebrew congregation in Newport. Most religious groups, from the Jews of Rhode Island to the Baptists of Danbury, Connecticut to the Moravians of Salem, North Carolina were able to worship and even organize faith-based communities without interference.

Still, many Americans regarded at least one group, the Mormons, with suspicion and hostility, even directing violence against them. Their practice of plural marriage affronted Judeo-Christian morality and violated State and federal laws prohibiting bigamy. This led to the Court’s earliest ruling on the first amendment guarantee of free exercise. It tested whether Mormon polygamy was permitted under federal regulations on marriage in the territories. In 1879 the Court stood by the centuries-old understanding of marriage, ruling that religious freedom was bounded by basic legal traditions embodied in the common law.

The next cases that arose concerned religious practices that conflicted with the social customs of the larger community in the workplace, in commerce, or in schools—in particular, Sabbath observance on days other than Sunday. In these cases the Court tended to grant minority claims. After 1938, the Court,  citing the 14th amendment, acted to protect what it would identify as “discrete and insular minorities” who allegedly were being oppressed by democratic majorities and unable to defend their rights at the ballot box. Race was one obvious category, but the Court wanted to defend religious minorities as well. This led to a kind of trump card that religious minorities could play against certain employment, Sunday closing, and school attendance laws.

This conceit led the Court to inflict its judgments against common practices such as the pledge of allegiance (1943) and later voluntary prayer and even moments of silence, and not only in the classroom but in commencement exercises, after-school-hours use of classrooms, and even pep rallies before high school football games. These practices were said to be establishments of religion. Thus dissenters on religion and in other aspects of life, (including those often held in private), came to have a veto over community practices. We also see this concerning views of sex, for example. So, in the name of protecting religious freedom, the Court created political controversy over widespread traditions. Of course such prayers continue in many public high schools, as the dissenting justices predicted they would. The Court extended itself beyond its proper place in the polity.

Some opinions of the Supreme Court have maintained that the establishment clause and the free exercise clause are “frequently in tension,” yet with “play in the joints.” Is the first amendment actually incoherent? Does it set the prohibition on establishment of an official church against free exercise of religion?

Here it’s important to recall the language of the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof….”  First of all, and this is a point Justice Thomas makes in many of his 14th amendment opinions, the Bill of Rights was originally intended to restrict actions of the federal government only. It was not intended to limit state support of religion, even tax support of particular sects. Such state laws would disappear by the 1830s due to the widespread belief in “equal protection” for all religions. As Federalist #51 argued, political freedom in the new republic would parallel religious freedom. And each would mutually reinforce one another.

[caption id="attachment_38218" align="alignleft" width="290"] Justice Hugo La Fayette Black, 1937. Library of Congress,LC-USZ62-52112.[/caption]

Beginning in the late 1940s and continuing through the early 2000s, the Court, led by Justices Black, Brennan, Stevens, and Souter, declared that the establishment clause was designed not just to guarantee equal protection of all religions but to prohibit preference for religion in general. Policies or institutions deemed religious could not be supported by taxpayer funds, for that would mean an establishment of religion. So, religious schools could not receive federal aid to supplement salaries—but might receive it to construct buildings or buy textbooks. The Court began making specious distinctions between what could and could not be done with federal or state dollars in our bureaucratic age.

In this bloated view of the establishment clause, free exercise of religion became constricted to freedom to worship—that is, to religion only as practiced within a place of worship. This understanding of religion is far narrower than that of the founders, who acknowledged a public square full of Christians (not to mention Jews) openly professing a range of sectarian beliefs and organizing their lives in accordance with those beliefs.

[caption id="attachment_37095" align="alignright" width="285"] Associate Justice Antonin Scalia. Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States.[/caption]

Those who have objected to the currently ascendant constitutional argument, most notably Justice Scalia, base their viewpoint on tradition and practice. Free exercise cannot extend to establishing an official church via the ballot box, but no religion is being imposed on anyone by Christmas decorations in a city hall. Justice Thomas would make non-coercion the standard for both establishment and free exercise. There is no right not to be offended by others’, even the majority’s, religious beliefs. Only if state coercion comes into play is there a constitutional case against a state practice concerning religion.

Justice Kagan has spoken eloquently against this majoritarian view and argued for the importance of opposing official endorsements of religion in civic practices and memorials such as public architecture. Her arguments leave certain questions unanswered. Does a cross commemorating fallen veterans violate the first amendment? Does the constitutionality of such a memorial rest on when it was built, whether just after World War I or just last year? Must justices become psychoanalysts of the legislative process?

These recent rulings bring to mind Washington’s comments in his Farewell Address linking religion and morality and calling them “indispensable supports” of self-government. Judging by their arguments and rhetoric, many influential Americans have shared Washington’s view. How might the precedents on religious liberty differ if justices took Washington’s views into account?

[caption id="attachment_38223" align="alignright" width="359"] Rabbi Gershom Mendes Seixas was one of a select group of clergymen asked to participate in the inaugural ceremonies for the first president, George Washington (National Portrait Gallery).[/caption]

The Justices are generally not great historians, and often they seem to read history backward, in order to justify their views today. Contrast Justices Souter and Rehnquist, for example, on their readings of historical practice. You are correct to single out George Washington, as does constitutional scholar Philip Munoz. I believe Washington’s views were held by the Court until the 1920s, when the Progressive view of American history began denigrating the founders as more concerned with their personal economic interests than with the public good.

Justice Stevens ignored history when he argued that the founders could not imagine Quakers, Jews, or Catholics enjoying the same religious freedom enjoyed by Protestants. We did not need to wait for Vatican II to see religious liberty extended to Catholics. (Chief Justice Taney was Catholic, and there were politically prominent Catholics at the time of the founding, such as the Carroll family.)

More recently, Justice Souter would deny any authority to the founders, for their world is long past. Such an argument ignores recent Presidents’ references to God in their official messages to Congress and the American people. Are these unconstitutional too? Some justices dismiss such rhetoric as “secular Deism” or merely “ceremonial.”

Souter has argued that the real Constitution is the one that has been articulated by the Court through its rulings in recent years—in effect saying that the Constitution has no permanent meaning. This allows him to assert that the Constitution gives no preference for religion over non-religion.

Over the years, justices have attempted to elaborate guidelines for determining violations of the religion clauses of the First Amendment. Do you find any particular guideline or approach more workable than others?

The best guideline is for all our government and civic institutions to respect the capacity of American citizens for freedom—our ability, whether in religion, the economy or in other human endeavors, to exercise our rights sensibly. Having a right to religious liberty is not merely having a power; it does not mean one is free to behave like a jerk. The individualistic world that some 20th and 21st century justices (along with the greater culture) have promoted has undermined the sense of shared civic life we need for patriotism and common citizenship. A single eccentric sets the guidelines for all. A merely private notion of religion destroys commonality.

Just as we who live in the bureaucratic age should be more skeptical of governance by executive regulation, so should we be more skeptical of judicial rulings. Reading the justices’ own words, students will see how some justices have presented outrageous understandings of America that became prevailing legal doctrine. This should help them become more thoughtful and more vigilant citizens.

Finally, reflecting more calmly and deeply, cannot we Americans acknowledge that being human entails some kind of spiritual experience? Can we not then find in the holidays of Thanksgiving, Memorial Day, Martin Luther King Day—and yes, in the spirit of Christmas and Hanukkah—the rational basis for community, liberality, charity, and conscience that define the best in common citizenship?

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Jane Addams

The theme of this year’s Teaching American History Saturday webinars is American Minds. Prominent scholars will discuss individuals who made significant social, cultural, or political contributions to the American identity. On 7 March 2020, join panelists Chris Burkett (Ashland University), Jennifer Keene (Chapman University), and Mack Mariani (Xavier University) to explore the life, ideas, letters, and impact of Jane Addams.

Below, you'll find selected passages from each of the readings to be discussed -- we hope these will inspire you to read more in each text in order to better understand Stowe's work.

Woman’s Conscience and Social Amelioration, Jane Addams, 1908

We have been accustomed for many generations to think of woman's place as being entirely within the walls of her own household. It is impossible to imagine the time when her duty there shall be ended or to forecast any social change which shall ever release her from that paramount obligation. There is no doubt, however, that many women today are failing properly to discharge their duties to their own families and households simply because they fail to see that as the city develops it is necessary that woman shall extend her sense of responsibility to many things outside of her own home if only in order to preserve the home in its entirety.

One could illustrate in many ways; a woman's simplest duty, one would say is to keep her house clean and wholesome and to feed her children properly. Yet if she lives in a tenement house, as so many of my neighbors do, she can not fulfill these simple obligations by her own efforts because she is utterly dependent upon the city administration for the conditions which render decent living possible. Her basement will not be dry, her stairways will not be fireproof, her house will not be provided with sufficient windows to give her light and air nor will it be equipped with sanitary plumbing unless the public works department shall send inspectors who constantly insist that these elementary decencies be provided. These same women who now live in tenements, when they lived in the [village?] swept their own dooryards and either fed the refuse of the table to a flock of chickens or allowed it innocently to decay in the open air and sunshine; now, however, if the street is not cleaned by the City authorities no amount of private sweeping will keep the tenant free from grime. If the garbage is not properly collected and destroyed she may see her children sicken and die of diseases from which she alone is powerless to shield them, although her tenderness and devotion are unbounded. She cannot get clean milk for her children, she cannot provide them with fruit which is untainted unless the milk has been properly taken care of by the City Health Department and the stale fruit, which is so often placed upon sale in the tenement districts shall have been promptly destroyed in the interest of public health. The Italian women who live near Hull House when they were at home secured pure milk for their children because they themselves milked the goat, but now in order to secure uninfected milk they are dependent on the services of a dozen intermediary people, gathering fruit from the garden is one thing, buying it from open stalls is quite another. In short, if woman will <would> keep on with her old business of caring for her house and rearing of children, she will have to have some conscience in regard to public affairs lying quite outside of her immediate household. ...Women are pushed outside of the home in order that they may preserve the home.

“On The Shame of the Cities, chapter 7,” George Washington Plunkitt, 1905

I've been readin' a book by Lincoln Steffens on 'The Shame of the Cities'. Steffens means well but, like all reformers, he don't know how to make distinctions. He can't see no difference between honest graft and dishonest graft and, consequent, he gets things all mixed up. There's the biggest kind of a difference between political looters and politicians who make a fortune out of politics by keepin' their eyes wide open. The looter goes in for himself alone without considerin' his organization or his city. The politician looks after his own interests, the organization's interests, and the city's interests all at the same time. See the distinction? For instance, I ain't no looter. The looter hogs it. I never hogged. I made my pile in politics, but, at the same time, I served the organization and got more big improvements for New York City than any other livin' man. And I never monkeyed with the penal code.

...A big city like New York or Philadelphia or Chicago might be compared to a sort of Garden of Eden, from a political point of view. It's an orchard full of beautiful apple trees. One of them has got a big sign on it, marked: "Penal Code Tree—Poison." The other trees have lots of apples on them for all. Yet the fools go to the Penal Code Tree. Why? For the reason, I guess, that a cranky child refuses to eat good food and chews up a box of matches with relish. I never had any temptation to touch the Penal Code Tree. The other apples are good enough for me, and 0 Lord! how many of them there are in a big city!

Twenty Years at Hull House, ch. 8, Jane Addams, 1912

With all of the efforts made by modern society to nurture and educate the young, how stupid it is to permit the mothers of young children to spend themselves in the coarser work of the world! It is curiously inconsistent that with the emphasis which this generation has placed upon the mother and upon the prolongation of infancy, we constantly allow the waste of this most precious material. I cannot recall without indignation a recent experience. I was detained late one evening in an office building by a = prolonged committee meeting of the Board of Education. As I came out at eleven o'clock, I met in the corridor of the fourteenth floor a woman whom I knew, on her knees scrubbing the marble tiling. As she straightened up to greet me, she seemed so wet from her feet up to her chin, that I hastily inquired the cause. Her reply was that she left home at five o'clock every night and had no opportunity for six hours to nurse her baby. Her mother's milk mingled with the very water with which she scrubbed the floors until she should return at midnight, heated and exhausted, to feed her screaming child with what remained within her breasts.

To learn more about Jane Addams's life and legacy, please join us for the American Minds Webinar

11am, Saturday, 7 March 2020.

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Documents in Detail: Progressive Party Platform of 1912

The Progressive Party Platform of 1912 will be the focus of the 25 MAR 2020 Documents in Detail webinar.

Register Here

Panelists

John Moser, Ashland University

Chris Burkett, Ashland University

David Alvis, Wofford College

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Inspired by George Washington, Teacher Brings Naturalization Ceremony to his High School

“We are a nation of immigrants,” says Sean Brennan, who teaches US government at Brecksville-Broadview Heights High School in Broadview Heights, Ohio. “Most of our families came here legally, and most American immigrants still do.” Concerned that students don’t understand the careful process through which immigrants become citizens, Brennan borrowed an idea from a colleague he met at a George Washington Teacher Institute workshop at Mount Vernon, Virginia. He arranged for his high school to sponsor a naturalization ceremony.

Weekend Colloquia Help Teachers Share Ideas

The colleague who shared the idea was government teacher Dusty Helton of Pigeon Forge High School in Tennessee. (Helton, like Brennan, frequents TAH programs.) Helton had learned during a field trip to the Federal District Court in Knoxville that presiding Judge Pamela Reeves was eager to take naturalization ceremonies out into the community, so that citizens might witness them. Helton offered, on the spot, to host one at his school.

Helton advised Brennan to contact a nearby federal district court to see about doing a similar ceremony at Brecksville-Broadview Heights. Brennan already knew a US District Court Judge personally. Since 2011, Brennan has served as President of City Council in his hometown of Parma. Senior Judge Christopher Boyko grew up in Parma, and Brennan knows the Boyko family well. Every year, when Brennan takes the students in his elective course on American jurisprudence to visit courts at the county, state and federal level in Cleveland, they tour the US District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, and Boyko makes time to talk with Brennan’s students.

Brennan’s experience as an elected official gave him the confidence to reach out to the federal district court, yet Helton’s example shows any teacher could do the same. And without the networking that goes on at teacher colloquia, Brennan would never have had the idea.

Read more to learn how our first President inspires Sean Brennan.

The post Inspired by George Washington, Teacher Brings Naturalization Ceremony to his High School appeared first on Teaching American History.

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Meet Our Teacher Partners: Katie Klaus

At Teaching American History, we focus on telling America's story through historical documents because history functions for a nation as memory does for an individual.  Without memory, an individual or a nation has no identity, and ultimately, no existence. Our teacher partners are the nation's memory-keepers, passing on our national identity to the next generation as they help students develop the knowledge, skills, and virtues of self-governing citizens. They do this by engaging their students in reflection on and discussion about the documents and debates of America’s past in ways that connect the past to the present.

We are privileged to work with teachers of American history, government and civics from every corner of our nation, believing they do the most important work in America. In this occasional blog series, we'd like to introduce you to them, giving you a peek into their classrooms and the ways they use the documents and resources we provide, both to honor the work they are doing, and to inspire you as you tackle the same essential challenge of educating young citizens.

Why MAHG is "Perfect" for Teachers

Katie Klaus, a 2018 graduate of Ashbrook’s Master of American History and Government (MAHG) program, learned about the degree through an online search: she fell in love with it during her time on-campus.

After an intense  first seminar in residence at Ashland University in the summer, “I wondered what I’d gotten into,” Klaus said. “But when I went to dinner that night, I talked with other teachers who’d been in the program for a while. They made me feel comfortable.” She soon realized the program was “perfect” and that, despite the extra effort needed to get to Ashland, the six required courses on campus were especially enjoyable.

“I made great friends among teachers from other states. It was nice not to have to worry about cooking for myself—to be able to just focus on the coursework.” And she liked being in the same room with “professors from all across the US—from Boise State, the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York, Berry College in Georgia, and so on. They had all been carefully selected for their teaching ability.”

“MAHG did not fundamentally change my teaching approach,” Klaus noted, “because at Woodland High, we don’t use textbooks. Several years before I began teaching there, the department started basing all their lessons on primary sources, because the available textbooks were out of date.” Klaus had been well mentored in teaching from primary sources. “But MAHG introduced me to so many documents I did not know about, while broadening my content knowledge.”

Learn more about Katie's experience in the Master of American History and Government (MAHG) program.

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Happy 200th, Susan B. Anthony!

This Saturday, February 15, 2020 marks the 200th anniversary of woman's rights advocate Susan B Anthony's birth. Anthony is best known for promoting women's rights and starting up the women's suffrage in the United States. After the Civil War, Anthony and many other proponents of women's suffrage argued that women as a class were protected by the language of the 14th amendment, which reads, "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States."

In 1872, Anthony put the principle to the test by voting in Rochester, New York in violation of state laws that restricted suffrage to men. She was arrested and at her trial, United States v. Susan B. Anthony in 1873 delivered a version of perhaps her most famous speech, “Is it a Crime to Vote?” to argue that "in thus voting, [she] not only committed no crime, but, instead, simply exercised [her] citizen’s right, guaranteed to me and all United States citizens by the National Constitution, beyond the power of any State to deny." Anthony's defense is both principled and measured, drawing on the fundamental political logic of both the declaration and the constitution of the United States. Here in honor of her birthday we present the opening passages: you can read the full text in our document library.

Is it a Crime to Vote?

Our democratic-republican government is based on the idea of the natural right of every individual member thereof to a voice and a vote in making and executing the laws. We assert the province of government to be to secure the people in the enjoyment of their unalienable rights. We throw to the winds the old dogma that governments can give rights. Before governments were organized, no one denies that each individual possessed the right to protect his own life. liberty and property. And when 100 or 1,000,000 people enter into a free government, they do not barter away their natural rights; they simply pledge themselves to protect each other in the enjoyment of them, through prescribed judicial and legislative tribunals. They agree to abandon the methods of brute force in the adjustment of their differences, and adopt those of civilization.

Nor can you find a word in any of the grand documents left us by the fathers that assumes for government the power to create or to confer rights. The Declaration of Independence, the United States Constitution, the constitutions of the several states and the organic laws of the territories, all alike propose to protect the people in the exercise of their God-given rights. Not one of them pretends to bestow rights.

"All men are created equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights. Among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."

Here is no shadow of government authority over rights, nor exclusion of any from their full and equal enjoyment. Here is pronounced the right of all men, and "consequently," as the Quaker preacher said, "of all women," to a voice in the government. And here, in this very first paragraph of the declaration, is the assertion of the natural right of all to the ballot; for, how can "the consent of the governed" be given, if the right to vote be denied. Again:

"That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, ad to institute a new government, laying its foundations on such principles, and organizing its powers in such forms as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness."

Surely, the right of the whole people to vote is here clearly implied. For however destructive in their happiness this government might become, a disfranchised class could neither alter nor abolish it, nor institute a new one, except by the old brute force method of insurrection and rebellion. One-half of the people of this nation to-day are utterly powerless to blot from the statute books an unjust law, or to write there a new and a just one. The women, dissatisfied as they are with this form of government, that enforces taxation without representation,-that compels them to obey laws to which they have never given their consent,-that imprisons and hangs them without a trial by a jury of their peers, that robs them, in marriage, of the custody of their own persons, wages and children,-are this half of the people left wholly at the mercy of the other half, in direct violation of the spirit and letter of the declarations of the framers of this government, every one of which was based on the immutable principle of equal rights to all. By those declarations, kings, priests, popes, aristocrats, were all alike dethroned, and placed on a common level politically, with the lowliest born subject or serf. By them, too, me, as such, were deprived of their divine right to rule, and placed on a political level with women. By the practice of those declarations all class and caste distinction will be abolished; and slave, serf, plebeian, wife, woman, all alike, bound from their subject position to the proud platform of equality.

The preamble of the federal constitution says:

"We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and established this constitution for the United States of America."

It was we, the people, not we, the white male citizens, nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed this Union. And we formed it, not to give the blessings or liberty, but to secure them; not to the half of ourselves and the half of our posterity, but to the whole people-women as well as men. And it is downright mockery to talk to women of their enjoyment of the blessings of liberty while they are denied the use of the only means of securing them provided by this democratic- republican government-the ballot.

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Talking Across the Generations About History

“The vision of the founding fathers—and of all the other extraordinary people who carried our republic forward after it was founded—will come to nothing if our students do not see the value of participating in self-government,” says Kelly Steffen. A graduate of Ashbrook’s Master of Arts in American History and Government (MAHG) degree, Steffen teaches to pass on the legacy of the founding and of those who have worked to complete it. Her lesson plans often create opportunities for students at Vinton-Shellsburg High School in Vinton, Iowa to learn from older community members. This helps them appreciate the problems faced, sacrifices made, and progress achieved by earlier generations.

In 2019, the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History named Steffen Iowa History Teacher of the Year. She was nominated for this award by a colleague in English language arts with whom she co-teaches a sophomore humanities class in 20th Century America. Being nominated meant filling out an award application that documented her teaching philosophy and practices. As part of the application, Steffen described a study unit she assigns in the humanities class (and simultaneously in a class on American history from 1945 to the present).

Creating Museum Exhibits Around Primary Documents

Each year Steffen’s students create a “Cold War Museum.” Working singly or in pairs, students become specialists on a historical figure or theme from the period. Then they structure an exhibit around at least one primary document that gives important insights into their topic. “I saw the value of primary sources during my time in the MAHG program,” Steffen says. The words of those who witnessed history as it unfolded capture the imaginations of both students and museum-goers.

Students create visual displays that place the documents into historical context. They add simple, concise text explaining the causes and effects of events mentioned in the documents and defining any unusual vocabulary in them, such as technical terms, acronyms, or slang of the era.

Read more of Steffen's story.

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Dropping the Atomic Bombs: A Great Debate of History

Twenty-five teachers from across the Phoenix area joined Dr. David Hadley of Ashland University on 30 January to discuss the development of, decision to use, and the immediate results of the Atomic Bombs used on Japan during World War 2.

The development of the bomb was the result of the top-secret Manhattan Project. The majority of Americans had no opportunity to even consider the technological, political, or moral implications of nuclear technology weapon until they learned about the American attack on Hiroshima, Japan on 6 August 1945 in which 80,000 people were killed instantly from a White House press release. Three days later, the United States dropped a second atomic bomb on the city of Nagasaki, killing 35,000 people.  Japan surrendered on August 14, 1945, but the long-term implications of the decision to use atomic weapons would be the source of public discussion for decades to come.

Thanks to Phoenix Union High School District for our five-year partnership, enabling hundreds of teachers to attend TAH programs like this in the Phoenix area.

Download the reader here; look at our World War II Core Documents Collection; and see what other programs TAH has planned for Arizona over the next few months.

The post Dropping the Atomic Bombs: A Great Debate of History appeared first on Teaching American History.

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Saturday Webinar: Jane Addams

American Minds Webinar

Live show to air at 11am, Saturday, 7 MAR 2020, exploring the life, ideas, and impact of Jane Addams.

REGISTER HERE

Readings

Woman's Conscience and Social Amelioration, Jane Addams, 1908

"On The Shame of the Cities, chapter 7," George Washington Plunkitt, 1905

Twenty Years at Hull House, ch8, Jane Addams, 1912

Panelists

Chris Burkett, Ashland University

Jennifer Keene, Chapman University

Mack Mariani, Xavier University

  iTunes Podcast

Stitcher

Podcast RSS

Saturday Webinar: Jane Addams appeared first on Teaching American History.

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Surviving—and Thriving in—the Summer Residential Program of MAHG

Did you know? Teaching American History, a project of the Ashbrook Center at Ashland University, offers weeklong summer graduate courses that combine quality instruction with the opportunity to become part of a community of those who love to both learn and teach about America's past. “For anyone who has only taken a MAHG course online, I would say the on-campus class takes it to a whole new level. . . . It’s by far the best intensive professional development experience out there,” says John Giltner. Other graduates of the MAHG program agree.

How can one marathon week away from home be more productive than an online course taken from your home office and steadily paced across eight weeks of the academic year?

That marathon week is designed for convenience. Meals and housing are provided. “Instead of all the other chores and things at home,” you just focus on history, says Gina Knowles. Dedicated history buffs work hard, loving it. When you’re on campus, “you literally eat, breathe, and sleep history for a week with fellow history professionals,” says Robin Deck. “The discussion never ends. That bonding experience with fellow lovers of history cannot be replicated.”

Yet certain strategies can help you get the most from the experience. MAHG graduates offer this advice:

Before the course begins:

1. Complete the assigned reading ahead of the week—or complete as much of it as you can. If you have a free week or two between the end of your school year and the beginning of the course, that’s an ideal time to prepare, says John Talley, since it’s “not so far in advance that you forget the material.” If not, try to read ahead as you are finishing the school year. Write notes or questions in the margins to help you remember key ideas. You will want to reread portions of the reading each night before the next day’s classes. But you can think through the reading more carefully if you are reading it a second time.

Some grads add that reading ahead allows you time for after-dinner discussion sessions at O’Bryan’s, Ashland’s well-loved pub. We remain noncommittal on that point, but offer this from Rusty Eder: “If you do all the reading ahead of time, it gives you the chance to engage in brilliant conversations with very smart people.”

2. Plan to stay in the on-campus apartments. These are furnished with desks as well as sofas, dining tables for shared study sessions, and semi-private baths. While single rooms are available in Andrews Hall (a dormitory with shared corridor bathrooms), you’ll benefit from sharing an apartment with another teacher. You’ll enjoy and learn from the conversation that develops during study breaks.

3. Bring a few items for comfort and convenience (especially if you are driving). The pillows provided with the basic linen set are new, inexpensive polyester foam versions from a big box store. If you need a pillow of a particular firmness, bring your own, Stacy Moses advises. Apartment kitchenettes include appliances, but you might bring a coffeemaker, favorite mug, bowl and/or set of flatware. A rolling backpack will prevent sore muscles, says Adena Barnette. “This way you can haul your books, a printed copy of your course packet, your electronic device, and extra drinks and snacks to class each day.” The walk between the apartments and the classrooms takes about ten minutes at a leisurely pace, with another five minutes to swing by the dining hall for breakfast before or lunch afterwards. To take advantage of the excellent recreation center on campus, bring workout clothing or swimwear.

  4. Before your first residential course, you may want to come in a day early to find your way around campus, says Sara Wood Legate. (There is no extra charge for a Saturday afternoon arrival [between 3pm and 9pm] or for a Saturday morning departure [before 9 am]. Meal service begins with dinner Sunday; if you arrive before, you can use the kitchens in the residence halls or visit a local restaurant [see below]). Otherwise, there are plenty of friendly interns to point you in the right directions.

5. Once you register for a course, you’ll be given access to Blackboard, where the readings—course packs—are found. Download the course pack and print it out. Get it bound at an office supply store, or hole-punched to fit into a three-ring binder. You’ll be flipping back and forth between pages and documents during seminar discussions and when writing essays on the open-book exams. After you complete the course, an organized and bound set of documents will help you review for the qualifying exam or find sources for a thesis or capstone. You’ll also draw excerpts from many of the documents to use in your own classes. Don’t worry about the highlighting and annotations you add; clean copies of the documents are available for download at TeachingAmericanHistory.org.

6. Several students recommended buying one copy of key texts and using it repeatedly whenever it is assigned in coursework. Most professors specify the text they prefer, and this helps everyone in the class to find passages being discussed. Still, if you stick with one text, your notes will aggregate in the margins as you revisit it. Selections from one text in particular, The Federalist, appear repeatedly on course syllabi. Some professors prefer the Signet Classics edition (with an introduction by Charles Kesler); others, and many students, recommend the edition in the Online Library of Liberty (edited by George W. Carey and James McClellan and published by the Liberty Fund) as the most complete and authoritative.

During your time on campus:

1. Seminars are designed as collaborative discussions. “Ask your questions and give your feedback,” John Talley says. “When you speak, you help the whole room and advance the learning environment,” adds Wesley Hall. Meanwhile, “being engaged yourself by professors who know how to engage students” will help you learn how to pass that excitement onto your students at home, Kate Pitrone points out.

2. “Take advantage of the opportunity to talk with the amazing faculty and wonderful staff at the Ashbrook Center,” says Stacy Moses. Sitting down with professors at meals in the cafeteria or over coffee during the afternoon socials is “a great way to delve deeper into topics discussed in class,” says Kymberli Wregglesworth. Professors enjoy these interactions, and each of them “wants you to succeed and is there to help you reach your goals.”

3. The same advice applies to interactions with classmates. “Jump in with both feet!” says Moses. Students in the program often organize study sessions; “if you don't hear of one, create one!” After the professors, “Your classmates are the second best resource for preparing for your final assessment,” says Barnette.

[caption id="attachment_37760" align="alignright" width="500"] Study groups form easily during summer MAHG.[/caption]

4. As you make friends with fellow teachers, you’ll trade pedagogical ideas and learn about other professional development opportunities. “Make as many friendships and connections as possible with other classmates and professors, because they'll change your life,” says Nicole Keith. MAHG grads frequently speak of making “lifelong friendships” with colleagues they continue trading ideas with years later.

5. Josh Halpren advises those doing multiple weeks during a summer to “get into a routine that provides time for self-care. Use the awesome athletic facilities at Ashland, occasionally talk about non-history things at meals and get sleep. You need to be on most of the day in discussions and you don’t want to burn out.” Several grads recommend taking walks around “the beautiful Ashland campus” or at the nearby Freer Field trail, part of which takes you through shaded woods.

6. Coffee breaks fuel study. There is a snack bar open during the class periods on the ground floor of Dauch Hall, the classroom building MAHG uses. It has a simple menu of drip coffee, tea, soda and packaged snacks. Starbucks-style lattes and etc. are available in the snack bar on the ground floor of the Student Center. Just down College Avenue from Dauch, there is a privately owned coffee shop called Vines, with specialty drinks and the best scones you’ll ever eat. During the summers, it is open Thursdays and Saturdays from 8 am to 4 pm and Friday 8 am to 6 pm. At a further walk is Downtown Perk (145 Main Street), offering dessert and lunch items, open weekdays until 5 pm and Saturdays until 3 pm.

7. “Weave yourself into the fabric of Ashland. You get more out than you put in, but [first] you have to put in,” Talley says. “If you do multiple weeks, don't go home. Stay on campus to stay focused,” he adds. If you need a Saturday getaway, there are “plenty of presidents’ houses in Ohio to visit,” Rhonda Watton notes, along with sites on the Underground Railway and other places of historic note.

Tammy Hendershot sums it up: the MAHG program gives you not only a degree; it gives you “a community” with whom you learn to see the many connections between the American past and our present experience. This community will support you as you become a more knowledgeable and effective teacher. It may even, says Nilani Jawahar, give you the best inspiration your work could have: “a newfound love and appreciation for America.” 

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Loser Wins: William Jennings Bryan and the Legacy of Populism

History teachers rarely focus on the losers of presidential elections. Yet two men stand out as notable exceptions; Henry Clay and William Jennings Bryan. Both men were nominated for the presidency three times, both lost all three times, both impacted American politics in ways that defined their eras. Clay was a talented legislator, engineering compromises that postponed the Civil War.  Bryan was a skilled orator who advocated populist and progressive policies that shaped quadrennial political debates well into the 20th century. Clay's legacy was tempered by the failure of those compromises to prevent the Civil War. Bryan’s legacy lives on in some of the policies he embraced in his political career, including the 8-hour workday, the direct election of United States senators, and the graduated income tax. Yet high school students typically learn less about him than about Clay. 

William Jennings Bryan was a devoutly religious man who adopted agrarian populism with the same degree of fervor he embraced his fundamentalist Christianity. He served two terms in the House of Representatives but lost a bid for the U.S. Senate in 1894. He remained in the public eye by writing columns for the Omaha World Herald. Bryan, despite his youth and inexperience, somehow landed the Democratic nomination for president in 1896. He embraced the populism rooted in the agrarian west and south. Farmers had been suffering for some time. Crop prices were declining, railroad rates remained high, and banks were foreclosing on family-owned farms throughout the heartland.  Bryan became the voice of the farmer, railing against bigness, the bigness of railroads, the bigness of banks, and the cozy relationship these corporations enjoyed with the Republican party.

In one of the most famous speeches in American history, Bryan proclaimed his vision of a pure agrarian culture that sustained the nation, telling the 1896 Democratic convention, 

"You come to us and tell us that the great cities are in favor of the gold standard; we reply that the great cities rest upon our broad and fertile prairies. Burn down your cities and leave our farms, and your cities will spring up again as if by magic; but destroy our farms, and the grass will grow in the streets of every city in the country."

He electrified the conventioneers by concluding with an attack on the gold standard, pledging that under Democratic leadership the banks and railroads would not "crucify mankind upon a cross of gold." The delegates leapt to their feet in a spontaneous demonstration that lasted over thirty minutes. The demonstration inspired the convention to nominate Bryan for president. 

(Full disclosure: I love the “Cross of Gold” speech. My Dad bought me an album of famous American speeches when I was around 10 years old. I played Bryan’s speech over and over, proving that, in my case, history geekiness began at an early age.)

Lesser known is Bryan's support for Woodrow Wilson in the election of 1912. Bryan had become an anti-imperialist in response to the McKinley administration's annexation of the Philippines and espoused pacifism when Wilson named him Secretary of State. He resigned, on principle, when Wilson delivered a strong U.S. protest to the German attack on the passenger liner, Lusitania. Bryan believed Wilson was leading the nation into war and wanted no part in it. 

Bryan resurfaced in Dayton, TN, in 1926 at the "Trial of the Century." A science teacher, John Thomas Scopes, had been charged with violating Tennessee's prohibition on teaching Charles Darwin’s account of evolution. Bryan agreed to prosecute the case after the most famous trial lawyer in America, Clarence Darrow, agreed to defend Scopes. Bryan took the stand as an expert on the Bible and suffered through Darrow's relentless assault on Bryan's fundamentalist views. Though ridiculed by some in the national press, Bryan lingered in Tennessee, making a few speeches. He died just five days after the trial, while still in Tennessee.  

Bryan lost three national elections, 1896, 1900, and 1908. However, many of the ideas he championed became law, when embraced by the progressives of the early 1900s. These include the Federal Reserve System, banking reform, railroad regulation, the initiative and referendum, and the direct election of senators. Like an inventor whose original insights are overwhelmed by better engineering and better marketing, Bryan populist vision inspired yet was soon eclipsed by the efforts of  progressive presidents in the early 20th century. Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and Woodrow Wilson refined and adapted Bryan’s views for the industrial era. It was they who sold progressivism to the American public.

The theme of this year’s Teaching American History Saturday webinars is American Minds. Prominent scholars will discuss individuals who made significant social, cultural, or political contributions to the American identity. On 1 February 2020, join panelists Chris Burkett (Ashland University), Greg Schneider (Emporia University),  and Jason Stevens (Ashland University) to explore the life, ideas, letters, and impact of William Jennings Bryan.

REGISTER HERE

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Lonely Dissenter: Jane Addams Reflects on her Peace-making Efforts During World War I

In her essay “Personal Reactions In Time of War,” Jane Addams describes her experience as an opponent of World War I during a time of growing pro-war sentiment in the US, fed by government and media propagandists. By 1922, when Adams wrote the book from which the essay is drawn (Peace and Bread in Time of War), disillusionment had succeeded enthusiasm for America’s entry into the European conflict. The war had been promoted to those who enlisted as both a test of personal manliness and a holy crusade to protect democracy. Yet it did not fulfill these expectations. A new kind of warfare, characterized by constant shelling along a nearly immovable front line, did not offer clear opportunities for individual heroism. Most often, it pitted relatively helpless human beings against impersonal machines of destruction: mortars, artillery, flamethrowers, and poison gas. More important, instead of completely disabling German aggression against self-determining, democratic nations, the war ended in an armistice between the exhausted foes. Nevertheless, the changing American view of the war did not bring Addams back into harmony with public opinion.

Isolationism vs. Internationalism

Americans reacted to their experience in World War I by re-embracing their customary isolationism. Hence, when the League of Nations convened for the first time on January 10, 1920 (one hundred years ago this month) the United States was not among the founding members. Although President Woodrow Wilson had campaigned hard in favor of it, Republican Senators had argued persuaded their colleagues that membership in the league would deprive Americans of control over their own foreign policy; it would draw the US into each new European conflict.

Addams herself, during the war, had dared to hope that international efforts to mediate the conflict might end it. She served as president of the International Committee of Women for Permanent Peace, a group formed in 1915 and headquartered in Amsterdam, which called for neutral parties to engage in immediate and continuous mediation between the belligerents. Addressing the group—whose members included women from both warring sides—Addams said that “profound and spiritual” forces had brought them together. Women, she said, understood that “there are universal emotions which have nothing to do with natural frontiers.”

Read More at our sister site, ReligionInAmerica.org

Join us for a Webinar on Jane Addams on Saturday, March 20

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The Long Controversy Over Alger Hiss

When Alger Hiss was convicted of perjury on January 17, 1950, it was, in one sense, the end of a legal drama that began when Whittaker Chambers had named him as a Soviet spy on August 3, 1948. In another sense, though, Hiss’s conviction ended nothing, as the battle over his guilt or innocence had become a major flashpoint in postwar American politics and culture. Even after the Cold War, when declassified U.S. signals intelligence offered extremely compelling evidence that Hiss had in fact been a Soviet asset, bolstering other significant circumstantial evidence, the historical controversy persisted.

[caption id="attachment_37637" align="alignleft" width="380"] Whittaker Chambers, bust Portrait, facing right, World Telegram and Sun photo by Fred Palumbo, 1948. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZ62-114739.[/caption]

The drama began in 1939 when Chambers, a former Communist who had become disillusioned with the party, revealed his activities and those of his associates to a federal government that was preoccupied with the threats of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. One of those Chambers implicated was Hiss, a handsome and well-connected graduate of Johns Hopkins and Harvard Law School working in the State Department. Initially, the charge was overlooked, and Hiss retained supporters among the upper echelons of government. Even when, in 1946, Hiss was forced out of the State Department, Undersecretary of State Dean Acheson arranged for Hiss to take over the Carnegie Endowment for Peace. However, as the wartime alliance between the United States and the Soviet Union increasingly broke down, and the FBI became aware of an extensive Soviet espionage network in the United States, the authorities took Chambers’ allegations more seriously. After Chambers publicly named Hiss, Hiss sued for slander. Chambers then produced documents (including the so-called “Pumpkin Papers” which had famously been hidden in a hollowed out pumpkin) containing confidential State Department information that he claimed—and government analysts would conclude—Hiss had given him. Since the statutory limit for espionage had passed, Hiss was charged with perjury, resulting first in a mistrial before his final conviction seventy years ago today.

Why Controversy Over Hiss Continued

The longevity of the Hiss case is attributable to the fact that it occurred against the backdrop of the Red Scare that was rapidly engulfing the United States. One of the main advocates against Hiss was freshman California Representative Richard Nixon, whose pursuit of Hiss helped propel him to the Senate and then the Vice-Presidency. (Nixon wrote an account of the case against Hiss in his 1962 memoir Six Crises.) Less than a year after Hiss’s conviction, Senator Joseph McCarthy began his own reckless and indiscriminate campaign to root out Communists, a project that became a general hunt for leftists.

For Hiss’s defenders, asserting Hiss’s innocence became a proxy fight against Nixon and McCarthy. Denying the reality of Hiss’s espionage amounted to denying any legitimacy in the postwar pursuit of Soviet spies. To deny Hiss’s innocence, meanwhile, often meant more than just recognizing the reality and the danger of Soviet espionage; it meant using the Hiss case as a bludgeon against the Roosevelt and Truman administrations, which had not acted quickly against Hiss. Hiss’s presence at the Yalta Conference became a significant touchstone in anti-communist discourse. That Hiss’s presence almost certainly had no real impact at Yalta (considering especially that the Soviets had thoroughly bugged the rooms of the American and British delegations and were in a strong position to begin with) was immaterial.

What Finally Convinced Most Skeptics

While the fights over Hiss were under way in the late 1940s and 1950s, the strongest evidence of his guilt remained classified, out of fear that revealing the evidence would expose U.S. signals intelligence capabilities to the Soviets. Beginning in 1943, the U.S. Army’s Signal Intelligence Service, the forerunner of today’s National Security Agency, began a project that would later be codenamed Venona. The project began by studying Soviet diplomatic traffic that had been intercepted but unencrypted dating back to 1939, and grew to include ongoing Soviet messages. In one March 1945 message (a facsimile appears below), a Soviet spy discussed a meeting with an agent codenamed ALES:

While not revealing Hiss’s real name, the cable provided details about the agent codenamed ALES, including references to his travels and interactions, that matched the known movements of Hiss. The Venona cables were not released to the public until 1996.

Although occasional challenges still emerge, few today question that Hiss was indeed a spy. The meaning of the Hiss case, however, is more ambiguous. That Hiss was spy who operated so freely for so many years suggests that the Roosevelt and Truman administrations took far too long to take the threat of espionage from the Soviet Union seriously. However, that the government under-reacted to Chambers’ revelations does not mean that the postwar spy hunt did not produce profound over-reactions and injustices, especially on the part of McCarthy. Perhaps, given the gray areas in which espionage necessarily operates, ambiguity is not only inevitable but appropriate for so famous an espionage case.

  The post The Long Controversy Over Alger Hiss appeared first on Teaching American History.

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Documents in Detail: Plessy v. Ferguson

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Documents in Detail: Plessy v. Ferguson appeared first on Teaching American History.

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