June 1

Blog #157 – Final Reflection on a Year in APUSH

This blog is part of your final exam, so please take some time and think about your answers.

400 words minimum for your total response of all of the questions.  Please number your answers in the comment section.

1. A lot of our time this year has been spent reading, writing, studying, watching videos, reflecting, and talking about American history.  Discuss what your favorite learning style was this year and why it was effective for you.  Also, explain which was your least favorite way to learn and explain why it doesn’t work for you.

2. We studied a lot of stuff this year – from the Pilgrims to the Revolution to Andrew Jackson (soon to be leaving the $20, or not) to Abe Lincoln to Alice Paul to the Depression and the Civil Rights Movement.  What did you wish we had spent more time on than we did this year and why?

3. Yep, we studied a whole lot of stuff this year, but I bet you wish there were some units that were shorter or didn’t go as in depth.  What did you wish we had studied less of and explain why (keep in mind that if the info didn’t make it onto the test doesn’t mean it won’t be there next year)?

4. Choose Your Own Adventure was a brand new wrinkle that I had introduced this year and never done something like this before.  What do you think were some of the strengths and weaknesses of this project?  Explain why.

5. People talk a lot about takeaways – a summary of an experience, distilled down to one or two sentences.  What is your takeaway from APUSH (or in other words, what did you truly learn about American history)?

Due by 11:59 p.m. on the night of your final exam.  

June 1

Blog #156 – Battle of the Sexes

Battle of the Sexes' Review: Emma Stone Outshines Steve Carell in Tennis Drama - The Atlantic

This fun movie focused on the real tennis battle between aging men’s tennis champion, Bobby Riggs (Steve Carell), and #1 women’s tennis star, Billie Jean King (Emma Stone) in Houston, TX in 1973.  It was a huge extravaganza, with corporate sponsorships and huge prize money ($100,000 if King won, over 1/2 million in today’s money), possibly 90 million people watching at home and over 30,000 in attendance at the Houston Astrodome.  Their battle was a reflection of what was going on at the time period:

  1. Women’s liberation was making big headlines – part of liberation meant that women didn’t need men to be complete.  It’s one of the reasons why radical feminists burned bras, refused to follow typical Western beauty standards, and protested sexist American traditions like the Miss America beauty pageant.
  2. The Equal Rights Amendment had been passed by Congress in March 1972 which called for an end to all sexual discrimination.  By the time the match happened, 30 states had approved the ERA before the momentum stalled and approval finally expired in 1983.  A total of 35 states would approve the ERA, three short of the needed total of 38, and there was significant resistance from ladies’ groups and conservative politicians who saw the amendment as opening up the door to unisex bathrooms, gay marriage, and women fighting in the military (funny how we have all three of those things w/o the amendment today).
  3. The 2nd wave of feminism had made significant strides in getting women elected to high positions, leading corporations and unions, and pushing for wage equality, day care centers, an end to sexual harassment, and equality in education and sports (Title IX).

In a New York Times review of the movie, the opening line of the review was this: “Every so often an exceptionally capable woman has to prove her worth by competing against a clown.”  Maybe I’m a little biased, but this made me think of the 2016 Election.  Hillary Clinton was a very talented and experienced candidate for the presidency, but unlike Billie Jean, Clinton would not triumph over the clown.  Here’s a NYT article that finds parallels in the film.  It’s a wonder if the filmmakers made it this way intentionally.

 

The film also really focused on the gender wage gap – using one tournament in particular, the men’s prize money was 8x that of the women’s prize money.  The reasons that Jack Kramer (pictured above) and his cohort gave were pretty lame and were easily shot down by Billie Jean and Gladys Heldman (played by Sarah Silverman), and Kramer finally settled on the weak reasoning that the men’s game is more exciting.

There was also the love stories in the film – that’s the one thing that surprised me the most about the film – was that there were three love stories going on: one between Billie Jean and Marilyn, another with Bobby and his wife Priscilla, and the third between Billie Jean and her husband.  Each has their own resolution with only Bobby and Priscilla ending up staying together.

The True Story Behind Billie Jean King's Victorious “Battle of the Sexes” | At the Smithsonian| Smithsonian Magazine

One of the things that made me wonder was how accurate was the portrayal of Bobby Riggs.  Steve Carell does a great job of making him seem like a real human being w/ faults and flaws.  I also wondered how much of this challenge to women’s tennis players was real sexism, a gimmick, a chance to get back into the limelight, a way to feed his gambling hobby, or a combination of all of them.

Your job: Pick three of the questions below and answer them w/ specific examples from the movie. 

  1. How did the film portray the gender wage gap?  Do you think the women tennis players did the right thing?  Why or why not? 
  2. How did the film portray the love affair between Billie Jean and Marilyn?  Why couldn’t Billie Jean go public with the affair?  How have things changed since 1973? 
  3. What do you think Bobby Riggs’ true motivation was for the match?  Explain why you reached this conclusion. 
  4. After reading the article on the supposed parallels between the election of 2016 and the film, do you buy the author’s assertion that this was an intentional nod to the election?  Why or why not?  

Due by Tuesday, June 6 by 11:59 p.m.  350 words minimum for all three answers.  

Works Cited: 

Fact vs. Fiction in the movie – http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2017/09/25/fact_vs_fiction_in_the_movie_battle_of_the_sexes.html

NYT Review – https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/21/movies/review-battle-of-the-sexes-billie-jean-king-bobby-riggs.html?referrer=google_kp

Wikipedia page on ERA – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_Rights_Amendment

Comparison of Battle and 2016 Election – http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2017/09/21/battle_of_the_sexes_reminders_of_the_2016_election.html

True Story behind Billie Jean King’s Victorious “Battle of the Sexes” – https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/true-story-behind-billie-jean-king-battle-sexes-180964985/

May 29

Blog #155 – Hidden Figures

This film is a stirring film about the intersection of math and history and how math conquers all (rejoice, my math teacher friends!).  The story portrays the struggles of Dorothy Vaughn, NASA’s first African American supervisor; Katherine Johnson, the math expert on the John Glenn flightImage result for hidden figures review and also instrumental in the moon landing; and Mary Jackson, NASA’s first female African American engineer.  It is startling to see how Jim Crow racism was shoved in the face of these strong women, typified in Katherine’s struggle to maintain her dignity while sprinting across NASA’s campus to visit the only “colored” bathroom nearby.  Furthermore, the women of the West Computing Room have to deal with the intersectionality of both racism and sexism since they are women of color.  With Dorothy’s leadership, they are able to carve out a niche in the very male-dominated computing field.

In some ways, this is a film about progress: Civil Rights progress, gender progress, and also technology’s relentless march forward.  This is shown by the real film clips of Civil Rights protests occurring in 1961 and 1962.  We also see progress as women make strides into the male-dominated fields of computers and engineering.  Almost all of the white male characters at NASA are figurative clones, wearing white shirts, dark pants, and thin dark ties.  Occasionally, we might see a flash of color on Paul Stafford’s tie (Jim Parsons from The Big Bang Theory), but for the most part, all of the white men have the same uniform and haircuts.  That’s why the women of color stand out, not just in their attire but because of their skin color.  We see technology’s progress, however much it is double-sided, when Katherine temporarily loses her job as a “computer” in the Space Task Group when Dorothy finally gets the IBM Main frame computers online, a machine that can do 24,000 calculations a second.  This machine makes the women of both the East (white) and West (Black) Computing Rooms obsolete.  Only when the computer spits out different landing coordinates for John Glenn’s return to Earth right before launch does Al Harrison (Kevin Costner), NASA’s head of the Space Task Group, bring Katherine back in to confirm the computer’s numbers.

There was an outstanding moment near the end of the film when news of John Glenn’s orbit is released, and all Americans, regardless of skin color or gender, are united in their worries over the fate of Glenn (aImage result for hidden figures reviewnd by extension, America’s space program and maybe even its prominence in the Cold War).  Scenes show black and white Americans standing in front of a store front watching the TV reports about the peril Glenn faced as his capsule threatened to burn up on re-entry (an aside: imagine this dramatic scene of a nation gripped by a similar incident today – how would Americans be tuning into the progress of such an incident?  Certainly not standing on a street watching a TV).  Another scene showed Americans parking their cars and listening to their radios, staring up at the sky, looking for a fleeting glimpse of Glenn’s capsule, even though it was going to splash down in the Bahamas.  These scenes showed a united America, hoping and praying for the successful return of one of our golden boys, the Mercury 7 astronauts.  These scenes are also a way of showing how little militancy there is to this story of racial advancement and integration.  The most powerful scenes in the film are ones in which characters stand up for themselves or right the wrongs of our sordid past.  This is not a criticism of this film.  It doesn’t need to be angry about the past. In fact, this film emphasizes the women of the film and to dwell on America’s sad racial history isn’t what this film is about.  It’s about transcending that history.

I think that one of the larger question that everyone should be asking themselves is how did this story not make it into the history books?  It has great human drama, excitement, daring, perseverance, and a thrilling conclusion.  The other question is how many other hidden and forgotten stories are out there, waiting to be told?   If these ladies, who were such an extraordinary part of this story to send Americans into space, can be forgotten and shunted to the side for over 60 years, where are the rest of these stories?  One thing to keep in mind is that by telling these hidden stories of people / women of color, we as historians do not have to pick and choose to eliminate stories of white participants, but to include them all.    History doesn’t have to be like a pie to be carved up into smaller and smaller sections but like a tapestry that continues to be weaved into a more complete picture.

CHOOSE 3 OF THE 5 QUESTIONS BELOW AND ANSWER THEM. 

  1. Explain how the title “Hidden Figures” has different layers of meaning for this film and time period.
  2. Provide at least 2 specific examples of Jim Crow discrimination or racism perpetrated by the white characters and how they affected Katherine, Mary, and / or Dorothy.
  3. This is a story of overcoming challenges that white society put in the way of our main characters.  How did all three women overcame these obstacles.
  4. How did sexism affect Dorothy’s, Mary’s, and Katherine’s careers?  Provide specific examples.
  5. How does the Civil Rights Movement play as the backdrop for the advancing fight against the Cold War’s space race?  Provide examples.

 

Image result for hidden figures review

300 minimum words for your total answer for all three questions.  Due Thursday night, June 1, by 11:59 p.m. 

May 20

Blog #154 -What kind of problem do we have in America?

So I started out the pre-writing for our discussion about guns by first asking – does America have a gun problem, a violence problem, a mental health problem, or a toxic masculinity problem?  Do we have a combination of these problems? Why or why not?  And of course, I got a variety of responses where many of you said that we’re experiencing a combination of these issues.  And we watched this video looking at the history of the Brady Bill primarily (with a secondary quick look at the the Assault Weapons Ban in 1994) and a balanced look at how different people across the country view guns, both negatively or positively.  See the video below:

Why We Can’t Have a Civil Conversation About Guns from Retro Report Cuts on Vimeo.

We then talked about America’s distrust of standing armies, the country’s reliance on an armed militia to defend itself in the early days, and we read the 2nd Amendment and briefly discussed its history of being interpreted by the SCOTUS (History and court cases found here).  In a brief summary, there were very few legal challenges to the 2nd Amendment in the 19th and 20th Century, the cases primarily focused on the first clause of the Amendment on the well regulated militia, as exemplified by the Miller case in 1939 that seemed to tie gun ownership to being part of a militia.  However, scholars and legal experts continued to debate the issue in the latter half of the 20th Century as it appeared that most American gun-onwers were NOT part of an organized state militia given the establishment of a large, permanent army.  By the time SCOTUS determined D.C. v. Heller in 2008, the Court separated gun onwership from service in a militia officially and established an individual right to own a gun in your own home for protection.  This right was expanded in the 2010 case, McDonald v. City of Chicago and in last year’s case, NYSRPA v. Bruen which expanded the right to carry guns outside of the home instead of just in the home for self-defense.

And so when we looked at the 5 gun control advocacy groups and the 5 gun rights advocacy groups and their websites, we found a variety of goals and arguments for gun control or gun rights.  Some policy goals for gun control groups ranged from a new assault weapon ban, a limit or ban high capacity magazines (thanks to 4th hour, I found out that anything over 10 rounds is considered high capacity), increased stronger background checks, and limiting guns from “certain groups” as one of the groups put it, essentially enforcing or creating Red Flag laws or preventing those with a history of domestic violence from getting them.  One group, like the Brady Campaign, had some interesting stats and graphics, a few of which I could not find the source of their info (like 3 graphics below).      

They gave sources like the CDC for some of their stats on gun deaths, injuries, etc., but these three in particular I wanted to see the sources.  Some of the groups relied on first-hand accounts of traumatic shootings to bolster their claims, but it seemed that one of the newest groups founded in the wake of the Oxford and Uvalde shootings, Teachers Unify to End Gun Violence, didn’t seem to have any solid policy goals or proposals other than no gun violence in schools.  Looking across the five groups we analyzed, some groups have a state by state approach while others call for national legislation to achieve their policy goals.  Nowhere did these groups promote gun confiscation, which would most likely (I won’t say 100% because as we have seen in the past few years, some federal judges will approve or pass injunctions on the flimsiest of reasons) lose in any court in the land as a massive violation of the 2nd Amendment.  Personally, I believe that a confiscation law, first, would never pass Congress (no matter what kind of gun) though it might pass in a very liberal state but I still doubt it (because the law would never go into effect b/c gun rights groups would file an injunction in federal court to stop it from going into effect), and second, it is a direct violation of the 2nd Amendment.  Confiscation is a punishment inflicted on all Americans who own and handle their guns responsibly and for legitimate reasons.  Confiscation is fantastical thinking and completely unrealistic.  And if it happened in other countries, their circumstances nd histories greatly differ from the U.S..

On the gun rights side, most groups were opposed to any type of gun control as being an infringement upon a person’s absolute right found in the 2nd Amendment.  The NRA, the 2nd Amendment Foundation, and the Firearms Policy Coalition advocated for sport shooting and educating and expanding educational opportunities exposing teenagers to the importance of gun safety.  One group, National Association for Gun Rights, has currently as its website banner a misleading banner claiming that President Biden has signed an Executive Order requiring Universal Gun Registration (assumed to be much like how all kinds of vehicles are registered) which you can see here.

But what Biden’s EO, signed in March of this year, has done was to push for something close to universal background checks before gun purchases (see the EO here).  To be fair, the NRA paints an accurate portrayal of Biden’s EO here, but uses inflammatory headlines and pics (see below).  Biden’s Executive Order Targeting Gun Ownership

The main problem with these kinds of misleading and inflammatory headlines and graphics, as I see it, is likely intentional – to make the federal government led by Democrats out to be the adversary that must be defeated at all costs because your very rights – all of them – are at stake.  This leaves no room for compromise, and several of the gun rights groups we analyzed proudly proclaimed that they are against any kinds of compromise with gun control advocates.   And this kind of thinking can lead some small number of gun rights groups to engage in their own kind of fantastical thinking – that one person with their arsenal of guns will be able to prevent or stop a tyrannical government like the U.S. with the armed forces at their disposal (Don’t believe me? This is a quote from the FPC’s Constitution: “We believe that well-armed people make tyranny at scale significantly more costly and thus positively changes the economics of authoritarianism as against those People;”) (source).  This might have been true in 1791 when the Bill of Rights was approved, and the federal government had a tiny army.  But not now.  Like I mentioned previously, confiscation of all guns (or even just existing assault weapons) is an unealistic and unconstitutional pipe dream, and given the adversarial kind of thinking outlined above, would result in massive death and carnage.  But if some people think they can hold off or defeat the best-financed armed forces in the world, they are also engaging in fantastical thinking.

As you can see, we spent the majority of our time discussing attitudes about guns and why people might oppose or support gun control measures.  What I would like you to do is to return to the original pre-writing question and answer that along with your choice of questions below:

  1. Does America have a gun problem, a violence problem, a mental health problem, or a toxic masculinity problem?  Do we have a combination of these problems? Why or why not?  
  2. Is there another problem that is plaguing America besides any of the four listed above?  If so, what is it and how is it negatively affecting America?  If not, don’t answer this question.
  3. Listening to some of the gun control measures we had discussed the past 2 days, which of those would you support?  Why?
  4. If you think America has primarily a violence problem, what kinds of solutions can you envision would help address the problem?  Explain.
  5. If you think America has primarily a mental health crisis, what kinds of solutions can you envision would help address the problem?  Explain.
  6. What are your thoughts on the concept of toxic masculinity?  Is it real or is it some kind of made-up thing to target men for being naturally aggressive?  Or is it something else?  Explain why.  (This definition comes from Wikipedia – Toxic masculinity is thus defined by adherence to traditional male gender roles that consequently stigmatize and limit the emotions boys and men may comfortably express while elevating other emotions such as anger. It is marked by economic, political, and social expectations that men seek and achieve dominance.)

You must answer question #1 and then pick two additional ones to share your thoughts about.  If you use anything that is not your own original thought, please follow my example here and cite your sources.  Your total answer for all 3 questions should achieve a minimum of 400 words total.  Due Tuesday night, May 23, by 11:59 p.m.  

May 10

Blog #153 – Reactions to the movie, Race

Race is a multi-layered film about a famous African American athlete, Jesse Owens, coming into his own on the Ohio State University track team, running the 100 and 200 yard dashes and doing the long jump as well. He encounters much bigotry and racism as he struggles to establish himself as the #1 college athlete in the country, and then the #1 athlete in the world.  However, the Olympics in 1936 are held in Berlin, and Hitler hopes to make those games the showcase for German / Aryan superiority.  Owens shatters that myth by winning four gold medals.Race Movie vs True Story of Jesse Owens, Fact-Checking Race

 

Please answer three of the following questions:

  1. Describe Jesse’s relationship with his coach, Larry Snyder.  Is Larry racist?  What drives Larry to push Jesse to do great things?
  2. How does Jesse’s relationship with German long jumper Luz transcend the racial and political tensions of the Olympic Games in 1936?
  3. Describe examples of the racism that Jesse and other black athletes faced in both Ohio in the 1930s and in Berlin in 1936.
  4. Describe the conflict between the German filmmaker, Leni Riefenstahl and German Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels.  Why is there tension between Riefenstahl and Goebbels?
  5. How does the film portray Jesse Owens as a complex character?  Use specific examples from the film.
  6. Examine the multiple meanings of the word, race, included in this film.  Use specific examples from the film.

Minimum 300 words for all three answers combined.  Due by Thursday, May 11 by 11:59 p.m.

Fact-checking the movie – https://www.historyvshollywood.com/reelfaces/race/

How the 1936 Olympics were recreated for Race

April 29

Blog #152 – Reactions to the chapter, “The Good Protest”

The chapter entitled, “The Good Protest,” primarily focuses on two things:

  1. That the “classic phase” of the Civil Rights Movement beginning with the Brown v. Board of Ed. case in 1954 and ending with the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 has been the only part of the Long Civil Rights Movement usually taught in schools, and by focusing on only these events, it does a disservice to the longer struggle for civil rights that Black Americans have waged since Reconstruction.
    2. That the author points out numerous times when the classic phase of protests and past civil rights leaders have been used by current politicians to criticize modern civil rights protests for not following the older models.

What I would like you to do as you read over the chapter is pick several of these questions and answer them fully.

1. How have American protests, whether individually or in groups, been treated in our history books?
2. Describe the four misconceptions of the CRM from 1955-1968.
3. How did Alabama’s reaction to Homer Plessy’s protest on a segregated Louisiana train car directly lead to Rosa Parks’ arrest over 50 years later?
4. Provide at least one example of resistance to segregated busing and sit-ins that had happened BEFORE the first ones honored in the classic phase.  Why has the author included these examples?
5. The classic narrative of the CRM suggests, according to the author, that white people just suddenly became aware of the evils of segregation in 1955, and that a small group of whites became allies in the struggle to end segregation.  How believable is this scenario?
6. How surprising are the poll numbers from 1966 about the country’s perception of the CRM to you?  Explain.
7.  How can you explain the way that Parks and King were smeared as communists while they were alive but now are treated as iconic American heroes as great as any heroes America has produced?
8. How did President Reagan and Press Secretary McEnany misuse King to support their own agendas by knocking down a controversial topic of their time?
9. How did A. Philip Randolph’s plan to have a March on Washington in 1941 motivate FDR to sign Executive Order 8802?

10. How did Ella Baker’s speech to SNCC (Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee) in 1960 reflect Black Lives Matter’s attack on structural racism?
11. How did the CRM protest acts of police brutality in the past?
12. Why do you think the author compared baseball pioneer Jackie Robinson to Colin Kaepernick?
13. What did the Pew Research Center find out about American attitudes in August 2020?
14. How did some states crack down on the right to protest in 2021?  Why do you think that they did this?
15. According to the author, why were some white people having trouble with BLM protests in the 2010s and 2020s?
16. Why do you think some people were critical of the protests against police violence in the summer and fall of 2020?

Your job: Read the chapter, answer bonded question #2 and then pick 4 additional questions to answer.  Minimum 400 words for your answers to all 5 questions.

Due Monday night, May 1, by 11:59 p.m.  

March 5

Blog #151 – Final Exam – Debate Over Expansion

Before, during, and after the Spanish-American War in 1898, Americans had debated whether or not America should go beyond its borders and become an imperial empire, much like the European countries had done during the 19th Century w/ Asia and Africa.  Below are the arguments for and against imperialism and some of its proponents and opponents.

Image result for cartoons imperialism 1898

For Imperialism

People for it: Assistant Secretary of the Navy Teddy Roosevelt, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Alfred T. Mahan, President William McKinley, Judge William Howard Taft, Admiral George Dewey, Reverend Josiah Strong, former Secretary of State William Seward, and Senator Albert Beveridge.

Arguments for imperialism:

  1. To give back the Philippines to Spain would be cowardly and dishonorable.
  2. To let other imperial powers have the Philippines was bad business and discreditable.
  3. Granting the Filipinos their independence was irresponsible because they are unfit to rule themselves.  They need America to civilize, uplift, and Christianize them.
  4. Imperialism is good for America.  It invigorates a nation and keeps it healthy.  A slothful nation will victim to those countries that maintain soldierly virtues.
  5. Annexation of the Philippines would put America into a position to dominate trade with China and the rest of Asia.
  6. We need the markets and raw materials now.  It doesn’t matter that the Philippines are non-contiguous.  We didn’t need the purchases and additional areas in the continental U.S., but look at us now!  We produce more than we can consume.
  7. Annexation would be so easy because we already control the islands.
  8. Filipinos don’t  have to become citizens of the U.S., we will treat them as dependents (like we do with the Native Americans).  The 14th Amendment won’t apply to them.
  9. Republicans favored annexation because it made the party look good after winning the war.

Image result for cartoons imperialism 1898

Against Imperialism

People against it: Author Mark Twain, former president Grover Cleveland, Speaker of the House Thomas “Czar” Reed, journalist Lincoln Steffens, Jane Addams, former Democratic presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan, AFL chief Samuel Gompers, industrialist Andrew Carnegie, Harvard professor William James.

Arguments against imperialism

  1. Imperialism is immoral.  It repudiates our commitment to human freedom and liberty.  We instead think we know what is best for the Filipinos, and that is wrong.
  2. Nativists fear the pollution of the white American population with inferior Asian races, especially when they are allowed to move to the U.S.  Acquisition of the Philippines may require that they become citizens.
  3. Industrial workers feared the flood of additional cheap labor which would further undercut job opportunities.
  4. Imperialism puts us in the international stage of world politics and is a constant menace for war.  War carries off the physically and mentally fit and leaves behind the lesser fit.  It threatens our security, internally and externally.
  5. The “civilizing” mission some claim is really a cover for a desire to loot the colonies and their natural resources.  This misson is self-righteous and pretentious.
  6. We will inherit Spain’s task of suppressing the native peoples when they rebel.  They will NOT want our cultural ways.  We will end up like Spain – a shriveling power.
  7. Can’t we just trade without having to annex other territories?
  8. Imperialism would involve the need for a large standing army which would become a heavy tax burden.

The country chose imperialism, and the Senate voted narrowly for the Treaty of Paris, 1898, 57 to 27, one more vote needed for the 2/3 approval.

Your job:

Pretend you are a senator back in 1898.  Pick a region of the country and a party (both parties were for expansion, especially Southern Democrats).  Feel free to write from the POV of the Senator and give a speech either advocating expansion or opposing it, or just explain which arguments hold more sway with your Senator and why?  Explain.

Here is some info on the 1898 U.S. Senate elections.  Maybe choose your senator from someone who ran and look up his views on the war.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1898_and_1899_United_States_Senate_elections

350 words total for your answer.  Due by 11:59 pm, Sunday night, March 12. 

March 5

Blog #150 – Final Exam – En-gendering the Causes of the Spanish-American War.

Throughout the year, we use different lens with which to analyze certain events – we can analyze events or people’s actions through an economic lens or a political lens or a social / cultural lens.  During our Reconstruction unit, we used a racial lens to look at how Reconstruction policies affected free Blacks.  Now, we turn to American imperialism and instead of analyzing American foreign policy, or our relationship with other nations, through a diplomatic lens or a commercial lens, I am asking you to use the lens of gender to explore the Spanish American War.  This angle was originally presented by historian Kristin Hoganson in 1998.  To help you answer the questions raised by this blog, you’ll need to have read the article, “En-Gendering the Spanish American War”.

The Image-Makers' Arsenal in an Age of War and Empire, 1898–1899: A Cartoon Essay, Featuring the Work of Charles Bartholomew (of the Minneapolis Journal) and Albert Wilbur Steele (of the Denver Post) |

The question that this gender lens attempts to ask is, is there another way of looking at the causes of the Spanish-American War?

First, some context for Teddy Roosevelt’s charge up San Juan Hill in Cuba during the war.  He was part of a generation of Americans who were raised on glorious tales of Civil War gallantry told by the veterans of the war.  TR’s generation of men aspired to have their own fight where they could test their courage and honor, and the Spanish American War provided such a chance hopefully without the grizzly slaughter of four years of a civil war.  Also, TR’s father had not fought in the Civil War being too busy making money (and also paid a substitute to take his place).  Furthermore, TR grew up as a very sickly, asthmatic child who was very fragile until he reinvented himself in his 20s out on the Great Plains in North Dakota raising cattle in the summers.  It’s likely he never thought that when he was a boy listening to stories of valor at Gettysburg would he get a chance to do the same thing and face an enemy with bullets flying at him.  Lastly, when the war started, TR resigned his post in the McKinley administration as Assistant Secretary of the Navy to form his own militia unit for the war which was dubbed by the press, “the Rough Riders” but he called this militia unit the Children of the Dragon’s Blood.  TR would also later go on to defend what he would call “the strenuous life” which included playing manly sports, continual exertion, challenging nature through hunting and exploration, cleaning up corruption, busting trusts, and waving around the ultimate symbol of his manhood, his “big stick” in the international arena.

So why did America come to the defense of the Cubans in 1898? The article lists the following possible reasons:

  • commercial rewards of empire
  • an extension of a global Manifest Destiny
  • a quest for naval bases
  • humanitarian concerns for the Cubans
  • a chance to enact some Christian “uplift” for the people who are “freed”
  • glory
  • revenge for the destruction of the U.S.S. Maine
  • motivated / inspired / enraged by yellow journalism in the newspapers of Hearst and Pulitzer

The World from New York, New York on March 9, 1898 · Page 1

But the article proposed another cause – a crisis of upper and middle class white manhood.  There seemed to be threats to traditional notions of manhood all around – the creature comforts of an industrial America were making men “soft” and “sluggish”; making money by bending or breaking ethical norms seemed to corrode the traditional manly sense of honor and integrity; some men lost their jobs, their self-respect, and their independence and vitality because of the Depression of 1893; but possibly most shocking was the rise of the “New Woman” who wanted the right to vote and participate in politics (traditionally the man’s responsibility).  In this new era, women’s virtue was considered by many to be superior to men’s because of all the economic, social, and political problems that men’s “virtue” had caused from 1865-1898 that the Progressive Era would try to solve was trying to solve.   I mean, let’s remember that many middle and upper class white women were leading the reformist charge during that era.

Let’s take a look at another cartoon from this time period.  Here’s a cartoon from Puck (which is normally anti-imperialist compared to its counterpart, Judge).

Amazon.com: Spanish-American War 1898 Namerican Cartoon By Louis Dalrymple From Puck 1898 Urging War With Spain To Save Cuba Poster Print by (18 x 24): Posters & Prints

Done by artist Louis Dalrymple, published in May, 1898.  The caption reads, “The duty of the hour – to save her not only from Spain but from a worse fate.”  After reading this article, I’d like you to interpret this cartoon through the gendered lens mentioned in the article.

Your job – answer the following questions:

  1. Do you agree with this gendered interpretation of the causes of the Spanish American War?  Why or why not?
  2. What is a strength of using this lens?  What is a weakness?  Explain.
  3. Interpret the cartoon above of the Cuban woman in a frying pan (or the one below of the Rough Riders) using the gender lens.   Describe in detail how you can use gender to interpret different aspects of the cartoon.

A minimum of 400 words total for all three answers.  Due by 11:59 pm, Sunday night, March 12.

Spanish American War Political Cartoon High Resolution Stock Photography and Images - Alamy

An article on how the Span-Am War led to American empire – https://www.bunkhistory.org/resources/1785

An analysis of the American / British alliance that grew out of the Span-Am War as shown in cartoons – https://visualizingcultures.mit.edu/civilization_and_barbarism/cb_essay02.html

November 16

Blog #149 – Final Exam blog – Rethinking History or Should Jackson Still Be on the $20?

In the past few years, students and adults have pushed to change the names of schools and institutions based upon the namesake’s past history.  Back in 2015, for instance, the Confederate flag was pulled down from the South Carolina capitol in the wake of the Charleston shootings (the shooter was pictured w/ Confederate memorabilia), and then the South Carolina legislature voted overwhelmingly to take the flag down.  This Economist article examines other particular cases not mentioned in the “Rethinking History”.  From another point of view, this article defends leaving the Hoover FBI federal building as it is, though some have come to question Hoover’s tough-minded, illegal wiretappings of students and Dr. King (Cointelpro).  Since the Charleston church shooting, there has been a concerted effort to begin the controversial process of taking down statues to leaders of the Confederacy throughout the South.  In an August 2017 statement on the monuments controversy, the American Historical Association (AHA) said that to remove a monument “is not to erase history, but rather to alter or call attention to a previous interpretation of history.” The AHA stated that most monuments were erected “without anything resembling a democratic process,” and recommended that it was “time to reconsider these decisions.” According to the AHA, most Confederate monuments were erected during the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century, and this undertaking was “part and parcel of the initiation of legally mandated segregation and widespread disenfranchisement across the South.” According to the AHA, memorials to the Confederacy erected during in the 1890s “were intended, in part, to obscure the terrorism required to overthrow Reconstruction, and to intimidate African Americans politically and isolate them from the mainstream of public life.” A later wave of monument building coincided with the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 60s, and according to the AHA “these symbols of white supremacy are still being invoked for similar purposes.”

In the summer of 2020, America had a reckoning with Confederate monuments of all types and some people started tearing down some that still remained.  Some saw these monuments as symbol of the systemic racism in the country that celebrated men who fought to keep Black folks enslaved.  Other people thought that history was being “canceled” or erased by the removal of Confederate monuments.  Some protestors even went after the large statue of Andrew Jackson in D.C. but could not pull it down (see pic below).  Then President Trump issued an executive order that would prosecute people who defaced or destroyed federal statues.

In the article, “Rethinking History,” former Princeton president and 28th President of the United States Woodrow Wilson is derided because of his racist comments.  He told a black leader in 1914 that “segregation is not humiliating, but a benefit, and ought to be so regarded by you.”  A different example from the article is what the University of Virginia has done in the past decade in trying to honor its slave past.  At least 140 slaves helped build the university, and this fall, Virginia opened up a dorm named after two of the slaves who had worked on the campus before the Civil War.

One argument against changing the names of buildings or taking people off of our money is that our culture has become incredibly mired in political correctness.  We are too worried about offending people, the argument goes, so we make decisions like these to make sure no one gets triggered.  An argument for changing the names of buildings (like was recently done to Cobo Hall down town after people began to rethink the Detroit mayor’s stance against blacks integrating white neighborhoods in the 1950s) is that some things need to be fixed because having your name on a building is an honor.  Are we finally recognizing the faults of the past and trying to make amends for them, because our nation, though it’s been a melting pot since its inception, is really starting to change?  Or, can we learn something from the past instead of erasing it and blocking the things which we find disturbing?

This brings us to Andrew Jackson.  This NY Times article  from 2015 suggested putting a woman’s face on the 20$ bill.

“Jackson was a slave owner whose decisions annihilated American Indian tribes of the Southeast. He also hated paper currency and vetoed the reauthorization of the Second Bank of the United States, a predecessor of the Federal Reserve. Jackson is in the history books, but there’s no reason to keep him in our wallets.”

His record with the Indian Removal Act, his battles w/ Nicholas Biddle and the 2nd BUS, and the fact that he was a slave owner all count against him.  But what about his adoption of an Indian boy during one of the campaigns to eradicate the Indians?  Did America actually benefit from not having a central banking system for almost 80 years?  He was a symbol of the common man, those who could newly vote in the elections of 1828 and 1832 voted for him overwhelmingly, because he was a common man at one time.  But he was also an exceptional man, having fought in the War of 1812, amassed a fortune (though off the backs of slaves), and become the 7th president of the United States.  There are very very few people who can claim these achievements.

Andrew Jackson was first honored by being on the $20 beginning in 1928 (to coincide w/ the 100th anniversary of his electio).  Before that, Presidents Grover Cleveland and George Washington were on the bill as well as former Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton and also Lady Liberty.  Then the idea came about of putting a woman on the $20 beginning in the year 2020 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote.  Several women were finalists, but in 2015, Harriet Tubman won a poll and was originally slated to replace Hamilton on the $10, but because of the immense popularity of the play, the decision was made to then replace Jackson on the $20 a year later.  Then candidate Trump in 2016 said that he thought Tubman was fantastic but opposed replacing Jackson becuase it would be “political correctness” that replaced him.  In mid 2017, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin stated that  “People have been on the bills for a long period of time. This is something we’ll consider; right now we have a lot more important issues to focus on.”  He also stated that any new bill wouldn’t be ready until 2026 despite engravers at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing stated that there was already a bill in the works by 2019.  And according to the latest article I could find about this in 2021, the Biden administration supports Tubman on the $20 but hasn’t taken any action as of that article to make that happen.  So, the future of the $20 is up in the air.

Protesters near the White House failed this week to topple a statue of Andrew Jackson in Lafayette Square.

But if we remove Jackson from the $20 and replace him with someone else, where do we stop?  Using the slippery slope argument (which is always a dangerous fallacy), do we rename Washington D.C. because Washington was a slave holder?  Do we take Lincoln off of the penny or the $5 because he had almost 30 Indians executed during the Civil War for sparking an uprising in Minnesota?  Jefferson… we won’t even get into him.

As someone in the “Rethinking History” article states, if we are going to name buildings after people, should we expect them to be perfect?  Maybe we should stop naming buildings after people.  Or can we learn something from these flawed individuals (especially b/c everyone is flawed in some way or another)?

Please answer the following questions:

  1. What are your thoughts about removing historical monuments or renaming buildings after historical figures?  Why?
  2. I see three possible alternatives to Jackson on the $20:
    1. Keep him there and leave it as it is.
    2. Swap him out with Harriet Tubman, and leave Andrew Jackson to be talked about in history classes.
    3. Leave him on the bill but conduct better and more thorough education about Andrew Jackson’s legacy. (If you come up with another alternative, please include it in your post.)

350 words minimum total for all three answers.  Due Tuesday night by midnight, November 22. 

November 16

Blog #148 – Final Exam blog – Who was the better democrat – Jefferson or Jackson?

What I am asking you to do with this blog is something that historians typically engage in – a comparison / contrast between two important figures pertaining to an agreed-upon set of standards.  In this case, we will be comparing the presidencies of Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson to see who was the better democrat (small d, not the Democratic Party, though both are seen as the forefathers of today’s modern party) and promoted democratic policies and ideas during their time in office.  As for democratic principles, we should work from the following list:

  • Who promoted political involvement for the average person, for instance, the expansion of the right to vote?  How was this done?
  • Who was considered for political office?  Who chose the presidential candidates during their time?
  • How did each man view the federal government’s role in promoting the economy?
  • How did each man view the relationship between the federal and state governments?  Did they exercise limited power as the executive?

The Common Man and Political Involvement 

Jefferson believed in an agrarian vision for America.  Remember the notes on Jeffersonian agrarianism – we saw that he believed that independent yeoman farmers who had easy access to abundant farmland would provide the bedrock of American democracy.  These farmers owned their land outright and that land provided the basis on which they could vote in all manner of elections (though in many states, the average voters did NOT choose the electors of the Electoral College).  During Jefferson’s presidency, Jefferson purchased the Louisiana Territory in 1803 which, when settled, would allow for new generations of American farmers to establish their own farms and be able to vote.  Also, to Jefferson, education was important for these farmers to stay informed on political topics, and so he promoted public schools while governor of Virginia and president.  However, during his time, political parties only functioned at the national level.  Lastly, unlike the Federalists, Jefferson trusted the common man to make the right decisions politically and didn’t view them as an unruly mob incapable of making rational decisions.

Print showing a crowd at the White House at Jackson's inauguration.

Before and during Jackson’s presidency, suffrage, or the right to vote, expanded as new western states eliminated property requirements to vote and eastern states began to modify their state constitutions to allow for more urban workers and landless white men to vote.  For some African American men, their voting rights were taken away  or a very high bar for property requirements were demanded like in New York in 1821 or outright took away their vote in Pennsylvania in 1833.  Under the guidance of NY Senator Martin Van Buren (soon to be Jackson’s Secretary of State and then Vice President), the new Democratic Party expanded its base to include not only Southern slave owners but urban workers and immigrants in the North, Western and Northern small farmers.  Van Buren also expanded the party system to include state and local branches that coordinated their actions with the national party.  When Jackson first ran in 1824 and again in 1828, American men were voting for the president or the electors in the Electoral College.  Jackson also worked to expand the amount of land that white farmers could own by forcibly removing Native tribes from the southeast part of the country and relocating them west of the Mississippi River.

Painting showing a large crowd at a county election.

Eligibility for Federal Office and Choosing the Presidential Candidates

Under Jefferson, candidates were usually chosen based upon the ideal of a democratic republic – educated, usually wealthy landowners (and sometimes slaveowners).  After taking office, Jefferson did not remove many government officials but did work with Congress to try to limit the power of the federal courts (remember Adams’ midnight judges during his lame duck time in 1801).    During Jefferson’s time, the duty of an elected official was to vote on what he believed to be the best choice for the country and not vote primarily for regional interests.  They feared that tyranny came from exercising the will of the majority over the minority (whether it be slave owners, small states, or the wealthy).  This did change by the time Jackson became president in 1829.  Also, during Jefferson’s time, each party’s Congressional leaders held a caucus during the election year and nominated their top candidate(s).  This also changed under Jackson.  Beginning in 1824 and starting a long standing tradition in 1828, the party’s national convention named the presidential nominee.  As the right to vote expanded before and during Jackson’s tenure, almost any white male of voting age was seen as a proper candidate for office. More and more officials were decided by the voters including state and local judges, members of the electoral college, and state governors.  Jackson removed dozens of government officials as well once he became president, viewing those offices as for and by the people and not ones that should be held exclusively by that office holder. Furthermore, under Jackson, he and other elected officials saw themselves as carrying out the will of the people while in office.   Tyranny, in Jackson’s time, was seen as elected officials ignoring the will of the people and imposing their own values and views on issues. Jackson believed that the people could “arrive at right conclusions” and “instruct their… representatives” accordingly.

Role of Federal Government in Promoting the Economy

Jefferson initially fought Hamilton’s Bank of the United States but eventually came to accept its existence.  He also believed that manufacturing, commerce, and shipping were important, but, as mentioned before, the agrarian economy took precedence over those aspects of the economy.  We see this in the purchase of the Louisiana Territory.  We also see that during Jefferson’s presidency, he worked with Congress to lower the whiskey taxes and then eventually eliminate them.  He also kept government spending under control, though this was done through his cooperation with a Republican-dominated Congress and not through vetoes of bills (Jefferson didn’t veto any bills during his presidency).  However, Jefferson’s biggest knock against the economy was the devestating Embargo Act of 1807 that killed American exports, dropped agriculture prices, but ironically, spurred on domestic manufacturing to meet the needs of the American people.

Jackson, on the other hand, fought with the BUS and wielded the veto against it to kill it in 1832.  He also weakened it by removing the deposits of government funds from the BUS between 1832-1836.  This battle with the BUS and its eventual end, coupled with the Specie Circular and bad banking news from Britain sparked the worst depression in American history until 1893 (but that happened after his presidency).  Of his other 11 vetoes, more than half of those stopped federal government spending on internal improvements around the country, which probably would have benefitted the American economy.  Jackson believed in a limited federal government debt as well.  So it appears that both men didn’t subscribe to pro-business policies and would eventually damage their country’s economic prospects.

Print showing a street scene, with the American flag flying over unemployed young men, drunkards, families begging, and pawn shops.

The Exercise of Federal Power 

As previously mentioned, Jefferson did not veto any bills during his two terms, but he did steer a course that he thought would protect American interests abroad.  When the Barbary pirates continued to seize American shipping in the Mediterranean, Jefferson sent American warships and mediators to deal with this threat to American neutrality and commerce.  Jefferson acted as a guide to Congress in order to get his policies passed.  In the purchase of the Louisiana Territory, he moved away from his strict interpretation of the Constitution and took a more expansive or loose interpretation of his foreign affairs power.   Additionally, enforcing the Embargo with the U.S. Navy contradicted the Republicans’ traditional view of the narrow use of federal power.  Jefferson explained his abandonment of strict interpretation of the Constitution like this in 1810:

“…a strict observance of the written laws is doubtless one of the high duties of a good citizen: but it is not the highest. the laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation. to lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to written law, would be to lose the law itself, with life, liberty, property & all those who are enjoying them with us; thus absurdly sacrificing the end to the means.” 

Jackson, on the other hand, believed in a limited federal government (Congress and the Courts) but an expansive and vigorous executive branch.  Jackson ignored Supreme Court decisions at least twice (McCulloch, Worcester) and vetoed 12 bills from Congress, more than the previous six presidents combined.  He was also a strong nationalist and during the tariff crisis with South Carolina, was ready to march on the state once they decided to nullify the tariff in 1833.  Granted, Congress did give him authorization to do so with the Force Act, but even if they hadn’t, some historians agree that he likely would have gone to South Carolina and enforced the collection of the tariff anyway.  He let the responsibility to defend the nation squarely on his shoulders.  In addition, when abolitionists started mailing anti-slavery newspapers and other publications to Southern religious and political leaders in the South, Jackson initially asked Congress to pass a law to stop these mailings.  When Congress refused, he ordered all American postmasters to remove anti-slavery material from the U.S. mail.  Part of this expansive use of executive power came from Jackson’s view of the presidency as a “tribune” of the people who would do their will.

So, after having read these areas of similarity and difference, in your mind, who was the better democrat and why?  Provide specific examples from the blog and your own notes and reading to support your assertion.

350 words minimum.  Due Tuesday night by midnight, November 22.