American History

Teaching Resource: Historiography 101

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I: FRAMEWORKS

A. Introduction 

Historiography–The critical examination of the various philosophies, theories, and methods that influence historical scholarship.

Historical Agency–This concept refers to whom or what a historian believes to be the primary agent of historical change.

Historicism—The aim to understand the worldview of the culture that produced the primary source materials. Embedded in this concept is that idea that the past is a different world that needs to be studied in its own terms.  

Famous Schools of History…

  • Empiricist
  • Idealist
  • Progressive
  • Marxist
  • Consensus
  • Nationalist
  • Annales
  • New Left
  • New Social History
  • Post-Structuralism
  • Post-Modernism

B. Philosophy of History Trends

Popular History–Based on entertainment value; emphasize drama and excitement

Academic History–Critical analysis and investigation

Nationalistic–Seeking to build a sense of national unity and patriotism among citizens by teaching them about a common past

Moral–History as a means to instill values and moral beliefs

Identity–Historical research as a way to understand beliefs, lives, and ourselves by comparing our lives to those from different places.

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The Fight for Equality Continues: The Problems of Christina Hoff Sommers’s History of Feminism

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Recently Bill Frezza of Real Clear Radio Hour interviewed Christina Hoff Sommers about her new book, Freedom Feminism: Its Surprising History and Why it Matters Today.[1] Frezza also wrote a follow-up piece in the opinion section of Forbes magazine.[2] As Frezza describes it, Sommers’s book uncovers the hidden history of feminism and its implications for women today.

To start, Sommers identifies two major strands of feminism that have shaped the struggle for women’s rights: “egalitarian feminism” and “maternal feminism.” (For those familiar with Sommers’s earlier works, she previously labeled these competing strands as “gender feminism” and “equity feminism”).

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Teaching and Research Resource: History of the Great Lakes States

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HistGrtLks2

For an excellent teaching and research resource on the Great Lakes region, check out History of the Great Lakes States website.

As the site’s creators put it, the site “is an online library for the history of the region once called the ‘Northwest Territory,’ that in the early 1800s became the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin.”

The site houses various primary sources such as memoirs, travel journals, magazine articles, novels, biographies, maps, etc. Its extensive list of historical subtopics includes religion, politics and government, culture, society, and economics.

For more information watch the below video, or visit the site.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdniFLbjPlY

Book Review: Linda Gordon’s Woman’s Body, Woman’s Right: A Social History of Birth Control in America (1976).

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 Linda Gordon traces the development of the birth control movement from the 1870s to the 1970s. In the process she weaves together material from a range of topics including feminism, socialism, psychology, and eugenics. Ultimately, Gordon unearths the threads of various ideas that influenced the struggle for reproduction control. Gordon also places birth control within a broader social and political framework through an examination of a variety of sources such as the American Birth Control League papers, local and national Planned Parenthood archives, medical journals, diaries, and letters. In the end, Gordon contends that reproductive freedom is central to the struggle for social justice.

Gordon argues that the history of birth control must be placed in a larger social, political, and ideological context. “Reproductive patterns,” she explains, “are determined by sexual morality, by the overall-status of women, by class formations, and by the nature of the struggles for social change.”[1] In Gordon’s view, the struggle for reproductive freedom should not be separated from class systems, capitalist economics, male-dominated politics, and sexual relations. Moreover, according to Gordon, birth control is a symptom and a cause of various elements and patterns in American history.

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Book Review: Gary Gerstle’s Working-Class Americanism (1989)

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The Power of Americanism

How should we understand the labor movements of the mid-twentieth century? Were they ultimately radical or conservative in nature? In Working-Class Americanism, Gary Gerstle looks at how progressive working-class leaders in Woonsocket, Rhode Island were more pragmatic than radical while their traditionalist counterparts were more innovative than conservative.[1] By presenting a community study with a close analysis of political language, Gerstle illuminates the conception of Americanism, underscores the diversity in mid-twentieth century labor unions, and demonstrates the transformative ideological nature of the 1940s. In the end, Gerstle’s work raises significant questions about the construction of political language.

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