Ansel Adams and Dorothea Lange's photojournalist activism during World War II was a direct response to President Franklin Roosevelt's Executive Order 9066 (EO 9066), which led to the incarceration of 120,000 Japanese and Japanese Americans in 10 camps across seven mostly western states. Approximately two-thirds of those imprisoned were U.S.…

A critical reappraisal of the origin story of early care and education (ECE) in the United States, this article unsettles dominant narratives by investigating the carceral foundations and liberatory strategies that characterise the emergence and sociopolitical evolution of ECE. Integrating Foucauldian counter-historical genealogy and…

The real story of slavery's end involves one of the most significant social movements in the history of the United States and the heroic actions of the enslaved themselves. Revealing this history helps students begin to answer fundamental questions that urgently need to be addressed in classrooms across the country: How does major social change…

This essay explores the ways that museums educate adults, and reveals that, as cultural educators, museums have the ability to promote hegemonic stories through their displays. I discuss these ideas through my visits to two museums in Atlanta, Georgia, USA: the Atlanta History Centre and the Southern Museum of Civil War and Locomotive History.…

In this paper we examine how the Abolition Movement's approach to non-violent resistance has been silenced in four American history textbooks. Despite extensive research that reveals an extensive network of groups dedicated to the peaceful abolishment of slavery little of this historical record is included in the textbooks. Instead, a skewed…

Research indicates that history-based curricula--specifically textbooks and trade books--about Dr. King and the Civil Rights Movement (CRM) are problematic and limited. If race relations are arguably America's long, unsettled tension, then Dr. King was one of its most impactful figures. Using the relevant historical research as a framework and the…

A textbook author reflects on the ethical and ideological choices she made in her quest to create a history book that would be relevant to demographically diverse high school students.

The service of blacks in the U.S. military can be traced back to the Revolutionary War. However, up to the end of World War I, African Americans in military branches were relegated to cooking and cleaning duties. As the United States prepared to enter World War II, pressure to admit African Americans into full service in the military increased due…

According to the dominant historiographical narrative, the social reconstructionists were a homogeneous group with a shared social, political, economic, and educational agenda. However, the pages of the journal "The Social Frontier" are replete with evidence that they were not in agreement on significant issues, especially when it came to the…

We are still coming to terms with the legacy of Randolph Bourne. Although he died at the age of 32 just as the United States was cheerfully entering the First World War under the banner of "democracy," the words he penned in an unfinished essay still resonate in the American social conscience: "War is the Health of the State." This maxim, once…

The Civil War ended slavery but not the pernicious inequality of power and status that still characterizes relations between black and white America. As soon as they could, with the help of presidents bent on appeasement and the benign neglect of northerners who had fought the war to preserve the union but not necessarily to invite former slaves…

This history of one of the most contentious educational issues in America examines bilingual instruction in the United States from the common school era to the recent federal involvement in the 1960s and 1970s. Drawing from school reports, student narratives, legal resources, policy documents, and other primary sources, the work teases out the…

While Muhammad Ali has been the subject of countless articles and books written by sports historians and journalists, rhetorical scholars have largely ignored him. This oversight is surprising given both the tradition of social movement scholarship within rhetorical studies and Ali's influential eloquence as a world renowned celebrity espousing…

This essay is based on the author's presentation at the Wachman Center's July 26-27, 2008 History Institute for Teachers, co-sponsored and hosted by the Cantigny First Division Foundation of the McCormick Tribune Foundation. In an effort to better comprehend what he designates "the greatest calamity in human history," the author presents…

Students gain a better understanding of war and economics when the variables come alive through stories, artifacts, and paintings. In this article, the author describes a short story about the fur trade which can generate lots of student questions about the fur economics, the Eastern Woodland Indians, trade artifacts, and war. The author also…