Textbook Analysis: The Americans

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RUNNING HEAD: The Americans

Abstract

In this research analysis, The Americans, a McDougal Littell Social Studies textbook by Gerald Danzer used to teach middle-grade students is examined. I examine how the textbook varied in (mis)representing ideas of race, class, gender, disability and sexuality throughout selected chapters. I focused on five specific chapters which dealt with America before year 1492, the Civil War, the Civil Rights Movement, and the last chapter which was titled “The United States in Today’s World”. Several connections are made between The Americans and Christine E. Sleeter and Carl A. Grant’s article titled “Race, Class, Gender and Disability in Current Textbooks”.

Textbook Analysis: The Americans

Although I am studying to become an English teacher, I decided to analyze The Americans, a McDougal Littell Social Studies textbook, in order to discover the ways America’s history was presented to me as an American, seventh-grade student. The way in which students who are studying in the United States are taught their nation’s history has fascinated me ever since I finished reading Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong by James W. Loewen. In his writing, Loewen quotes W.E.B. Debois in saying:

“One is astonished in the study of history at the recurrence of the idea that evil must be forgotten, distorted, skimmed over. We must not remember that Daniel Webster got drunk but only that he was a splendid constitutional lawyer. We must forget that George Washington was a slave owner…and simply remember the things we regard as creditable and inspiring. The difficulty, of course, with this philosophy is that history loses its value as an incentive and example; it paints perfect men and noble nations, but it does not tell the truth” (Loewen, p. 11, 2007).

By following the same methodology in the research done by Sleeter and Grant (1997), I analyzed The Americans representations of race, gender, sexuality, class, disability and heteronormativity through looking at the language, pictures, story-telling and “people to study” (Sleeter & Grant, p. 188, 1997) that the textbook used in order to teach students the history of America. The chapters I focused on were titled “Three Worlds Meet”, “Reforming American Society”, “The Union in Peril”, and “The United States in Today’s World” and focused on major issues including, but not limited to, the Civil War, Slavery, and Segregation.

Race:

Agreeable with Sleeter and Grant’s research, I found the most amount of misrepresentation in dealing with Race as opposed to any other issue in The Americans. While there were several racial inequalities in the text, I have decided to focus on a few instances that were both positive and negative. To start, the very first page of Unit One is a giant picture of eight Native Americans, all crouching in a tree, observing the sails of a ship approaching their land. The Native Americans are depicted wearing very stereotypical costumes, including head-dresses made of feathers, and no shoes. This is the only picture wherein Native Americans are seen throughout the entire first chapter, which is about their lives before Columbus ‘discovered’ America. This being the only image students have to understand the Native Americans harms the students, and further allows the age-old assumption to perpetuate; that these Natives were wild and untamed, and needed to be colonized by the Europeans.

Also in their research, Sleeter and Grant mention that although Black Americans are discussed, the texts “usually do not provide a Black American perspective on events and issues” (Sleeter & Grant, p.190, 1997). I was actually impressed to discover a multitude of quotations titled “A Personal Voice” scattered throughout the chapters, which offered reflections from people who were affected by the events being discussed. One instance, for example, is in a sub-chapter of “The Union in Peril” titled “Protest, Resistance, and Violence”, where the reader is immediately offered three African-American voices to speak on their own behalf, including Charlotte Forten, Frederick Douglass, and Harry Grimes (Danzer, p.288-89, 2000). With this, the students are given the opportunity to read primary sources from people of history who were personally affected by the events of their time, instead of possibly being swept away in the biases of the editors of the textbooks.

One of the most notable discoveries I made while researching The Americans was the use of language and proper nouns, and when the editors decided to use someone’s name as opposed to an object to place blame. “When describing events in which the actions or the roles of Whites are known to have been brutal or unjust, the language is muted and the description sanitized in order not to be strongly critical” (Sleeter & Grant, p. 191, 1997). In a chapter describing the Civil Rights movement, the editors strategically used different nouns to avoid placing the blame on racist individuals, as seen here: “Louisiana passed a law requiring railroads to provide ‘equal but separate accommodations for the white and colored races’” (856), “States throughout the nation…passed what were known as Jim Crow laws, or laws aimed at separating the races” (857), and “Laws forbade marriage between blacks and whites and established many other restrictions on social and religious contact between the races” (Danzer, p. 857, 2000). Notice in each one of these examples, there is not a person assigned to these bad deeds. Instead, “laws” and “states” were responsible for these injustices, not the people who passed said laws. However, when Whites helped try to end segregation, their names are used outright: “President Roosevelt issued a presidential directive prohibiting racial discrimination by federal agencies and all companies…” (Danzer, p. 858, 2000). If specific names are to be used, they must be used in all instances so that students have the opportunity to learn about our nation’s history regardless of how it might make White people look. History is a recounting of events that occurred; the good and the bad, and students should have access to it all in order to make informed opinions with their own judgments.

Sexuality and Gender:

In their research, Sleeter and Grant boldly state, “Women are contextually invisible or marginalized...Sometimes they are given attention in a special section with a heading such as ‘Special People,’ where one woman’s career and contributions are discussed, or in a special section about an event…” (Sleeter & Grant, p.193, 1997), and The Americans proved this to be true. In the first chapter, for instance, Queen Isabella is given a brief biography in a small box titled “Key Player” on the top of page 22 (Danzer, 2000). Moreover, the informational box is titled “King Isabella”, and her biography goes on to explain that “Whenever Isabella appeared astride atop a horse, her troops shouted: ‘Castile, Castile, for our King Isabella!’” (Danzer, p.22, 2000). In this biography, it could be inferred that Queen Isabella was only admired for acting like the heroic men of her time, by riding “amongst her troops in full armor”, and was therefore given the nickname King Isabella. This only further perpetuates the wrongful notion that women cannot be great without first being compared to a man’s attributes.

Heteronormativity was spotted in this first chapter as well. On page 21, the European “family in society” is described as “centered around the nuclear family, the household made up of a mother and father and their children” (Danzer, 2000). In the same bit, gender roles are prescribed: “As in other societies, gender determined the division of labor… men generally did most of the field labor and herded livestock. Women did help in the fields, but they also handled child care and household tasks…” (Danzer, 2000). Alongside the surprising additive that women worked in the fields, a drawing accompanied this description which showcased several women encaging in outdoor labor. Although men were not mentioned performing “nontraditional roles” (Sleeter & Grant, p. 193, 1997), such as being of any help with childcare or housework, it was still a step up for women to be mentioned and pictured doing physical labor, especially pre-colonization era.

Social Class:

Sleeter and Grant observed that “The varying socioeconomic conditions that have always existed in this country are virtually absent”, and explain how only in times such as the Great Depression is socioeconomic class discussed. In Chapter 10, Immigration to America is discussed, and Immigrants are described as escaping Europe’s “famine and poverty” (Danzer, p.282, 2000), but then immediately described as having “entered the industrial workplace in growing numbers” in America. This information leaves the reader to believe that Immigrants came to America to find better jobs, and easily did. The last chapter of this textbook described the nation as it entered into the New Millennium, and talks about the “Causes of Urban Change” (Danzer, p. 1024, 2000). In this section, the editors choose their words carefully to avoid talking about socioeconomic inequalities by describing “urban flight” as such: “Several factors contributed to the movement of Americans out of the cities. Because of the continued movement of job-seeking Americans into urban areas in the 1950s and 1960s, many urban American neighborhoods became overcrowded. Overcrowding in turn contributed to such urban problems as increasing crime rates and decaying housing” (Danzer, p.1025, 2000). The Americans continues, “During the 1970s and 1980s, city dwellers who could afford to do so moved to the suburbs for more space, privacy and security” (2000). In saying that some people could afford to move out of the city does not reference that others were stuck there due to poverty. Instead, the lighter side of the situation is heightened, and overcrowding is blamed for the destruction of urban neighborhoods.

Conclusion:

McDougall Littel’s The Americans did a poor job telling the true history of America, but a fine job at altering the text so that the blame was not placed upon the White man. Several races, women and social classes were brushed over without focus, and people with disabilities were not included once in the several chapters I examined, neither in text nor in pictures. As educators, we must do our best to bridge the caps our textbooks might leave out so that each student can see the truth in history, see themselves as an important part of our nation’s history, and see themselves as a true asset to its future.

References

Danzer, Gerald A. "Three Worlds Meet." The Americans. Evanston, IL: McDougal Littell, 2000.

1-34. Print

Loewen, James W. Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got

Wrong. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2007. Print.

Sleeter, Christine E., and Carl A. Grant. "Race, Class, Gender, and Disability in Current

Textbooks." The Textbook as Discourse: Sociocultural Dimensions of American

Schoolbooks. By Eugene F. Provenzo, Annis N. Shaver, and Manuel Bello. New York:

Routledge, 2011. 183-207. Print.