Back in the 1980s I read a book “America Revised” by Frances
Fitzgerald. It was a thoroughly researched history of American history
textbooks up to 1979. From this book I first learned that until the civil rights era in the 1960s, slaves were depicted as
appearing “magically” at some unspecified time and disappearing after the Civil
War. In other words, history texts failed to mention that slaves were forcibly
abducted and removed from their homes and families. Slave owners were commonly
portrayed as generous, and the KKK as having “a worse reputation than it
deserves.”(p.86 if you don’t believe me). Fitzgerald also described how Native
Americans were represented favorably in the 1830s and 40s, more negatively
after the Civil War (“savages”, “half-civilized”), and then omitted entirely
from textbooks between the 1930s and the 1960s. Since reading that book and subsequent
research, I have seen more evidence that as a nation we are defined by what we teach
our children about our history. Sure, bad memes enter from outside the textbooks, but missing memes can be just as crucial in forming the identity and politics of each generation.
