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The struggle for American identity: treatment of ethnic groups in United States history textbooks
STUART J. FOSTER Available online: 10 Nov 2010

To cite this article: STUART J. FOSTER (1999): The struggle for American identity: treatment of ethnic groups in United States history textbooks, History of Education: Journal of the History of Education Society, 28:3, 251-278 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/004676099284618

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HISTORY OF EDUCATION,

1999,

VOL.

28,

NO.

3, 251 278

The struggle for American identity: treatment of ethnic groups in United States history textbooks
Stuart J. Foster
624G Aderhold Hall, Department of Social Science Education, College of Education, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, USA e-mail: sfoster@coe.uga.edu

The multiethnic composition of the United States has constituted an enduring and salient feature in the history of the republic. Originally inhabited by a disparate collection of indigenous people, for centuries a diverse array of immigrants, both willing and unwilling, have poured onto the nations soil continually adding to the rich and complex mix of American humanity. Prominent in the mid-nineteenth century, particularly acute between 1890 and 1920, and inescapable in the closing years of the twentieth century, immigration has profoundly a ected all aspects of American society. The impact on American education has been particularly dramatic. Today the United States houses the most diverse ethnic, cultural and linguistic school population on earth. In cities such as Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington, DC, New York, Seattle and San Francisco half or more of public school students are persons of colour. By 2026 the non-white and Hispanic student enrolment in US schools will grow from 10 million (in 1976) to 45 million, comprising an astonishing 70 % of the nations students. In the 1980s alone more than seven million immigrants entered the USA, the vast majority originating from Mexico, the Philippines, China, Korea and Vietnam. Several large school districts wrestle with the fact that over one hundred distinctive languages are spoken by children attending school. By the year 2000 approximately six million children will come from homes where English is not the rst language. Although the issue of how best to educate such a heterogeneous school population challenges teachers today, the question has confronted educators for generations. Because school history traditionally has been regarded as the primary place in the school curriculum for students to cultivate a sense of national identity and heritage, the issue has proved especially pertinent for history teachers and authors of history textbooks. Important questions have endured: What history gets told? Or, perhaps more importantly, whose history gets told? How should the experiences of various ethnic groups be portrayed? Does a common American identity exist? And, if it does, how should this `shared national identity and experience be presented in history classrooms? To understand how textbook writers in di erent periods of American history have responded to these questions also is to appreciate the dominant values and ideology of the age in which the texts were written. Furthermore, to examine the ways in which national identity has been and is presented in school textbooks o ers
History of Education ISSN 0046 760X print/ISSN 1464 5130 online 1999 Taylor & Francis Ltd http://www.tandf.co.uk/JNLS/hed.htm http://www.taylorandfrancis.com/JNLS/hed.htm

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an opportunity to appreciate how certain societal forces have validated the historical contributions of identi ed groups over the claims of others. The in uence of the history textbook in shaping how children come to understand their past and what it means to be `an American should not be underestimated. Scholars have long noted the central place of the history textbook in classroom instruction. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries for example, apart from the Bible, the most widely read texts were schoolbooks written by an assortment of amateurs who, no matter how ill quali ed to do so, helped to create and solidify an idealized image of the American type. 1 By the end of the nineteenth century so distinguishing was this heavy reliance on the textbook that Europeans characterized it `the American system. 2 The reasons for this slavish devotion to the textbook were simple to understand. At the turn of the twentieth century few teachers were educated beyond the high or grammar school level. Faced with the daunting prospect of teaching classes of up to 60 students in more than ten separate subject areas teachers understandably took refuge in the security of approved texts.3 One educational administrator in Kentucky who decried the `poorly prepared corps of teachers in state schools echoed the concerns of others when he reasoned that the only viable solution was to equip teachers with the best possible textbooks. `The poorer the teacher, the better the textbooks need to be.4 Despite the prevalence of alternative forms of print media and signi cant developments in audio-visual communications, evidence suggests that the textbook has held a pre-eminent position in American education for much of the twentieth century. For example, a 1935 study of a select group of 104 of the `best teachers in New York city suburban schools conducted by Professor Thomas Briggs of Teachers College, Columbia concluded that the vast majority continually engaged in traditional recitation and that 80% were `teaching from the textbook.5 The results of subsequent studies conducted in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s proved remarkably similar to Briggss earlier ndings. Indeed, a comprehensive National Science Foundation study concluded that not only did the `conventional textbook continue to dominate classroom instruction but that teachers tended to `rely on and `believe in a single textbook as the principal source of knowledge.6 Of course as Michael Apple and Linda Christian-Smith remind us, `we cannot assume that what is ``in the text actually is taught. Nor can we assume that what is taught is actually learned. 7 Teachers and students have always constructed their own meanings out of textual materials. How students and teachers understand, negotiate and transform their personal understandings of textual material is a com1 R. Elson, Guardians of Tradition: American Schoolbooks of the Nineteenth Century (Lincoln, NE, 1964), vii. 2 F. FitzGerald, America Revised: History Schoolbooks in the Twentieth Century (New York, 1980), 19. 3 L. Cuban, How Teachers Taught: Constancy and Change in American Classrooms, 1800 1990 (New York, 1993), 31. 4 M. W. Apple and L. K. Christian-Smith, `The politics of the textbook, in The Politics of the Textbook edited by M. W. Apple and L. K. Christian-Smith (New York, 1991), 9. 5 L. Cuban, How Teachers Taught, 71. 6 See, for example, J. P. Shaver, O. L. Davis, Jr.. S. Hepburn, `The status of social studies education: Impressions from three NSF studies, Social Education, 43 (1979), 150 3; M. T. Downey and L. S. Levstik, `Teaching and learning in history, in Handbook of Research on Social Studies Teaching and Learning edited by J. P. Shaver (New York, 1991), 400 408. 7 M. W. Apple and L. K. Christian-Smith, `The politics of the textbook, in The Politics of the Textbook edited by M. W. Apple and L. K. Christian-Smith (New York, 1991), 9.

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plex process that de es simple interpretation. Nevertheless, all available evidence suggests that the in uence of the textbook is profound.8 Textbooks not only illustrate the historical content transmitted to the young, but they also o er a window into the dominant values and beliefs of established groups in any given period. Textbooks are socially constructed cultural, political, and economic, artefacts. Their contents are not pre-ordained but are `conceived, designed, and authored by real people with real interests.9 Essentially, textbooks appear as gatekeepers of ideas, values and knowledge. For, no matter how super cial history textbooks may appear in their construction, they prove ideologically important because typically they seek to imbue in the young a shared set of values, a national ethos and an incontrovertible sense of identity. 10 Throughout American history the contents of textbooks principally have been determined by a white, male, Protestant, middle or upper class, which has often sought to construct an idealized image of American values and American character. Accordingly, school books have championed the capitalist system, endorsed traditional lifestyles, urged unquestioned patriotism, and preached reverence to the `Western tradition. Coursing through American history textbooks is the strain of unceasing progress and of manifest destiny, a respect for individual rights and recognized authority, and a re exive suspicion of collectivist ideals. For the most part history textbooks were never intended to promote re ective thought, to stimulate critical analysis, or to celebrate cultural diversity. The function of history in American schools essentially has been to instil in the young a sense of unity and patriotism and a veneration for the nations glorious heritage. With few exceptions history textbooks have supported this indelible tradition. An overview: two centuries of change in history textbook writing To suggest, however, that history textbooks have remained totally unchanged for the past two hundred years would be grossly misleading. Textbook writing, like educational practice, has meandered through shifting contours, fads and fashions. One of the most obvious changes during the past two hundred years has been the textbooks intended audience. Undoubtedly this had an impact on how textbooks were written. For example, in most schools today US history typically is mandated for study by all children at grades ve, eight and eleven. However, this was not always the case. In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries students historical knowledge was chie y formulated through eeting appearances of inaccurate and mythical portrayals in the ubiquitous Noah Webster Spellers and the McGu ey Readers.11 Although the teaching of United States history appeared in some schools in the 1830s, it was not generally accepted as part of the curriculum until much later in
8 As Gilbert T. Sewalls 1987 study of American history textbooks neatly concluded, `To many teachers and almost all students, the textbook is taken to be a well of truthful and expert information. It creates a convenient armature on which the unpublished curriculum hangs. The examples, episodes, anecdotes, viewpoints, information, and data that a textbook contains will constitute the essential corpus of American history in the classroom where it is used. G. T. Sewall, American History Textbooks: An Assessment of Quality (New York, 1987), 61 2. 9 M. Apple, `Regulating the text: The socio-historical roots of state control, in Textbooks in American Society: Politics, Policy, and Pedagogy edited by P. G. Altbach, G. P. Kelly, H. G. Petrie and L. Weis (New York, 1991), 2. 10 See, M. Kammen, Mystic Chords of Memory: The Transformation of Tradition in American Culture (New York, 1991), 13. 11 See, for example, F. FitzGerald, America Revised, 49; S. Rippa, Education in a Free Society: An American History (White Plains, NY, 1997), 61.

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the century.12 By 1900 a few states such as New York, Massachusetts and Illinois made US history a required subject. But it was not until immediately before the First World War that American history became a widespread feature of public schooling. Moreover, any American history that was taught reached a very limited audience. This was particularly true at the secondary level where schooling was for the few. For example, whereas in 1940 seven in ten students aged 14 to 17 were enrolled in high school, in 1900 only one in ten was.13 Despite this striking statistic, compulsory free public education was rapidly changing the character of American society. Massachusetts had adopted the rst compulsory attendance law in 1852 and many other states soon followed suit. By 1900, enrolment in high school had doubled from the previous decade and new schools were appearing at the average rate of one per day. 14 Not without coincidence, large publishing houses quickly recognized the attraction of such a rapidly expanding market. At the end of the nineteenth century, ve large houses, including A. S. Barnes, Appleton and Co and Harper Bros, combined their textbook o erings to form the American Textbook Company.15 The consolidated company controlled 80% of the market and determined the content of virtually every subject in the curriculum. Understandably, this dramatic shift in the locus of control led to changes in the nature of textbooks. Books written after 1890 generally were written in terse, declarative sentences, and although the authors clearly held their own viewpoints, in contrast with authors of previous centuries, they were not foisted upon the reader. Rather, their tone was more authoritative and neutral. Less prominent were the idiosyncratic eccentricities and opinions of individual authors prominent in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Furthermore, whereas the nineteenth century texts were full of lively anecdotes and tales of colourful personalities those of the twentieth century focused on more distant political and economic undertakings.16 Much in the same way as the writing style of textbooks has shifted over time so too has the form in which the texts were presented. Modern texts are distinguishable by their alluring visual appeal. Their design is sophisticated, inviting and polymorphous. Their pages over ow with cartoons, colour photographs, works of art, maps, charts, diagrams and at-a-glance time lines. On every page at least one visual image appears and not infrequently more textual space is devoted to pictorial representations than to the written word. In contrast books produced only a few decades ago o ered a format which had endured for over two centuries. Prior to the 1960s books appeared visually dull and drab. Typically print size was small and visual relief rare. The Growth of the American Republic, written by Henry Steele Commager and Samuel Eliot Morrison, exempli ed the mundane nature of old-style secondary texts. 17 Despite the fact that the 825-page book was one of the most widely adopted textbooks throughout the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, the tome o ered the reader only 19 maps or illustrations, none of which appears in colour. No matter how polished
12 R. Elson, Guardians of Tradition,12. 13 D. Tyack and L. Cuban, Tinkering Towards Utopia: A Century of Public School Reform (Cambridge, MA, 1995), 47. 14 L. Cuban, How Teachers Taught, 31. 15 G. T. Sewall and P. Cannon, `New world of textbooks: Industry consolidation and its consequences, in Textbooks in American Society: Politics, Policy, and Pedagogy, edited by P. G. Altbach, G. P. Kelly, H. G. Petrie and L. Weis (New York, 1991), 67. 16 See, F. FitzGerald, America Revised, 51. 17 H. S. Commager and S. E. Morrison The Growth of the American Republic (New York, 1951).

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the writing or appropriate the narrative such a text would be unthinkable in the glitzy `pop-culture market of the 1990s. Di erences in the central purpose of history textbooks have also emerged over the ages. For although a perennial aim of American history texts has been to inculcate a sense of civic pride and national consensus, some textbook authors have pursued other, though not incompatible, goals. Most history textbooks produced in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, for example, were far more intent on fostering a middle-class Protestant morality than in engaging children in meaningful historical study. Zealous attention to morality and virtue appeared a peculiar hallmark of American education in this period. 18 The most widely circulated textbooks re ecting these aims were Noah Websters Elementary Spelling Book and William Holmes McGu eys Readers.19 First appearing in 1783 Websters Speller sold over 20 million copies in 60 years. In 1828 alone 350,000 copies were purchased and two decades later sales had approached a million copies a year. The McGu ey Reader enjoyed similar success, selling over 122 million copies in the years following 1836. Dominating American education in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries these books stressed the Puritanical virtues of honesty, truth, temperance, obedience, industry and thrift. Their moral catechisms were memorized by young Americans throughout the nation and they set the tone for books in other areas of the curriculum. For example, the primary message of nineteenth-century history textbooks was incontrovertibly moral. Indeed, most of the early writers of American history textbooks were preachers or teachers in church schools, for whom the primary function of the subject was to stress the righteousness and purity of the new American civilization and to indoctrinate the Protestant values on which their `virtuous nation was built. Textbook emphasis on Protestant values proved particularly important during a time of rapid Irish immigration in mid-nineteenth-century America. Between 1815 and 1845 over a million Irish entered the United States. With repeated crop failures and the potato famine of the mid- to late 1840s the numbers swelled. For example, in 1850 alone 133,000 Irish immigrants arrived in New York city. Textbook writers appeared eager to thwart the threat of Catholic insurgency. 20 Children were taught to accept that America was developing into a unique and glorious nation not by accident but because God willed it. To sustain this triumphal march, to preserve the republican form of government and to aid mans frail nature, children were left in little doubt that the Protestant religion, virtue and morality were essential.21 Although textbooks written in the twentieth century commonly adhere to the vision of America as a place of virtue, the heavy-handed moral tone is less explicit. By contrast, most textbooks written in the decades after the First World War were authored by professional historians who, though often naively unsuccessful, took pride in presenting history in more objective terms. Acutely less prominent in the twentieth-century texts is the incessant preaching and the unashamed lack of neutrality so apparent in textbooks of the previous centuries. In particular, uncomfortable and explicit anti-Catholic rhetoric is not immediately apparent. However,
18 19 20 21 R. Elson, Guardians of Tradition, 1. S. Rippa, Education in a Free Society, 60. Ibid., 82. See, M. Kammen, Mystic Chords of Memory (New York, 1991),145; M. Bellok, `Schoolbooks, pedagogy books, and the political socialization of young Americans, Educational Studies, 12 (1981), 45.

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despite these nuances of change and development striking and enduring themes have emerged in American history textbook writing. In particular, ethnic groups received remarkably consistent treatment during the period from the early 1800s to the 1960s. Ethnic groups in US history textbooks, 1800s 1960s: a consistent portrayal Signi cantly, most history textbook writers in this extensive period held views predicated upon the underlying assumption that some nationalities, races and civilizations were innately superior to others. This overtly racist perspective was particularly evident in textbooks written in the nineteenth century. Most textbook writers of the 1800s, for example, propagated the widely accepted scienti c theories of race expounded by Joseph Gobineau, Houston Stewart Chamberlain, John Calhoun and George Fitzhugh. 22 Central to their belief was the notion that nature had conferred certain immutable characteristics on each member of a racial group. According to the theorists, the white or Caucasian race was considered the paragon of all races: intellectually, morally and physically superior to all others. Throughout the nineteenth century, geography and history textbooks pushed these racial theories on the young. Typically, children were required to memorize these `inherent racial characteristics and rank them in an established hierarchy. In descending order of racial worth the Caucasian always appeared at the top commonly followed by the Mongolian, the Malaysian, the Negro and the American Indian. Naturally, such a logical order of things easily could excuse the abject treatment of Negro slaves and the ongoing destruction of Indian tribes.23 Children also learned to appreciate that nationality, like race, presupposed certain biologically determined qualities. Some nationalities were, therefore, considered inexorably superior and hence more desirable than others. Of course, the portrayal of national groups in American textbooks was not considered objectively. Instead, the superiority of a particular race was determined by the extent to which each national group mirrored the ideals of a staunchly Protestant New England society. Those nations which promoted a temperate, frugal, moral, well-educated and religiously sober citizenry were held as prototypes for American civilization. What emerged, therefore, from nineteenth-century textbooks was very crude and racially divisive estimations of di erent national groups. As Ruth Elsons richly detailed study of nineteenth-century texts has illustrated, northern European groups were particularly favoured. Scotland and Switzerland proved pre-eminent in the national pecking order. One text revealed that `like the inhabitants of New England the Scots and Swiss are `religious, moral, and industrious. 24 Other northern European nations received similar admiration. The Germans, for example, commonly were considered to be `an industrious, honest, and thrifty people. And although some textbooks questioned their unsavoury `military character, they alone among the European nations are praised for having the same kind of `mechanical ingenuity that characterises Americans.25 Despite their military rivalries in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the English were similarly held in high esteem in school textbooks. Britain commonly
22 23 24 25 R. Elson, Guardians of Tradition, 65. Ibid., 66 8. Ibid., 104. Ibid., 144.

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was regarded as the `progenitor of the United States, the mother country, whose national character generally was well respected. For example, Morses late eighteenth-century characterization of the British proved representative of portrayals which endured for more than a hundred years:
They are in general brave and good soldiers and seamen. They are lovers of liberty and learning, generous, sincere, hospitable, industrious, of solid judgement, a ready genius for the mechanical arts, and improvers of whatever they undertake. Melancholy, which often leads to suicide, is a very distinguishing characteristic of an Englishman. 26

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Textbook authors of the late nineteenth century, the majority of whom resided in New England, were particularly keen to stress their English ancestry. Americans did not, however, accept all the onerous trappings of their British heritage. Rather, they sought to embrace those qualities most admired in the mother country and then to purify them into a new, more enterprising, more rugged American identity. Nevertheless, most textbook authors took particular pride in stressing the legacy of English culture, language and law and many considered it a necessary means to di erentiate themselves from the newer immigrant classes. In contrast with the favourable representation of northern Europeans and Protestant nations, Catholic countries and nations from Southern Europe were treated with varying degrees of disdain. For example, one textbook written in 1844 proved representative of others in according certain national traits to these peoples:
The Irish in general are quick of apprehension, active, brave, and hospitable; but passionate, ignorant, vain and superstitious . . . The Italians are a able and polite; they excel in music, painting and sculpture; but they are e eminate, superstitious, slavish and revengeful. 27

Nations beyond Europe also fell victim to the jaundiced views of American textbook writers. For example, Latin Americans were regarded as `naturally weak and e eminate, dedicating `the greatest part of their lives to loitering and inactive pleasures.28 The Chinese su ered similar indignities. Chinese immigrants who settled on the west coast in the post-Civil War period received particularly vicious treatment. Children learned through texts written in the 1880s that in San Francisco the Chinese live `huddled together in hovels, almost like rats and that in Chinatown `one may see opium dens, idol temples, theatres, dirt, squalor and wickedness. 29 The extent to which American children in the nineteenth century readily accepted the bigoted perspectives o ered by textbooks is di cult to ascertain. However, unlike children today who have many alternative sources of information, students in the nineteenth century were captive to the texts unquestioned authority. Children in uenced by the texts central message that some people were destined to prevail over others no doubt would question the incessant arrival of immigrants from Asia and southern Europe; would consider the Negro un t to adopt an equal place in American civilization; and would reject the e cacy of amalgamating undesirable alien traits into an `American melting pot. The dawning of the twentieth century did nothing to arrest the racial legacy of previous generations. To be sure, history textbook writers and educators of the early
26 Ibid., 107. 27 M. L. Fell, The Foundations of Nazism in American Textbooks, 1783 1860 (Washington, DC, 1941), 157. 28 J. Garcia, `The changing image of ethnic groups in textbooks, Phi Delta Kappa (September 1993), 30. 29 R. Elson, Guardians of Tradition, 164.

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twentieth century continued the accepted tradition of elevating the status of selected racial groups to the detriment of others. This practice was particularly signi cant as educators responded to the demands of the period of intensive immigration that occurred in the years from 1890 to 1920. Between 1881 and 1910, for example, more than ve million immigrants arrived in the United States; by 1910 the total had climbed precipitously to more than seventeen million. The impact on public education was profound. By 1909, when the US Immigration Commission investigated the ethnic origins of students in thirty-seven of the nations largest cities, o cials discovered more than sixty nationalities and noted that 57.8 % were of foreign-born parentage. In some of the major cities the percentage was even higher. In New York, for example, it was a staggering 72%; in Chicago, 67%; in Boston, 64%; in Cleveland, 60 % , and in San Francisco, 58 % . From 1899 to 1914 school enrolment in New York city increased by more than 60 % . Some school classrooms choked with sixty to eighty students of various nationalities, while others were forced to deny admission to children owing to the acute lack of space.30 In response to this period of intense immigration, American educators considered a variety of educational solutions. In particular, three distinctive approaches emerged. The rst alternative considered was to divest recent arrivals of their native culture and compel them to conform to the `virtues of Anglo-Saxon traditions. This position was persuasively encapsulated by Ellwood P. Cubberly of Stanford University, who declared in 1909 that the primary task of educators was `to assimilate and amalgamate these people as part of our American race, and to impart in their children . . . the Anglo-Saxon conception of righteousness, law and order, and popular government. As a representative of the dominant culture Cubberlys values were accepted as the norm; the burden of change clearly rested with the immigrant groups. 31 Others, particularly those originally born outside the United States, questioned this narrow conception of the American identity, preferring instead to adopt the metaphor of the `melting pot popularly characterized in Israel Zangwills 1909 play. In this alternative version America was portrayed as `Gods crucible, a land in which the best traits of various ethnic groups would be fused together to fashion a new and celebratory American identity. 32 A third approach, o ered by a small group of intellectuals and educators, involved building an educated society based on the ideals of `cultural pluralism. The essence of this position was that minority groups would be encouraged to pursue their own unique traditions as they simultaneously contributed to a broader American society. In contrast with the assimilationist or `melting pot theory, cultural pluralism determined that individual ethnic identities would be valorized and not diluted. Although none of these alternative visions of American society was, or is, entirely accepted by all educators in the United States, for the most part the precepts of Anglo-conformity dominated American education in the rst half of the twentieth century. In keeping with a robust tradition established for more than two centuries, the schoolroom was not viewed as a place to legitimize diversity or to celebrate
30 See, David Tyack, The One Best System: A History of American Urban Education (Cambridge, MA, 1974), 230 1; L. A. Cremin, The Transformation of the School: Progressivism in American Education, 1876 1957 (New York, 1964), 72. 31 As cited in S. Rippa, Education in a Free Society, 138. 32 L. A. Cremin, The Transformation of the School, 68 9.

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multiculturalism. Rather, its primary function was to impose an orthodox set of lite. An important traditions and values typically prescribed by a white, Protestant, e aspect of this function was to impress on children a collective vision of a uni ed nation, a common set of values and a shared national identity. As a consequence, in the decades surrounding the First World War schools were charged to maintain the established order through a policy of `Americanization. Underlying this policy was the widely held belief that the sooner immigrants shed their `alien skin the sooner they could be embraced as true `Americans. No place existed for distinctive ethnic groups. President Wilsons address to new citizens underscored this fundamental conviction. `You cannot become thorough Americans if you think of yourselves in groups, he told his audience in Philadelphia in May 1915. `America does not consist of groups. A man who thinks of himself as belonging to a particular national group in America has not yet become an American. 33 Of particular concern to those in the mainstream was the ood of immigrants who arrived from southern and eastern Europe. Between 1880 and 1914 approximately 22 million Russians, Poles, Bohemians, Slovaks, Greeks and Romanians entered the United States. Their tendency to settle in urban areas and their contrasting lifestyles, mores and political orientations troubled the Protestant elite. `These southern and eastern Europeans are from a very di erent type from the northern Europeans who preceded them, Ellwood P. Cubberly remarked in 1909. `Illiterate, docile, lacking in self-reliance and initiative, and not possessing the Anglo-Teutonic conceptions of law and order, and government, their coming has served to dilute tremendously our national stock, and to corrupt our civil life. 34 Sharing Cubberlys fears many educators throughout the United States wrestled with the burning dilemma of how best to `Americanize new arrivals. In many respects `Americanization was a complex process enacted di erently in di ering contexts and historical settings. At its most fundamental level the policy involved educating children to master the English language. However, with the onset of the First World War greater attention was paid to inculcating immigrants with a sense of American pride and patriotic loyalty. Not without coincidence the years immediately following the Great War witnessed a bevy of `Americanization laws passed at the state level, variously calling for the establishment of classes in `citizenship, `the fundamentals of the Constitution and `American institutions and ideals.35 The process of Americanization, however, went well beyond the traditional boundaries of the schoolroom. In New York city, for example, teachers found themselves giving hundreds of baths each week to lice-ridden immigrant children.36 Historian David Tyack further noted how:
Textbooks for immigrants stressed cleanliness to the point of obsession, implying that the readers had never known soap, a toothbrush, or a hair brush. The California Immigration Commission primer for immigrant women declared: `Dirty windows are bad; `A dirty sink is bad; `A dirty garbage can is bad; It went on to tell mothers to send their children to school, clean and on time: 33 M. R. Olneck, `Americanization and the education of immigrants, 1900 1925: An analysis of symbolic action , American Journal of Education, 92 (1989), 402. 34 As cited in L. A. Cremin, The Transformation of the School, 67 8. 35 B. L. Pierce, Public Opinion and the Teaching of History in the United States (New York, 1926), 107. 36 L. A. Cremin, The Transformation of the School, 71.

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`Do not let your child be tardy. If you do, when he grows up he will be late at his work. Thus he will lose his job, and always be poor and miserable. 37

As never before the curriculum expanded to include lessons in manners, cleanliness, dress, cooking and how to get along with fellow students Reasonably one may argue that `Americanization programmes were developed with best intentions. Certainly, many educators were sympathetic to the plight of immigrant children and were genuinely concerned for their welfare. Inescapable, however, is the fact that public school education was controlled by a middle class proud of its Anglo-Saxon heritage and traditions. A study of 850 school superintendents in the early 1930s revealed, for example, that 98% of them were born in the USA, 90 % were Anglo-Saxon; and 85% originated from rural or small-town America. `Raised in relatively homogenous surroundings, in the village heartland of traditional American values, Tyack noted, `such men acquired a conservative ethnocentrism by birthright. 38 Not surprisingly, therefore, attitudes toward immigrants re ected widely held beliefs that newcomers were innately inferior; that to progress in America immigrants must completely repudiate their native culture; and that the middle-class standards of the WASP39 establishment were the benchmarks against which they would be judged. As many historians have noted, broad acceptance of these established beliefs meant that for thousands of immigrants the American experience would be a painful one.40 School history textbooks did nothing to assuage American students of this dominant assimilationist creed. On the contrary, textbook presentation of ethnic groups provided powerful endorsements of the Eurocentric tradition for much of the twentieth century. Indeed, textbooks written in the years surrounding the First World War proved strikingly representative of viewpoints held consistently until the 1960s. In many respects the period from 1910 to 1930 signi ed the heyday of American textbook writing.41 Written by professional historians credited with a air for reaching young audiences, several of the textbooks written in this period were used in schools into the 1950s and beyond. Especially popular was American History, authored by David Saville Muzzey, professor of history at Columbia University, New York. First published in 1911, the text immediately became a best-seller. In subsequent decades Muzzeys book outsold all competitors. It represented the standard historical diet for the majority of American schoolchildren from the days of the horse and buggy to those of the jet aircraft.42 Incredibly, Muzzeys book, which was still available in the 1970s, remained largely unaltered at the time of his death in the 1960s. Like most other textbook writers of this period, Muzzey was a product of New England patrician society. Born in Massachusetts in 1870 he descended from a line of preachers and teachers who could proudly trace their roots back to the Puritans.
37 38 39 40 David Tyack, The One Best System (Cambridge, MA, 1974), 235 6. Ibid., 233. White, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant. See, for example, L. A. Cremin, The Transformation of the School; David Tyack, The One Best System; S. Rippa, Education in a Free Society; L. Cuban, How Teachers Taught; M. R. Olneck, `Americanization and the education of immigrants, 1900 1925: An analysis of symbolic action, American Journal of Education, 79 (1989), 398 423. 41 F. FitzGerald, America Revised, 52. 42 See F. FitzGerald, America Revised, 52, 58 60; G. B. Nash, C. Crabtree and R. E. Dunn, History on Trial: Culture Wars and the Teaching of the Past (New York, 1997), 26 7.

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In both heritage and outlook Muzzey symbolized the tradition of the WASP intellectual elite. As others have noted, to Muzzey and other educators of his ilk, `Eurocentricism was not an intellectual position but a serene certainty.43 Muzzeys old-world biases littered the pages of his textbooks. As a representative of most textbook writers of the era, his literary treatment of immigrant groups proved particularly revealing. In general, Muzzey portrayed immigrants not blessed with Anglo-Saxon blood as a `problem for America. They fell outside the purview of what Muzzey considered to be `we Americans and were constantly referred to as an unassimilable `they. Accordingly, Muzzey perpetuated the fear that `they threatened to become `an undigested and indigestible element of our body politic, a constant menace to our free institutions. Read by native-born and immigrant alike, Muzzeys textbooks constantly reminded children of the threat that `aliens represented to American life. Variously, immigrants were chastised for falling `prey to the manipulations of political bosses, presenting `problems for agencies of Americanization, turning cities into `breeding places of crime, and for contributing to huge `city debt.44 The following passage from a 1927 edition of Muzzeys The American Adventure typi ed his pessimistic portrayal of immigrant people:
The aliens were coming faster than we could assimilate them. They were bringing from centers of social turmoil and proletarian revolution ideals which were repugnant to an orderly freedom and the voluntary respect for the law . . . . There were Polish, Hungarian, Russian unions in our labor organisations, with their interest and sympathies primarily with the fortunes of the lands from which they had come. There were communists who `took their orders from Moscow and set the Russian soviet above the American Constitution. Over one thousand newspapers printed in thirty foreign languages were in circulation. Eleven percent of the population over ten years of age could not speak the English language. Great numbers of immigrants showed no desire to acquire American citizenship. The unassimilated and unassimilable elements of our population were growing to alarming proportions. 45

As this extract graphically illustrated, what particularly troubled Muzzey was the way in which Anglo-Saxon traditions were being either ignored or diluted. To preserve the purity of the American race Muzzey clearly believed that some immigrants were more desirable than others. Topping the list were those of northern European Protestant stock. Others were less welcome. To Muzzey, for example, `the Chinese remained orientals, unassimilable, with furtive traits and incomprehensible habits.46 Not surprisingly Muzzeys texts celebrated the principle of introducing legislation, chie y established in the 1920s, to restrict immigration. He was, however, less enthusiastic about the speci cs of these acts which favoured those peoples who immigrated after 1910. Muzzey lamented that good citizens from `Denmark, Sweden and Holland, who sent us fewer immigrants after the opening of the twentieth century would lose out to `immigrants of questionable desirability who ` ooded the county in more recent times.47 Muzzeys jaundiced opinions were shared by other prominent textbook authors of the period. At a time when hordes of immigrants poured into the United States,
43 G. B. Nash, C. Crabtree and R. E. Dunn, History on Trial, 48. 44 These examples are taken from D. S. Muzzey, The American Adventure: A History of the United States, 2 vols, (New York, 1927), 47, 802, and 475. 45 D. S. Muzzey, The American Adventure, 787. 46 Ibid., 154. Muzzeys textbook also informed readers that, `Their quarters in Chinatown were squalid, reeking with opium and vice. 47 Ibid., 788.

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textbook authors keenly celebrated their ancestry. Children learned that the success of America was founded on the desirable qualities of northern European civilization. History of Our Country, published in 1923 by the hugely in uential American Book Company, for example, devoted an entire section to `our debt to the northern races and appeared particularly eager to herald Americas English ancestry and the `thrifty, hard working, and God fearing nature of their forefathers.48 In a similar vein, Willis Mason Wests American History and Government heroically described British settlers on the frontier as `sinewy of frame, saturnine, restless, and dauntless of temper.49 As educators wrestled to de ne what an American was or was not, textbook authors increasingly emphasized their English roots. As Frances FitzGerald noted:
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In their discussion of exploration and colonization, they gave far greater space and approval to Sir Francis Drake than to any of the other explorers except Columbus, and they concentrated on the English colonists to the near exclusion of the French, the Spanish, and the Dutch. . . . They viewed the colonies as an extension of England into the New World, and they looked on the American Revolution as a matter of practical politics more than anything else. 50

Authors routinely echoed Muzzeys concern that unabated immigration both threatened tradition and polluted the quality of American stock. One text suggested that just as the United States `excludes foreign horses, cattle, and sheep that are not sound and healthy, so too should immigrants be carefully screened and selected.51 Others talked of `race suicide and were critical of the dramatic increase in nonAnglo immigrants. They also lamented the `rapid decrease in the birth-rate of families of the older American stocks (especially of the New England stock).52 Even the archetypal progressive historians Charles and Mary Beard did not disguise their concerns regarding the literacy rate of new arrivals, who also knew nothing `of American history, traditions, and ideals.53 To a limited extent textbooks written in the 1940s and 1950s softened their prejudicial portrayal of immigrants. Of course by this time a number of immigrants had advanced up the socioeconomic ladder and therefore proved more acceptable to mainstream America. In addition, the perceived `threat seemed less acute as immigration laws had restricted oods of undesirables from entering the country.54 Accordingly, textbooks of the 1940s and 1950s were content to acknowledge the contributions of successful immigrants. Short `biographies appeared in books celebrating the contributions of immigrants such as Andrew Carnegie, Leopold Stokowski, Albert Einstein and Irving Berlin.55 In addition, the term `melting pot was used more extensively in the decades surrounding the Second World War. These changes were deceptive, however. With few exceptions, textbook authors continued to judge immigrant groups against the perceived norm of the Eurocentric tradition. Immigrants were only esteemed if they supported the thesis that America was a land of opportunity for those who worked hard, embraced the English language, and accepted the superior traditions of the dominate culture. As such
48 49 50 51 52 53 54 R. P. Halleck, History of Our Country (New York, 1923), 120. W. M. West, American History and Government (Boston 1913), 146. F. FitzGerald, America Revised, 77. R. P. Halleck, History of Our Country, 528. See, for example, W. M. West, American History and Government (Boston 1913), 653. C. A. Beard and M. R. Beard, History of the United States (New York, 1921), 607. J. Garcia, `The white ethnic experience in selected secondary US history textbooks, The Social Studies (July/August, 1986), 171. 55 See F. FitzGerald, America Revised, 81.

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the `melting pot appeared a bogus term. It presupposed the equality of the many ethnic groups who contributed to the American mix, including those of native colonial stock. In the years before the 1960s, however, few textbook writers subscribed to this seemingly radical notion. If the authors of textbooks proved unwilling to portray immigrants in a favourable light they found it almost impossible to depict American Indians or AfricanAmericans as important contributors to the American story. Indeed, racist attitudes and condescending descriptions of Indians and Negroes pervaded textbooks written before the 1960s. Perhaps surprisingly, early nineteenth-century texts often o ered more favourable treatment of the American Indian than those authored a century later. Certainly textbooks written before the Civil War described negative features of Indian character, but they additionally represented Indians in a more positive light. Typically, the Indian was portrayed as a `noble savage. One school history textbook, for example, described Indians as `quick of apprehension and not wanting in genius . . . friendly . . . even courteous . . . distinguished for gravity, eloquence [and] bravery .56 By the end of the nineteenth century, however, Indians received much harsher treatment. They were depicted as `savages intent on halting the manifest destiny of the American people. The accepted maxim, so prevalent in texts written before the 1960s, that the `superior race was eminently justi ed in its destruction of the `inferior was race strikingly apparent. In most textbooks white peoples actions against Indians were justi ed for two reasons. First, because Indians, were `cruel, `treacherous `savages their removal was presented as a bene t to civilization. To underscore this point most textbooks o ered young readers explicit details of Indian massacres and frequently included pictures that illustrated Indians about to tomahawk women and children. 57 Second, whites were seen as having a higher moral and ethical right to land on the frontier. As one textbook informed its young readers:
God, in his wise providence, has permitted the white man to take the Indians land away from him. The Indian would not cut down trees and raise grain. . .but the white man, as the Bible says, `has made the wilderness to blossom as the rose. 58

Textbooks written in the rst fty years of the twentieth century deviated little from this accepted representation. Descriptions routinely crystallized around perceptions of the Indian as `childlike, `uncivilized, `cruel and ` lazy. For example, Hallecks History of Our Country, published in 1923, proved representative of other textbooks of this period. Initially, Hallecks text presented the Indian as an innocent childlike creature with habits to interest young Americans. `Young people, he reasoned, `would like to be as independent as the Indian was, to build their own houses, hunt for their own food, travel in the mysterious forest, listen to the owls at midnight, watch the stars and the moon, and be on the look out for migrating birds.59 However, the textbook soon shrugged o its romantic portrayal of Indians. Increasingly Hallecks book became littered with accounts of Indian attacks on
56 57 58 59 R. Elson, Guardians of Tradition, 72. Ibid., 74. Ibid., 77. R. P. Halleck, History of Our Country, 41 4.

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white settlers.60 Almost without exception those pioneers or soldiers who stood up to the Indians were glori ed for their actions. For example, Custers battle with the Sioux at the Little Big Horn in 1876 was presented as a heroic struggle of epic proportions. Tellingly, Halleck implored his young readers to remember, `that the skies overarching prairie and mountain in every western state look down on the graves of these men who lost their lives winning the West. The author also ended by noting with a measure of disgust that: `Millions of dollars were spent in ghting Indians and millions more in buying their lands and hiring them to live in idleness.61 The message of this and other texts was inescapable: Indians were a barbaric people who stood in the way of progress. Unequivocally, they were viewed as inferior beings not able to assist in the development of American civilization. 62 Muzzey s popular textbooks o ered students a similar interpretation. The 1943 edition of his text noted, `In that part of America which is now occupied by the United States, the Indians had nowhere advanced beyond the stage of barbarism. They had no written language. Their only domesticated animal was the dog . . . . They had some noble qualities, such as dignity, courage, and endurance, but at bottom they were a treacherous, cruel people, who in icted terrible tortures upon their captured enemies. 63 In much the same way as Indians were depicted as both a nuisance to American progress and external to the essential passage of United States history, AfricanAmericans su ered similar treatment. In particular, textbooks written before the 1960s re ected the widely held viewpoint that blacks were innately inferior to whites. Rarely do textbooks written in the nineteenth condone slavery. However, many textbooks do seek to justify the existence of the institution. Some textbooks, for example, keenly pointed out that enslavement was familiar to Africans long before Europeans arrived in their lands. Others emphasized that slaves were fairly treated in America. For example, one text written in 1833 informed its young readers that `Many of the negroes, at the present day, work as easy, and live as comfortably, as any class of labouring people in the world.64 Signi cantly, even though slavery often was attacked as morally wrong, textbook authors were quick to point out the grave ignorance of the slaves. Throughout the nineteenth century slaves were depicted as childlike, foolish, uncivilized humans with no sense of responsibility and a desperate inability to care for themselves. The end of slavery, therefore, was explained not so much in terms of a widespread desire for racial equality, for this clearly was not in the minds of textbook authors. Rather the end of slavery represented but yet another indication of Americas evolving moral superiority. John Fiskes 1894 edition of the History of the United States typi ed this common perspective:
Very few people in those days [the 17th century] could see anything wrong with slavery; it seemed as proper to keep slaves as to keep cattle and horses . . . . In our time nobody but a ru an would have 60 For example, in a textbook containing less than a few dozen pictures ve drawings depicted Indian aggression against whites. To emphasize the bravery of two American heroes, two separate pictures presented Daniel Boone and George Washington dramatically escaping from the Indians. Others showed ruthless attacks on the isolated and vulnerable homes of Western settlers. 61 Ibid., 455. 62 Hallecks text, for example, required students to `solve this riddle: Why did the Indian fail to develop America? Obligingly, the author provided the answers in previous pages. First, `they were ignorant and no great teacher had come to them. Second, the Indian made no progress because `he strove to remember every wrong done to him. . . love of war made him cruel. 63 D. S. Muzzey, American History (New York, 1943), 3. 64 R. Elson, Guardians of Tradition, 89.

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anything to do with such a wicked and horrible business. Changes of this sort make us believe that the world is growing to be better than it used to be. 65

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In sum, children of the nineteenth century learned via their textbooks that Negroes were racially inferior to whites and that they deserved no equal place in American society. Emancipation absolved white society of its guilty conscience and further signi ed the nations irresistible moral development. As Ruth Elson neatly concluded, the message that most American children received was that `the Negro of the schoolbooks must be cared for by the whites as one would care for a child . . . . His place in Americas future is clear: he will assist the whites from his menial but useful position. 66 As a rule textbooks written in the rst half of the twentieth century did not deviate from the perspectives o ered in the previous century. Only on extremely rare occasions were the achievements of African-Americans accorded positive coverage. Routinely, blacks appeared either as slaves in the pre-Civil War era or as a `social problem in the era of Reconstruction. Indeed, strikingly consistent was the acute condescension accorded African-Americans in the post-Civil War period. Typically, textbook readers learned that the former slaves were `ignorant, and unable to survive `without the direction of their masters. Muzzey lamented that the south had the `eternal negro problem on her hands 67 and another popular textbook perpetuated the commonly held belief that, `The former slave was in a pitiable condition to be thrown on the world to make his living. He often thought that freedom meant laziness. 68 In a fashion similar to books of the nineteenth century, textbooks of the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s commonly justi ed the slave system and downplayed the tyranny of the institution. Slaves frequently appeared as happy, carefree people content with their station in life and loving of their masters. One textbook written in the 1930s, for example, suggested that `the negroes loved their white masters, and the white people were very fond of their negro slaves. Similarly, McGuires United States History, published in 1953 by Macmillan, romantically took the reader on a journey to a southern plantation:
When we reach the plantation on a pleasant summer morning, we nd everyone bustling about the place . . . . The slaves are as happy as their master and mistress at this entertaining company . . . . As evening comes . . . and the slaves begin to sing and dance, the planter and his wife smile at each other when they hear the sound, for them it is the sign of happy well-cared-for slaves. 69

In an era in which the segregation of the races was widely regarded as a natural and necessary condition, few textbooks challenged convention. Although some questioned the desirability of slavery most texts of the early twentieth century justi ed slavery on economic and racial grounds. The inferiority of the Negro was a certainty. Protected by the benevolence of the master and the structured lifestyle of the plantation, slaves might make a positive contribution to society. Once freed, however, their ignorance and childlike traits condemned them to lives of idleness and ruin. Incredibly, the ahistorical prejudices and self-serving racist attitudes that pervaded textbooks in the seventeenth century continued to exist in American histories written
65 66 67 68 69 J. Fiske, A History of the United States (Boston, 1894). R. Elson, Guardians of Tradition, 98. D. S. Muzzey, The American Adventure, 137. R. P. Halleck, History of Our Country, 413. These examples were cited in L. Washburn, `Accounts of slavery: an analysis of United States history textbooks from 1900 1992, Theory and Research in Social Education 25 (1997), 478.

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in the age of the atomic bomb. Indeed, not until the 1960s were many of these deeply held social attitudes seriously and resolutely challenged. Ethnic groups in US history textbooks, 1960s present: old wine in new bottles By the mid-1960s the social fabric of the United States was under severe strain. Ideological struggles over the Cold War, social con icts over sexual and racial equality, the catastrophic impact of the Vietnam War and cultural fragmentation evidenced by student radicalism and the chasm between emergent and traditional values had dramatic and profound e ects on all aspects of American society. Not surprisingly, as a mirror to the temper of the times American history textbooks underwent important changes. One of the goals of the Civil Rights movement was to attack racial discrimination in educational settings. As a result, intensive and successful Civil Rights campaigns, which originated in Detroit, Michigan and Newark, New Jersey, forced publishers to eliminate from their texts explicit evidence of racial bias. The protest movement spread like wild re. Soon other minority groups joined the assault on school boards and the textbook industry, each claiming that their groups histories had for too long been either ignored or undervalued. 70 In response, publishers grew keenly sensitive to issues of inclusion and diversity. Re ecting these changing times a string of studies conducted in the 1970s and 1980s revealed the increasingly positive treatment accorded ethnic minorities in history textbooks. For example, one study reported that `by the 1960s, minorities had moved to the center stage of American history, and further concluded that textbooks authors had `transformed the texts from scarcely mentioning blacks [and other minorities] in the 1940s, to containing a substantial multicultural (and feminist) component in the 1980s. 71 Many authors of these studies, however, were troubled by the shifting emphases in textbook writing. Of particular concern to them was that textbooks appeared to sacri ce `essential elements of American history on the altar of multiculturalism and `political correctness. Nathan Glazer and Reed Ueda argued that textbooks had gone too far in their treatment of ethnic groups. `The old myths of racism which were prominent in American texts of the twenties and thirties, the authors complained `are now replaced by new myths proclaiming the superior moral qualities of minorities, and we nd a Manichaean inversion in which whites are malevolent and blacks, Indians, Asians, and Hispanics are tragic victims. 72 Other critics voiced similar concerns. Arthur M. Schlesinger, in his widely read The Disuniting of America, o ered one of the most articulate and incisive critiques of the apparent trend towards what he termed `the cult of ethnicity. Fundamental to Schlesingers anxiety was his belief that America was losing its sense of common purpose and shared ideals and changing into `a nation of groups,
70 As Frances FitzGerald noted, `Within a few years, a dozen organizations from Bnai Briths AntiDefamation league to a new Council on Interracial Books, were studying texts for racial, ethnic, and religious bias. What began as a series of discreet protest against individual books became a general proposition: all texts had treated the United States as a wealthy, middle-class society when it was in fact multiracial and multicultural. And this proposition, never so much suggested before 1962, had by the late sixties come to be a truism for the educational establishment. America Revised, 39. 71 R. Lerner, A. K. Nagai, and S. Rothman, Molding the Good Citizen: The Politics of High School History Texts (Westport, CT, 1995), 84. 72 N. Glazer and R. Ueda, Ethnic Groups in History Textbooks (Washington, DC, 1983), 60.

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di erentiated in their ancestry, [and] inviolable in their diverse identities.73 The very idea that school curricula and American history textbooks should encourage this development was particularly abhorrent to Schlesinger and others who shared his beliefs. As Schlesinger reasoned, the stakes were high:
What students learn in schools vitally a ects other areas of American life the way we see and treat other Americans, the way we conceive the purpose of our republic. The debate about the curriculum is a debate about what it means to be an American. What is ultimately at stake is the shape of the American future. 74

Despite their disapproval of what one critic deemed `ill considered e orts of textual a rmative action,75 most conservative commentators acknowledged the need to address the shortcomings of textbooks written before the 1960s. Increased attention to the contributions of Hispanics, Asian-Americans, African-Americas, American Indians and other ethnic minorities was, they argued, warranted. Certainly no place existed for the overtly racist narratives so pervasive in textbooks of previous generations. What troubled critics most, however, was the perception that the `main story line of American history was consistently being submerged in a sea of political correctness. As Gilbert Sewall concluded in his 1987 study, `Textbooks should not act as cheerleaders for minorities and special causes at the expense of the central stories that mark the nations political and economic development.76 Naturally, `the central story line nativist critics had in mind centred on American achievements founded on the traditions of Western civilization. `It may be too bad that dead white European males have played so large a role in shaping our culture, Schlesinger reasoned, `But thats the way it is.77 The message was clear: authors should sprinkle textbooks with details of how ethnic minorities contributed to the development of American history but the main Eurocentric story line should remain largely unchanged. The casual observer might sympathize with the views of those conservative critics who argued that textbooks written after the 1970s accorded too much attention to ethnic groups. Closer scrutiny, however, reveals that far from presenting a vision of American society based on cultural pluralism most textbooks of the modern era continue to celebrate the Western canon and a society founded on Anglocentric traditions and values. In particular, textbooks written in the past three decades continue to perpetuate three enduring and essentially conservative themes. First and foremost, contemporary portrayals of American history remain nationalistic ones. The primary function of modern texts is not to critically examine Americas past but to celebrate the achievements of its people. The ideology of unceasing progress and nationalistic pride is enshrined in every textbook written today. 78 One can tell merely by looking at the cover of textbooks that the essential message is to be a triumphant one. Almost every United States history textbook
73 74 75 76 77 A. M. Schlesinger, `The Disuniting of America, American Federation of Teachers (Winter 1991), 22. Ibid., 21. G. T. Sewall, American History Textbooks, 75. Ibid., 75. Furthermore, Schlesinger argued that although the people of the West had committed sins in the past they had also produced their own antidotes: `They have provoked great movements to end slavery, to raise the status of women, to abolish torture, to combat racism, to defend freedom of inquiry and expression, to advance personal liberty and human rights.Europe . . . is the unique source of these liberating ideas of individual liberty, political democracy, the rule of law, human rights, and cultural freedom that constitute our most precious legacy and to which most of the world today aspires. A. M. Schlesinger, `The Disuniting of America, 32. 78 See J. W. Loewen, Lies My Teacher Told Me (New York, 1995), 249 65.

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published today is adorned with patriotic symbols: the eagle, the Statue of Liberty, Independence Hall, the Lincoln Memorial. Moreover, as James Loewen remarked, `the titles themselves tell a story: The Great Republic, The American Way, Land of Promise, Rise of the American Nation. Such titles di er from the titles of all other textbooks students read in high school or college. Chemistry books for example, are called Chemistry or Principles of Chemistry, not Rise of the Molecule. 79 In keeping with this untarnished image of American society, most textbooks agree that America o ered a `golden door through which immigrants passed as they pursued the American dream of material prosperity and personal liberty. Thus, although contemporary textbooks do reference the hardship and discrimination endured by newcomers, the overriding message is that America presented newcomers with a land of hope and opportunity.80 The rags to riches phenomenon, however, is essentially mythical. To be sure some immigrants did make their fortune in the United States but for the most part the successes of Carnegie, Pulitzer and others proved the exception not the rule.81 In reality, 95% of the most successful business leaders at the turn of the century derived from the upper classes with fewer than 3 % originating from rural or poor immigrant families. However, as Garcia noted, the main impression one forms from reading contemporary textbooks is that although immigrants faced initial problems most of them quickly assimilated and enjoyed the fruits of American society. 82 Generally, textbooks portray America as a society in which most people achieve middle-class prosperity and attain middle-class values. The poor, however, are not invisible. History textbooks acknowledge that poverty has featured in the American story and that some citizens are less fortunate than others. What is strikingly absent, however, is any discussion of how people come to be poor, why individuals from minority populations are disproportionately poor, and/or the role the capitalist system plays in perpetuating poverty. Despite its central place in American history, textbooks ignore fundamental questions concerning the origins of social inequality. In a similar vein, class analysis and labour history continue to escape the attention of most American history textbooks. The implications for such a narrow conception of American society are profound. Most importantly, the cult of progress serves to preserve the status quo. It solidi es the argument that because society is constantly improving, little needs to be done to address social ills. Furthermore, it places the blame for any lack of success not on the system but on the individual. As one textbook study noted, history texts are pro cient at trumpeting the achievements of society on the one hand and blaming the victims on the other, thus:
Native Americans were dispossessed of their land `because they did not understand the concept of private land ownership; Asian workers received low wages because they were willing to `work for very little; Blacks could not nd good urban jobs because they `were unskilled and uneducated; Chicanos face problems because `they are not uent in English . . . . 83

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79 Ibid., 3. 80 J. Garcia, `The white ethnic experience in selected secondary US history textbooks, 174. 81 See, J. W. Loewen, Lies My Teacher Told Me, 203; J. Garcia, `The white ethnic experience in selected secondary US history textbooks, 174. 82 Ibid. 83 Council on Interracial Books for Children, Guidelines for Selecting Bias-Free Textbooks and Storybooks (New York, 1980), 91.

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The standard against which all ethnic groups are held is that of the dominant class. Those who do not share in the conception of a society predicated on the ideology of progress are considered obstacles to Americas manifest destiny. Accordingly, textbooks justify the removal of the Cherokees because they stood in the way of western advancement.84 They interpret the story of Texas Independence not to illustrate the aggressive capture of Mexican land but to celebrate the noble and heroic conquest of the West. 85 Similarly, although slavery is considered `a sad episode in US history, its demise illustrates the unbridled advancement of American society. To nd ones place on the pages of American history, therefore, one must both contribute to and accept the idea of progress as embodied in the Western tradition. The absence of con ict and controversy constitutes the second identi able theme in contemporary textbooks. Much in the same way as class con ict is avoided in school texts, so too are serious considerations of institutionalized racism. With regard to race, textbooks repeatedly stress the theme that society is improving: we used to have slavery, now we do not; lynchings used to occur, now they do not; schools used to be segregated, now they are not. As one textbook assures its young readers, `The US has done more than any other nation in history to provide equal rights for all.86 What textbooks exclude, however, is any serious discussion of the intense struggle for equality from the perspective of the oppressed. 87 No attention is given to why institutionalized white racism has existed and continues to exist in American society. Textbooks fail to make students aware that, because whites generally have bene ted from structural racism, perpetuating the existing social order has often been in their best interest. Rather than portray racial injustice and discrimination as conscious acts perpetrated by white society, they appear in textbooks as amorphous `problems for America. As Frances FitzGerald argued, `No one can be held responsible for problems, since everyone is interested in solving them. In all history, there is no known case of anyone causing a problem for someone else. 88 A typical middle school history textbooks description of slavery exempli es this point:
Many Americans wanted to stop slavery. Slavery is the ownership of people by other people. In the 1700s, slavery existed in most of the colonies. By the 1840s slavery was against the law in most northern states. It then existed mainly in southern states. Within the southern sates, slavery was most common within cotton growing areas. Eli Whitneys cotton gin made cotton easier to clean and prepare for the textile factories . . . . The slaves who planted, harvested, and cleaned the cotton became more and more valuable to their owners. To cotton growers slavery was a business. 89

In this representative example, the detached and perfunctory tone of the passage obscures the oppressive role of those who perpetuated slavery. Furthermore, not only is description of slavery sanitized and neutral, it is viewed from the perspective of the white slave-owner. But even in those books in which the horrors of slavery are described, `the emotion generated by textbook descriptions of slavery is sadness, not
84 See C. E. Sleeter and C. A. Grant, `Race, class, gender, and disability in current textbooks, in The Politics of the Textbook, edited by M. W. Apple and L. K. Christian-Smith (New York, 1991), 86. 85 See J. Arries, `Decoding the social studies production of Chicano history, Equity and Excellence in Education, 27 (1994), 39 41. 86 J. W. Loewen, Lies My Teacher Told Me, 163. 87 Council on Interracial Books for Children, Guidelines for Selecting Bias-Free Textbooks and Storybooks, 102. 88 F. FitzGerald, America Revised, 158. 89 C. E. Sleeter and C. A. Grant, `Race, class, gender, and disability in current textbooks, 85.

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anger. For as James Loewen remarks, `there is no one to be angry at. 90 This a common feature in American history textbooks: if someone does something positive they are accorded full credit, if something negative occurs the actions are presented almost anonymously. Thus, slaves endure `harsh conditions, Asian-Americans `face prejudice, and Hispanics are `discriminated against. Typically, however, no one is to blame. Seemingly, everyone shares in the quest for a better society. Controversy is avoided and consensus championed. 91 Contemporary textbooks are also very cautious in their attention to movements of social protest. Most texts prefer Booker T. Washingtons `moderation over W. E. B. DuBois radicalism. Martin Luther Kings non-violent dignity is emphasized over the bitterly confrontational style of Malcolm X. Furthermore, the Martin Luther King who emerges from the pages of textbooks is not the acerbic, antipoverty, anti-war activist of 1965 to 1968, but the visionary Christian integrationist leader of 1956 64. Textbooks continue to perpetuate the belief that America can resolve social and racial injustice through existing institutions. American History for Today, for example, informed its young readers:
Americans throughout our history have believed that all men must obey the law if democracy is to continue. If a law is wrong, the Constitution provides a way of changing the law. No man need break it. No man can put himself above the law.92

However, As the Council on Interracial Books for Children remarks, the historical reality was very di erent:
The United States itself was born in violent revolution, and throughout our history, people have agitated and struggled against injustice. Abolitionism, womens su rage, civil rights, union organizing, and anti-war activities are among the struggles which have utilized extra-legal tactics of boycotts, passive resistance, civil disobedience, and breaking of law. Changes in the law to correct injustice have often resulted because of extra-legal types of agitation. 93

Typically, textbooks ignore issues and events which continue to divide American society. For example, the Civil Rights era is represented as a salutary period in American history that brought about necessary changes. Readers are often erroneously led to believe that the Civil Rights movement accomplished a state of completion and resolution for all minorities. Thus, Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers (UFW) labour union are noted for their successful struggles against oppressive employment conditions. One textbook succinctly concluded that `in 1970 an agreement was at last signed between growers and the United Farm Workers. The impression formed is that the con ict is resolved. What textbooks fail to acknowledge is that the UFW continues to this day to challenge the exploitation of migrant workers.94
90 J. W. Loewen, Lies My Teacher Told Me, 138. 91 A number of scholars also have noted how textbooks written during the 1980s and early 1990s closely re ect the conservative political, religious and cultural values of the Reagan Bush era. For example, Leah Washburns compelling study of textbook portrayal of slavery 1900 1992 noted an acute shift in emphasis from the more multicultural texts of the 1960s and 1970s to the conservative ones of the 1980s and 1990s. In particular, Washburn argued that textbooks written in the latter period were keen to emphasize `gradual social and political change, `the religious experiences, of slaves and abolitionists, and the `traditional values and gender roles of mid-nineteenth-century America. Above all, textbooks written in this period sought to de-emphasize con ict and celebrate consensus. See L. Washburn, `Accounts of slavery: an analysis of United States history textbooks from 1900 1992, 478. 92 As cited in Council on Interracial Books for Children, Guidelines for Selecting Bias-Free Textbooks and Storybooks, 92. 93 Ibid., 92. 94 J. Arries, `Decoding the social studies production of Chicano history, 42.

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Overall, what stands out in most contemporary textbooks is the bland coverage a orded historical topics. Con ict, controversy and contention are for the most part avoided. Optimism and consensus abound. Problems remain but they are solvable given the strength of the American nation. Indicative of such sentiment is the conclusion of one textbook: `As the twentieth century approaches its sunset, the people of the United States can still proudly claim in the words of Lincoln, that they and their heritage represent ``the last best hope on earth.95 The third trend or theme discernible in contemporary textbook writing concerns the issue of `mentioning. Mentioning involves adding content to the text without altering the books organizing framework or central message. Textbooks appear particularly guilty of this trend with regard to their portrayal of ethnic groups in American history. For, although textbooks written today a ord much more space to ethnic groups than those written prior to the 1960s, the nature and quality of the representation have changed very little.96 As Cornbelth and Waugh observed, the tactic textbook authors employ results in `simply adding more historically excluded people . . .[but] minimising serious examination of racial and ethnic con ict.97 Because publishers are obsessed with the compulsion to mention, textbooks of the modern era have become an uninviting and intimidating classroom resource. High school history textbooks typically weigh four to ve pounds and contain between 800 and 1000 pages.98 Increased coverage of ethnic groups, however, generally has not led to improved treatment. People from minority groups may pop up on the pages of textbooks more frequently but they are commonly portrayed as people with little or no history, no sense of diversity within their respective groups, and with no re ection on their contemporary experiences. Furthermore, as Banks has argued, `the infusion of bits and pieces of ethnic minority groups into the curriculum not only reinforces the idea that [they] are not integral parts of US society, it also results in the trivialization of ethnic cultures.99 Textbooks underscore the conviction that the experiences of ethnic groups are only important in so far as they contribute to the larger story of an American history dominated by white society. Numerous studies have revealed, for example, that textbooks rarely show ethnic groups interacting with one another. 100 Instead, minority groups appear only in relationship to white society. Blacks serve as slaves, Indians appear ghting soldiers, Chicanos boycott fruit growers, and Chinese immigrants construct railroads. In reality, however, American history is rich in diversity of experience. As Sleeter and Grant point out: `Black cowboys were in the West with Native Americans; Mexican Americans were in Texas with Native Americans; Chinese Americans, Japanese Americans, and Filipino Americans were all in California . . . [but] these groups are only shown interacting with whites.101
95 As cited in J. W. Loewen, Lies My Teacher Told Me (New York, 1995), 252. 96 See, for example, C. E. Sleeter and C. A. Grant, `Race, class, gender, and disability in current textbooks, 83 6; J. Garcia, `The white ethnic experience in selected secondary US history textbooks, 173. 97 As cited in L. Washburn, `Accounts of slavery: an analysis of United States history textbooks from 1900 1992, 483. 98 Not surprisingly historian Robert Nisbet re ected with some exasperation that, `No one will ever curl up, cuddle up with one of these behemoths. Cited in G. T. Sewall, American History Textbooks, 64. 99 As cited in C. E. Sleeter and C. A. Grant, `Race, class, gender, and disability in current textbooks, 99. 100 See, for example, C. E. Sleeter and C. A. Grant, `Race, class, gender, and disability in current textbooks, 85; J. Arries, `Decoding the social studies production of Chicano history; J. Garcia, `The white ethnic experience in selected secondary US history textbooks. 101 C. E. Sleeter and C. A. Grant, `Race, class, gender, and disability in current textbooks, 97.

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Emphasis on the `contributions approach further illustrates the subordinate role of ethnic groups in American history. For example, children learn from texts that Native Americans gave `us corn or African-Americans gave `us jazz. The implication remains that these people are only valuable in so far as they contribute to `our mainstream white society.102 Most textbooks o er students only a singular perspective. For example, The Pageant of American History informed readers, `To live in the South was to live in daily fear of slave violence. The authors prejudices clearly rest with white southerners. Certainly no slave would accept this perspective. Another text focusing on Spanish settlement of California during the eighteenth century asserted, `the work of the missions was successful. Many of the California Indians were converted to the Roman Catholic religion. Again, events are viewed from a white perspective. The spiritual beliefs of Native Americans are devalued as conversion to Christianity is portrayed as a positive act.103 Finally, despite the fact that most modern textbooks do accord more space to minority groups, several studies conducted in recent decades suggest that certain ethnic groups continue to be underrepresented. For example, scholars widely acknowledge that Asian-Americans, particularly those originating from Japan and China, have received very super cial coverage in textbooks.104 In a similar vein other studies have pointed out that although Native Americans are prominently featured in all US history textbooks, they typically appear as a historical artefact. References to the experiences of Native Americans in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries are numerous, but little attention is accorded their place in American society in the late twentieth century. But perhaps the most glaring under-representation in US history textbooks concerns the treatment of Hispanics. Indeed, several contemporary studies continue to support the conclusion reached by O. L. Davis a decade ago that Hispanics `have long been ignored or casually mentioned in conventional US history textbooks.105 Overall, therefore, although textbooks written since the 1960s have paid greater attention to ethnic groups in American society, the central story line has changed little for more than two centuries. Contemporary textbooks perpetuate the vision of America as a land of opportunity to be shared by all ethnic groups. Common experience and consensus are championed over racial con ict and controversy. And, above all, students learn that the story of America, despite setbacks and obstacles, remains one of unremitting progress and triumph for its people to enjoy. Reasonably, therefore, one may ask why has American history textbook writing changed so little over time? And, why do history textbooks written today continue to portray the experiences of ethnic groups in ways that have endured for generations? The answers to these questions are undoubtedly multi-faceted and complex. However, a few fundamental explanations are apparent.
102 See Council on Interracial Books for Children, Guidelines for Selecting Bias-Free Textbooks and Storybooks, 89. 103 Ibid., 94. 104 See, for example, C. E. Sleeter and C. A. Grant, `Race, class, gender, and disability in current textbooks; N. Glazer and R. Ueda, Ethnic Groups in History Textbooks; People for the American Way, Looking at History: A Review of Major US History Textbooks edited by O. L. Davis, Jr (Washington, DC, 1986). 105 People for the American Way, Looking at History: A Review of Major US History Textbooks, 10.

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Why have US history textbooks consistently adhered to conservative themes? Part of the answer lies in the peculiar nature of the American textbook industry. For most of this century twenty-two states, principally located in Americas `sun belt, have adopted school textbooks based on the judgements of a centralized state agency. In other words, educators in local settings have little or no say in which textbooks are selected for use in their schools. Typically, most states appoint expert panels to review submissions from publishers and after a complex process of hearings and analysis a number of texts (often between two and ve in each subject area) are placed on an `approved adoption list from which local school districts can select. 106 Of signi cance, because California and Texas which together represent 20% of the educational market are textbook adoption states, publishers consciously develop texts that will please these two states.107 Textbooks adopted in Texas, Florida or California, therefore, largely determine the content of textbooks produced throughout the nation. The stakes are high. School textbooks constitute more than 16% of all printed materials sold in the United States and command sales in excess of $2.5 billion. The textbook market o ers publishers a very lucrative market. Part of the attraction also lies in the fact that most textbooks have a print run of several million copies, are adopted for ve- to seven-year cycles, require little marketing once adopted, and are exceedingly simple to distribute. Recognizing the potential for pro t, publishing houses have devoted increasing attention to the school textbook market. Not without coincidence, this trend has occurred at a time when the publishing industry has seen an enormous concentration of power in the hand of a few major houses. At the beginning of the 1990s, for example, the `Big Three, Macmillan, Harcourt, Brace, Jovanich, and Simon Schuster, controlled an estimated 45 % of the textbook market and the ve largest companies (including Scholastic and Houghton Mi in) cornered 58 % of all national sales. Of even greater signi cance, many of the companies do not stand as isolated economic units but appear as part of huge multinational corporations. Indeed, since the 1980s several of the leading textbook publishing companies have fallen under the umbrella of international oligopolies including, IBM, Xerox, RCA, Paramount, and Time-Warner, Inc. 108 One of the most serious consequences of this concentration of economic power has been an insatiable thirst for pro t. As many scholars have noted, textbooks produced today are almost exclusively published out of economic rather than intellectual motives.109 Because textbook companies want to appeal to the broadest possible audience the implications for history textbooks are particularly profound. Typically, modern textbook publishers will go to great lengths to avoid controversy or to exclude material which might o end special-interest groups. Indeed, because a major history textbook series may involve initial research and development costs exceeding $500,000, publishers are
106 See, for example, J. Spring, American Education (New York, 1996); G. T. Sewall, American History Textbooks; G. T. Sewall and P. Cannon, `New world of textbooks: Industry consolidation and its consequences, 61 9; S. Keith, `The determinants of textbook control, in Textbooks in American Society: Politics, Policy, and Pedagogy edited by P. G. Altbach, G. P. Kelly, H. G. Petrie and L. Weis (New York, 1991), 43 59. 107 J. Spring, American Education, 248. 108 G. T. Sewall and P. Cannon, `New world of textbooks: industry consolidation and its consequences, 61 9. 109 Ibid. See also M. W. Apple, `Culture and commerce of the textbook, in The Politics of the Textbook, edited by M. W. Apple and L. K. Christian-Smith (New York, 1991), 28 31.

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particularly anxious to avoid areas of contention. Unfortunately, the result of this conservative approach often leads to the production of a `slick product of diminished substance. 110 Routinely, despite their alluring visual appeal, textbooks appear bland, fatuous, `consensus documents, devoid of any con ict and controversy. Conscious that their primary goal is to have their textbooks `approved for statewide adoption, publishers are acutely aware of the power of special-interest politics in the United States. Without question, adoption committees are in uenced by pressure groups that lobby aggressively for their attention. These pressure groups span the ideological spectrum. Christian fundamentalists, civil libertarians, patrioteers, corporations, racial minorities, feminists and church state separatists all compete to in uence the contents of history textbooks.111 In recent decades the religious right has proved particularly well organized and in uential in exacting control over state adoption policies. The net result of this complex process is that textbook companies aim to appease a galaxy of audiences. Ultimately, as educational analyst Raymond English notes, `Pro t is the aim, and pro t, when you are serving a quasi-monopoly, is made by satisfying bureaucrats and politicians and by o ending as few vocal and organised interests as possible. 112 For this reason school history textbooks aim to avoid passages which raise serious questions regarding racial con ict and social inequity. Their presentation of the history of ethnic minorities is therefore calm, considered and non-confrontational. In general, minority groups receive attention as they contribute to the development of American civilization. Textbook publishers, however, appear reluctant to draw too much attention to issues that have divided American society in the past. Unquestionably, textbook publishers recognize the need to devote increased attention to Americas multiethnic make-up. For example, Californias highly in uential `Adoption Recommendations require publishers to acknowledge the immense `cultural diversity of the nation. However, the recommendations also urge emphasis `on the civic values, institutions and constitutional heritage which unite our nation as one. Above all, Californias `Adoption Recommendations require `students . . . to learn that whatever our origins and however diverse our religions, languages and ethnic groups, we are united in one nation whose motto from the very beginning has been E pluribus unum: ``Out of the many one .113 The implications for publishers who adhere to these and other, similar guidelines is that although cultural diversity must be acknowledged, the central unity of the American experience remains key. Translated into practice, textbook publishers are able to draw additional attention to the experiences of various ethnic groups without altering a story line which has endured for generations. Ultimately, As Jonathan Arries and Michael Apple argue, the experiences of ethnic groups are submerged in a central story which validates `patriotism, `free enterprise, `good citizenship, `respect for authority and `the Western tradition. 114
110 111 112 113 G. T. Sewall, American History Textbooks, 22. Ibid., 15 16. Ibid., 13 California Department of Education, Adoption Recommendations, History Social Science (Sacramento, CA, 1990), 13 114 J. Arries, `Decoding the social studies production of Chicano history; M. Apple, `Regulating the text: the socio-historical roots of state control, in Textbooks in American Society: Politics, Policy, and Pedagogy, edited by P. G. Altbach, G. P. Kelly, H. G. Petrie. L. Weis) (New York, 1991), 6.

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A second major reason why the fundamental message of history textbooks has remained remarkably consistent over time relates to the innate conservatism of American society. Many Americans instinctively believe, or are otherwise persuaded, that the United States represents the most successful nation on earth. Few can argue that the twentieth century has in so many respects been the `American century. Today the United States boasts the strongest economic, military and cultural force on the planet. Understandably many Americans are proud of their nations remarkable achievements and feel warranted in celebrating its success. In this vein, textbook critics Glazer and Ueda keenly point out that although many immigrants have received unjust treatment in the United States `another side to the story exists:
. . . that this country has accepted more immigrants, of more varied stocks, than any other nation in the world, and continues to do so; that it has been a beacon for immigrants; that the nation presents the world with what is probably the most successful example of a complex, modern, multi-ethnic society; and that it goes further than any other great nation in creating a partnership of varied peoples, all of whom are guaranteed a range of rights and o ered full participation in the common life of the nation. 115

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Many citizens share these sentiments and further believe that school history should play an important part in championing the success of American society. Of fundamental importance is the deeply held belief that the story of America is a just and noble one. Thus, the search for common triumphs, common purpose and a common identity becomes acute. Americans do not want to address the uncomfortable notion that their society might be fractured and disunited. They do not want their children to read about oppression or wrongdoing but rather to celebrate Americas achievements. Accordingly, American history textbooks are deliberately designed to form part of the glue that helps to bond society together. Textbooks not only respond to the demands of the educational market-place but also re ect Americas visceral need for a common sense of purpose and shared identity. Understandably, therefore, history textbooks stress unity over fragmentation, nationhood over ethnicity and common experience over diversity. The inherent conservatism of American history textbooks is also a direct re ection of the in uence of powerful forces long since dominant in American society. Many events throughout the twentieth century illustrate the ascendancy of the traditional values and ideals of the dominant social classes. In the 1920s for example, textbook publishers produced books `to inspire children with patriotism, and `preach on every page a vivid love of America. In the climate of the Second World War and the Cold War, textbooks of the 1940s and 1950s stressed similar themes of unity and patriotism. In Texas, for example, the House of Representatives urged publishers to `emphasise in the textbooks our glowing and throbbing history of hearts and souls inspired by wonderful American principles and traditions.116 For decades, American history textbooks have pursued the formula of patriotism, pride and progress. Of signi cance, however, on the few occasions when some educators have questioned this entrenched view of American history, the conservative backlash has been vicious and dramatic. The assault on the social studies textbooks of Harold Rugg o ers the most compelling pre-Second World War example of the power of reactionary politics.
115 N. Glazer and R. Ueda, Ethnic Groups in History Textbooks, 2. 116 F. FitzGerald, America Revised, 38.

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Representing the progressive strain in American education during the 1930s, Ruggs textbooks were adopted in school districts throughout the country. Rugg, a professor at Teachers College Columbia, departed from the conventional view of school history which called for rote memorization of facts, passive learning and the canonization of loyalty, obedience and tradition. Instead, Ruggs textbook series, Man and His Changing World, called for critical thinking and analytical judgement. Unfortunately for Rugg, by the late 1930s his books ignited a restorm of controversy. Attacks came thick and fast. Particularly critical were the National Association of Manufacturers, the American Legion and right-wing publications of the Hearst media empire. Accused of being anti-American, anti-business and Communist-inspired, Rugg s books were condemned by powerful interest groups across the country. In Bradner, Ohio, right-wing zealots publicly burned Ruggs books and school districts throughout the country removed his works from their shelves. So successful were the politically motivated attacks that sales of Ruggs textbooks fell dramatically from 300,000 copies in 1938 to fewer than 20,000 in 1944. 117 Of immense signi cance, the attacks on Rugg s textbooks did not represent an aberration in American educational politics. Throughout the twentieth century, American history textbooks have been roundly condemned by in uential conservative forces if they challenge right-wing political orthodoxy. Textbooks considered to `undermine patriotism, `debunk great American heroes, `belittle national achievements or `overly stress Americas failings always have received vicious criticism and ultimately have failed to survive. Not surprisingly, publishers producing textbooks in the anti-Communist hysteria of the Cold War era were exceedingly cautious in their treatment of American history. The end of the Cold War, however, did not dramatically alter the political climate for textbook writing in the United States. In many respects the be tes noires of the political right merely shifted from the communist to the multiculturalist. Much in the same way that communism was considered a threat to the stability of mainstream America, so too was multiculturalism regarded. Most recently the viewpoints of the in uential political right manifested themselves in debates over the US National History Standards. Funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the United States Department of Education, in 1994 the National Centre for History in the Schools, located at UCLA, produced a series of educational standards for US history. The product of intense scholarly debate and consideration, the standards while acknowledging traditional themes of US history accorded increased attention to the nations pluralistic make-up. Critical of the new `multicultural agenda, right-wing political attacks began just as the US history standards were about to be released. In an article in the Wall Street Journal published on 20 October 1994, Lynne V. Cheney, who chaired the National Endowment for the Humanities during the Bush administration and approved initial funding for the project, provocatively declared `The End of History. 118 In a scathing attack she accused its authors of promoting a politically correct `revisionist agenda which devalued the achievements of the great white men of Americas past. By
117 See, for example, M. W. Apple and L. K. Christian-Smith, `The politics of the textbook, 4. Apple; J. Spring, American Education, 250 5; S. Rippa, Education in a Free Society, 241 5; G. B. Nash, C. Crabtree and R. E. Dunn, History on Trial, 40 6. 118 L. Cheney, `The end of history, Wall Street Journal (20 October 1994), A26(W), A22(E).

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counting the number of times di erent persons and subjects were mentioned in the document, Cheney illustrated its alleged bias towards non-traditional and/or nonwhite groups. A bar chart placed at the centre of her article revealed that, whereas the national standards totally failed to mention Paul Revere, the Wright Brothers or Thomas Edison, in sharp contrast Joseph McCarthy and the Ku Klux Klan received respectively 19 and 17 citations. Cheney was soon joined by other critics who excoriated the standards for their perceived anti-American stance.119 Right-wing talk show host Rush Limbaugh, for example, argued that the National Standards for History had been created by `a secret group of historians and the reports should be ` ushed down the toilet.120 The standards were also condemned by former Republican presidential candidate Pat Buchanan, who called them a `monstrosity. Provocatively he told audiences: `Our Judeo-Christian values are going to be preserved, and our Western heritage is going to be handed down to future generations and not dumped in some land ll called multiculturalism.121 In a similar fashion, popular magazines such as Time and Newsweek reported negatively on the history standards, accusing the authors of a disproportionate revisionism and of paying too much attention to Americas failures. 122 So intense was the political fall-out from the debacle that politicians quickly ran for cover. 123 On 18 January 1995 the US Senate condemned the standards by a vote of 99 to 1. The White House cautiously distanced itself from the debate and, in the spring of 1995, the Senate rejected the entire concept of national standards. Already acutely aware of the political sensitivity of their creations, the bitter and divisive con ict over the national history standards provided textbook publishers with a further reminder of the dangers of outing convention. Conscious of the need to attract lucrative educational markets and not acerbic right-wing criticism, textbooks produced today remain safe, consensual and non-controversial products. Ethnic groups might receive greater attention in contemporary textbooks but their stories feature only in relationship to the enduring Eurocentric themes of American history. Conclusions Without doubt, writing a de nitive textbook for US history is fraught with epistemological, cultural and historical problems. On the one hand, textbook publishers are pressured to appreciate the cultural pluralism of American society and attend to the distinctive and complex experiences of Indians, African-Americans, AsianAmericans, Hispanics, and a galaxy of other ethnic groups. On the other hand, they are urged to stress the common ideals, common political institutions, and common values that unite citizens of the American Republic. Commentators across the political spectrum have o ered textbook authors their response to these enduring dilemmas.
119 L. Cheney and A. Shanker, `Mutual suspicions, New Republic, 6 (February, 1995), 21; D. Ravitch, `Revise but dont abandon the history standards, Chronicle of Higher Education, 17 (February, 1995), A52; J. Leo, `History standards are bunk, US News and World Report (6 February, 1995), 23. 120 J. Chapin, `The controversy on national standards for history, paper presented at the National Council for Social Studies, Chicago, 9 November 1995. 121 G. B. Nash, C. Crabtree, and R. E. Dunn, History on Trial, 104. 122 J. Elson, `History, the sequel, Time (7 November 1994), 64. 1994; L. Hancock, `Its a small world after all, Newsweek (14 November, 1994), 59. 123 G. B. Nash, C. Crabtree, and R. E. Dunn, History on Trial, 30.

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In uenced by the writings of E. D. Hirsch, Alan Bloom and William Bennett, those from the political right seek vehemently to protect the cultural traditions of Western civilization. Their in uence on educational policy has manifested itself in the quest for a standardized curriculum, in a renewed emphasis on moral and character education and, above all, on the celebration of a Western tradition principally crafted by white European males. In direct opposition, critics of the political left have not only questioned the orthodoxy of the enduring Eurocentric tradition, but have also proved scornful of the persistent notion that any single interpretation of American history exists. Textbooks, they argue, represent a form of social control which validates the `o cial knowledge of the Western canon and renders marginal or invisible the achievements and experiences of ethnic groups. Others have attempted to steer a middle passage between these two intractable positions. The principal architects of the US history standards viewed this as a primary consideration. `Rather than triumphantly saluting a completed national agenda and celebrating an undiluted record of achievement, they envisioned a school history that would portray `a multicultural nation and a continuously replenished immigrant society engaged in a ceaseless and often bittersweet crusade . . . to ful l the ideals of liberty, equal justice, and equality. 124 To march too aggressively down this path, however, proved too uncomfortable for some. Schlesinger, echoing the concerns of those from the political right, feared for the future of the nation: `America is an experiment in creating a common identity for people of diverse races, religions, languages, and cultures, he asserted. `If the republic now turns away from its old goal of one people, what is its future? disintegration of the national community, apartheid, Balkanisation, tribalization? 125 Scrutiny of history textbook writing today and in the past suggests that those who share Schlesingers anxieties have little to fear. In order to conform to the pressures of a highly competitive market, to stave o damaging criticism from the in uential political right and to appease those who control the theatre of education, textbook publishers keenly adhere to established practices. Textbooks remain servants of political orthodoxy. They celebrate national achievements, venerate the Western tradition and emphasize a shared American experience. Signi cantly, at the threshold of the twenty- rst century when US society appears more pluralistic, more diverse and more complex, American history textbooks cling to an idealized image of society based on common traditions established more than two centuries ago.

124 Ibid., 101. 125 A. M. Schlesinger, `The Disuniting of America, 31.