Category: American History

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The (Not So) Good Old Days in Education

A classroom before the "good old days."

Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Jay Schalin, director of policy analysis at the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal in Raleigh, North Carolina.

As somebody who is right in the middle of the “boomer” generation, I often hear or read my peers lamenting the good old days in education, before the radicalization of the late 1960s and 1970s ushered in disastrous changes.

What they fail to realize is that the K-12 education we received in the post-World War II era was not only already severely degraded, but it paved the way for the radicalization they decry. Here’s how it happened. Continue reading “The (Not So) Good Old Days in Education”

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What a Newly Discovered Letter Means to Historians

Frederick_ Douglass_ letter_discovery

The Emancipation Memorial in Washington, D.C., which depicts Abraham Lincoln standing over a kneeling freed slave, is being scrutinized and reconsidered these days. But the dispute over the statue (also called the Freedmen’s statue) has had a remarkable result for historians:  An 1876 letter by Frederick Douglass has been found in which he expressed disappointment in the statue.

For me, what is so intriguing is how it was discovered and how that illustrates the wonderful world that digital technology has brought to historians—a world in which artifacts of the past are readily available.

Here’s the story: Continue reading “What a Newly Discovered Letter Means to Historians”

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So Much News about History This Month

Historian David Blight defends the Freedmen’s Memorial in Washington, DC.

‘A Master Historian’: George Nash reviews the latest book by the prominent American historian Bernard Bailyn (now 97 years old).

George Washington shouldn’t be “canceled.” John Berlau explains.

Can we learn from the pandemic of 1596? From the History Workshop. Continue reading “So Much News about History This Month”

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The Fire Last Time

Some months ago I questioned the famous statement of George Santayana, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” I argued that even if we remember the past we may end up repeating it.

And now, repetition is occurring. This month the Economist called its editorial about today’s racial conditions “The Fire This Time,” echoing James Baldwin’s passionate 1962 denunciation of the American legacy of racism.[1] The editorial also drew a parallel between today and the murderous year of 1968—even to the point of observing that a flu pandemic (called the Hong Kong flu) killed about 100,000 Americans that year.

Could a better understanding of the past have prevented the racial tragedies and tumult we are going through today? To begin answering that, let’s assume that someone did understand the relevant history. I suspect, for example, that Thomas Sowell and Shelby Steele did.

Daniel P. Moynihan may have, too. But Moynihan’s experience indicates that no matter how much you know and how much involved in public affairs you are, your advice may fall on deaf ears. Continue reading “The Fire Last Time”

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Middle-class at Heart (Part II)

In 2012 President Obama outraged many people when he tried to argue for the value of government by saying, “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.” His statement was wrong because, of course, you did build that.

But that doesn’t mean that you had no help. For many of us, that help goes back perhaps hundreds of years.

In my last post I wrote about some of the family histories my readers have sent me. I was struck by how “middle-class” their families were, even 100 or 150 years ago.  I concluded that if you are a successful professional today, chances are good that you have a family history with a lot of solid middle-class people behind you, people who worked hard, sometimes back-breaking hard, who gave up leisure, and who sought education for themselves or their children.

That doesn’t mean your family history didn’t have some cads and misfits (mine did) but the general direction was toward discipline.

In other words, we have a cloud of witnesses who have predated us. Perhaps we received material goods from those ancestors, but far more important were the habits of mind—the mental strength that allows us to give up short-term rewards in the hope of longer-term gains. Continue reading “Middle-class at Heart (Part II)”