Education, Social Studies, History, Civics, Current Issues

The Transformation of Regional Politics in Philadelphia

The Transformation of Regional Politics in Philadelphia

Kevin McCabe

The dawn of urbanization in the U.S. arrived in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, from which came rapid innovations in transportation and construction technology. The colonial legislation put in power by the founding fathers was tested immensely by the growing population of urban life. The necessities of sustaining an exponentially large and dense city seem evident at first glance: political, economic, and social representation, a stable job income for single or multi-family homes, access to public services, and affordable housing stock. Unfortunately, as one may notice by the pattern of urban decline as early as the 1950s, accomplishing such a feat is nearly impossible with the lack of quality political representation for marginalized members of the urban community. Philadelphia, faced with the issues of urban decline, embarked on a project of urban renewal to revamp the public and private housing sector, introduce new forms of transportation for suburban commuters, and fix the educational landscape of the city. Similarly to other cities facing urban decline, the ‘City of Brotherly Love’ has seen countless projects or urban revitalization that historians, over time, began to view differently. Public Housing, Race, and Renewal by John F. Bauman (1987) indicates that historians viewed the solution to Philadelphia’s housing segregation, job discrimination, deindustrialization, and part of its economic decline issues through government intervention in the public housing sector. Carolyn T. Adams, author of From the Outside In (2014), exemplifies the shift of focus to local and federal intervention in Third-Sector organizations, and the lack thereof, in the startup of big industrial and transportation renewal. Similarly to Bauman, Adams refers to many of the solutions and ideas being created from a local level and being affected by public preference and federal policy. Lastly, The Problem of Jobs by Guian A. McKee (2010) takes a more positive outlook on urban renewal in Philadelphia, claiming that despite providing mixed results, the actions of a new form of Liberalism, local and federal policies, and initiatives slowed the progress of deindustrialization and moderated its effects.^[1] Over the last 30 years, the scholarship on Philadelphian policies toward reshaping the historical city has changed dramatically from a focus on blaming federal policy, suburbanization and deindustrialization, the failure to provide adequate public housing and proper restructuring of the city’s inner-city blocks as the cause of economic decline and racial conflict. A newer approach to these issues is to take a city-wide approach to how local politicians and project professionals maneuvered a complex level of federal aid, Third-Sector organizations, and an angry white working class to achieve successes in some areas and failures in other neighborhoods.

Public Housing, Race, and Renewal by John F. Bauman focuses on those who debated, promoted, and shaped Philadelphia’s public housing and urban development policies, and how the local and national shift of focus from public housing to rebuilding the city turned a desegregation project into a reinforcement of public housing poverty stereotypes as a federally-funded welfare program. Bauman, having written his book in 1987, comprises the oldest historical outlook of the three books being analyzed in this historiography study. Therefore, both Adams and McKee draw from elements of Bauman’s argument and other authors of his time to build a comprehensive outlook on the complexity of undertaking complete urban reform in one of the oldest and historically significant cities in the U.S. Bauman utilizes the terms professionals and communitarians to describe the progressive outlook of urban leaders during the middle of urban slum expansion in the 1920s. Adams’ and McKee’s central focus on the privatization of industry follows the pattern of slowing progressivism in mid-19th century Philadelphia. Bauman wrote of the tendencies of the federal government, and how the ideas around poverty-stricken areas led to the failure of public housing as a program for economic mobility: “…the federal government’s rigid funding formula for public housing construction, as well as its strict guidelines for tenant selection and tenant retention, begged the question of public housing’s mission. Was public housing to provide good housing for the working class, or was the program to build modern asylums where the poor could learn habits of thrift and cleanliness?”^[2] A few ideas are present in Bauman’s argument that hold merit for future scholarship on Philadelphia’s inner city. Particularly, how government funding, despite having the intention of fixing blighted neighborhoods, ends up exacerbating the issue by being too strict with rules, regulations, and the location of the project. Bauman goes even further to state that the racial composition of a project was made to conform to the prevailing composition of the surrounding neighborhood.^[3] Essentially, public housing was the same as black housing in inner-city Philadelphia. As public housing became more attached in name to the characteristics of the poor, the politically right-leaning citizens of Philadelphia lost hope that public housing would help people in poverty learn habits of thrift and cleanliness. One would also argue that the idea that public housing would help the poor learn good habits solely based on the architecture itself perpetuates the notion that all people in black-majority neighborhoods promote a culture of poverty. The hopes of architects and city planners were quickly dashed as public opinion on public housing became politicized- it was no longer a rehabilitation program, but a public welfare program for housing the city’s worst residents. Bauman also takes note of the war-spawned conservatism that swept the nation during WWII, a pattern of decentralized federal housing policy that would become a staple in how local Philadelphian officials would carry out construction projects in the future.^[4] Federal funding would be provided for projects, but only constructed by private enterprises. This foreshadows the states’ use of nonprofits to accomplish construction projects more efficiently than traditional means of project approval depicted in From the Outside In. The bullish conservative real estate established for new housing projects, and the use of subdivision in existing housing to create an artificially lower demand for low-income and public housing meant that Washington and the city Housing Authority were: “… sacrificing the goals of good housing and defense to the particular interests of the homebuilding and real estate industries.”^[5] The pattern imposed by the federal and state governments is private and public organizational appeasement, an act that helped speed up the development process of housing and urban renewal at the expense of ill-planned resident displacement and the diminishment of government authority over the real estate market and urban planning. Even when projects were underway, residency was determined by the current racial composition of the neighborhood. Bauman, noticing the injustice in urban housing planning, stated: “Crassly denying the new housing to low-income black slum residents reeked of injustice… Blacks were being forced to make more than their share of the sacrifice.”^[6] Historians’ views on urban redevelopment in Philadelphia have not changed from Bauman’s to Adams’ interpretation- despite good intentions, the fears of black slum encroachment barred minorities from economic mobility by transforming a creative, community-building public housing movement into a cookie-cutter asylum for the poor. As the Housing Act of 1954 rolled around, the idea of city rebuilding became synonymous with economic revitalization.^[7] Forced by the realities of the failures of massive elevator towers to fix the city’s housing issues, planners had to decide what locations would be best for a project’s success, zoning certain areas as unsalvageable (black zones), and blighted neighborhoods as buffer zones.^[8] This is a form of redlining that reinforced segregated city patterns, instead of fixing the economic and social disparity between residents that are only blocks apart. Furthermore, it further ostracized inner-city black residents from society. Bauman claims that “Only a massive infusion of local, state, and federal money into housing and blight removal could make city neighborhoods ripe again for private investment.”^[9] City politicians took their eyes off a lack of housing in certain areas to transform areas to be more appealing to white commuters and future residents, as only 21 percent of displaced families found satisfactory housing; in the eyes of a Philadelphian politician, urban renewal meant black removal.^[10] Slum clearance continued, even though public housing became a welfare program: “… at the end of the decade, [the public housing program] remained demoralized and directionless.”^[11] Federal housing policy established a framework for a decentralized program of low-income housing that favored white residents and suburban commuters to attract a larger visitor economy, at the expense of inner-city residents. Bauman shows how the government built and bureaucratically managed complexes that contrasted too starkly with American housing norms- how too much government involvement can create complexity in the rebuilding process when housing authorities have to adhere to a changing political climate.^[12] Adam’s book works to recount that moving too far in the opposite direction- losing control over infrastructure oversight- was a step in the right direction to starting larger projects, that despite being rarely beneficial to inner-city residents, were economically beneficial to the Philadelphian region as a whole.

Adams’ From the Outside In contradicts Bauman’s belief that Philadelphian urban renewal was a total failure, despite the shortcomings of public housing. Bauman set up Adam’s argument, relating most of the failures in the public housing sector with a shift in ideology that indicated both left and right-leaning political participants supported government intervention and federal funding, and that the division of party lines lies along the direction of the money in the public and private sectors. To set up her perspective of a new form of regionalism, Adams first had to argue against the premise that suburbs have turned their back on central cities.^[13] A common assumption made by Bauman that Adams looks to unravel is that suburbanites, as a result of suburbanization, deindustrialization, and the policies of the state and federal government ruined the city’s economy and have made no effort to revitalize it. In fact, over the last 15 years of redevelopment, which would put it squarely in between the publication dates of Bauman’s and Adams’ books, suburbanites have recognized the critical role the city plays in economic functions. De facto regionalism, through the use of Third-Sector organizations, blurs the lines between public and private sectors in American civic life. ^[14] City managers now turn to private investors to help finance Philadelphian’s transportation system. A new issue has arisen in urban politics- whether these nonprofits, volunteer organizations, research institutions, (etc.), should be used solely to save money and avoid the regulations set by the city and federal government. By using these organizations and providing them with federal aid, they have control over the equal distribution of services and have more authority than state legislation as to where, how, and why a project will be played out. In Bauman’s book, one sees the federal government’s intervention forcing the hand of city planners to change the location of public housing depending on local reception and federal funding. As Adams depicts, the opinion of the urban resident no longer matters, as these non-profits do not need to adhere to the public will or make press releases on the findings and undergoing of the project. While describing the thought process of local politicians at the time, Adams states: “Politicians generally prefer to distribute dollars and services more broadly. It is virtually impossible for the city council to agree to target development dollars in only a few locations because that shortchanges other areas.”^[15] Essentially, the agreement behind using Third-Sector organizations is that some people will benefit, while others will suffer from economic, social, and physical displacement. Therefore, the government focuses its efforts on redeveloping one area, a way for suburbanites to slowly change the city without considering the lives of the inhabitants and their organizations’ effects. For example, the Vine Street Expressway, “…offers a classic example of infrastructure that serves the region’s interests at the expense of city dwellers who live nearby… the initial proposal for eight lanes… would have eliminated a Catholic church and school that served as crucial institutions to Chinatown.”^[16] One may see a parallel between Bauman and Adams, as the issue of where public housing should be located meant that they were placed in predominantly black neighborhoods, further segregating the minorities that live in public housing and worsening the issue of cramped neighborhoods. Similarly, the issue of where to locate transportation services for commuters fell on black neighborhoods that were seen as ‘unsalvageable’, despite them being a product of a failed distribution of public services. Overall, Adams wanted to indicate how intergovernmental authorities carry out their responsibility for transportation systems that link the city to the suburbs across municipal boundaries, and the inequality present when relying on Third-Sector organizations to carry out the job of the federal and state governments.^[17] Adams also alludes to the new centers of gravity within Philadelphia, and how the responsibility of building major districts and developing entirely new districts plays out in the private and public sectors. As the number of organizations grew, the power of the mayor diminished. Government and nonprofit organizations are almost equal in terms of political standing. Revitalizing Philadelphia meant two things- establishing a successful visitor and commuter economy, and reshaping the educational landscape. The City’s 1960 Comprehensive Plan addressed where certain public services should be placed, as well as transportation services and the estimated amount of jobs that should be accomplished by 1980.^[18] As Third-Sectors got involved, however, the Plan fell apart and instead the ‘Building Our Strengths’ city plan was enacted, a ratification of existing racial and infrastructure trends in Philadelphia. It contains a compendium of various different projects, ideas, and locations, without offering a comprehensive goal. Third-Sector organizations were hard for even the mayor to control, as their professional positions put them at the forefront of decision-making. As one will see, there are many successes and failures produced by these Third-Sector organizations, most of the failures attributed to poor planning for future usage of the project. In terms of educational attainment, inner-city school districts serve children that are from impoverished or immigrant homes, which means property tax bases cannot produce enough revenue to support schools. A high academic need and weak local tax base meant that, in the 70s and 80s, there was a large downward spiral for urban school districts nationally, from which this pattern the Philadelphia School District reflected. As a result, the government had to intervene and take over: “The most striking change in U.S. education governance in the last forty years has been the growth of centralized state control.”^[19] If a school was labeled as distressed, it could legally be taken over by the state. Suburbanites and city dwellers alike saw budgetary shortfalls that are a result of a funding formula incapable of accounting for the city’s high educational costs; restructuring the delivery of education to emphasize competition and mimic market patterns would increase consumer choice. The government was providing EMOs to the worst performing schools, which allowed private management of public schools, but after the failure of EMOs, Philadelphia backed the Charter school movement. Unlike public schools, profit-making businesses play a sizable role in the aspects of charter operations.^[20] To make private schools and charter schools more popular, Philadelphia incorporated a portfolio model of pedagogy, where empowered teachers have direct oversight over their students, and parents were given more freedom of choice as to where their child attended school. Portfolio models, however, tended to, “… expand the geographic focus of local school leaders because locals find themselves soliciting support from many outsiders beyond their traditional and local political allies.”^[21] Regionalism is seeping into Philadelphia’s educational system, and as Bauman and Adams both clearly indicate, the intersection of local and national politics became an issue when infrastructure was not being built with an image of the future, the ‘bigger picture’, or not being built at all. The charter operators shifted enrollments out of residential neighborhoods and into buildings in the center of the city. Although this is both better economically for the success of charter schools, as there were more students available in the area, the current pattern of location weakened the historical links between public schools and surrounding neighborhoods.^[22] Adams and Bauman both highlight the importance of schools in fostering a community and in both cases, residential neighborhoods suffered because of the poor housing quality surrounding these schools. Public housing ended up being placed in areas with the worst housing, often disconnected from the school system after a more conservative voting base blocked public housing and low-income housing in the more affluent neighborhoods. Charter school locations ended up in two positions- either filled to its max capacity with non-caucasian students or filled to less than half-capacity with white students. Charter schools and public housing followed the same path of reinforcing residential segregation patterns, and as both Bauman and Adams write, the educational system is only getting worse as it is privatized; the state lost direct oversight over their students, and the government made no attempt to create a comprehensive plan to rebuild the city with its poverty-stricken residents in mind. Adams does not dislike the use of Third-Sector organizations to accomplish bigger projects faster and cheaper but takes note that city and state governments are channeling dollars into organizational fields where the recipients use those public resources to compete rather than cooperate with one another.^[23] Lodging, such as displacement and the need for new residential buildings and the refurbishment of old buildings, made the process more difficult because the well-being for the future of locals’ residency depended on the layout of the city. Despite this, politicians were pushing reliance on the Third Sector anyway. A high level of public funding does not align the Third Sector with government objectives, even if Philadelphia had a comprehensive plan. Instead, public officials only put limited requirements for projects to get them approved faster. The policy around these projects favored competition between the organizations to produce greater efficiency, which then led to competition between the projects post-construction, such as with the charter school movement. Competition fosters organizational isolation- to fix this, Adams indicated a few ways the federal and state governments can navigate the current path of private and public enterprise. Adams states: “City officials should work to induce greater sectoral coherence and concern for serving Philadelphians, to see that the city gains the greatest possible benefit from its concentration of tax-exempt institutions.”^[24] Bauman’s book shows how historians of the time witnessed federal funding and building requirements, as well as public opinion on the project, as an obstacle to public housing and urban renewal’s success. Similarly, Adams shows how a move in the opposite direction, a form of laissez-faire economic regionalism, also posed issues because of an emphasis on capitalistic competition that contradicted the government’s goal of urban renewal and a lower inner-city poverty rate. The influx of suburban money bolstered the economy of Philadelphia, which disproves Bauman’s scapegoating of suburbanization as the main cause of an economic decline in Philadelphia, but the oversight in fixing Philadelphia’s racially segregated housing meant that the new projects were being built over the worst areas. Philadelphian low-income neighborhoods were bulldozed and rarely were residents fairly compensated.

McKee’s The Problem of Jobs contained elements from both Bauman’s and Adams’ work but stood out for its usage of larger, national issues put into context for the rise of Liberalism, a continuation of unemployment issues, and a lack of racial equality in Philadelphia. As opposed to the other books, McKee emphasizes the need for jobs, specifically how left-leaning political participants’ support of government intervention in the economy persisted at the local level even as national ideologies swayed in the other direction.^[25] McKee begins his book after World War II and ends in the 1970s, a timeframe that just overlaps with Bauman’s book and finishes where Adams starts. McKee presents the history of the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation (PIDC), a quasi-public organization that added about 68,000 jobs between 1959 and 1970, and the projects it had undertaken to promote racial equality and prevent further segregation in the city. The placement of McKee’s book at the end of this historiography study, despite taking place in between Bauman and Adams, is not a mistake. McKee’s book indicates the transformation of federal and local policy to reflect the involvement of Third Sector organizations: “These local policy initiatives engaged with and, in some cases, relied on the resources and incentives provided by federal programs, but they remained projects of the local state- of liberal policymakers and activists who constructed public, private, and community-based institutions that sought to address the city’s loss of industrial jobs.”^[26] Bauman’s book introduces the concept of using private goals to accomplish public services- McKee takes this and identifies the various projects undertaken to accomplish the Philadelphia Plan and Model Cities program, the first of which to include non-profits to shorten construction periods and bring in more jobs at a rapid rate. McKee is also innovative in his contribution to how Philadelphia’s job-focused programs paralleled racial tracks; the projects that failed generally ignored the social component of industrial decline and racial discrimination in the Philadelphian industry. Specifically, how PIDC’s tendency to work in isolation from those most dramatically affected by economic change led to more suffrage on the part of Philadelphia’s black population.^[27] Black-run projects, which both Bauman and Adams failed to allude to, were vulnerable to the real estate market and fluctuations in federal support as a result of changing market conditions. Public action by a hostile white working-class privileged a focus on cultural factors in urban renewal over the need for a long-term plan for fixing structural economic concerns in the city.^[28] PIDC and the Philadelphia Plan lost momentum as Liberalism lost its momentum- the national concern for the War on Poverty offered opinionated white city residents a way to lay out their concerns for undergoing an urban renewal project in already affluent neighborhoods. The focus, they believed, should be on the city’s worst slums. Unfortunately, this meant continuing the residential divide of the city’s black population, or in the worst cases, complete displacement and removal. McKee’s analysis of the direct effect of the War on Poverty in the slums of Philadelphia draws parallels to Bauman’s foundation of placing public and low-income housing in economically advantaged neighborhoods. Simply, government intervention focused on white appeasement without the realization of the importance of black economic and social participation in Philadelphia’s inner city. While Bauman is pessimistic about the future, however, McKee focuses on the PIDC’s victory in slowing the progress of deindustrialization and moderating its effects.^[29] McKee brings to the table a level of optimism unseen in Bauman’s perspective, while Adams adheres to a methodology of unbiased analysis of the city’s and Third Sector organizations’ urban renewal agenda and necessary racial progressivism. McKee and Adams acknowledge the local and federal politicians’ complete disconnection between economic decline and racial inequality. McKee, however, claims that local public policy can still have a wide effect on the rate of economic change independent of racial matters.^[30] Adams believes that economic decline is synonymous with racial inequality, dictating a change in the historical perspective that inequality should be at the forefront of urban redevelopment programs. McKee also addresses racial matters continuously throughout the book, which differs from Bauman’s and Adams’ use of dedicated chapters advocating the involvement of racial matters in shaping Philadelphia’s urban renewal process. For example, McKee noted the shortfalls of the liberal agenda in embracing civil rights, and how the lack of black political representation in city-building meant the expansion of industry was inaccessible to inner-city residents: “… the interaction of job discrimination and industrial decline in Philadelphia had placed African Americans at a severed disadvantage in the local labor market…nonwhite men held a disproportionate share of low-wage, low-scale jobs… only 8.7 percent of [African Americans held] professional and technical jobs…”^[31] Black residents, according to McKee, act solely out of response to economic crisis in Philadelphia, making it apparent that black political participants focused on creating jobs, without realizing that the jobs being made were hard for the average inner-city black resident to attain. McKee ends his book with the Model Cities program, a shift from a focus on the renewal of Philadelphia’s manufacturing industry to the services industry: “… the PIDC had slowed but not reversed the decline of Philadelphia’s manufacturing sector during the 1960s and that the base of the national economy had begun to shift from manufacturing to services. This led both city and… PIDC to question whether the nonprofit corporation should continue to focus exclusively on industrial development or expand its operations into services.”^[32] A large part of Adams’ book lies in the development of these service institutions; McKee takes note of the availability of land for future industrial uses, and Adams picks up with the various service projects conducted on that land. McKee’s analysis of the bifurcation of local and federal policy is hopeful, at the very least, that Liberalism will overtake the agendas of status-quo residential ‘segregationists’ for a more inclusive economical base in Philadelphia.

The last 30 years have witnessed scholarship on Philadelphian inner-city politics change to include the active participation of suburbanites, the rise of Progressivism and Liberalism, and the inclusion of the black struggle for economic and social participation. At the same time, Bauman, McKee, and Adams all take note of the large number of contradictions that come into play when federal and local policy intersect. Bauman’s Public Housing, Race, and Renewal follows the issue of national political ideologies in the context of war-spawned conservatism, and how the failure of public housing led to a reliance on private sectors to provide housing for those in need. Private interests, however, do not always align with the public; housing was built but did not always reach a level of adequacy that modern homes have. Adams’ From the Outside In shows how the move towards private sector construction and subsequent failure led to a new form of regionalism based on Third Sector organizations’ involvement. To blur the lines between private and public sectors and circumnavigate the general public’s opinion on whether the project should be built in the first place, Philadelphia’s mayors utilized a growing medium of regionalism. McKee’s The Problem of Jobs takes into consideration this shift and depicts the transformation in ideology to include Liberalism, similar but not exact to Bauman’s interpretation of the definition of Progressivism in Philadelphian local politics. While Bauman remains pessimistic about the future of public housing and urban renewal, McKee exemplifies a shift in public opinion to focus on the positives of urban renewal, with some constructive criticism concerning how race should be considered in the application of the process; Adams represents a politically unbiased retelling of events, with many points as to how city politicians should carry construction projects in the future. All three books, however, fully understand that economic decline was tied to racial inequality and that the power of the state and Third Sector organizations are necessary to have a significant effect on the character of economic and racial progress.

Teaching racial inequality in the educational and infrastructural fields is important for closing the social and economic gap that has developed since the removal of the institution of slavery. When teaching in West Windsor South, I noticed that students were hyper aware of their social classes. The very topic of racial disparity was often talked about in the 12th grade Social Justice class I helped out in, and each and every student noted how important it was to be actively thinking about solutions to solve the issues our predecessors have created. The books listed in this historiography study are a good start to help students understand the gravity of the situation and the attempts previously made to solve the issue, especially when the authors’ research delves into the closest city to them, Philadelphia.

References:

Adams, Carolyn Teich. From the Outside In: Suburban Elites, Third Sector Organizations, and the Reshaping of Philadelphia. Ithaca, New York: Cornell Univ. Press, 2014.

Bauman, John F. Public Housing, Race, and Renewal. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Temple University Press, 1987.

McKee, Guian A. The Problem of Jobs: Liberalism, Race, and Deindustrialization in Philadelphia. Chicago, Illinois: The University of Chicago Press, 2018.

^[1] Guian A. McKee, The Problem of Jobs: Liberalism, Race, and Deindustrialization in Philadelphia (Chicago, Illinois: The University of Chicago Press, 2018), 67.

^[2] John F. Bauman, Public Housing, Race, and Renewal (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Temple University Press, 1987), 40.

^[3] Bauman, Public Housing, 47.

^[4] Bauman, Public Housing, 56.

^[5] Bauman, Public Housing, 64.

^[6] Bauman, Public Housing, 68.

^[7] Bauman, Public Housing, 139.

^[8] Bauman, Public Housing, 147.

^[9] Bauman, Public Housing, 148.

^[10] Bauman, Public Housing, 148-150.

^[11] Bauman, Public Housing, 200.

^[12] Bauman, Public Housing, 208.

^[13] Carolyn Teich Adams, From the Outside In: Suburban Elites, Third Sector Organizations, and the Reshaping of Philadelphia (Ithaca, New York: Cornell Univ. Press, 2014), 2.

^[14] Adams, From the Outside In, 9.

^[15] Adams, From the Outside In, 21.

^[16] Adams, From the Outside In, 29.

^[17] Adams, From the Outside In, 49.

^[18] Adams, From the Outside In, 81.

^[19] Adams, From the Outside In, 84.

^[20] Adams, From the Outside In, 87-88.

^[21] Adams, From the Outside In, 93.

^[22] Adams, From the Outside In, 104.

^[23] Adams, From the Outside In, 173.

^[24] Adams, From the Outside In, 181

^[25] Guian McKee, The Problem of Jobs: Liberalism, Race, and Deindustrialization in Philadelphia (Chicago, Illinois: TheUniversity of Chicago Press, 2018), 4.

^[26] McKee, The Problem of Jobs, 12.

^[27] McKee, The Problem of Jobs, 81.

^[28] McKee, The Problem of Jobs, 111.

^[29] McKee, The Problem of Jobs, 67.

^[30] McKee, The Problem of Jobs, 76.

^[31] McKee, The Problem of Jobs, 119.

^[32] McKee, The Problem of Jobs, 251.

50 Years Ago, “Anti-Woke” Crusaders Came for My Grandfather

50 Years Ago, “Anti-Woke” Crusaders Came for My Grandfather

Max Jacobs

Reprinted from History News Network

On April 22nd, 2022, Florida Governor Ron DeSan tis signed House Bill 7 (popularly called the “Stop WOKE” Act). Christopher Rufo then took to the podi um. After praising the Governor and the bill, Rufo denounced Critical Race Theory (CRT) in schools on three points: CRT segregates students based on race, teaches white heterosexual males that they are fundamentally oppressive, and paints America as a place where racial minorities have no possibility of success.

While the bogeyman of CRT is a new iteration, Rufo’s objections fit into the long history of the politics of American education. Like his predecessors, Rufo misrepresents ideas critical of conservative hegemony in order to maintain it. “I am quite intentionally,” Rufo tweeted, “redefining what ‘critical race theory’ means in the public mind, expanding it as a catchall for the new orthodoxy. People won’t read Derrick Bell, but when their kid is labeled an ‘oppressor’ in first grade, that’s now CRT.” But if the public does read Bell, they will see the fallacious humbug Rufo has concocted. “America offers something real for black people,” Bell writes in Silent Covenants, “…the pragmatic approach that we must follow is simply to take a hard-eyed view of racism as it is, and of our subordinate role in it. We must realize with our slave forebears that the struggle for freedom is, at bottom, a manifestation of our humanity that survives and grows stronger through resistance to oppression even if we never overcome that oppression.” Rufo’s deliberate obfuscation of CRT furthers the American lost cause of white resentment. Attaching the politics of education to the politics of whiteness places Rufo’s actions within a longer historical pattern.

In 1972, Search for Freedom: America and Its People came up for review at a public hearing in Texas for statewide textbook adoption. Noted Texan conservatives Mel and Norma Gabler derided the fifth-grade social studies text for several reasons. First, they alleged, it questioned American values and patriotism. Second, it encouraged civil disobedience. Third, it championed Robin Hood economics (taxing the rich and giving to the poor). Fourth, it committed blasphemy for comparing the ideas of Thoreau, Gandhi, and King with those attributed to Jesus in the Gospels. Fifth, it glorified Andy Warhol and, worst of all, only mentioned George Washington in passing but devoted six-and-a-half pages to Marilyn Monroe. After the hearing, the Texas legislators agreed with the Gablers’ objections and effectively banned the textbook from Texas classrooms. Because of Texas’s outsized role in textbook adoption, the textbook did not make it into any other classrooms.

William Jay Jacobs, my grandfather, wrote the book. My personal connection to this history helps me see how Rufo carries the Gablers’ legacy into the twenty-first century. Acting as guardians of the American republic, Rufo and the Gablers turn complex ideas into soundbites and use those soundbites to make claims about radical indoctrination in schools. They portray this indoctrination as so dangerous that censorship is the only possible solution. The Gablers and Rufo, in their way, share Plato’s convict ion that “the young are not able to distinguish what is and what is not…for which reason, maybe, we should do our utmost that the first stories that they hear should be composed as to bring the fairest lessons of virtue to their ears.” Should any story question or contradict the conservative virtues the Gablers and Rufo hold so dear, “it becomes [their] task, then, it seems, if [they] are able, to select which and what kind of natures are suited for the guardianship of a state.”

In a modern democracy, though, which “lessons of virtue” and who “select[s] which and what kind of natures” should be taught to the young are open for public debate. The Gablers and Rufo have therefore worked to manipulate ideas, and how the public perceives those ideas, to justify both conservative curricula and their roles as legitimate guardians of the common-sense virtures of the American republic.

After the 1972 Search for Freedom hearings, as the right questioned the left’s patriotism and labeled any dissent as anti-American, the Gablers took to the press, seeding sensational soundbites. Headlines shouted: “The Sexy Textbook!” and “More MM than GW!” Mel and Norma then headed to “The Phil Donahue Show” and “60 Minutes” with my grandfather’s textbook in hand. Proclaiming themselves as neutral textbook evaluators, they held the book up to the screen and claimed that my grandfather had swapped Marilyn Monroe for Martha Washington as mother of our country. But as my grandfather wrote in a retor t, “‘Marilyn’ made for a good laugh. Yet what better contemporary symbol have we of the potential for barrenness in the American dream when, stripped of its inherent idealism, it is reduced to a mindless groping for money and fame? The Marilyn Monroe sketch raised questions for young readers about mass “spectatorism” and the commercial packaging of human vulnerabilities. It illustrated that not every story beginning with “Once upon a time” necessarily will end with the hero (or heroine) living ‘happily ever after.’”

Rather than juxtaposing the moral of my grandfather’s story with their objection, the Gablers simply skipped over my grandfather’s critical rendition of the American dream and turned it instead into made-for-TV moral panic. They used live television to warn the American public that dangerous ideas were in their textbooks. The Gablers posture—as common-sense Americans shocked by outrageous lessons—spoke to conservative Americans and encouraged them to join their effort to prevent subversive ideas from entering classrooms.

Before Rufo spoke on the podium with DeSantis, he began his crusade on Fox N ews with Tucker Carlson. On live television, Rufo claimed that CRT “has pervaded every institution in the federal government.” He further proclaimed, “I’ve discovered… that critical race theory has become in essence the default ideology of the federal bureaucracy and is now being weaponized against the American people.” With a captivated, frown-eyed Carlson watching, Rufo explicated findings from three “investigations” that purported to “show the kind of depth of this critical race theory occult indoctrination and the danger and destruction it can wreak.” First, he presented snippets from a seminar led by Howard Ross, who asked treasury department employees “to accept their white privilege…and accept all of the baggage that comes with this reducible essence of whiteness.” Second, Rufo described a weekly seminar on intersectionality held by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which aimed “to determine whether you are an oppressor or oppressed.” Third, Rufo detailed a “three-day re-education camp,” sponsored by the Sandia National Laboratories, to “deconstruct their white male culture and actually force them to write letters of apology to women and people of color.”

Rufo ended his diatribe with a call to action: “conservatives need to wake up that this is an existential threat to the United States…I call on the president to immediately issue this executive order and stamp out this destructive divisive pseudoscientific ideology at its root.” With his hyperbolic language, his tying CRT to anything that criticized the power of white American males, and his call for conservatives to “wake up” to defeat an “existential threat,” Rufo put his telegraphed approach to work.

The Carlson interview aired on the first of September; by the 4th a memo was sent by the Trump administration stating, “…according to press reports, employees across the Executive Branch have been required to attend trainings where they are told that ‘virtually all White people contribute to racism or where they are required to say that they ‘benefit from racism’.”

Extracting CRT from the halls of academia and claiming to find its pernicious presence across all federal agencies, Rufo and Carlson brewed moral p anic to transform CRT into an existential bogeyman who was coming to destroy white America.

In both cases, the Gablers and Rufo used television to gain support for their cause. They turned critical ideas of American society into a demon that must be slayed. By inflating distant employee training sessions and fifth-grade social studies textbooks into a vast anti-white, anti-American conspiracy, they encouraged viewers to see schools as a nearby battle front, they could, and must, fight on.

In an article titled “Ideological Book Banning is Rampant Nationally,” published in the Washington Post on October 16th, 1983, Alison Muscatine reported the following: “‘Our children are totally controlled,’ said Norma Gabler, displaying a social studies textbook that devotes six pages to Marilyn Monroe but that makes only three references to George Washington. ‘Can you imagine a sex symbol being given more time than the father of our country? I don’t think it’s fair that our children be subjected to this kind of information. They are being totally indoctrinated to one philosophy.’”

To try to fight the alleged indoctrination, the Gablers created the Educational R esearch Analysts—an explicitly Christian conservative organization–to review, revise, and censor any textbook that ran counter to their vision of what American children should be taught. In their attempt to guard the American child from subversive stories, the Gablers claimed children were being “totally indoctrinated to one philosophy.” Their censorious actions, however, did more to indoctrinate American children to one way of seeing the world than did my grandfather’s parable on Marilyn Monroe. Citing indoctrination, the Gablers justified their censorship to preserve their version of America as the only legitimate story American children should read.

Although Rufo himself has not censored textbooks, his actions led to legislation that did. The Florida Department of Education published a press re lease labeled “Florida Rejects Publishers’ Attempts to Indoctrinate Students.” In 5,895 pages, the department details two reasons for rejecting 41 percent of the textbooks that were reviewed. The textbooks either followed Common Core Standards (which the Florida Department of Education rejects), or the textbooks included CRT (defined, of course, in Rufo’s expansive terms). Like the Gablers, the Florida textbook evaluators assume controversial ideas in a text will indoctrinate the children reading them. Again, the Gablers and Rufo posture as guardians standing against a radical activist agenda, not as censors. They both throw their hands up, sit, and watch as other citizens act upon their calls to censor ideas. And when others call them censorious zealots, they simply dodge the charges by claiming they themselves did not censor ideas, even though their actions clearly encouraged others to do so.

In an exposé on the Gablers, Mel details how they understand this guardianship. “‘When they eliminate good books and put garbage in, they are the censors,’ he said. ‘All we do is point it out’.” Because they only reported the textbooks to the Texas Education Agency, the Gablers did not see themselves as censors. Semantically, they may be right. Practically, however, the Gablers’ actions effectively “canceled” certain ideas. Forget merit; for the Gablers, an idea should only be taught if it fits into an understanding of “good books” that happens to coincide with their conservative worldview. The good books argument is akin to the argument Plato’s Socrates makes in the Republic. Namely, those who have the power and guard the republic are the rightful persons to decide which stories and thereby which virtues the future guardians should learn. The problem is, however, neither the Gablers nor any other single entity in a modern democratic state has the sole right to decide what the next generation ought to know.

On Twitter, Rufo evoked this exact line of reasoning. He wrote, “there are no ‘book bans’ in America. Authors have a First Amendment right to publish whatever they want, but public libraries and schools are not obligated to subsidize them. Voters get to decide which texts—and ultimately, which values—public institutions transmit to children.” Rufo is right, to a point. The voters do make those decisions but do so, presumably, by understanding good faith arguments on both sides of an issue. But Rufo’s sensationalized, bad faith reporting—which turned CRT into something it is wholly not—prevents voters, especially children, from seeing both sides of the issue and forming their own opinion. Positioning himself as defender of America, Rufo’s reporting turns progressive ideas into anti-American rhetoric to excite the conservative base to enact censorship.

Let me be clear, the difference between the Gablers and Rufo is one of degree, not kind. The Gablers aimed at textbooks while Rufo aims at a broad and diffuse set of ideas and practices that are now dubbed “wokeness.” The Gablers raised hell at textbook adoption meetings while Rufo raises hell on the internet. Both position themselves as protectors against supposedly subversive ideas. Both (along with Plato), however, fall into the same faulty assumption. Critical or not, ideas do not simply transmit to children. Children, like adults, can reaso n. Thus, children–not just books, not just ideas–shape how they understand the world they live in.

In his response editorial, my grandfather leaves us with a prescient insight: “Meanwhile, it’s comforting to know that the issue of book banning continues to generate controversy. It means that at least someone, somewhere, still takes the written word seriously as a means of influencing the minds of young people.”

Social Studies Groups Worried State Trying to Downgrade Importance of History, Civics

Social Studies Groups Worried State Trying to Downgrade Importance of History, Civics

John Hildebrand

Reprinted by permission from Newsday, May 30, 2023

Social studies groups statewide are pushing back against a plan out of Albany they say would downgrade the importance of coursework in history and civics during a time when such lessons should take top priority. The critics, who include a strong contingent from Long Island, add that the state’s plan could lead to elimination of two major Regents exams. Those tests cover U.S. History and Government, and Global History and Geography. At issue is a recent announcement by the state’s Department of Education that it would drop, for the next two years, its practice of including scores from such exams in its academic ratings of high schools. Agency officials describe the move as a temporary “pause” and insist that social studies retains its status as a core academic subject, along with English, math and science.

Albany’s plan has alarmed many educators, who note that the state already has taken steps to reduce the amount of class time spent on history, geography, civics and related subjects. Social studies leaders at the state level recently stepped up their criticism, joining colleagues from the Island. Lisa Kissinger, president of the New York State Council for the Social Studies, fired off a letter to state education officials on May 22, urging them to reconsider their planned change in school ratings. A copy of the letter was obtained by Newsday. “This ‘pause’ sends a message to all New Yorkers that Social Studies education is not a priority,” Kissinger wrote. “We are concerned that ‘pausing’ the inclusion of results demonstrates a devaluation of Social Studies that could lead to the elimination of the Social Studies Regents exams and minimization of the critical importance of this core subject.”

Kissinger is a social studies administrator in the suburban Shenendehowa district near Albany, and her state organization represents hundreds of administrators, teachers and college faculty. Her letter was addressed to Lester W. Young Jr., chancellor of the Board of Regents, which oversees the education department and sets much of the state’s education policy.

State: Social studies is integral

A senior department official, Theresa Billington, responded to Kissinger’s letter the following day, insisting that her agency placed a high priority on social studies. “The department values Social Studies as an integral part of our shared civic discourse and the critical role it plays in educating and shaping the students of New York State to become active citizens and future leaders of our nation,” Billington wrote. She is an assistant state commissioner for school accountability. Billington noted that some Regents history exams were canceled during the COVID-19 pandemic and added that this would seriously limit the amount of data available for school ratings. Kissinger pointed out, on the other hand, that data would be available from a global history exam administered last year, as well as from other tests scheduled for June and for the 2023-24 school term.

The assistant commissioner’s response did not directly address Kissinger’s concerns about the future of Regents exams. That’s one of the thorniest issues facing the education department, which recently accelerated a previously announced overhaul of graduation requirements. The overhaul could include a decision to stop using Regents exams as a diploma requirement. A state-appointed commission is scheduled to release recommendations for revised graduation rules by November — seven months earlier than originally planned.

Regents, which established the commission last September, have said that one goal is to help more students gain the knowledge and skills needed to graduate, even if they do that through pathways other than traditional exams. “This is not about lowering standards,” Young remarked at the time.

Worries that changes will be lasting

Social studies representatives have cautioned, however, that any changes in testing policy could affect studies of history and related subjects in a negative way, if not handled carefully. Under federal law, students must be tested periodically in English, math and science, but there is no such requirement for social studies.As a result, social studies testing has sometimes taken a backseat. In 2010, Regents voted unanimously to eliminate social studies tests in fifth and eighth grades, on grounds that the state was short of money for assessments.

Those tests were never restored, and supporters of the social studies said there’s a lesson in that. “Once they pause, they will never return,” said Gloria Sesso, co-president of the Long Island Council for the Social Studies.

On May 12, the regional group sent its own protest to Betty A. Rosa, the state’s education commissioner. The letter asserted that the state’s planned change in school ratings could create a “danger to democracy” by lessening the time schools spend on social studies lessons. Billington responded to the Island group’s letter, much as she did to Kissinger’s, by insisting that her department placed great value on social studies.

Alan Singer, a Hofstra University education professor, agreed with critics that “once paused, it is unlikely social studies performance will ever be included in the assessments, and what is not assessed is not going to be a priority.” In a recent blog, Singer noted that a state decision in 2016 to limit events covered by global history exams to those occurring after 1750 had excluded topics such as the impact of Columbus’ voyages. The blog’s title: “History is in Trouble in New York State.”

Modern Neocolonialism Via Public and Private Entities

Modern Neocolonialism Via Public and Private Entities

Brian Crociata

For over five centuries, opportunistic outside powers have been taking advantage of Latin America. During the colonial era, the natural resources and native populations of the region were abused by European countries for profit. Exploitative practices left indelible marks on the area that persist to this day, and even after achieving independence, many countries in the region continue to function under neocolonial domination. Through the direct actions of foreign governments and more subtle acts of economic manipulation, the will of the people in Latin America has been continuously suppressed by intruding parties. In this essay, I will argue that modern neocolonial influence in Latin America largely follows historical precedent. Political and economic affairs in the region are shaped by modern foreign interests in the same manner that they have been throughout history.

With the advent of lithium-ion batteries and their increased popularity in the search for clean energy sources, global interest has been shifted back towards the Latin American mining industry. The trio of Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina contain about 58 percent of all global lithium reserves, a resource which is highly valuable on the global market (Berg et. al. “South America’s Lithium Triangle” 2021). Consequently, multiple global superpowers have expressed interest in gaining partial-or total-control over South American mining operations. In the first document that I chose, “South America’s Lithium Triangle: Opportunities for the Biden Administration”, authors Ryan C. Berg and T. Andrew Sady-Kennedy suggest that the Biden administration should pursue a higher level of cooperation between the United States and the countries mentioned above. Citing environmentalist concerns, green energy, and the rapidly expanding demand for lithium, the two argue that it would be mutually beneficial for all parties to work together (Berg et. al. “ South America’s Lithium Triangle” 2021). On its own, this suggestion seems innocent enough. Alternative energy is a burgeoning market, and the modern globalized economy means that investment from foreign sources is not uncommon by any means. However, when the current political climate in these lithium-producing countries is considered, it becomes more clear that the United States’ plans for involvement are not in line with the ideals that these countries have embraced. The elected governments of Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile all express heavy left-leaning ideologies, which are largely incompatible with the concept of investment as it is understood in the article. The newly elected president of Chile, Gabriel Boric, has even suggested that he will seek to nationalize the country’s mining industry, a move that would likely cease all involvement from the United States (Restivo 2021). Berg and Sady-Kennedy briefly address these barriers, noting the “United States’ historically rocky relationship with both Argentina and Bolivia”, but they do not seem to view them as particularly significant (Berg et. al. “South America’s Lithium Triangle” 2021). To the authors, such concerns can simply be solved by organizing a summit between lithium-producing countries and potential investors (Berg et. al. “South America’s Lithium Triangle” 2021). No credence is lent to the possibility of countries being disinterested in such a summit. Such arrogance is reminiscent of that displayed by those seeking to spread European-style “progress” into Latin America during the 19th Century. As described in “Neocolonial Ideologies” by E. Bradford Burns, it was inconceivable to Europeans that anybody would disagree with their conception of the optimal society. Burns puts it as such: “…the Enlightenment philosophers concluded that if people had the opportunity to know the truth, they would select ‘civilization’ over ‘barbarism’” (Burns 1980:92). Of course all Latin American people would pursue an industrialized society, as it was objectively the civilized, superior manner of existence. Berg and Sady-Kennedy demonstrate a similar pattern of thinking. Of course Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina would meet with the United States to discuss investment, because it is objectively the best way for them to boost said investment.

This article frequently invokes the ideas of partnership and cooperation, but it subtly betrays its true intentions in one key statement. After discussing the newfound usefulness of lithium and the growing market for it, Berg and Sady-Kennedy say the following: “These trends indicate that control of the lithium industry could reap major benefits in the future…” (Berg et. al. “South America’s Lithium Triangle” 2021). Notable in this excerpt is the usage of the word “control”. Unlike partnership and cooperation, the idea of control carries a much different -and much more sinister- connotation. It implies a much more forceful involvement, one in which the will of the United States is imposed instead of negotiated. This, of course, is the most familiar modus operandi of the United States. It can be traced back almost two full centuries to the Monroe Doctrine, expressed in 1823. The Doctrine, presented to Congress by President James Monroe, granted the U.S. permission to involve itself in Latin American affairs “in which the rights and interests of the United States are involved” (Avalon Project 2008). There are shades of this approach visible in the article, as Berg and Sady-Kennedy establish that the lithium industry is very much of interest to the United States. However, the authors seem to push beyond this concept and into the realm of the Roosevelt Corollary. The Roosevelt Corollary granted the United States power to exercise more force in its application of the Monroe Doctrine, under the guise of “[desiring] to see the neighboring countries stable, orderly, and prosperous” (Frohnen 2008). It drew heavily from the idea of paternalism, which is based upon the belief that some groups of people are more capable and intelligent than others. This feigned desire to see Latin American countries succeed, as well as the paternalistic tone of the Corollary, can be seen throughout the article. The failure of Chile, Bolivia, and Argentina to “successfully [transform] the majority of [their] available resources into economically viable reserves available for commercial production” is bemoaned, and it is heavily insinuated that the United States is responsible for reversing this trend (Berg et. al. “South America’s Lithium Triangle” 2021). The exact words of the Monroe Doctrine and the Roosevelt Corollary are much too taboo for modern-day political analysts, but clearly the sentiments expressed within them are still relevant and popular.

The United States is far from the only country perpetuating modern neocolonialism in Latin America. In its efforts to expand its social and economic influence, China has begun to get involved in the region, with much more obvious and direct intentions. Thus, for the second document in this analysis, I chose “Chinese Neocolonialism in Latin America: An Intelligence Assessment”, written by senior airman Steffanie G. Urbano and produced by the U.S. Air Force. The report enumerates a few different grievances that the United States has with China’s action, starting with exploitative lending and the weaponization of debt. Urbano describes a process known as “debt diplomacy”, in which China will issue exploitative loans to Latin American countries that do not have the ability to pay them back. The debt from these loans is then used as leverage by China, allowing them to hold other countries hostage when they cannot repay. This allows China free reign to operate in the region, with actions like seizing key infrastructure and forcibly reworking government contracts being common (Urbano 2021:185-187). China’s strategy of leveraging debt is not unheard of in Latin America; in fact, it is particularly reminiscent of the blueprint set by Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries. During this time, major European powers kept newly independent Latin countries in a state of perpetual debt, taking advantage of their young governments and economies. When these countries inevitably defaulted on their loans, loaning countries used it as an excuse to exercise military power and generally institute their own will. In Born in Blood & Fire, John Charles Chasteen lays out a particularly prominent example from Mexico in the mid-1850s: “The civil war had bankrupted the Mexican state, and Juárez suspended payment on foreign debt. France, Spain, and Britain retaliated by collectively occupying Veracruz” (Chasteen 2016:169-170). Using Veracruz as a springboard, the French military invaded the country, kicked out the current government, and installed their own puppet dictator to rule the country on their behalf. This particular brand of gunboat diplomacy is outdated in modern times, but the utilization of debt to excuse aggressive behavior is very much alive. Beyond debt diplomacy, Urbano also notes that large numbers of Chinese immigrants are settling in Latin America. She points to the fact that the Chinese-born population in the area more than doubled from 1990 to 2015, an increase which was sparked by “the migration of families to join Chinese laborers already settled in Latin America” (Urbano 2021:192). This is another familiar strategy, one that was used in the American banana republics in the early 20th century. The United Fruit Company, who effectively controlled much of Central America, created entire towns and communities of U.S. expats. Employees and their families would live in neo-suburban settings, “miniature US neighborhoods of screen-porched houses on meticulously manicured lawns”, isolated at best and actively colonizing at worst (Chasteen 2016:200-201). They spread American culture and ideas into the region, contributing little in the way of actual development and improvement. This parasitic relationship serves as the clear inspiration for China to develop their own isolated communities abroad.

Besides being deeply ironic, the contrasting tones of these two articles demonstrate the power of American exceptionalism to color our perception of the world. How can our government condemn “the detrimental impact of [Chinese-Latin American relationships] on regional stability and US leadership” when it has been just as guilty of destabilizing the region (Urbano 2021:184)? Why is it unacceptable for China to take control of key industries while American think tanks advocate for the same behavior? Do we truly believe that Latin America is only now becoming “overrun by malicious intent”, and that U.S. intervention “to keep our neighborhood friendly” is not malicious (Urbano 2021:197)? After analyzing both of these pieces, it has become clear that the United States sees itself in a different light from other countries. Ryan Berg and T. Andrew Sady-Kennedy advocate for intervention in the lithium industry because they believe that the U.S. must help Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile. They acknowledge that those countries do not want our assistance, but they seem to believe that such relationships can be changed purely by virtue of being the United States. Airman Urbano strongly condemns Chinese intervention in Latin America through the entirety of her writing, but she ends by advocating for U.S. intervention in the region. She seems to believe that the United States has more virtuous and respectable aims in the region, despite a history that suggests otherwise. Only by learning this history can we break such patterns of thinking and work towards achieving justice for the people of Latin America.

Incorporation into the classroom

Although this essay was previously drafted for a college level course, the ideas and the process demonstrated within it could prove useful in any social studies classroom that utilizes document analysis. When working with historical documents, it is important for students to recognize that the content within the document does not exist outside of its historical context. Effective analysis in the classroom should always include a dissection not only of the content itself, but the author, the intended audience, the reasons for the document’s creation, and the broader historical environment in which it was produced. In the above essay, we can see this process being taken with the Berg and Sady-Kennedy article and the broader context of U.S. policy in Latin America. As acknowledged by the author of this essay, the literal verbiage of the article is fairly innocent and mundane, with Berg and Sady-Kennedy advocating for cooperation and partnership in the region. When the historical context of the Monroe Doctrine and interventionist policy is considered, though, the article’s messaging becomes a more concerning indicator of contemporary views about Latin America in the United States.

For students in a secondary education setting, the skill of recognizing and defining a document’s subtext should be targeted for development. Educators can promote this skill by highlighting the aforementioned aspects (author, audience, intention, context) of documents that are used in class, thereby modeling the process for students. This can be scaffolded as well, with educators prompting students to undertake the analysis process on their own until it becomes an automatic part of dissecting a document. If students can effectively utilize this skill, teachers can incorporate a much broader range of documents into the classroom. Material does not need to be nearly as literal and targeted if students possess the ability to consider historical context. For example, a lesson on racial discrimination could incorporate writings about eugenics, redlining, discriminatory legal codes, and much more provided that students are able to recognize the racial connotations of these issues. Outside of the classroom, this skill is just as valuable. Politically active Americans will frequently encounter messaging that relies heavily on connotations and subtext to execute its true intentions. In order to function as a responsible and informed member of our democracy, an individual must be able to pick up on the messaging beneath the surface.

References

Berg, Ryan C. and Sady-Kennedy, T. Andrew. 2021. “South America’s Lithium Triangle: Opportunities for the Biden Administration.” Retrieved from https://ww w.csis.org/analysis/south-americas-lithium-triangle-opportunities-biden-administration <Accessed 4/22/22>

Burns, E. Bradford. 1980. “Neocolonial Ideologies.” In The Poverty of Progress: Latin America in the 19th Century. Berkeley: University of California Press. Pp. 18-20, 29-30.

Chasteen, John. 2016. Born in Blood & Fire. New York:W.W. Norton & Company.

Monroe, James. Monroe Doctrine, December 2, 1823. In The Avalon Project: Documents in Law, History, and Diplomacy. New Haven: Lillian Goldman Law Library, 2008.

Restivo, Néstor. 2021. “Cuál es el programa económico de Gabriel Boric para el nuevo Chile.” Pagina 12. December 26.

Roosevelt, Theodore. Roosevelt Corollary to Monroe Doctrine, December 6, 1904. In The American Nation: Primary Sources, edited by Bruce Frohnen. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2008.

Shakow, Miriam. 2022. “Findlay Intro & Ch 1-2 plus Roosevelt Corollary.” Class Lecture, Race & Gender in Latin America. The College of New Jersey. April 8.

Urbano, SrA Steffanie. 2021. “Chinese Neocolonialism in Latin America.” Journal of the Americas. Third Edition 2021: 183–199.

Twentieth Century Women Across Cultures

Twentieth Century Women Across Cultures

Freddy Blake

War is dispassionate in choosing its victims. It causes all participants, voluntary or involuntary, to suffer. And yet, throughout history, women have been defined by many social studies curricula as noncombatants, unable to wield a weapon against their enemy despite remaining on the receiving end of the opposition’s weapon. Women in twentieth century warfare instead contribute to the war effort from the homefront, taking the positions typically held by men who had left for the warfront. However, war is by nature chaotic and often has little respect for the socially manufactured lines of home and war fronts, potentially blurring the physical gap between the two. This is certainly the case on the eastern front of World War II for the Soviet Union. As Germany advanced far into Soviet territory in 1941, the warfront was pushed ever closer to the heart of Soviet noncombatants’ homes. These civilians, both men and women, became motivated to fight to reclaim their homes, supported by the national ideal that all Soviet citizens must be willing to fight and die for their motherland. One woman in particular, Lyudmila Pavlichenko, became the embodiment of this ideal, and her career “exemplified the activism fostered in young women” of the time.^[1] Through her memoir Lady Death, Pavlichenko details the proximity the war had with the typical Soviet citizen as hometowns were transformed into battlefields. This blend of home and war fronts is a foreign concept for the United States however, emphasized throughout Lyudmila’s reflection on her time spent in the western nation in 1942 as she drew comparisons between Soviet and American women. Therefore, Lyudmila Pavlichenko’s story may be used in history classrooms as a case study to allow students to explore the roles of women in World War II as well as note the differences between Soviet and American cultures in an era directly preceding the Cold War.

Female soldiers were not unheard of in the Soviet Union by 1941. In Soviet mythology and history, women were often portrayed as “being physically strong and capable of fighting.”^[2] Prior to the Russian Revolution of 1917, approximately 6,000 women were enlisted as soldiers in the Russian military. During the civil war following the Revolution, somewhere between, “73,000 and 80,000 women served on the Bolshevik side.”^[3] After the Russian Civil War’s conclusion, the Constitution of 1918 established voluntary military service for women. Soviet women were given equal rights to men in Article 122 of the 1936 Constitution. Of particular note is Article 133 of the same constitution, in which it is stated that, “The defense of the fatherland is the sacred duty of every citizen of the USSR.”^[4] These two Articles, when considered together, created a sense of military duty for every Soviet citizen, regardless of gender. This is evident in the feelings of many Soviet women as they remembered their enlistment, such as Svetlana Katykhina who recalls that, “My father was the first to leave for the front. Mama wanted to go with my father, she was a nurse, but he was sent in one direction, she in another. I kept going to the recruitment office, and after a year they took me.”^[5] Each member of Svetlana’s family enlisted in the Soviet military, including both Svetlana’s mother and Svetlana herself. Pavlichenko herself echoes this call to arms, stating that, “everyone who was confident in military knowledge and skills, regardless of his or her sex or national affiliation, had to join the ranks and make whatever contribution they were capable of to wipe out the German Fascist invaders.”^[6] Soviet citizens were united against Germany through their national sense of duty to military participation in conjunction with their united hatred for the aggressors invading their home.

Alongside legal support offered to Soviet women prior to the war, it was not abnormal for Soviet women to learn to work with firearms as citizens. In 1918, the Vsevobuch was created, requiring all male citizens between the ages of 18 to 40 to complete eight weeks of military training. This training was also offered to women, although participation was voluntary.^[7] Lyudmila’s first experience with shooting occurred far prior to the war through a shooting club offered to workers at Lyudmila’s factory, where her “enthusiasm for rifle-shooting began, [alongside her] apprenticeship as a sharpshooter.”^[8] Lyudmila then pursued her hobby in the form of a two-year-long curriculum at Osoaviakhim sniper school from 1937 to 1939. Lyudmila did this not explicitly out of her own interest in sniping, however, but because the activity of Germany in Europe in the late 30s that led Lyudmila to believe her sniper skills, “might come in handy.”^[9] Lyudmila was a rare case in the sense that her intention of fighting in the Red Army as a sniper existed prior to the war encroaching upon the Soviet Union’s territory.

Upon Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, only about 1,000 women were active in the Soviet military.^[10] The battlefield quickly reached Soviet citizens’ doorstep, forcing families that were able to evacuate east. Olga Vasilyevna, an eventual Soviet soldier, recalled that her “war began with evacuation… I left my home, my youth. On the way, our train was strafed, bombed.”^[11] It was at this point that the lines between war and homefront began to blur for Soviet citizens, causing both men and women alike to enlist in the Red Army. In the first few weeks, tens of thousands of Soviet women volunteered. Most were rejected.^[12] Lyudmila Pavlichenko, despite graduating with top marks from the Osoaviakhim sniper school, was initially rejected, recalling that the military registrar, “looked at me with a harassed expression and said: ‘Medical staff will be enlisted from tomorrow.’”^[13] It is this initial rejection of female soldier applicants in the Soviet Union that displays that women’s enlistment in the Red Army did not stem solely from Soviet social leniency towards women on the frontlines, as Soviet culture–like most nations in the mid-twentieth century–viewed women as a means of support during wartime. As the war progressed, however, “female volunteers were increasingly accepted.”^[14] On the second day of war, a request was made for 40,000 women to be called up for medical duties. By August of 1941, another 14,000 women were recruited as drivers. This trend continued until 1943, wherein,

Soviet women had been integrated into all services and all military roles, ranging from traditional support roles like medical service, to primarily defensive work in antiaircraft defense, to offensive combat roles in the infantry, to artillery, and armor, as well as the partisan movement.^[15]

While Soviet women had to begin their fight in the war prior to reaching the battlefield by gaining a foothold into the army, they quickly emerged victorious as the Red Army sought out additional manpower.

Lyudmila Pavlichenko and other Soviet women snipers were able to prove themselves effective on the battlefield. Women began to gain more respect in the eyes of Soviet military commanders. Pavlichenko’s sniping instructor, Alexander Vladimirovich Potapov, told Lyudmila that, “he was sure that women – not all, of course – were better suited to sniper operations… [women] had a considered and careful approach to the process of firing.”^[16] Soviet Major General Morozov stated that superior female marksmanship was due to their enhanced sense of touch allowing for the smooth pulling of a trigger, insinuating that, “innate feminine characteristics… predisposed women to surgical killing.”^[17] The Soviet government, recognizing women’s aptitude for the sniper role in combat, began training female snipers on the front lines.^[18] Early Soviet media reports on female soldiers often masculinized names to hide female involvement.^[19] However, this shifted as the war went on, as in March 1942 the Russian tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda published the sentiment, “If a young Soviet woman patriot is burning to master the machine gun, we should give her the opportunity to realize her dream.”^[20] Lyudmila’s experience echoed these social changes. After struggling to gain even a rifle with which to prove herself,^[21] Lyudmila was able to quickly rise up in rank after proving her abilities. She was promoted from private to corporal after recovering from shrapnel wounds^[22] and was later given her own sniper platoon to select and instruct in late 1941.^[23] While she continuously faced many fellow Soviets who doubted her abilities as a soldier due to her gender, she encountered just as many who recognized her talents. Pavlichenko returned from the frontlines in 1942 after having killed over 309 enemy soldiers.^[24]

Lyudmila, after being injured for her fourth time in 1942, was taken away from the frontlines and sent to the USSR’s western allies to pressure political leaders into opening up a second front against Germany. Lyudmila begins her journey in the United States, where she is subject to the drastic cultural shift between Soviet and American values during a time of war. Lyudmila is interviewed repeatedly, and she finds herself growing increasingly aggravated at the sense of calm and the focus on pointless subjects rampant within the U.S. In one press conference, Lyudmila is asked if women were, “able to use lipstick when at war,” to which Lyudmila replied, “Yes, but they don’t always have time. You need to be able to reach for a machine gun, or a rifle, or a pistol, or a grenade.”^[25] In the United States, says Lyudmila,

I feel like the butt of jokes, the object of idle curiosity, something like a circus act. Like a bearded woman. But I’m an officer of the Red Army. I have fought and will go on fighting for the freedom and independence of my country.^[26]

For a society so distanced from the forefront of war, the United States’ culture viewed Lyudmila as an individual from another world, an object needing pity due to the “need” of Soviet Russia to employ their women–who, from the American perspective, should be distanced from conflict–as frontline soldiers.

During her trip to America, Lyudmila came into contact with feminist world leader Eleanor Roosevelt. When meeting with Lyudmila over breakfast, Eleanor noted that, “If you had a good view of the faces of your enemies through telescope sights, but still fired to kill, it would be hard for American women to understand you, dear Lyudmila.”^[27] Lyudmila responded that the difference between American and Soviet women stems not from their ability and willingness to kill, but from the difference between American and Soviet circumstances in the war. Lyudmila,

explained to those living in a state far from the struggle against Fascism that we had come from a place where bombs were destroying towns and villages, blood was being spilt, where innocent people were being killed, and my native land was undergoing a severe ordeal. An accurate bullet was no more than a response to a vicious enemy.^[28]

Soldiers fought in World War II from both the U.S. and the USSR. However, while Soviet women were given rifles and machine guns to defend their homes from the frontline, “uniformed women from the United States did not participate in organized combat.”^[29] So what was the difference between Soviet and American women in the mid-twentieth century? How were Soviet women capable of pulling the trigger of a rifle pointed at their enemy, while American women–or rather their media representation–remained preoccupied with the attractiveness of their uniform? The gap between American and Soviet female participation in the military did not stem from cultural nor biological differences, but from the circumstances of the war itself. While the United States remained free of foreign invaders or bombings, the Soviet Union was subject to constant pressures, bombing runs, and gunfire. In the United States, women who desired to participate on the frontline of World War II had to travel thousands of miles to the medical tents.^[30] For women in the Soviet Union, the frontline came to them.

These conclusions can be applied in a (likely high school-level) history classroom to lead students to think more about the cultural gap between Soviets and Americans prior to the decades-long Cold War. Rarely are personal interactions between the two superpowers brought into the classroom, and equally rare is a case study portraying women as strong and deadly representatives of their nation on the frontline in times of war. Lyudmila Pavlichenko’s story brings both of these seldom-discussed aspects of history together, creating a perfect case study to use as a medium to bring historical context and personal perspectives from the mid twentieth century into the modern classroom. Students may be encouraged to use Lyudmila’s story as a source for a research paper or the excerpts about Lyudmila’s visit to the US as a basis for a student-led project. With the American curriculum often restricted to a western-based perspective on World War II and the Cold War, Lyudmila Pavlichenko’s memoir allows for a drastic change in perspective and representation of the “enemy’s” culture in contrast to our own.

References

Aleksievich, Svetlana. The Unwomanly Face of War: An Oral History of Women in World War II. New York, NY: Random House, 2018.

Judy, Barrett Litoff and David C. Smith. “American Women in a World at War.” Magazine of History 16, no. 3 (Spring, 2002): 7-7,9. Retrieved from https://ezproxy.tcnj.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/american-women-world-at-war/docview/213740770/se-2.

Markwick, Roger D., and Euridice Charon Cardona. Soviet Women on the Frontline in the Second World War (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012).

Muller, Richard. R, and Amy Goodpaster Strebe. 2009. “Flying for Her Country: The American and Soviet Women Pilots of World War II.” Journal of American Studies 43 (1). https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021875809006422.

Pavlychenko, Li︠u︡dmyla Mykhaĭlivna. Lady Death: The Memoirs of Stalin’s Sniper. Strawberry Hills, NSW: Read How You Want, 2021.

Pennington, Reina. “Offensive Women: Women in Combat in the Red Army in the Second World War” Journal of Military History (2010) 74#3 pp 775–820.

^[1] Roger D. Markwick and Euridice Charon Cardona, Soviet Women on the Frontline in the Second World War, (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 204.

^[2] Reina Pennington, “Offensive Women: Women in Combat in the Red Army in the Second World War,” in Journal of Military History (2010), 778.

^[3] Ibid., 779.

^[4] Ibid., 779.

^[5] Svetlana Aleksievich. The Unwomanly Face of War: An Oral History of Women in World War II, (New York, NY: Random House, 2001), 58.

^[6] Li︠u︡dmyla Mykhaĭlivna Pavlychenko. Lady Death: The Memoirs of Stalin’s Sniper, (Strawberry Hills, NSW: Read How You Want, 2021), 133.

^[7] Pennington, Offensive Women, 779.

^[8] Pavlychenko, Lady Death, 32.

^[9] Ibid., 38.

^[10] Pennington, Offensive Women, 780.

^[11] Aleksievich, The Unwomanly Face of War, 92.

^[12] Pennington, Offensive Women, 780.

^[13] Pavlychenko, Lady Death, 54.

^[14] Pennington, Offensive Women, 780.

^[15] Ibid., 782.

^[16] Pavlychenko, Lady Death, 42.

^[17] Markwick and Cardona, Soviet Women on the Frontline, 211.

^[18] Ibid., 209.

^[19] Richard R. Muller and Amy Goodpaster Strebe, “Flying for Her Country: The American and Soviet Women Pilots of World War II,” in Journal of American Studies 43, (2009).

^[20] Markwick and Cardona, Soviet Women on the Frontline, 211.

^[21] Pavlychenko, Lady Death, 58.

^[22] Ibid., 78.

^[23] Ibid., 107.

^[24] Markwick and Cardona, Soviet Women on the Frontline, 203.

^[25] Pavlychenko, Lady Death, 305.

^[26] Ibid., 340.

^[27] Ibid., 302.

^[28] Ibid., 302.

^[29] Barret Litoff Judy and David C. Smith, “American Women in a World at War,” in Magazine of History 16, no. 3 (2002).

^[30] Ibid.

Why CRT Belongs in the Classroom, and How to Do It Right

Why CRT Belongs in the Classroom, and How to Do It Right

Stacie Brensilver Berman, Robert Cohen, and Ryan Mills

Reprinted with permission from the History News Network

Right wing politicians in eight states have enacted laws and mandates banning Critical Race Theory (CRT) from their schools, and since 2021 an astounding total of 42 states have seen bills introduced in their legislatures that would restrict the teaching of CRT and limit how teachers can discuss the history of racism and sexism in public schools. This has been done on the dubious grounds that such teaching amounts to left wing indoctrination, which they denounce as divisive, anti-American, racist, and damaging to white students’ self-esteem. Such gags on teachers constitute the greatest violation of academic freedom since the McCarthy era. The hysteria against CRT has been so extreme that Republican legislators in states such as North Dakota enacted anti-CRT bans while publicly acknowledging that there was no evidence that their state’s public schools even taught CRT. The bans amount to a new front in the culture wars, designed to preemptively strike against critical historical thinking and sow political division at the expense of meaningful learning experiences.

Though we are veteran teacher educators, we never taught CRT to our student teachers prior to this era of anti-CRT hysteria. This was not because we disdained CRT, but rather because secondary school history tends to be atheoretical, focusing primarily on the narration of political – and to a lesser extent social – history.^[1] We thought of CRT primarily as a set of ideas taught at the graduate level, especially in law schools, and of little use for high school teachers. Though we observed New York City public school history teachers for years, we never saw one teach CRT. But all the controversy about CRT provoked us to explore its origins and meaning, which led us to realize our error in failing to see CRT’s utility for teaching U.S. history, debating the history of racism, and exploring the theory itself. Note that we speak here of having students debate the history of racism and CRT, not indoctrinating students, as right-wing politicians imagine. We are convinced that CRT, with its controversial assertion that racism is a permanent feature of American society, is a powerful tool that enables students to analyze, discuss, and debate the meaning of some central events and institutions in U.S. history, including slavery, Indian Removal, Jim Crow, Chinese Exclusion, Japanese internment, mass incarceration of Black men, and the Trumpist movement to bar Latinx immigrants. Those seeking to ban CRT either do not understand it or distort its meaning to obfuscate the educational benefits of discussing and debating its provocative perspective. We witnessed this positive impact firsthand as we piloted a unit on the uses and debates about and criticism of CRT in a high school class.

Based as we are in New York, we were drawn to study and teach about the writings of the late New York University law professor Derrick Bell– a widely admired teacher and mentor–regarded as Critical Race Theory ‘s intellectual godfather.^[2] Un-American? Hardly. Hired as a civil rights attorney by Thurgood Marshall for the NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund, Bell spent years championing equal opportunity in historic desegregation cases. But Bell was troubled by the fact that even when he won such cases, whites evaded school integration to the extent that, by the early 21st century, many school systems remained de facto segregated and scholars wrote about the re-segregation of American public education. Seeking an explanation for this persistent, effective white resistance to racial integration, Bell argued that racism was a permanent feature of American society, and any anti-racist court victories and political reforms would have limited impact since whites would always find ways to avoid integration and limit progress towards racial equality.

Was Bell right? This question has great potential to spark historical debate in our nation’s classrooms because his perspective offers one possible explanation for key events in African American history. Think, for example, of the emancipation of enslaved Blacks at the end of the Civil War, which the white South quickly limited by adopting Black Codes. Congress responded by enacting Radical Reconstruction to empower and enfranchise formerly enslaved people, but this multiracial democracy was overthrown violently by white supremacists and replaced with what became the South’s Jim Crow regime. The dynamic of racial progress yielding white backlashes–asserted by Bell and documented exhaustively in Carol Anderson’s recent study, White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide (2016) – can be seen in the way the Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown v. Board of Education, Topeka, Kansas decision sparked a furious massive resistance movement in the South, the Supreme Court’s refusal in Milliken v. Bradley (1974) to mandate busing to integrate schools across municipal lines, and the Court’s assault on affirmative action. Think, too, of how Barack Obama’s two terms as America’s first Black president were followed by Donald Trump’s presidency, which championed white grievance, flirted with white nationalism, and demonized the Black Lives Matter movement and the national wave of protests following the police murder of George Floyd, culminating in banishing CRT from schools. How do we account for this pattern of racial progress followed quickly by reversals? And what are we to make of the fact that this pattern seems to conform to Bell’s argument about the permanence of racism in America? In confronting, rather than evading or banning these questions, we enable students to probe some of the central questions in American history.

Discussing and debating Bell and CRT works best when we also explore their most perceptive critics’ arguments. Harvard Law School Professor Randall Kennedy, for example, charges that Bell was too pessimistic in his outlook on the history of racial progress and unrealistic in his yardstick for measuring the impact of civil rights law. According to Kennedy, Bell

…was drawn to grand generalities that crumple under skeptical probing. He wrote, for example, that “most of our civil rights statutes and court decisions have been more symbol than enforceable laws, but none of them is … fully honored at the bank.” Yet consider that phrase “fully honored at the bank.” It does suggest a baseline – perfect enforcement. But such a standard is utopian. All law is under-enforced; none is “fully’” honored.^[3]

Kennedy draws upon voting rights to support this critique, finding that deep South Black voter registration skyrocketed thanks to the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Whereas in 1965 Black voter registration in Alabama was meager, with only 19.3% of Blacks registered, by 2004 72.9% were registered. In Mississippi the percentage rose from 6.7% in 1965 to nearly 70% in 2004.^[4] Kennedy viewed such statistics as proof that civil rights law worked over the long run, undermining Bell’s pessimistic claim that “Racism in America is not a curable aberration. [O]ppression on the basis of race returns time after time – in different guises, but it always returns.”^[5]

Clearly, then, debates about Bell and CRT are thought provoking and merit inclusion in high school history classes since they challenge students to assess the trajectory of a central theme in American history: the ongoing struggle for racial equity. We partnered with a New York City high school teacher in designing a unit on debating Derrick Bell and Critical Race Theory. We describe this unit below, but we would like to preface this summary by assuring you that – contrary to the hysterical fears of right-wing politicians – no students found these lessons anti-American, racist, divisive, or emotionally disturbing. To the contrary, the students learned a great deal of history from this unit and came to see it as foolish, even outrageous, that teaching about CRT was banned from many school systems.

As we began to plan the unit, certain things were clear: students needed to learn about Bell’s ideas, life, experiences, and intellectual turning points; the unit had to include resources and information that explained CRT in a way that high school students could understand; we needed to include a range of views on CRT from those who support it, to scholars who critiqued it, to polemics against it from the Right; and it was essential for students to evaluate historical and current events and decide for themselves if Critical Race Theory is, in fact, persuasive. We were intentional in our planning–this could not be a unit that explicitly or implicitly steered students’ thinking in one way or another. Our goal was to enable students – with proper support and resources – to discuss and debate CRT and its use as a tool for assessing key patterns in American history, arriving at their own conclusions. The unit, therefore, gave students the tools to engage in this work.

We worked with an AP Government teacher at a large comprehensive Brooklyn high school. He taught this unit over three days to his senior-level class, whose racial composition was 50% white, 29% Black, 14% Asian, and 7% Latinx. The teacher was white. Students previously learned about racial conflict in the United States, including lessons on slavery, Reconstruction, segregation, violence against Black people, and resistance to each; this unit built on that prior knowledge. The readings and resources, though used here a senior class, could be used in any high school class.

We established two Essential Questions to frame the unit: “To what extent is backlash an inevitable response to Black Americans’ legal and societal progress?” and “To what extent does Critical Race Theory (CRT) provide an accurate framework for the U.S.’s relationship to and problems with race in the past and present?” These questions challenged students to assess historical developments and CRT’s validity as an overarching theory. To help students answer these questions, the lessons explored Bell’s central claim about the permanence of racism in the United States, and the ways racism is institutionalized. We were mindful of planning a unit for high school students and tailored our intended understandings about Bell and CRT to that audience; we focused on Bell’s most important argument about the endurance of racism and chose not to explore his secondary arguments (such as his claim that fleeting moments of Black progress only occur when they align with white self-interest). At the end of this unit students would understand the most important component of a nuanced and complicated legal theory and, through historical analysis, be able assess the extent to which it explained the role of race and racism in the United States.

Students navigated a variety of resources including biographical information on Derrick Bell, videos of scholars explaining CRT, excerpts from Randall Kennedy’s critical essay on Bell, primary sources focused on instances of progress and backlash in Black history, and statistics and media reports on school segregation and recent attempts to prohibit discussions of CRT in classrooms. Ultimately, students used all that they learned to evaluate CRT. At the unit’s end, students responded to two prompts: “To what extent does history align with Bell’s ‘one step forward, two steps back’ argument?” and “Indicate the extent which you agree with the following statement: ‘Critical Race Theory accurately depicts the impact of racism in the United States.’” Additionally, the students responded to a scenario addressing the New York State Assembly’s proposal to ban discussions of Critical Race Theory from schools, drawing upon information from the lessons to support their positions.

Most students knew little about CRT before the unit began. Four recalled hearing of it but were not sure of its precise meaning. Their previous study of racial conflict in American history – from slavery through and beyond the Jim Crow era– made them more open to learning about this and understanding Bell’s views. Three surmised, based on prior study, that it was related to systemic racism. Students participated in discussions and group work, volunteering to share their thoughts with their peers. From the first day of the unit, when students learned about Derrick Bell and the origins and critiques of Critical Race Theory, takeaways included: “Derrick Bell was one the first people to discuss this theory” and “Racism is more than just how people talk to each other. It’s more systemic.” Students were especially animated on Day Two, when they watched video of North Dakota legislators debate banning CRT in classrooms and worked in groups to apply CRT to pairs of historical events.

Overall, students gained an understanding of the debate over Critical Race Theory and the extent to which arguments and theories on the permanence of racism in the U.S. explain Black Americans’ struggles. Through historical analysis they made connections between events that signified progress towards racial equality, such as the Fourteenth Amendment, Brown v. Board of Education, and Obama’s election, and the backlash that curtailed that progress – Jim Crow laws, massive resistance, and the way Trump’s “birther” slander against America’s first Black president helped make Trump a popular figure on the right, paving the way for his presidential campaign and ascendance to the presidency. Seventy-five percent of the students identified “one step forward, two steps back” as a trend over time, claiming, for example, “I think throughout most events in history involving race, there had been more setbacks than step forwards for people of color.” Of course, this pessimism merits critical interrogation since such steps forward as the abolition of slavery and Jim Crow were not followed by a “two steps” return to that degree of racial oppression.

Clearly, the CRT argument about the endurance of racism resonated with many students who had come to political consciousness in a city where there had been vocal opposition to Trump and his rhetoric of white racial backlash. When asked if CRT accurately depicts the impact of racism in the United States, about 75% of the students wholeheartedly agreed that it does, positing, for example, “One of the main points of CRT is that racism is fundamentally and deliberately worked into our government and society, and I think that that is absolutely true in the United States. A variety of factors, including healthcare outcomes, educational attainment, average income, and incarceration rates, all indicate that there is a disparity in opportunities offered to white people versus people of color.”

But on the other hand, twenty-five percent of the students took more moderate stances, asserting, “Regression does happen but that does not mean that substantial progress has not/ can’t be made.” Just under a fifth of the class aligned with Kennedy and his critique of Bell. One student, for example, stated, “While racism was indubitably present in society, I don’t completely agree with it being embodied in law and government institutions because people have tried making some progress by passing laws that would make people more equal.”

Learning about CRT did not offend students, and none felt pressured to agree with Bell. Students’ differences of opinion indicate that this unit, which provided plenty of room for debate and discourse, didn’t indoctrinate students. Though the students’ views on Bell/ CRT differed, evidence suggests that they found these ideas intellectually stimulating and so were unanimous in their belief that they should be taught. The same student who critiqued CRT said, “People have to be aware of darker aspects of history so they remember those bad times and prevent them from happening; it encourages understanding of each other.” A classmate who agreed with CRT’s assessment of U.S. history connected what happens in classrooms to society at large, stating, “I would say that for the sake of our democracy, it is always better to err on the side of protecting free speech. This is especially true when it comes to students and teachers.”

As students became more familiar with the critique of American racism offered by Bell and CRT and with the movement to ban CRT in schools, they grew more vocally critical of that movement, which they saw as “an attack on unbiased education” and proof that “the system has been working against people of color up until even now.” They reacted passionately when asked how they felt about New York considering such a ban, saying, “It’s not right to pass laws saying we can’t learn about it in school” and “CRT is as much a part of history as everything else we learn about. We should learn about virulent racism happening at the same time as all these other events.” Students also questioned, “What is education if we erase history?”

None of the students’ comments disparaged the country or sought to evoke white guilt. Rather, learning about CRT and historical evidence that supports and contradicts it enabled students to better investigate and understand events of the past and develop informed conclusions about the present. We observed a huge chasm between anti-CRT polemics, such as that of North Dakota Representative Terry Jones (R), who compared teaching CRT to “feeding our students… poison,” and our class sessions, where students were not poisoned but intellectually stimulated by engaging in open discussion and drawing their own evidenced-based conclusions. Such open-minded inquiry is, after all, a goal of historical and social studies education.^[6]

Creating this unit and working with a high school teacher to implement it demonstrated the possibilities and benefits of exploring Bell and CRT’s claims about the permanence of racism in America. Students learned about figures and ideas omitted from their textbooks and most curricula and engaged with multiple and diverse resources. Did every student agree with Bell? No. Did that indicate that the unit failed? Of course not – and such disagreement attests that the lesson succeeded in fostering debate. Did students walk away with a better understanding of Bell and CRT’s critical take on racism and the way it might be applied to U.S. historical events? Certainly. Whether or not students’ analysis of racism aligned with Bell’s, they had the time and space to think deeply about CRT, its roots, and the debate over its place in education in the last year and a half.

If classroom realities matter at all to those governors and state legislators who imposed CRT bans on schools, they ought to be embarrassed at having barred students in their states from the kind of thought provoking teaching we witnessed in this project.

References:

“Black [Americans] Upbeat about Black Progress, Prospects.” Pew Research Center, January 12, 2010. https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2010/01/12/blacks-upbeat-about-black-progress-prospects/.

Calixte, Christiane. “Take it from a high schooler who’s actually learned about CRT: Adults need to chill out.” Washington Post, January 14, 2022. https://www .washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/01/14/high-school-critical-race-theory-message-to-protesters/.

Cobb, Jelani. “The Man Behind Critical Race Theory.” The New Yorker, September 13, 2021. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/09/20/the-man-behind-critical-race-theory.

“Critical race theory: Experts break down what it actually means.” Washington Post, July 13, 2021. https://w ww.youtube.com/watch?v=svj_6w0EUz4.

Delgado, Richard & Stefancic, Jean, eds. The Derrick Bell Reader. New York: NYU Press, 2005.

Fortin, Jacey. “Critical Race Theory: A Brief History.” New York Times, November 8, 2021. https://www.n ytimes.com/article/what-is-critical-race-theory.html.

“Most Americans Say Trump’s Election Has Led to Worse Race Relations in the U.S.” Pew Research Center, December 19, 2017. https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2017/12/19/most-americans-say-trumps-election-has-led-to-worse-race-relations-in-the-u-s/.

Schwartz, Sarah. “Who’s Really Driving Critical Race Theory Legislation?: An Investigation.” Education Week, July 19, 2021. https://ww w.edweek.org/policy-politics/whos-really-driving-critical-race-theory-legislation-an-investigation/2021/07.

Stout, Cathryn and Wilburn, Thomas. “CRT Map: Efforts to restrict teaching racism and bias have multiplied across the U.S.” Chalkbeat, updated February 1, 2022. https://www.chalkbeat.org/22525983/map-critical-race-theory-legislation-teaching-racism.

[1] Though CRT has been applied to analyses of educational inequities, it is not a pedagogical practice or topic that most American students encountered in K-12 education prior to this. As Stephen Sawchuk wrote in Education Week, “much scholarship on CRT is written in academic language or published in journals not easily accessible to K-12 teachers.” (Stephen Sawchuk, “What Is Critical Race Theory, and Why Is It Under Attack?” Education Week, May 18, 2021, https://ww w.edweek.org/leadership/what-is-critical-race-theory-and-why-is-it-under-attack/2021/05.)

[2] “Tributes,” Derrick Bell Official Site, 2014, accessed August 10, 2022, h ttps://profes sorderrickbell.com.

[3] Randall Kennedy, Say It Loud!: On Race, Law, History, and Culture (New York: Pantheon Books, 2021), 45.

[4] Kennedy, 50-51.

[5] Kennedy, 44.

[6] Maddie Biertempfel, “North Dakota Senate passes bill banning critical race theory, heads to governor’s desk,” KX News, November 12, 2021, https://w ww.kxnet.com/news/local-news/north-dakota-senate-passes-bill-banning-critical-race-theory-heads-to-governors-desk/.

Deliver Us from Evil: “Fallen Women” and The Irish Magdalene Laundries

Deliver Us from Evil: “Fallen Women” and The Irish Magdalene Laundries

Kameron Anderson

Throughout history, there has been a large amount of fascination and fear associated with the so-called “fallen women.” Historically, these were women who disobeyed the word of God and subsequently lost their innocence. This interpretation of the fallen women is exemplified in the story of Eve. In the bible, Eve is expelled and falls from the Garden of Eden after eating the forbidden fruit.^[1] In nineteenth-century Europe with the rise of Victorian morality, the trope of the fallen women was narrowed down to only include women who committed sexual transgressions. Things like promiscuity or having a child outside of marriage were seen as morally reprehensible and women who committed these so-called crimes were looked down upon as social pariahs.^[2] The ostracization of these women and the desire to have these women out of the public eye led to a dilemma for their condemners. How do we get rid of these women without ignoring the expectation of Christian charity? The solution manifested in a combination of the two, religious sponsored homes for women who had sinned.^[3]

In the first half of the twentieth century, Ireland was in the midst of a moral panic. As Irish historian Diarmaid Ferriter put it, Ireland was existing in a “mythical state of sexual purity and chastity.”^[4] Traditional Roman Catholic values were at the forefront of Irish culture and to say that there was a fear of sin and sexuality would be a gross understatement. It is due to these high morals placed on the Irish, that the country welcomed these religious institutions aimed at housing “fallen women.” Irish people were so steadfast in maintaining their facade of Roman Catholic purity, that families were willing to give up their daughters rather than have their families shamed.

For over two centuries, hundreds of thousands of women across Ireland were forced out of their homes and into forced labor at the hands of the Roman Catholic Church. Magdalene Laundries or Magdalene Asylums as they were also known, were institutions run by leaders within the church. Despite the pretense of charity and goodwill in their names, once admitted into one of these institutions, young women were subjected to forced labor and various forms of abuse. While some women were only in the laundries for a few months, it was a life sentence for others. The last Magdalene Laundry was not closed until 1996.

On August 21st, 2003, The Irish Times reported that the bodies of 155 women were found buried in the lawn at Sisters of Charity of Our Lady of Refuge in Dublin. Almost none of the women discovered were named. Instead, they were referred to by religious epithets like Magdalen or Lourdes.^[5] This discovery led to outrage amongst the Irish people. Despite the nation’s history of persecuting fallen women, it is much easier for the modern Irish to empathize with these women. To see women who could have been their mother, sister, or grandmother, being dehumanized and forgotten in this way must have been jarring, to say the least. After this discovery, there was a lot of confusion amongst the Irish as to how these institutions remained in operation for as long as they did. There was also a desire in both survivors and their families to find someone to blame.

In the decades after the 2003 discovery, there were several investigations by the Irish government and international bodies. The leading advocacy group for survivors of the laundries, Justice for Magdalenes, have presented their case to both. The United Nations Committee Against Torture determined that there was “significant state collusion” in the operations of the Magdalene Laundries in Ireland.^[6] While some of the contents of this report were disputed by survivors, it does acknowledge that the laundries could not have remained in operation without collaboration by the state.

It would be easy to use either the Roman Catholic church or the Irish government as a scapegoat in the establishment and continual use of the Magdalene Laundries. However, I would argue that the two do not have to be mutually exclusive. With a topic as intricate and sensitive as the laundries I think there is a great deal of blame to share. Many historians have looked at the topic and written scholarship that took one side or the other. Leading Magdalene Laundries scholar James M. Smith placing the blame solely at the feet of the government in his book Ireland’s Magdalen Laundries and the Nation’s Architecture of Containment. While nearly every source that interviews survivors, such as the 1997 documentary Sex in a Cold Climate, focuses on the role that the church played in running these institutions.

While this scholarship is both commendable and valid, by choosing one sole culprit, you are at risk of developing tunnel vision and missing what is right in front of you. This paper will argue that it was a combination of the Roman Catholic church and the Irish government who are responsible for the maintenance of the Magdalene Laundries. The Roman Catholic Church in Ireland was responsible for the establishment and day-to-day running of the laundries. They also recruited families to give up their daughters using traditional Roman Catholic values to create guilt and fear regarding young womanhood. The Irish Government was responsible for turning a blind eye to the well-known abuse and forced labor that took place at these institutions, allowing them to remain in operation until the late 1990s. The Magdalene Laundries would not have and could not have existed without the assistance of both the Catholic church and the Irish government.

This paper will begin by looking into the historical context of the Magdalene Laundries, to help the reader understand what kind of nation Ireland was at the time. If they understand this, they will have a better understanding of what may have led families to give up their daughters. In this section, we will also touch on the evolution of the Magdalene Laundries, from a haven for reformed prostitutes to a prison for “sinful” young women. The next section will focus on what life was like for the women in the laundries. By using chilling testimonies from survivors, the reader will be able to hear what this experience was like from a woman who lived it. Finally, this paper will explain what led to the decline of laundries. Before the conclusion, the paper will investigate the various attempts to seek justice for survivors and the investigations that occurred. By using all of these different sources, this paper will prove that the blame should not be put on one individual group, but on the way that various groups worked together.

Background and historical context

While it is difficult for modern readers to comprehend giving up your daughter to a life of unpaid labor and abuse, Ireland in the first half of the twentieth century was a very different place. It is important to remember that for much of its history, the Roman Catholic church was viewed as the highest moral authority in Ireland. As one survivor recalled, “In Ireland, especially in those days, the church ruled the roost. The church was always right. You never criticized the priest. You never criticized the holy nuns. You did what they said without questioning the reason why.”^[7] To put it simply, Ireland at this time was a nation driven by a fear of shame. In 1925, a group of Irish bishops gave a speech on the moral superiority of Irish citizens, claiming “There is a danger of losing the name which the chivalrous honor of Irish boys and the Christian reserve of Irish maidens has won for Ireland. If our people part with the character that gave rise to the name, we lose with it much of our national strength. … Purity is strength and purity and faith go together. Both virtues are in danger these times, but purity is more directly assailed than faith.”^[8] With a reputation of being beacons of purity, there was an immense amount of pressure from the church to never put a foot wrong.

While all Irish citizens were under intense scrutiny, not all citizens were scrutinized the same way. Without a doubt, men and women had vastly different expectations that they had to meet. Men were expected to avoid sin at any cost, while women were the sin.^[9] Irish women were held to unimaginable standards. The Archbishop of Tuam Dr. Thomas Gilmartin claimed, “The future of the country is bound up with the dignity and purity of the women of Ireland”^[10] This is an outlandish statement. He is quite literally claiming that Ireland’s future is dependent on how pure its women are. Not only does this kind of thinking impact the women themselves, but also the people around them. While this does not justify families giving up their daughters to the church it does give some explanation into what their thought patterns may have been. Also, this explains why there were no male equivalents to the Magdalene Laundries. As women were the ones who were seen as inherently bad and it was the men who suffered as a result of their sinful ways.

While the laundries may have turned into something much more sinister, the original purpose was not intended to be so. Although the plan with these institutions was always to sequester fallen women away from the public, the early laundries were meant to serve as a rehabilitation center for them. Following the teachings of Jesus and their namesake Mary Magdalene, the first laundries in Ireland were meant to assist prostitutes in finding their way back to god.^[11] Essentially, they were enforcing the belief that anyone could be forgiven if they wanted to. While this is a noble cause, some have noted that the laundries had little impact in decreasing the number of prostitutes in Ireland.^[12]

Despite this, the number of laundries continued to grow. It seemed that the institutions were moving further away from their original purpose of helping prostitutes get back on their feet. Frances Finnegan makes note of that in her book Do Penance Or Perish: Magdalen Asylums in Ireland. She argues that “it seems clear that these girls were used as a ready source of free labor for these laundry businesses.”^[13] Another development occurring during this time was defining what made a fallen woman. Before, the laundries were only inhabited by prostitutes. As the need for more hands to work in the laundries increased, nuns running them became more willing to allow all sorts of women into their midst.^[14] This is how the laundries become home to unwed mothers, promiscuous women, women who were seen as too pretty, and developmentally disabled women.^[15]

Some women could hardly understand themselves why they were sent to a laundry. When asked the reason why she was sent to a laundry, a survivor named Mary recalled, “I would actually say that – without trying to say I’m special in any way – but I think I was just so attractive and the nuns probably thought, ‘oh my God she’s going to get pregnant,’ without…nobody telling you anything about the facts of life”^[16] Another survivor interviewed was named Christina Mulcahy. As a teenager, Christina gave birth to a son out of wedlock. She was subsequently disowned by her family and sent to a home for unwed mothers where she gave birth and raised her son for the first ten months of his life. Before the baby was even weaned, Christina was forced to leave the home and move into a laundry to begin working there. She wasn’t even allowed to say goodbye to her son. Since she was an unwed mother she had no other place to go and she was forced to give up her son and move into a laundry.^[17]

What were once homes solely for prostitutes, now accepted any woman who went against the traditional morals at the time. Even women who they believed had the potential to lead men to sin. Once benevolent religious leaders were quick to forget their Christian obligations and take advantage of vulnerable young women for financial gain. By looking at the historical context, it is clear that the presence of the Catholic church was instrumental in establishing the laundries. If the morals were not there in the first place, the Magdalene Laundries never would have existed.

Life in the laundries

Once a woman was admitted into the laundries, life looked pretty bleak for them. Daily life was a monotonous routine of unpaid labor that was supposed to help them repent for their sins. The term Magdalene Laundries was fairly self-explanatory. Local businesses and the occasional family would commission the laundries to wash their clothes. Work consisted of washing clothes, scrubbing floors, ironing, and other tedious tasks. Residents received no financial compensation for their work. Although the work itself was not abusive, the intensity and hours they were expected to work were impossible to maintain long-term. Between 2010 and 2013, Dr. Sinead Pembroke conducted a series of interviews with survivors of the Magdalene Laundries often using pseudonyms. In one such interview, a survivor going by the name “Evelyn” explains the physical toll that the work in the laundry took on her body. “Physical would probably…probably be my hands, because my hands hurt now and from those big heavy irons that you’ve got in there. And then we used to have to scrub floors as well, and get on your hands and knees and scrub floors as well, and there was stone floors.”^[18] She goes on to say that her knees and hands are still impacted to this day, over fifty years after her release. Another survivor interviewed was named Pippa Flanagan. Pippa did not beat around the bush and stated “The work was killing, half killed us. We used to hardly be fit to walk. We were just like slaves.”^[19]

Another way in which the laundries took a physical toll on its residents was in the diet they were expected to live on. Survivor Bernadette Murphy recalled that the food she received contained little sustenance and that she did not have a menstrual period in the six-year period she lived and worked there.^[20] Evelyn, Pippa, and Bernadette’s cases were unfortunately not rare occurrences, it was the expectation when working in the laundries.

The pain experienced by women was not only physical. The mental toll of being taken from their homes to an unknown and traumatic future. Another survivor known as Mary Smith recalled her confusion and anger with her predicament. She proclaimed, “Who gave them the right to take me from my mother, to lock me up, to lock my mother up, to lock me into these Magdalene Laundries and let me suffer, suffer so much? That pain will never go away, that suffering will never go away.”^[21] Age played a big role in the mental trauma associated with the laundries. More often than not, the women who were entering these institutions were very young. They have young impressionable minds that are easily malleable. The story of Magdalene Laundries survivor Mary Gaffney is a perfect example of this. Mary was born to an unwed mother who she never met after birth. She was then turned over to be raised in “schools” run by nuns. She was never taught to read and when she was still a child, began working in the laundry system. Mary’s experience was quite typical of women in her predicament. She “scrubbed floors and cleaned endlessly.”^[22] At one point, Mary discovered that the mother of one of her fellow residents knew her mother. However, Mary was prohibited from any attempts to make contact with her. Unfortunately, Mary’s story does not have a happy ending. The institutions in which she was brought up, gave her no pathway toward being an independent adult. Since she was admitted into the laundry so young, she knows no other way of life. Journalist Caelainn Hogan recorded Mary’s story in The Irish Times in 2020. At that point, she was still living in an institutionalized setting run by nuns.^[23] Mary was never given the opportunity to make a life for herself or have a family of her own. She knew no other way. The system that she was born into failed her and so many women like her.

While the mandatory labor that occurred at these institutions was well-known in Ireland at the time, there were also much more sinister and lesser-known occurrences happening in the laundries. When interviewed, nearly every survivor of the Magdalene Laundries claimed to have experienced some form of abuse during their stay. Being separated from their families and forced to work in inhumane conditions was enough to traumatize them for life. However, there are countless accounts given by survivors that inform us that this was just the tip of the iceberg. A survivor known only as Mary perfectly encapsulates her experiences with this sentiment, calling her time in the laundry, “The worst experience of my life – I wouldn’t wish it on a dog.”^[24] From the testimony of survivors, beatings seemed to be a regular occurrence. Whether it be for minor infractions, not meeting work quotas, or seemingly no reason at all. Survivor Phyllis Morgan remembers the constant beatings and feeling like they would never end. “And you know sometimes you…you think, ‘my God is this nun ever gonna stop?’ They’d be frothing at the mouth, you know, and you’d think – God! You…you’d be nearly fainting your hands would be so painful from the beatings. But you didn’t dare not still stand there because it would…you felt like you know you were going to get worse if you ran away or…so you just stood there and took it!”^[25] This account makes the nuns appear almost sadistic and the young residents appear completely helpless and accepting of their circumstances. It makes one wonder, what happened to the benevolent religious leaders who wanted to help women find their way back to god? Did they abandon those principles or did they see the abuse as another step to get there?

The theme of cruel religious leaders was a key part of Steve Humphries’ 1998 documentary on the laundries, Sex in a Cold Climate. The documentary came out two years after the closing of the last Magdalene Laundry in Ireland. It was the main inspiration for Peter Mullen’s 2002 film The Magdalene Sisters. In the documentary, we are introduced to four survivors of the laundries. These women recount the experiences that led them to be residents in the laundries. They also describe the psychological abuse they faced in these institutions. Bridgid Young was an orphan who, like Mary Gaffney, spent her entire childhood in religious-run institutions. She recalled the way that nuns would abuse their power and force underage girls to strip and judge their bodies. “They used to touch you a lot. They used to line us up every Saturday night and they used to make us strip naked for them. They would be standing at the bottom of the laundry and they would be laughing at us and they would be criticizing you if you were heavy, fat, or whatever. They would be shouting abuse at us. We had no privacy with them at all. No privacy. They enjoyed us stripping naked.”^[26] Not only did women in the laundries have to deal with hard labor and physical abuse, but also gross invasions of privacy and public humiliation as well.

In 1993, an event occurred that would be the beginning of the end for the Magdalene Laundry system in Ireland. One of the most notable laundries in the country, Sisters of Our Lady of Charity, lost a significant amount of money in the stock exchange. As a result, the sisters were forced to sell a portion of their land to property developers. When construction began on the property 155 bodies were found in unmarked graves.^[27]

The last Magdalene Laundry did not close until 1996. However, they had gradually begun to become a less common occurrence. Historians have debated what caused this to happen. It is a widely accepted fact that the reason why the laundries were able to exist for so long was largely due to Ireland’s highly conservative values. However, as decades passed there was a cultural shift and morals changed. There was less emphasis on purity and therefore people did not see the need to send their daughters away anymore. While it is nice to believe that religious institutions let residents leave once they believed their duty was done, some historians believe that the institutions closed once they were not profitable anymore. Frances Finnegan argues that “By the late 1970s the widespread use of the domestic washing machine has been as instrumental in closing these laundries as changing attitudes.”^[28] Once the women ceased to bring the laundries any profit, they were discarded from the only life most of them had ever known.

The testimony of survivors provides us with valuable insight into what life was like inside these institutions. It is clear from hearing these women recall their time there that they place most of the blame on the nuns who ran the laundries. This is completely understandable given the fact that they saw them every day. However, it is important to remember that outside of the day-to-day operations, there was the larger system of government allowing the laundries to remain in use.

Reactions, fallout, and blame

In the immediate aftermath of the closing of the last Magdalene Laundry, there were only murmurs about the secret activities that went on in the institutions. Survivors did not yet feel comfortable sharing their experiences with loved ones. We can interpret the silence as the shame that these women must have felt resulting from being thrown out of their homes. Despite the progress that Ireland had made regarding morality, how could they open up to their families who were so quick to turn their backs on them?

Survivors attempted to move on with their lives despite the trauma they had faced. This was easier said than done. More often than not, women who married after leaving the laundries were less likely to leave abusive spouses. This is understandable since many of them have not known a relationship without abuse. Also, many of the women released now had to go about their days knowing that they had children out in the world whom they had no connection or way to get in contact with. This was because laundries were known to force women who had children out of wedlock to give their children up for adoption. These were women who had to make a place for themselves in a world that had recently wanted them tucked away, out of the public eye. To say they felt unwelcome was putting it mildly.

It was only after the 1997 release of Sex in a Cold Climate on Channel Four that there was widespread public knowledge and outrage at the activities of the Magdalene Laundries.^[29] A few years later, several mass graves were uncovered on land that used to house the laundries. The graves contained no names of the women who were buried in them.^[30] These events triggered a desire amongst the public for an investigation into what occurred at the laundries and who was to blame. Numerous groups got together to campaign for the Irish government to issue a formal apology to the women, one of the more notable ones being Justice for Magdalenes. The demands of these advocacy groups led to two major investigations. One by the Irish government and one by The United Nations Committee Against Torture.

The investigation conducted by the Irish government was led by politician Martin McAleese, husband to a former President of Ireland and devout Catholic. The report was widely criticized by survivors and had many aspects that were proven to be false or downplayed. In his report, McAleese acknowledged that women who were sent to work in the laundries were subjugated to verbal abuse and harsh working conditions. However, he claims that there was no evidence of physical or sexual abuse in the laundries.^[31] This is hard to believe as nearly every survivor interviewed reported abuse during the confinement. This is not the only claim made by McAleese that is widely criticized by survivors. He claims that “the average stay was calculated at seven months.”^[32] This was unanimously disputed by survivors. In the Magdalene Oral History Collection, an interviewee named Bernadette addressed this directly in her testimony. She claimed “There was no end to our incarceration… Nobody had an end term. I…I hear a lot of talk now since the McAleese Report about people only being in for three months. I saw one person leave in the year I was in there…I…so I find this three-month thing very, very, very strange, but nobody had a release date.”^[33] The final claim made in the McAleese Report is that the laundries never made a profit. This was also proven to be inaccurate. Records show that laundries had a long list of clients. It was well documented that “the nuns had contracts with all the local hotels and businesses as well as all the convents and seminaries.”^[34] These companies would pay the nuns to have their laundry done for a cheaper price. In addition, with no employees to pay, any profit made from the laundries stayed with the people running them. The Irish Times also posted an extensive list of Irish Companies that used a Magdalene Laundry at some point. Some of the more notable examples are Guinness, Clerys, and the Bank of Ireland.^[35] The number of claims made in the McAleese Report that were disputed by survivors makes one wonder, how did he come to these conclusions? Did he even interview any survivors?

Despite the shortcomings of the McAleese Report, it was successful in accomplishing one of the goals of Justice for Magdalenes. The Irish government issued a formal apology to the survivors. On February 19th, 2013, the Taoiseach or head of government in Ireland Enda Kenny apologized to the women on behalf of the government. He called the Magdalene Laundries the “nation’s shame” and stated “the government and our citizens deeply regret and apologize unreservedly to all those women for the hurt that was done to them, and for any stigma they suffered, as a result of the time they spent in a Magdalene Laundry.”^[36] He also indicated that the government would be willing to provide a form of financial compensation for survivors. While the apology did not erase any of the hurt inflicted, it did acknowledge their suffering, and that was worth a lot to the survivors.

While this statement was celebrated amongst survivors, some members of the Roman Catholic church were outraged that the Irish government was willing to criticize them in this way. For centuries, the catholic church was seen as a second governing body in Ireland. Now, they were being criticized alongside the government for their role in maintaining these institutions. One such critic of Kenny’s statement was Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League in the United States and outspoken skeptic of sexual abuse by priests. He argued that the women who were institutionalized in the laundries were not there against their will and could have left if they wanted to. Donohue also claimed that the vast majority of women inhabiting the laundries were indeed prostitutes. He added, “There was no slave labor, … It’s all a lie.”^[37] It should be noted that Donohue had no evidence to back up these lofty claims.

Apart from the McAleese Report, the other major investigation into the Magdalene Laundries was by The United Nations Committee Against Torture (UNCAT). Unlike the other report, the UNCAT confirmed that the vast majority of women and girls who were residents in the laundries were “involuntarily confined.”^[38] The UNCAT also recognized that the state failed to protect the women who were sent to these institutions. However, it is important to note that in the eyes of many survivors, the UNCAT’s report also left much to be desired. They agreed with the McAleese Report that the claims of abuse had been exaggerated. They acknowledged the presence of verbal abuse, but stated that instances of physical and sexual abuse were rare.^[39] This was incredibly frustrating to the survivors. They now had not one, but two investigations that are invalidating their experiences. This is another instance of victims being gaslit. It is insufferable to imagine a group of people telling you the abuse you experienced is non-existent. This is yet another reason that survivors of the laundries were hesitant in coming forward with their stories.

After two meticulous investigations by two different governing bodies, the consensus seems to be pretty clear. It was the state who failed nearly 300,000 women and girls who were involuntarily confined to the Magdalene Laundries over two centuries. The state was certainly responsible for allowing these institutions to remain in existence for as long as they did. They turned a blind eye to the reported abuse perpetrated by leaders in the Catholic church and even used the laundries themselves. The same list in the Irish Times that revealed several Irish companies had used labor provided by Magdalene Laundries, also revealed that departments within the government itself were using it. “It discloses that, including those listed above, regular customers for the laundry believed to be the one at High Park, including the Department of Justice, the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Fisheries, and CIÉ.”^[40] Áras an Uachtaráin, the Irish Presidential residence was known to use labor from the laundries. This makes them look very guilty, as the Irish government cannot pretend to be ignorant of a situation when you are exploiting that exact situation.

Despite the urge of many to use the government as the sole scapegoat for abuse in the Magdalene Laundry system, they were only complicit in allowing the system to remain. While this is inexcusable, if you asked most of the survivors who they resented the most, chances are they would name the religious leaders who were in charge of the day-to-day operations in the laundries. It was the nuns who ran the laundries and the people who oversaw them that are responsible for the daily abuse suffered by the women and girls who were trapped there. In addition, some responsibility also falls to the feet of leaders within the catholic church for the centuries of purity culture and policing women’s bodies. If these unattainable morals were not put there in the first place, families would not have been so willing to give up their daughters rather than be shamed by the church. It is because of these reasons that the government of Ireland and the Catholic church worked in tandem with one another to establish and keep the Magdalene Laundry system for over two centuries, as both parties had something to gain from keeping them open.

Conclusion

The United Nations Committee Against Torture estimates that up to 300,000 women passed through the Magdalene Laundry system during its two-century existence. In 2014, there were still around 600 survivors alive.^[41] The Magdalene Laundries and the women and girls who inhabited them have become a sad part of Irish history. Today, the laundries have also become a part of Irish pop culture. Irish Singer-songwriter and notable critic of the Catholic church Sinéad O’Connor was admitted to a laundry as a teenager for truancy and shoplifting. She has spoken out on her disdain for these institutions publicly.^[42] The struggle of these women was also immortalized in Joni Mitchell’s 1994 song The Magdalene Laundries. Mitchell empathizes with their struggle singing, “They sent me to the sisters, For the way men looked at me, Branded as a Jezebel, I knew I was not bound for Heaven, I’d be cast in shame, Into the Magdalene laundries”^[43] The laundries have also been the subject of several motion pictures, most notably The Magdalene Sisters and The Devil’s Doorway. Despite promises and condolences from the government, very few of the survivors received any form of financial compensation. This is a debate that is ongoing to this day.

Whenever there is a tragedy in history, it is human nature to want to point the finger at someone. A shared sense of anger towards one party can be cathartic and necessary to heal. It can also help survivors have something else to concentrate on apart from their trauma. However, the Magdalene Laundry system was not a simple issue and there was no simple fix. It was a set of institutions that lasted over two centuries with the complicity of the majority of the country. It is impossible to place the blame on one party. The laundries were able to remain in operation for as long as they did due to the complicity of the government, the motivation of the church, and the conservative morals in place in Ireland. If we looked deeper or further back, we would without a doubt find several other groups of people to blame.

By using this way of thinking we can reevaluate many historical events that have a unanimous source of blame. Perhaps if we look a little deeper we can uncover that the events were in reality, triggered by a combination of interwoven causes. There may be a historical event to have a universally accepted source of blame. However, the Irish people know all too well that there is often blame to share. Also, the Magdalene Laundry system is a textbook example of how morals of the time can cause historical events. To put it bluntly, people make history. While we view the Magdalene Laundries as barbaric institutions, the Irish people of the time were more concerned with their religious beliefs than the well-being of their women and girls. If we break it down, at one point a group of people truly believed that they were doing the morally correct thing. We can apply this same process to other historical events. By looking at events through different lenses, we can put ourselves in their shoes and become better historians.

Nearly every woman found in the mass grave at Sisters of Charity of Our Lady of Refuge in Dublin was unnamed.^[44] Families today are still campaigning for the remains to be returned to their families. In 2022, there was a memorial stone unveiled in Dublin, the first of its kind.^[45] There is still so much unknown about what occurred in these institutions and it is essential to interview survivors while they are still with us. What happened to these women can never be undone, but by learning about their stories new generations can ensure that it never happens again.

How can this be used in the classroom?

The Magdalene Laundries and the plight of the women who resided in them, are not topics that many students will have heard of. Despite it being a bit obscure compared to the curriculum, there is a lot of merit in studying this topic. First, as I mention in this paper, much of what we know about the laundries comes from survivor testimonies. Having students read this paper can teach them how to interact with primary sources of this nature. Since the Magdalene Laundries are a more modern historical event, learning about them can broaden the knowledge that is traditionally obtained in social studies classrooms. We have pictures, oral testimonies, and documentaries on the laundries. It will be very easy for students to emphasize with the survivors. Another reason why this paper can be useful in classrooms is because it highlights the story of traditionally marginalized groups. It tells the story of poor, disabled, and oppressed women who suffered greatly at the hands of a government and religious leaders. However, my paper does not portray them as merely victims, but survivors who are currently working hard to get the justice they deserve. Stories like this where victim narratives are seen from a different point of view deserve a platform to be told. Classrooms are a great place to start.

References

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Brennan, Michael. “Tearful Kenny Says Sorry to the Magdalene Women – Independent.ie.” Irish Independent, February 20, 2013. https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/tearful-kenny-says-sorry-to-the-magdalene-women-29082107. html.

Donohue, Bill. “Myths of the Magdalene Laundries.” Catholic League, July 15, 2013. https://www.catholicleague.org/myths-of-the-magdalene-laundries/.

Ferriter, Diarmaid. “‘Unrelenting Deference’? Official Resistance to Catholic Moral Panic in the Mid-Twentieth Century.” 20th Century Social Perspectives 18, no. 1 (2010).

Finnegan, Frances. Do Penance or Perish: Magdalen Asylums in Ireland. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.

Fischer, Clara. “Gender, Nation, and the Politics of Shame: Magdalen Laundries and the Institutionalization of Feminine Transgression in Modern Ireland.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 41, no. 4 (2016): 821–43. https://d oi.org/10.1086/685117.

Harrison, Shane. “Irish PM: Magdalene Laundries Product of Harsh Ireland.” BBC News. BBC, February 5, 2013. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-21326221.

Hogan, Caelainn. “Mary’s Story: The Magdalene Laundry Survivor Who Still Lives There.” The Irish Times. The Irish Times, August 30, 2020. https://ww w.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/health-family/mary-s-story-the-magdalene-laundry-survivor-who-still-lives-there-1.4340289#:~:text=Gaffney%2C%20now%2074%2C%20has%20lived,remain%20living%20in%20institutional%20settings.

Humphreys, Joe. “Magdalen Plot Had Remains of 155 Women.” The Irish Times, August 21, 2003.

Kelly, Olivia. “Memorial Unveiled Dedicated to All Incarcerated in Magdalene Laundries.” The Irish Times. The Irish Times, July 29, 2022. https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/dublin/2022/07/30/memorial-unveiled-dedicated-to-all-incarcerated-in-m agdalene-laundries/.

McGarry, Patsy. “Áras an Uachtaráin among Users of Magdalene Laundry.” The Irish Times. The Irish Times, June 22, 2011. https://www.irishtimes.com/news/aras-an-uachtarain-among-users-of-magdalene-laundry-1.602530.

O’Connor, Sinead “To Sinead O’Connor, the Pope’s Apology for Sex Abuse in Ireland Seems Hollow.” The Washington Post. WP Company, March 28, 2010. https://w ww.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/25/AR2010032502363.html?hpid%3Dopinionsbox1%C3%A2%C2%8A%C2%82=AR.

Roberts, Sue Lloyd. “Demanding Justice for Women and Children Abused by Irish Nuns.” BBC News. BBC, September 23, 2014. https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-29307705.

Sex in a Cold Climate. Testimony Films. Channel 4, 1998. “UNCAT 2011.” Justice for Magdalenes Research, July 27, 2017. http://jfmre search.com/home/restorative-justice/accountability/uncat-submissions/uncat-2011/

^[1] Amanda Anderson, Tainted Souls and Painted Faces: The Rhetoric of Fallenness in Victorian Culture, (Ithica, Cornell University Press, 2004), 125.

^[2] Anderson, Tainted Souls and Painted Faces, 2.

^[3] Anderson, 93.

^[4] Diarmaid Ferriter, ‘Unrelenting deference’? Official resistance to Catholic moral panic in the mid-twentieth century, Dublin, 2010.

^[5] Joe Humphreys. “Magdalen Plot Had Remains of 155 Women.” The Irish Times, 2003.

^[6] UNCAT 2011, Justice for Magdalenes Research, 2017.

^[7] Sex in a Cold Climate. Testimony Films, 1998. http://www.testimonyfilms.com/work/sex-in-a-cold-climate.

^[8] Clara Fisher, Gender, Nation, and the Politics of Shame: Magdalen Laundries and the Institutionalization of Feminine Transgression in Modern Ireland (finish citation)

^[9] Fisher, Gender, Nation, and the Politics of Shame.

^[10] Irish Independent. 1925. “Sermon by Archbishop Gilmartin.” Irish Independent, May 12 (fix citation)

^[11] Rebecca Lea McCarthy, Origins of the Magdalene Laundries: An Analytical History, (Jefferson, NC, McFarland, and Co., 2010) 85.

^[12] Frances Finnegan, Do Penance Or Perish: Magdalen Asylums in Ireland, (Oxford University Press, 2001), 17.

^[13] Finnegan, Do Penance Or Perish, 162.

^[14] Finnegan, 10

^[15] Finnegan, 128.

^[16] O’Donnell, Katherine, Sinead Pembroke, and Claire McGettrick. “Magdalene Oral History Collection,” 2013. https://repository.dri.ie/catalog/dn39x1535.

^[17] Sex in a Cold Climate. Testimony Films, 1998.

^[18] O’Donnell, Katherine, Sinead Pembroke, and Claire McGettrick. “Magdalene Oral History Collection,” 2013.

^[19] O’Donnell, Pembroke, and McGettrick. “Magdalene Oral History Collection,” 2013.

^[20] O’Donnell, Pembroke, and McGettrick. “Magdalene Oral History Collection,” 2013.

^[21] O’Donnell,, Pembroke, and McGettrick.

^[22] Caelainn Hogan, Mary’s story: The Magdalene laundry survivor who still lives there, The Irish Times, 2020.

^[23] Hogan, Mary’s Story.

^[24] O’Donnell,, Pembroke, and McGettrick. “Magdalene Oral History Collection,” 2013.

^[25] O’Donnell,, Pembroke, and McGettrick. “Magdalene Oral History Collection,” 2013.

^[26] Sex in a Cold Climate. Testimony Films, 1998.

^[27] Joe Humphreys. “Magdalen Plot Had Remains of 155 Women.” The Irish Times, 2003.

^[28] Finnegan, 113.

^[29] Finnegan, 64.

^[30] Finnegan 156.

^[31] Shane Harrison, Irish PM: Magdalene laundries product of harsh Ireland, BBC, 2013.

^[32] Harrison, Irish PM: Magdalene laundries product of harsh Ireland.

^[33] O’Donnell, Pembroke, and McGettrick. “Magdalene Oral History Collection,” 2013.

^[34] Sue Lloyd Roberts, Demanding justice for women and children abused by Irish nuns, BBC, 2014

^[35] Patsy McGarry, Áras an Uachtaráin among users of Magdalene laundry, Irish Times, 2011.

^[36] Michael Brennan, Tearful Kenny says sorry to the Magdalene women, Irish Independent, 2013.

^[37] Bill Donohue, Myths of the Magdalene Laundries, Catholic League, 2013.

^[38] UNCAT 2011, Justice for Magdalenes Research, 2017.

^[39] Irish Department of Justice, “Report of the Inter-Departmental Committee to establish the facts of State involvement with the Magdalen Laundries”, 2013.

^[40] Patsy McGarry, Áras an Uachtaráin among users of Magdalene laundry, Irish Times, 2011.

^[41] United Nations Committee Against Torture, 2017.

^[42] Sinead O’Connor, To Sinead O’Connor, the pope’s apology for sex abuse in Ireland seems hollow, The Washington Post, 2010.

^[43] Joni Mitchell, The Magdalene Laundries, 1994.

^[44] Joe Humphreys, “Magdalen Plot Had Remains of 155 Women.” The Irish Times, 2003.

^[45] Olivia Kelly, Memorial unveiled dedicated to all incarcerated in Magdalene laundries, The Irish Times, 2022.

We Have A Civics Education Crisis – And Deep Divisions on How to Solve It

We Have A Civics Education Crisis — And Deep Divisions on How To Solve It

Glenn C. Altschuler and David Wippman

Reprinted with permission from Made in History, The Washington Post

According to the most recent analysis by the National Assessment of Educational Progress, only 13 percent of eighth graders are proficient in U.S. history — down from a peak of 18 percent in 2014. A mere 22 percent of those students are proficient in civics, the first decline since the test began in 1998.

Adults fare little better. Less than half of those surveyed could name the three branches of government (1 in 4 could not name any). Nor did they know that a 5-4 Supreme Court ruling becomes the law of the land.

Yet, even as Americans across the political spectrum believe that more civic awareness coul d help heal the country’s divides, only s even state s require a full year of civics education.

The belief that an educated citizenry is the best protection for democracy is as old as the Republic. As George Washington asked in the founding era: “What species of knowledge” is more important than “the science of government?”

Yet, U.S. history and civics curriculums have long been attacked from the political right as insufficiently patriotic and from the left as woefully incomplete and discriminatory. In short, Americans have never agreed about what should be taught when it comes to our nation’s history and government. And as this latest round of test scores suggests, that has real implications for schoolchildren.

How to teach American history and civics was not initially an issue of national debate or concern. At the nation’s founding, most Americans received little or no formal schooling, but l earned i nstead from family, work and church.

That began to change with the adoption of universal, state-funded education. By the 1840s, education reformers like Horace Mann argued that publicly supported schools could help to create “discipli ned, judicious, republican citizens” by “teaching the b asic mechanics of government and imbuing students with loyalty to America and her democratic ideals.”

To protect public schools from “the tempest of political strife,” fears spurred in part by the arrivals of immigrants, Mann insisted civics be presented in a nonpartisan, nonsectarian manner — even as he and his allies, consciously or not, imbued their own values into this supposedly neutral curriculum. Civics was taught through study, memorization and recitation of patriotic speeches and foundational texts, such as the Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution. These exercises were paired with readings from the King James Bible “t hat exem plified the Protestant ethic.”

Unsurprisingly, controversies arose. Abolitionists co mplained that the nonpartisanship required the exclusion of anti-slavery principles. Roman Catholic leaders attacked non-sectarianism as a stealth imposition of Protestantism, prompting “school wars” that led to the creation of the Catholic parochial school system.

In the North, some native-born critics feared that the 9 million immigrants arriving in their port cities between 1880 and 1917 — predominantly non-English-speaking Catholics and Jews from Southern and Eastern Europe — lacked the instincts and training to qualify as citizens. “Americanizers” sought to prepare the children of these “new immigrants” for citizenship through instruction in English, basic civics and a history that celebrated the country’s political institutions, downplayed its shortcomings and implanted in them “the Anglo-Saxon conception of righteousness, law and order, and popular government.” Eager to become citizens, most immigrants did not object. But some resisted the effacing of their linguistic, cultural and religious heritage.

During World War I, former president Theodore Roosevelt demanded that schools discon tinue instruction in the German language and declared that “there is no r oom in this country for hyphenated Americans.” In New York, state legislators banned textbooks containing material “disloyal to the United States.” In response, nascent cultural pluralists proposed that the metaphor for “transnational America” should not be a melting pot, but a “symphony orchestra,” where “each ethnic group is the natural instrument.”

After the nation took stock of the blood and treasure expended in war, isolationist sentiment took root alongside an anti-communist red scare, overriding pluralist sentiment in the 1920s. Congress implemented strict quotas in 1924 that dramatically reduced immigration, especially from the non-English-speaking world.

World War II accelerated a backlash against progressive educators like John Dewey who, during the Great Depression in the 1930s, advocated that students “critically e xamine” the nation’s institutions and economic inequality. Instead, with America at war again by the end of 1941, politicians demanded that teachers promote “an abiding love of American institutions.”

In the Cold War that followed, elected officials again used the nation’s schools as a space to pit the virtues of U.S. democracy against the evils of communism — this time to an even greater degree than before. Congress created the “Zeal fo r American Democracy” program in 1947, which encouraged educators in public schools to exalt U.S. democracy, while glossing over McCarthy-era violations of free speech and freedom of association.

Throughout the century following the Civil War, teachers instructed White students in the South that the conflict was a struggle over states’ rights, fought by gallant Confederate soldiers. They learned that during the brief period of Reconstruction after the war, corrupt northern carpetbaggers and formerly enslaved men now eligible to vote drove basic civic and governmental institutions into the ground — and that race mixing was contrary to the law of man and God. As late as 1961, an Alabama textbook maintained that “slavery was the earliest form of social security in the United States.”

But the civil rights and women’s and gay and lesbian rights movements, as well as opposition to the Vietnam War, called into question the dominant vision of U.S. civics and history that had long prevailed in American classrooms. Demands for immigrants to assimilate were recast by underrepresented racial and ethnic groups as “cultural imperialism,” as questions increasingly arose about the desirability of building a common civic culture. Advocates created a pluralist, multicultural curriculum that featured voices seldom before included in history and civics curriculums, such as Frederick Douglass’s oration, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” and the p rocee dings of the 1848 Women’s Rights Convention.

A conservative movement soon grew in opposition, with activists warning that “secular humanism” was creeping into schools and usurping religious, traditional family-centered values taught at home. The fact that the Supreme Court had outlawed school-sponsored prayer in public schools in 1962 — seen as a potential antidote to this trend — only fueled their ire.

By the 1980s, opponents began decrying multicultural education an d ethnic studies as “political correctness,” and in 1992, they successfully derailed an attempt to establish national history standards and adopt the voluntary guidelines developed by dozens of civic organizations and educators. Lynne Cheney, chair of the National Endowment of the Humanities from 1986-1992, derided these efforts as a politicized, “grim and gloomy portrayal” of American history, focused excessively on women, ethnic and racial groups. The standards were rejected by the U.S. Senate in a 99-1 vote.

At the beginning of this century, concerns about American economic competitiveness prompted a renewed focus on reading and math under President George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act and then on STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) subjects under President Barack Obama’s Educate to Innovate campaign. Both came at the expense of civics, history and related subjects.

As political polarization in the United States escalated, President Donald Trump denounced the New York Times’ 1619 Project, which put enslavement and discrimination at the center of the history of the United States. Trump claimed that such efforts taught children “to hate their own country.” He established the Advisory 1776 Commission, which declared that U.S. history, when properly taught, reveals the United States to be “the most just and glorious country in all of human history.”

In 2021, in an attempt to bridge these divides, over 300 experts with diverse political views recommended new guidelines for civics education. Their Roadmap To Educating for American Democracy calls for treating disagreement “as a feature, not a bug of democracy,” and an account of U.S. history “that is honest about the wrongs of the past without falling into cynicism, and appreciative of the founding of the United States without tipping into adulation.” Supported by s ix former secretaries of education, Republicans and Democrats and over 1 20 civic organizations, it was attacked by conservatives, who distorted its purpose and content and gave it an “F+.”

The bipartisan Roadmap has gone nowhere, and many states are going their own way. This is unsurprising. Efforts to establish national history and civics guidelines have always been subjected to withering criticism — just as attempts to ignore contested aspects of our past to foster national unity have only produced partisan divisions.

Understanding this history may well be the most important civics lesson of all.

Behind the Numbers: A Discussion for Social Studies & Sociology Students on the Future of Religion in America

Behind the Numbers: A Traditional Church Faces a New America

A Discussion for Social Studies & Sociology Students on the Future of Religion in America

Hank Bitten, Executive Director, NJ Council for the Social Studies

The free exercise of religious beliefs is written into our constitution and has been part of the framework of our democratic society and American identity since the Pilgrims arrived in 1620. The principle of the separation of church and state prevented America from having a religious institution or denomination supported by the state, it has enabled the proliferation of houses of worship, the establishment of colleges to train clergy, the dissemination of religious beliefs into our culture through art, literature, and music, and prayers in public places. Religious beliefs and the practices of denominational churches are part of the tapestry of America.

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” (First Amendment)

This is clearly evident in the First and Second Great Awakening, the Sunday School movement, and the missionary zeal in the 19^th century to convert people to the Christian faith. The names of Jonathan Edwards, George Whitfield, Charles and John Wesley, Francis Asbury, Billy Sunday, Billy and Franklin Graham, Dwight Moody, Phoebe Smith, Mary Baker Eddy, James Dobson, Tim Keller, Oral Roberts, and Pat Robertson are just a few names that are part of several high school history textbooks.

In the first two chapters of the dissertation, “Behind the Numbers: A Traditional Church Faces a New America”, Rev. Larry Vogel, presents us with a turning point in the first two decades of the 21^st century that is an opportunity for discussion, debate, and discernment. The dissertation provides a sociological, anthropological, and theological perspective that is insightful in how evidence is used to support a claim or thesis.

The data from the U.S. Census Bureau presents a vision of America that is as influential today as Jean de Crèvecoeur’s “Letters from an American Farmer” were in 1782. Crèvecoeur tried to describe the ‘new American’ as industrious and religious. The experiences of living during and after the American Revolution changed the colonists from Europeans to Americans. The ‘new American’ following the passage of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 is from global origins and the ‘new American’ is Hispanic, African, and Asian.

By analyzing the census data in this dissertation, high school students will be able to make a claim regarding the importance of religion in American by 2050, the impact of immigration on society, the consequences of a society that is changing over time, and make predictions for the future. In a Sociology class, students can also survey their own community and compare the data with the national data in the U.S. Census.

“As for ethnicity, 61.6% of the US population is White alone (204.3 million), a decline from 223.6 million and 72.4% in 2010. Blacks who self-identified without any other racial combination increased slightly in number between 2010 and 2020 (from 38.9 to 41.1 million), but declined very slightly as a percentage of the population (from 12.6% to 12.4%). The Asian alone population of the US increased both numerically and proportionately. In 2010 14.7 M (4.8%) Americans identified as Asian alone. In 2020 that number swelled to 19.9 M (6%).” The Asian population is projected to more than double, from 15.9 million in 2012 to 34.4 million in 2060, with its share of nation’s total population climbing from 5.1 percent to 8.2 percent in the same period. (p. 58)

In the table below, the majority population in the United States declined 11% in ten years from 2010-2020. Will this trend continue to fall another 10% or will it be greater than 10% in this decade?

In high school social studies classes, teachers ask questions about our American identity. Students look at this over time by discussing how each century defined the emerging American identity? The demographics of what is happening to the religious beliefs of the ‘new American’ are important to our culture, economy, education, families, and government. Religion is perhaps the largest service industry in the United States with more than 100 million people attending worship regularly. The number of subscribers to weekly worship experiences is declining but this change is likely disguised as the ‘new American’ still believes in a supreme deity but expresses this belief differently than the way Crèvecoeur’s ‘American’ did. The insights in “Behind the Numbers: A Traditional Church Faces a New America” encourages the debate in the classroom and in the chancel. The analysis of the data provides a perspective of what life will be like in the United States at mid-century. Some will see this as an opportunity and others as a threat.

To begin our inquiry into the data, examine the population profile of the top ten states with the highest immigrant populations. (pp.66) Half of these states are in the Boston-New York-Philadelphia-Baltimore- Washington, D.C. corridor. A third of these states are in the western region of the United States.

One of the striking observations in the census report is that these changes have occurred after 2000.

“The continued growth of the US population is due to immigration rather than to immigrant birth rates. All-in-all, the foreign-born US population in 2018 was nearly 14% of the total US population and their second-generation children were an additional 12.3% of the total population. This means that fully 25% of the current US population is the result of immigration and that the changing racial-ethnic profile of the US is due almost entirely to immigration in recent decades. As Taylor puts it: “Immigration is driving our national makeover.” (p. 67)

As you review the data in the graph below, consider the implications of this decline in your community and state.

Here are some questions to ask regarding this data?

Will these demographic trends continue on the same trajectory over the next three decades or escalate?
Will external events (i.e., climate, artificial intelligence, economic conditions, etc.) have a direct effect on immigration trends?
Will the immigrant population move to other states as they have in the past?
As the immigrant population of 2020 ages, how will this influence the ‘new American’ identity?
As immigrants assimilate into American culture, will they be influenced by the religious institutions in America?

The Census Bureau predicts that the trend toward racial-ethnic diversity will continue: The non-Hispanic White population is projected to shrink over coming decades, from 199 million in 2020 to 179 million people in 2060—even as the U.S. population continues to grow. Their decline is driven by falling birth rates and a rising number of deaths over time as the non-Hispanic White population ages. In comparison, the White population, regardless of Hispanic origin, is projected to grow from 253 million to 275 million over the same period. (p. 236)

Dr. Vogel’s thesis claims that “the underlying support and stimulus for Global Christianity’s surge is the Bible translated into the vernacular. The Bible in whole or in part is available in over 1500 languages, including more than 650 African tongues. With the Bible in their own tongue, Christians in Africa and throughout the globe “can claim not just the biblical story, but their own culture and lore in addition.” (p. 82) However, his thesis also raises the counterargument that the Millennial generation (birth years 1981-1996) is leading the shift away from organized religion, specifically, Christian denominations. According to the Pew research from 2019, 40% of the Millennials (also Generation Y) identify as unaffiliated with 9% claiming a faith other than Christianity. The trend for Generation Z (birth years 1996-2010) will likely be higher.

The perspective of Dr. Mark Chaves of Duke University (and high school student of the author of this article), is that America will likely continue its religious identity in this century. The diversity of the American population will lead to changes, notably that non-Christian beliefs also lead to eternal life. Church membership and worship practices will likely change. A new subculture within the religious and worshipping population may emerge in the 21^st century. The ‘new American’ will likely continue helping others in need by donating food, working in a soup kitchen, providing assistance after a disaster, building homes for the homeless, as the volunteer spirit will likely continue throughout this century. But this ‘new American’ may also be influenced by social media and artificial intelligence. Engage your students in exploring answers to these questions and possibilities.

George Hawley of the University of Alabama presents a strong counter argument regarding the demographics of the denominational church in 2022. He cites that 23 percent (almost one-fourth) of the population affiliated with a Christian denominational church are over the age of 65. He also observed that only 13 percent who attend church regularly are under the age of 30. This is not sustainable beyond 2050. Non-Christian religious traditions increased from 5% percent to 7% since 2010. In terms of actual numbers, 13 million Americans identify as atheists and 33 million or 10 percent) have no particular religious affiliation. To place this in perspective, the populations of 49 states are less than 33 million people. The population of Texas is 31 million.

To add a second layer of analysis to our scaffold is the research of the Barna Group which used three factors in determining affiliation with a Christian Church.

Christian identity with a denominational church
Regular worship attendance
Placing faith as a high priority

The data reports that 25% of the American population of 330 million people are practicing Christians. In 2000, the number was 45%! (p. 113) Although weekly church attendance continues to decrease in both Protestant and Roman Catholic churches, the diversity of Roman Catholic congregations appears positive, especially if the United States will continue as a Christian country. “Nearly 40% of Catholic churches are either predominantly or very much non-White. In 2014, The Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) study of RCC parishes, 323 out of 846 responding parishes could be identified as multi-cultural parishes.

By using the data below, ask this question: ‘Why is Roman Catholic weekly attendance decreasing in the first quarter of this century and Protestant weekly attendance showing a slight increase?’ (Note: the years on the y axis appear to have 1983-1986 reversed with 1995-1996)

This article reflects the data in Chapters 1 and 2 of the dissertation. Chapters 3, 4, 5 include prescriptive information on a case study of the Lutheran Church and information about other denominations. Chapters 4 and 5 include a theological analysis of church history and the inclusion of all people.

https://scholar.csl.edu/phd/146/

Behind the Numbers: A Traditional Church Faces a New America

Larry Vogel, Concordia Seminary, St. Louis

Date of Award 5-19-2023

Abstract

The dissertation examines membership data for The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS) from the mid-1970s to the present. It considers the analysis of LCMS decline by two scholars, George Hawley and Ryan MacPherson, who independently proposed that LCMS membership decline was internal in causation due to diminished birthrates and fewer young families. While acknowledging the reality of such internal decline, this dissertation argues that the lack of external growth is a greater cause for LCMS decline. Its lack of external growth is due primarily to the racial and ethnic homogeneity of the LCMS and its failure effectively to evangelize the increasingly diverse American population. This indicates a theological weakness: a failure to teach and emphasize the catholicity of the church adequately in LCMS catechesis and dogmatic theology.

Recommended Citation

Vogel, Larry, “Behind the Numbers: A Traditional Church Faces a New America” (2023). Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation. 146. https://scholar.csl.edu/phd/146

CHAPTER ONE………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 12

DEMOGRAPHIC CHANGE IN THEORY, REALITY, AND APPLICATION …………………..12

THE DEMOGRAPHIC TRANSITION—A GLOBAL PHENOMENON………………………….. 12

Demographics Defined ……………………………………………………………………………………………….. 12

The First Demographic Transition ………………………………………………………………………………… 13

The Second Demographic Transition……………………………………………………………………………… 17

Cause of the Demographic Transition …………………………………………………………………………… 23

US DEMOGRAPHICS ………………………………………………………………………………………………. 24

EFFECTS OF THE DT ………………………………………………………………………………………………. 27

Primary Effects: Declining Births, Increasing Age………………………………………………………….. 27

Secondary Effects: Changes in Female Life Patterns and Family Formation …………………….. 32

RESPONSES TO DEMOGRAPHIC CHANGE………………………………………………………………40

Responses to the Demographic Transition: A Survey………………………………………………………..41

China’s Response to Demographic Transition………………………………………………………………… 42

Brazil’s Response to Demographic Transition………………………………………………………………… 45

The European Response to Demographic Transition ………………………………………………………. 47

The North American Response to Demographic Transition……………………………………………… 50

THE CHANGING DEMOGRAPHIC PROFILE……………………………………………………………. 57

New America: Older and More Female………………………………………………………………….. … 58

New America: Greater Diversity…………………………………………………………………………… …. 58

CHAPTER TWO …………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 68

THE DEMOGRAPHIC CHALLENGE AND RELIGION……………………………………………….. 68

DEMOGRAPHIC CHANGE AND RELIGIOSITY—A WORLD TOUR …………………………. 68

DT and Religion in Asia ……………………………………………………………………………………………… 68

DT and Religion in Latin America………………………………………………………………………………… 74

DT and Religion in Africa …………………………………………………………………………………………… 78

DT and Religion in Europe …………………………………………………………………………………………. 85

DT and Religion in the United States: Six Trends…………………………………………………………… 92

The Millennial Challenge……………………………………………………………………………………………. 96

The Challenge of Multiethnic America ………………………………………………………………………. 100

The Challenge of Family Decline……………………………………………………………………………….. 102

The Challenge of Income Inequity …………………………………………………………………………….. 104

Conclusion: DT and Religion in America…………………………………………………………………….. 106

DEMOGRAPHIC TRANSITION AND DECLINE IN AMERICAN CHRISTIANITY…….108

Rise of the Religiously Unaffiliated and the DT……………………………………………………………. 109

The Healthiest Churches……………………………………………………………………………………………. 118

THE NEW AMERICA IN THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH…………………………………. 123

A Church in Crisis: Flight from the Roman Church …………………………………………………….. 125

A Church’s Hidden Strength: The Diversity of American Roman Catholics…………………….. 127

THE NEW AMERICA IN THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN AMERICA ……………….. 133

A History of Struggle ………………………………………………………………………………………………. 133

Growth in the PCA through Doctrinal Fidelity and Outreach ……………………………………….. 142

Reflection and Redirection ………………………………………………………………………………………. 144

My Story: Rev. John Brainerd, Cumberland County 1751-1781

My Story: Rev. John Brainerd

Exploring Native American Sources Over a 30 Year Period

John Brainerd was born on February 28, 1720 in Haddam, CT. He had a vision to educate Native Americans in the colonies of New England and the Mid-Atlantic, including New Jersey. He graduated from Yale College in 1746 and received a Masters Degree from The College of New Jersey (Princeton) in 1749. He was a Presbyterian minister in Newark and New York before the French and Indian War. Her served as a chaplain in the Colonial Army during the French and Indian War, possibly between 1756 and 1759. He ministered to Christian Indian villages in Cranbury, Bridgetown, Mount Holly, Newark, and Deerfield in New Jersey. He also ministered to Native American communities in Pennsylvania and Connecticut. His brother David also ministered to Native Americans but died before John graduated from Yale. John Brainerd was married twice. His first wife, Experience Lyon died in 1757, while John Brainerd was with the Colonial Army. The two children she gave birth to, died in their first year. He remarried Hannah Spencer from Lynn, MA (also Haddam, MA) in 1664.

These were the years of the Great Awakening and prominent clergy such as John and Charles Wesley, George Whitefield and Jonathan Edwards preached the Bible, wrote songs, started schools, and ministered to colonial populations.

The French and Indian War, tough economic times after the French and Indian War, and the separation from England following the Declaration of Independence had a significant impact on the clergy who were supported by the Anglican Church of England, the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, and the Reformed Church in the Netherlands. Most clergy returned to England after the Declaration of Independence. John Brainerd, Samson Occum, and Francis Asbury are prominent clergy who ministered to people in New Jersey.

“IN the year1777, at fifty-seven years of age, Mr.-Brainerd removed from Brotherton to Deerfield, in Cumberland County, N.J., and took charge of the church there. He still seems to have retained some oversight of the mission. In 1778, 1779, and1780, up to the year of his death, the Synod of New York and Philadelphia voted that ”the interest on the Indian fund be paid to Mr. Brainerd for his services among the Indians. “To the last of life he seems to have clung to his little flock, his first love, and his brethren did their best in a time of war to sustain him. Brotherton, the Indian settlement which he had aided to build up, and where for fifteen years he had resided, was situated in what is now a prosperous and pleasant rural neighborhood, near the present Shamong station, on the Raritan and Delaware Bay Railroad, about forty miles from Philadelphia. The “Historical Collections of New Jersey “give the following description:

“Edgepelick (or Indian Mills) is the name of a locality about three miles north of Atsion, where was the last Indian settlement in the State. The remnant of the tribe, consisting of about one hundred souls, emigrated to the West nearly half a century since. There is, however, a single family, but of mixed breed, residing in the vicinity ,in a log hut. Brainerd, the missionary, for a time resided among the Indians at this place. His dwelling-house stood about eight rods south of the saw-mill of Godfrey Hancock, on rising ground, the site of which is still marked by depression, showing the precise spot where the cellar was. Within a few rods is the spring from which the family obtained water. The natives had a saw-mill on the site of Nicholas. Thompson’s mill, a quarter of a mile northeast of Brainerd’s house. Their burying-ground was on the edge of the pond about forty rods northwest of the same dwelling. In the vicinity stood their church, built of logs, and destroyed about thirty-five years since. After the Indians left, it was used by the whites for public worship.” (pp. 413, 14)

Use the sources below to discuss the following and debate the advantages and disadvantages of the proposed decision.

What motivated young men from notable families to serve rural and Native American populations? Was this the result of their college education, financial incentives, or personal motivation?
How did conflict and war present barriers to the clergy who wanted to minister to people in a congregation or community?
Was their motivation to preach the Word of God, educate Native American populations, or develop a larger church organization similar to what was established in Europe?
Discuss the barriers John Brainerd faced in his travels, family life, with decisions of colonial governments, livelihood, and in ministering to people in need.

Decision: If you were John Brainerd, would you continue your ministry to Native Americans in New Jersey, or accept a position at an established congregation in a populated New Jersey community? (i.e. Newark, Princeton, Perth Amboy, New Brunswick, etc.)

Journal of John Brainerd (January 1761 – October 1762)

The Life of John Brainerd (1720-1781) (Read pp. 409-420)

All related documents

Eleazar Wheelock, letter, to Mr. Whitefield, 1759 November 3

Manuscript Number 759603

Date 3 November 1759

Abstract: Eleazar Wheelock writes of the progress at his school, and of the conditions under which he looks for more Indian pupils as well as public charity. He also mentions the ordination of Occom.

Eleazar Wheelock, letter, to George Whitefield, 1761 July 4

Manuscript Number 761404

Date 4 July 1761

Abstract: Eleazar Wheelock writes to George Whitefield about first Occom’s mission to the Oneidas, and about the difficulties of teaching Indian students. He mentions the idea of appealing to the Earl of Dartmouth for charity.

Eleazar Wheelock, letter, to John Brainerd, 1765 January 14

Manuscript Number 765114.3

Date 14 January 1765

Abstract: Wheelock writes to Brainerd about setting up a meeting with the Connecticut Board of Commissioners, and the proposed fundraising trip to England, which is complicated by a renewal of the Mason Land Case.

John Brainerd, letter, to Eleazar Wheelock, 1766 September 16

Manuscript Number 766516.1

Date 16 September 1766

Abstract: Brainerd writes about the apprehension of the murderers of two Indian women, includes letters from Francis Alison and John Ewing recommending John G. Kals as a teacher and missionary, and gives his own recommendation of Kals, with reservations.

Eleazar Wheelock, letter, to Samson Occom, 1772 May 26

Manuscript Number 772326.2

Date 26 May 1772

Abstract: Wheelock asks Occom to join the mission of McClure and Frisbie to Muskingum.