The Edible Primary Source: Food as a Medium to Teach History

The Edible Primary Source: Food as a Medium to Teach History

Steven Jenkins

Whether it is a book, a quote, a painting or a picture, students are meant to study history through and from these meanings. While they each have validity and all have importance, some of these sources lack the relatability needed to encourage engagement in a students mind. Primary sources can be static. Stuck in the time period they were written and while their implication and effects ripple into the present they remain stuck in the time they were made, orated or created. However, what if educators used living mediums to illustrate historical processes. That is a medium that is used physically by people in the past with continual uses today. That medium, as the title suggests, is food.

            Food is somewhat of an easy to miss primary source. It is understandable of course because when comparing the constitution and a tomato, one packs an obvious greater historical punch. However, by considering primary sources as only a physical creation by a human who wrote, spoke or drew, the possibilities are limited. While the United States constitution has evolved beyond the bounds of the time it was created and has become the “living document” described in many classrooms today, so has the tomato.  So has any food. This essay will demonstrate how food is a living document to be adopted in the classroom. Food can be used in the classroom as a method of showing historical change, a method of instilling culturally responsive education into the curriculum as well as being an applicable mode of analysis to any historical period.

            Food history is first and foremost about a process. Food must be grown of course. It starts with a seed, the tending of young livestock, and reproduction for generations to provide for us. It is part of the story of humankind itself. The development of agriculture, that idea so central to understanding ancient civilizations like Mesopotamia or Egypt, has been neglected in education in post-Paleolithic age discussions. Humans have created the ability to grow their own sources of food and changed environments through irrigation, terraforming landscapes and breeding plants and animals for more desirable characteristics. Humans then harvest and process those items and create a dish using those ingredients. It is a quite profound process that still is practiced everyday whether the ingredients are sourced by the cook or not. More than that, humans have assigned meaning to our food. Humans have created cultures that have holidays that revolve around crop rotations and harvests. Humans have created dishes that are synonymous with certain cultures. People that come from the same ethnic or cultural background can share similarities beyond their geographical locations because of food. In the classroom, this is a pertinent example of the values that education wishes to attain generated through food.

            Food in education is a necessary mode to encourage multicultural thought and culturally sensitive pedagogies. Each student comes from diverse backgrounds and lived experiences. Honoring these is a great goal in education. As stated by Wiley-Blackwell about Culturally Responsive Teaching, “Culturally competent teachers are committed to learning about their students’ cultural resources, or funds of knowledge” (Wiley-Blackwell 1).  Food history can facilitate this. Having students research, explore and learn about foods or dishes that are part of their culture allow them to critically engage with the history that has made their diverse identities. They bring their knowledge and combine it with historical records, thus, bringing their culture as a source of learning for the entire class and the teacher. They get to educate their classmates and teachers about themselves and their history.

            Another issue that makes food history a great medium is its applicability. No matter the time period, individuals responded to the conditions of their time by changing their gastronomy. This can be represented in the classroom as evidence of the social changes that occur in various periods of history. For example, if a class is engaging in the topic of enslavement in America, food history can show the conditions of enslavement as well as perseverance of enslaved Africans. This can be done through okra. Okra, a crop originating in west Africa that has become synonymous with southern cooking in America, which has its roots in enslavement. Enslaved Africans taken from the continent brought with them okra seeds. Evidenced by the unfamiliarity with the crop by early European sources in Brazil, okra was seemingly foreign to them leading to the possibility that Africans resisted slavery by bringing okra seeds as contraband (Sousa & Raizad, 2020). Beyond that, okra was repeatedly described in the personal gardens of slaves and used as a form of medicine, syncretized religious practices as well as sustenance in the face of horrible malnutrition (Eisnach & Covey, 2019). In the post-civil war era, okra expanded outside of the plantations and became part of some of the first examples of enterprising formerly enslaved persons in the form of soul cooking. Some of the first sold cookbooks created by former slaves include okra in the form of gumbo and other dishes.  One of those cookbooks is titled What Mrs. Fisher knows about old southern cooking, soups, pickles, preserves, etc. This cookbook describes various methods of cooking with okra gained from Fisher’s experiences as a former slave (Fisher, 1881). Fisher had essentially used the abject horror of slavery as a means of self-enterprise, exemplifying the importance of food culture for formerly enslaved persons. Okra became part of a series of navigations of enslaved africans against the institutions of slavery. From its arrival in America okra was a matter of resistance. This is a historical case that could be added to curricula to show the nature of life in enslavement as well as the agency of enslaved persons in the Americas.

            There are plenty of other examples that could be listed out in which food can be used as a medium of examining historical periods however the importance is implementation in the classroom. The concept of food history can be used in countless ways. As described prior food is a process. A process that mirrors human growth and development. It informs the way people react to their social constraints. Those social constraints and events that form the unique cultures of each and every student in the classroom. Food history is an opportunity for culturally relevant pedagogies where students center food as a manner to present their identities. Food history is finally a manner of applicability. It is an aspect of the historical record that is forever present and forever important to the historical process for the individuals that experienced it. It is thus that teachers must examine food as a primary source in itself. A primary source that bends time to become a fountain of educational possibilities.

References

Eisnach, D., & Covey, H. (2019). Slave Gardens in the Antebellum South: The Resolve of a Tormented People. Southern Quarterly, 57(1), 11-23. Retrieved from https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/slave-gardens-antebellum\-south-resolve-tormented/ docview/2553031701/se-2?accountid=10216.y

Fisher, A. & Katherine Golden Bitting Collection On Gastronomy. (1881) What Mrs. Fisher knows about old southern cooking, soups, pickles, preserves, etc. San Francisco: Women’s Co-operative Printing Office. Retrieved from the Library of Congress. Retrieved from https://www.loc.gov/item/08023680/.

Sousa, E., & Raizad, M. (2020). Contributions of African Crops to American Culture and Beyond: The Slave Trade and Other Journeys of Resilient Peoples and Crops. Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems, 4. Retrieved from https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fsufs.2020.586340/full

Wiley-Blackwell. (2022) Multimodal Literacies: Fertile Ground for Equity, Inclusion, and Connection. Reading Teacher, 75(5), 603–609.

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 DeSantis signed House Bill 7 (popularly called the “Stop WOKE” Act). Christopher Rufo then took to the podium. 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 conviction 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 retort, “‘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 News 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 panic 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 Research 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 release 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 reason. 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.”

Holocaust Museum & Center for Tolerance and Education – Rockland Community College

Holocaust Museum & Center for Tolerance and Education

Rockland Community College

You can find the Holocaust Museum and Center for Tolerance and Education at Rockland Community College through this link.

Legislation (A.472C /S.121B) will help ensure that New York schools are properly educating students on the Holocaust. The legislation directs the New York State Education Department to determine whether school districts across the state have met education requirements on instruction of the Holocaust, which have been required by law since 1994.It will also require NYSED to identify how non-compliant schools will close gaps in knowledge of the Holocaust in schools.

The Holocaust Museum & Center for Tolerance and Education is proud to offer a multitude of programs for Elementary School, Middle School and High School audiences as well as Professional Development for Faculty. We teach on topics ranging from the Holocaust to Genocide Studies, to Tolerance and Diversity. We customize our programs to suit the needs of your students, staff, and faculty. Our Education Department works with you to produce events and resources that will impact your school for years to come. We will help your school achieve the mandates by our New York Governor on Holocaust Education.

Program offerings

Moral courage professional development

Led by our Director of Education, teacher training seminars provide introductory guidance and resources on best practices for teaching the Holocaust and Genocide (Grades 6-12) and the importance of Tolerance and Diversity (Grades K-5). We also offer more in-depth seminars for teachers who wish to explore new approaches and materials to support Holocaust and Genocide education for their students.

Anti-bias & sensitivity training

Our Anti-Bias & Sensitivity Training helps faculty and staff combat hate and intolerance personally, professionally, and publically. Our Director of Education and Historian in Residence offers customizable seminars that draw upon the history of the Holocaust to teach the lessons of tolerance, individual responsibility, and moral courage in the workplace as well as out in our communities. Please contact our Director of Education and Historian in Residence Linda Suss today to discuss how we can support the important work you do educating our community’s young people.

Better Together workshops for teachers, administration and coaches

Antisemitism and racism are two facets of the disease of hatred. All forms of oppression that target individuals based on their identity share an equally distressing aim of creating a hierarchy ranking of the value of human life. We at HMCTE know that this is a categorically false and damaging way to understand the world. In our eyes, all people share the same inherent dignity, worthiness, and rights – no matter who they are or where they come from. If we only examine one facet of hatred, be it antisemitism, racism, sexism, ablism, ageism, or any other type of discrimination, we are ignoring the intersectionality or overlapping forces of hatred. Where one type of discrimination exists, others will come to thrive, too. That’s why we know that it is our duty to stand up for all people and to work together to create a more just and inclusive society for everyone.

Holocaust education for students at the museum 

Our theme for the 2022-23 school year was “Combating Hate and Propaganda.” Together we will help young people understand the historical context of building cultures of hate through propaganda and misinformation campaigns. We will explore this topic through the history of the Holocaust and other genocides and we will apply critical thinking to how we consume media today. Programs on Moral Courage are available, as well as other topics currently under development. In order to accommodate your school’s preference on programming and dates, we are already booking for the coming school year. Whether you are interested in a tour of our permanent exhibit, the Rockland County African American history exhibit, or other educational programs, we encourage you to reach out now to ensure a meaningful visit with your students next year.

Resilience exhibit in your school

Host our traveling exhibit on Resilience during the Holocaust at your school. Students will have the opportunity to engage with a little discussed perspective of this history: one of individual choices, struggle, and hope. Through the exhibit and accompanying activities, Resilience connects the history of the Holocaust to each of us on a personal level and inspires students to consider how they, too, can become resilient and show moral courage in the face of injustice.

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.”

Chaim Goldberg: Sharing History

Chaim Goldberg: Sharing History

Arielle Goldberg

The smooth long edges and rough corners of a crisp white piece of paper are something most people do not value. Paper is a common good that is not given much thought when it is crinkled in a ball and thrown across the room. However, this is not how Chaim Goldberg viewed these simple white things — he knew they could be used to educate the world. Throughout his early artistic career, as early as four years old, he did whatever it took to obtain his medium: plain white paper. While sharing his story in a 1995 interview, Goldberg beamed with pride, knowing he had done all he could to further his career from such a young age. Goldberg was born in 1917 in Kazimierz Dolny, a small, predominantly Jewish town in Poland commonly referred to as a shtetl. In the shtetl, Goldberg spent time during his youth working small jobs in order to obtain an income to buy paper.[1]The paper purchased for sketching evolved to watercolor paper, canvases for oil painting, and materials for sculpture.

Early on in Goldberg’s career he met Saul Silberstein, a wealthy man with a great interest in the arts.[2]According to Goldberg, Silberstein left an everlasting mark on his artistic career and life.[3]Silberstein was impressed by Goldberg’s artistic ability the first time he visited Goldberg’s home, which led him to spend both time and money on elevating Goldberg’s talents.[4]He invited people from a variety of schools to view Goldberg’s art. This helped to catapult Goldberg’s career as he was able to bring his paintings to Warsaw, Poland. While visiting Warsaw he met with contacts of Silberstein who were predominantly doctors and lawyers.[5]They were impressed with Goldberg’s artistic ability, and generously paid for his tuition to art school for five years.[6]An important step in each artist’s career is finding their niche. In order to find his own niche, Goldberg spent his early life creating art through a variety of mediums and subjects. He learned that he needed to refine his subject area and have a common thread throughout his art.[7]While attending art school in Paris, Goldberg met Marc Chagall. It was his relationship with Chagall that solidified Goldberg’s artistic subject area. Chagall felt that there was a need for art that shared the connection of Jewish life, shtetls, and tradition. Goldberg’s art showed Chagall that he was the perfect artist to do so.[8]Chagall showed his support of Goldberg’s art by purchasing his full art portfolio which depicted these images; this collection of art was “the only samples of Goldberg’s early work to survive World War II.”9 The confidence and motivation that Chagall gave Goldberg to create art about Jewish life was a pivotal point in Goldberg’s career.

Goldberg went on to expand his portfolio by sharing the horrors of the Holocaust through his art. Goldberg is one of many artists whose art shares the lives of Jewish people leading up to and during the Holocaust. These artists, poets, and writers shared their art in order to provide an insight into their experience, with the ultimate goal of preventing such an event from occurring again. Scholars have examined many artists’ work that is related to the time directly before and during the Holocaust. These scholars have found that this area of art shows both history and tradition. Goldberg’s art successfully preserves history by depicting the traditions and history of the events of the Holocaust, Jewish Polish shtetls, and the Orthodox Ashkenazi Jews living within them. Goldberg’s art gives a representation of Jewish life before the Holocaust and gives a fuller picture of Jewish life that goes beyond trauma. By examining Goldberg’s art, people can begin to understand the lives of those impacted by the Holocaust.

The Preservation of the events of the Holocaust

Goldberg, as well as many other famous artists, was able to use his own accounts and the information he gathered from people to create Holocaust art that shared his experiences with the world. This provided a visual for those who did not experience it firsthand or did not have the artistic talents to express their experiences. The Nazi’s plan and goal for the Holocaust was to “complete [and enforce a] plan for the extermination of the European Jewry.”[9]Hitler and the Nazi Party believed that “Jews’ dangerous qualities were rooted in biology… [and] the inevitable outgrowth of a biological uniqueness that made them less human.”[10]The Nazis, led by Hitler, were instructed to accomplish the goal of exterminating the Jews, and others that they did not classify as part of the superior Aryan race, by facilitating mass murder in concentration camps. Holocaust artists have shared the experience of many Jewish people and others who the Nazis were trying to exterminate.12 It was important for these experiences to be shared via art so that they would be remembered forever.

The History of the Holocaust has been preserved in many ways including poetry, writing, sculptures, and paintings. Art historians have found that through Holocaust art, one can learn about, “the experiences of the exiles… [and] we can learn that there are other ways of feeling, other ways of understanding history, and other ways of using the creative ability for expressive purpose.”13 Art provides insight and a visual snapshot of someone’s life experiences. The Holocaust has been the subject area of many artists, who like writers and poets, use their art to share their life experiences. Holocaust art has an interesting dynamic – some of the pieces aim to use G-d and religion to uplift the horrific events depicted in the art, while others share the events more literally and show the tragedy of the Holocaust.

Art historians have accredited Tibor Jankay with being an influential Holocaust painter; he created an art collection that depicts the atrocities of the time period. Jankay was well-known for relishing in the positives. For this reason, Jankay’s Holocaust art is renowned for its ability to depict the horrors of what occurred during the Holocaust, while also sharing the beauty that surrounded these horrors.[11]Jankay’s Holocaust art was centered around his experiences: his

Cattle Car (figure 1) pencil sketch is an account of the time he spent in a cattle car on the way to Auschwitz.[12]The goal of this piece is to give the viewer an up-close perspective of the uncomfortable and crowded cattle car. The viewer’s understanding of what happened is exacerbated by the faces of horror of those in the cattle car.[13]Jankay’s art uses symbolism for expression.[14]Scholars have found that the symbols that Jankay used throughout his Holocaust art emphasize the connection between Jewish people and G-d. One of the symbols that represent this connection is, “the angel hovering above the ghetto representing nurturing protection.”[15]Jankay’s symbolism of G-d shows the emotions he felt during the Holocaust. However, he is not the only one who had these emotions throughout the Holocaust, which is why his work resonates with many Holocaust survivors. His work serves as a visual representation that survivors can relate to.

The preservation of history and tradition has been done in different ways; similar to art, writing allows the writer to share their experiences through their work. Elie Wiesel is well known for sharing his experiences from the Holocaust in writing. In fact, he is described as being “perhaps the world’s best-known witness to the atrocities of the Holocaust.”[16]Wiesel’s writing is known for depicting and sharing his personal experience in two concentration camps: Auschwitz and Buchenwald. He wrote the well-known Holocaust testimony, La Nuit, which depicts the experience that he and his father had in Auschwitz. Additionally, “Wiesel went on to achieve high visibility as a writer and human rights campaigner, winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986.”[17]Wiesel is one of the many writers whose focus on the Holocaust has allowed others to form an understanding of the events, as their work depicts the true tragedy and horrific experiences that millions of people went through. There are also many other written formats that people have used to share their experiences in the Holocaust including poetry and diaries. By sharing their accounts in written format, they are preserved and allow for people to continue to learn and understand what occurred during the Holocaust many years later.[18]No matter how the experiences of those in the Holocaust have been preserved, it is important that it has been documented for future generations to learn from.

Holocaust artists bridge a gap between direct experiences and compiling accounts of other victims. Artists such as Josef Harmen used his “paintings to constitute [his] memory and grieve for the loss of [his] family.”[19]This allowed for the mourning and honoring of loved ones, and for their lives to be shared with the world; therefore these paintings help to educate those who did not experience the Holocaust first-hand. Additionally, this form of art shares the Ashkenazi Jewish culture, which defines many Holocaust survivors and memorializes those who were persecuted, tortured, and murdered at the hands of the Nazi Party.[20]The creation of Holocaust art helps people to understand the tragic events of the Holocaust. Harmen used his art to express his experiences as a refugee, allowing others to understand them. Art that shares the “century marked by war, genocide, and dehumanization” provides the world with personal accounts of the tragedies that will last forever.[21]A unique characteristic of Holocaust art is its ability to depict the disruption and torture of an entire group of people.[22]Furthermore, Holocaust artists and their preservation of history “cannot be separated from [the past and their] identification with family, community, tradition and ritual.”[23]There is a strong overlap between Holocaust art and the art that represents the lives and culture of Jewish people leading up to the Holocaust.

Goldberg’s art shows the contrast between the simplicity of life while living in a shtetl and the tragedy of the Holocaust. Goldberg created a collection of Holocaust art that represents the events that occurred and the torture that the Jewish people experienced. Additionally, it represents the hope that people carried with them throughout the Holocaust with G-d’s guidance. Goldberg’s Holocaust collection started chronologically with people who were forced out of their shtetl homes. In his collection, there were pieces of art that represented the emotions of leaving loved ones.[24]Goldberg’s wood sculpture, Farewell (figure 2), depicts a family hugging goodbye at the start of the Holocaust. It embodies the unknown that people faced throughout the Holocaust, specifically when leaving their loved ones; this is shown through the tight embrace of the three figures.[25]Additionally, as many of Goldberg’s pieces incorporate Jewish traditions, the men in the sculpture are wearing yarmulkes, which are head coverings that Orthodox Jewish men wear as a reminder of their connection to G-d.[26]The Farewell sculpture helps to capture the fear that the Jewish people faced as they were forced from their homes; this helps to preserve these emotions for future generations to learn from.

To the Unknown (figure 3) is another piece of Goldberg’s Holocaust collection that represents the start of the Holocaust. This piece depicts people fleeing their homes to an unknown location to escape Nazi invaded Poland.[27]This painting shows just some of the thousands of people who were forced to leave their shtetls. It is notable that in the hurried rush of people fleeing, they were forced to throw some of their belongings into wagons, as shown in the painting. This piece represents the experience of Goldberg’s in-laws in this time period — they brought belongings with them as they fled Warsaw which they used to bribe the border patrol in order to flee Nazi invaded Poland.[28]This painting allows viewers to have an understanding of the beginning of the Holocaust, the effort it took to flee, as well as the disruption of lives, and the uncertainty that followed. Goldberg’s art continued to depict the experiences of Orthodox Ashkenazi Jews as they were forced to leave their homes.

During the Holocaust, the Nazis forced Jewish people from Poland, Russia, and Germany into ghettos, which were created to contain these people in a specific area. Goldberg’s painting, View in the Warsaw Ghetto 1939 (figure 4), shows what it was like on the streets of these ghettos by depicting children, men, and women. [29] The ghetto was a segregated portion of the city, separated by brick walls and surrounded by Nazi and Polish police.33 Through his art, Goldberg was able to depict the lives of the over 400,000 people who were imprisoned in this ghetto, including Goldberg and his family.[30]He created art that depicted the Warsaw Ghetto from his memory, decades after his time there. Goldberg was able to preserve their experiences and express the history that would stem from the Holocaust through View in the Warsaw Ghetto 1939. By creating imagery that shares what the Warsaw Ghetto was like, Goldberg was able to provide the world with a visual representation of this place and was able to give people a greater understanding of the Holocaust.

Goldberg created paintings that specifically focused on the Nazi’s actions prior to the extermination of people in concentration camps. Under the Gun (figure 5) is a sketch that shows a long, dense line of people being led into a building that is understood to be a gas chamber.[31]The reason this painting was titled Under the Gun was because Goldberg illustrated a Nazi soldier standing tall and holding a gun, which mimics the power they held over those in concentration camps.[32]Goldberg’s painting, Gas Chamber (figure 6) shows the horrors that people experienced in the deadly gas chambers.[33]Goldberg drew the people crouched down and weeping, which showed the horrors that they faced leading up to their imminent death.[34]Some people were shown pleading for their lives while being held at gunpoint, which represented their desperation. Although Goldberg was never in a concentration camp himself, he painted them based on what he had heard from others.[35]Goldberg painted Gas Chambers in 1942 while he was a refugee in Siberia. Specifically, as “the news of the mass exterminations began to trickle in by way of radio and newspaper as early as 1941… the artist, shaken to his core by the news, plunged into making a visual of the horrific news he had heard.”[36] Goldberg created his work to express the experience of Jews during the Holocaust, whether someone else’s or his own. In the case of Gas Chambers, he shared the experiences of those who no longer could.

Some of Goldberg’s most iconic pieces that represent the Holocaust are sculptures that show Jewish people escaping the Nazi control and concentration camps. Triumph I (figure 7), part of a collection of Holocaust sculptures, depicts the freedom from the Nazi’s control through the guidance of G-d and the appreciation that Jewish people had for G-d throughout the Holocaust.[37]Triumph I shows multiple figures emerging from the barbed wire of the concentration camps and climbing up towards G-d. Here, G-d is represented here with a Magen David, Star of David, a symbol that is used to represent Jewish identity and symbolize G-d’s protection of the Jews. This sculpture represents the liberation of the Jewish people from Nazi control, an important turning point in this time period. Goldberg’s Holocaust art is a mix of both literal examples of what occurred in the Holocaust, as well as symbolism that provided hope.

Goldberg served in the Polish army during the Holocaust; during this time he was captured by the Nazi Party and held as a prisoner of war. It was there he decided to continue creating art that shared people’s lives before the war. However, directly after the Holocaust, Goldberg spent his time creating art that depicted his experiences and that of others. After he finished, he ultimately returned to his main artistic passion of creating art to share the lives of those who lived in Polish shtetls. This led Goldberg to the major focus of his career, the shtetl he grew up in, Kazimierz Dolny.

The Preservation of Polish shtetls Through Art

The original subject and setting of Goldberg’s artwork became his lifelong passion. He shared his home, Kazimierz Dolny, and childhood with the world through his art. Much of Goldberg’s inspiration for his art before the Holocaust came from those who visited Kazimierz Dolny, many of which stayed in his family’s clapboard house.[38]These people became his “story” and the base for his “characters.” As he grew up, he continued to create “characters” centered around those who were an integral part of life in Kazimierz Dolny.[39]Unfortunately, virtually all of his work from before the war was destroyed. This includes art from his collection, the art he sold, and the work he was commissioned for. Before the Holocaust, Goldberg traveled to Warsaw to create commissioned art for well-known and wealthy residents. Fortunately, “approximately fifty drawings and watercolors survived due to the fact that they were purchased by Chagall… in

1933.”[40]While this art was saved from being destroyed, it is not readily available to the public. However, Goldberg made it his life’s passion to continue making art that shared his beloved hometown with the world. He successfully shared that there was more to know about Eastern European Jews from the early to mid-nineteenth century than just the Holocaust.

Goldberg was not the only artist to represent shtetl life in their art. Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Museum in Israel, curated a collection of art from Polish shtetls dating back to pre-Holocaust Europe. The curators of this collection explain the importance of understanding what it was like to live in a Jewish shtetl. Jewish culture and tradition are strongly tied to shtetls. This is important for understanding Jewish art as many influential Jewish artists were born and grew up in shtetls, and used their art to share their experiences.[41]The curators at Yad Vashem focused their collection on lesser-known artists which highlights the wide variety of people that centered their work around shtetls.46 The work shared in the collection is focused on many different aspects of shtetl life including “the market, professions, women of the shtetl, and Jewish learning… through the eyes of these Jewish artists.”[42]These aspects of shtetl life are key components in Goldberg’s art, which allow him to share Kazimierz Dolny with the world in great detail. This helps to give viewers a complete understanding of what it would have been like to live there. His art preserved a visual history of Kazimierz Dolny, which allowed for the history of those who lived there to be commemorated.

When Goldberg created shtetl art, he included a variety of characters that depict the people of the shtetl. The goal of his art was to share “Kazimierz Dolny shtetl and gather all his characters to live eternally through his art.”[43]Goldberg highlights the variety of professions within a shtetl through his art. Goldberg was surrounded by people with different professions from a young age and based some of his art on his parents’ professions – his father was a cobbler, and his mother was a seamstress. Goldberg titles a group of his works Parents II (figure 8), which was made up of a variety of pieces including etchings, linocuts, engravings, and oil paintings. In these works of art, the viewer sees Goldberg’s parents working.[44]The watercolor painting My Parents (figure 9) is similar to the collection of pieces titled Parents II as it illustrates each of Goldberg’s parents intently focusing on their work, his father repairing a pair of shoes and his mother sewing a garment.[45]This painting was set in Goldberg’s childhood home; in the background is a piece of art hanging on the wall which is actually another one of Goldberg’s pieces. Oftentimes, Goldberg would add small hidden elements to his work, adding himself or his own paintings within different pieces. By showing his parents’ professions, he was able to share his childhood experiences with the world and preserve the experiences of the people in Kazimierz Donly forever. Typically only one person in each shtetl was responsible for holding a specific job, which is commonly seen in Goldberg’s work. Goldberg’s sketch Blacksmith (figure 10) shows the blacksmith at work in the shtetl and specifically highlights the difficulty of the job and its strain on his life through his hunched position.[46]In the background, the shtetl of Kazimierz Dolny is in view. The blacksmith is an integral component of the shtetl, which is why Goldberg decided to include him in his shtetl art. The blacksmith was one of the many people Goldberg took inspiration from as he successfully illuminated the experiences of those living within the shtetl.

Goldberg created the painting, Teacher (figure 11), to represent his childhood education. The Teacher depicts a Rabbi and a student studying from a prayer book.[47]This is reminiscent of Goldberg’s childhood as Goldberg, like most children in the shtetl, attended a school that was taught by a Rabbi. Further, it was Goldberg’s Rabbi that later hired him to create mezuzah covers, small artistic cases which hold a parchment scroll containing blessings for a house. This Rabbi had enough confidence in Goldberg’s artistic ability to hire him, which afforded Goldberg the opportunity to buy art supplies.[48]Because Goldberg was able to buy art supplies, he was able to hone his artistic abilities and continue his passion for preserving Jewish shtetl life. The goal of Goldberg’s art was to immerse the viewer in Kazimierz Dolny so they could understand what it was like to be an Orthodox Jew living in a shtetl during this time period.[49]

Goldberg was known for depicting several of the same “characters” and symbols within his art including the shtetl’s water carrier. The Water Carrier (figure 12) shows a man balancing a stick with two pails of water on his shoulders while moving through the shtetl.[50]He is depicted like this in many of Goldberg’s works. The background of the Water Carrier mimics paintings that focus specifically on the houses in Kazimierz Dolny. Goldberg’s paintings built off one another to create a full representation of his shtetl from the early twentieth century. This is also seen with Shtetl Houses (figure 13), an engraving that shows houses built into a hill.[51]These are the same hills seen in Water Carrier.[52]The water carrier is also a central character in The Shtetl (figure 14), which is showcased in the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.[53]This piece depicts the same hill of houses that are shown in Goldberg’s other works. This creates an image of what Kazimierz Dolny looked like from the outside.[54]The goal of Goldberg’s art was to share “Kazimierz Dolny shtetl and gather all his characters to live eternally through his art.”[55]The Shtetl depicts many figures from the town including his parents, the water carrier, and himself, shown painting on an easel. This painting preserves people in Kazimierz Dolny who observed the traditions of Orthodox Ashkenazi Jews. The Shtetl serves as a culmination of all the events and people within Kazimierz Dolny. Through his art, Goldberg created a visual representation of Kazimierz Dolny to be preserved for the world to see.

The population of Kazimierz Dolny was largely comprised of Jewish people, thus they are the primary subject of Goldberg’s art. Judaism is filled with many customs and traditions that were closely followed by the Jewish community in Kazimierz Dolny. These traditions are the connecting thread within all of Goldberg’s art; whether it was the depiction of traditional head coverings for men, events, holidays, or a style of dance. Goldberg has two parallel art pieces, Seven Hasidic Dancers (figure 15) and Hora (figure 16). In these paintings, the viewer can see the Jewish Orthodox tradition of men and women dancing separately. The reason for this tradition is because it “helps to preserve and safeguard a limited and therefore special connection between the genders.”[56]Seven Hasidic Dancers is an ink painting of seven men dancing in a circle connected to one another.[57]The style of dance these men are performing is the Hora. The Hora is a traditional Jewish celebratory dance that is danced on special occasions. Goldberg created a related painting called Hora which shows seven women participating in the same celebratory dance.[58]Viewers of these two paintings are able to look back in time and “witness” the religious practices of the Jewish community in Kazimierz Dolny. Goldberg’s art showed the strong values and traditions of the Jewish people he grew up around. As an artist, Goldberg wanted people who viewed his art to feel as though they were visiting and experiencing the shtetl.

Weddings are a common subject of Goldberg’s art and Jewish practices. Throughout his pieces, there are a variety of religious Jewish symbols that are a common part of weddings. Chuppahs, or canopies, are an integral part of religious Jewish wedding ceremonies. The couple stands under the Chuppah with the Rabbi who is officiating the wedding. It is traditional for the Chuppah to be made out of a man’s prayer shawl, as seen in each of Goldberg’s paintings that feature a wedding. This is shown in The Wedding (figure 17).[59]Goldberg wanted to properly depict Jewish weddings in his art, so he made sure to include many of the Jewish wedding traditions. Many of these paintings have additional aspects that are important to the Jewish religion. Goldberg’s painting, The Wedding (figure 18) from 1962 shows a couple after the ceremony with many members of the town rejoicing and celebrating, which is typical of a Jewish wedding. One of the central aspects of the painting is two boys holding a large loaf of challah, a traditional bread eaten by Jewish people in times of celebration.[60]The cutting of challah is an important component of Jewish weddings; an important person to the couple rips the challah while reciting a blessing. In his art, Goldberg provides his viewers with an understanding of key traditions that occur throughout a Jewish wedding.

As a religious Jewish boy, Goldberg kept the laws of Shabbat and illustrated his experiences throughout his art. Shabbat is an important weekly practice of Jewish life where the Jewish people honor the seventh day of creation with a day of rest. Lighting two Shabbat candles at the beginning of the day of rest is an important ritual performed by Jewish women, as it is used as a way to bring the Sabbath into a home. Goldberg has represented the lighting of candles in many different paintings. His painting, Shabbat Candles (figure 19), depicts a woman setting up the Shabbat candles for her family to light at sundown.[61]In order to properly light Shabbat candles, the woman says a blessing and sweeps her hands over the light, and then brings her hands to her eyes.[62]In the painting Before Dawn (figure 20), the main figure is a woman lighting Shabbat candles. Throughout the background of the painting are other houses with Shabbat candles glowing in the window; this depicts the important tradition of lighting Shabbat candles in each home.[63]The woman is shown sweeping her hands over the light; this helps to teach viewers about the Shabbat traditions of Orthodox Jews. Additionally, it is traditional for Orthodox Jews to attend religious services at a temple on Shabbat. While both men and women attended, it was more common for only the men to go. This is depicted in the painting Before Dawn where the men of the shtetl are seen walking to the temple along a cobblestone path of Kazimierz Dolny.[64]Goldberg’s Shabbat-related paintings allow the viewer to see the traditions related to the weekly day of rest, including lighting the two candles and walking to the temple. This helps to educate the viewers on the importance of traditions within the Jewish religion.

Jewish holidays and the importance of tradition

Holidays are a large part of the Jewish religion and thus Goldberg has made them an important aspect of his art. Many of his pieces illustrate the important traditions of each holiday. In order to understand the depth that he went through in sharing his religion with the world, it is important to examine Goldberg’s holiday art chronologically according to the Jewish calendar. Rosh Hashanah is the New Year in the Jewish religion and is celebrated with great reverence and joy. Goldberg has shared many important traditions of Rosh Hashanah through his art. During Rosh Hashanah, there is an important tradition called Tashlich, which is depicted in his painting Tashlich (figure 21). Tashlich, a tradition where people go to the water to empty their pockets, is performed on either the first or second day of Rosh Hashanah.[65]This practice is symbolic of the discarding of one’s sins from their life. By depicting this aspect of Rosh Hashanah, Goldberg is capturing the traditions of Orthodox Jews during the Jewish New Year.

Another important aspect of Rosh Hashanah that Goldberg depicts in his artwork is the blowing of the shofar, a ram’s horn.[66]In order to show the proper use of the shofar, Goldberg created The Shofar (figure 22) which occurs in a temple, a house of worship.[67]The shofar is blown by the Rabbi during the prayer services on Rosh Hashanah to serve as a wake-up call and a fresh start to the new year. Only Orthodox men are illustrated, as men and women were not allowed to daven, or pray, together.[68]This is because when davening there should be no distractions between a person and their connection to G-d. The Shofar takes place in the lower level of the sanctuary where the men prayed. The blowing of the Shofar shows how the traditions of Orthodox Jews have been depicted throughout Goldberg’s art.

Yom Kippur, a day of repentance, is arguably the most important Jewish holiday, thus it is an important aspect of Goldberg’s art. A specific tradition of Yom Kippur is Kaparot which takes place the night before and is centered around transferring one’s sins to a rooster.74 Rooster Blessing (figure 23), depicts “the village inhabitants standing in line at the Shochet, or kosher butcher, with their holiday poultry.”75 Each village member in the painting is carrying their own chicken to participate in this tradition.76 Yom Kippur (figure 24) shares the next step of Kaparot; a person swings a rooster over their head while reciting a prayer that symbolically transfers their sins to the rooster. This painting shows a religious man holding a rooster by its legs while moving it around his head as he takes part in the Orthodox Jewish tradition of Kaparot. The rooster looks angry and thus has symbolically taken on the sins of the man.77 This is the traditional start of Yom Kippur and the removal and penance of one’s sins, which is an important aspect of observing Yom Kippur as an Orthodox Jew. Goldberg felt that it was important to share the traditions of Yom Kippur in his art as it is the holiest day in the Jewish calendar.

In order to preserve the traditions of the holiday of Sukkot, Goldberg created multiple paintings of this holiday. Sukkot occurs five days after Yom Kippur and is symbolic of the forty-year period in which the Jews escaped slavery in Egypt and spent time in the desert on the way to Israel.[69]An important part of this holiday is the shaking of the lulav, a collection of four different leaves, and the etrog, a citrus fruit.[70]They are held together each day of Sukkot and shaken while reciting a prayer. Goldberg represents the important tradition of shaking these two objects in the painting, Sukkot (figure 25). In the painting, a religious man is holding the two items while looking up to G-d and praying.[71]A similar image is also included in Succoth (figure 26), where behind the religious man shaking the lulav and etrog, are the people of the town davening in the temple. Additionally, there are prayer books that are used in order to ensure that prayers are recited properly.[72]These paintings together allow the viewer to understand important aspects of Sukkot and build a broader understanding of the Jewish religion.

Goldberg valued sharing his religion in his art. In order to do this, he focused strongly on holidays, including Simchat Torah. Simchat Torah is celebrated on the last day of Sukkot. This holiday honors the Jewish people’s love of the Torah, a scroll containing the first five books of the Hebrew scriptures.[73]The festivities for this holiday include men dancing while holding Torahs. For this reason, Goldberg’s paintings depict Simchat Torah with traditional festive dancing. Simchat Torah (figure 27) is a pen and ink piece of art that shows an open Torah being held above a man’s head while he is dancing around.[74]It is customary in Orthodox Jewish tradition that only men hold and read from the Torah and thus, that is how Goldberg depicted the celebration in this painting. In the background of the piece, other Torahs are being held throughout the crowd which is another tradition of the holiday.84 Goldberg’s 1962 oil on canvas painting, Simchat Torah (figure 28), shows the community clapping in celebration.[75]Because of the importance of this holiday, women are present in the temple; however, in order to abide by Orthodox Jewish tradition, the men and women cannot be together in the temple and thus the women are shown in the second-story windows. It also shows the ark, where the Torahs are housed, in the front of the synagogue. During the festivities of Simchat Torah, the Torahs are all taken out of the ark and carried around the temple in seven circles called hakafot.86 Goldberg felt that it was important to show all aspects of the Jewish religion and to always value joyous times and occasions in his art, Simchat Torah being one of them.87

Goldberg shares the family aspect of the holiday of Chanukah in several of his paintings. Chanukah is an eight-day holiday that honors the Jewish people’s success in fighting the Maccabees. Unlike many other holidays, Chanukah is not centered around community festivities, but rather celebrations in the home. A menorah is lit on each of the eight nights of Chanukah in each family’s home. Goldberg shares this tradition in Channuka (figure 29), a wash and ink painting, by showing a family gathered around a credenza with a menorah placed on top. Each day of Chanukah an additional candle is lit.[76]The menorah is an important part of Chanukah because during the time of the Second Temple of Jerusalem, the menorah was lit each night, however, the temple was then destroyed.[77]There was one single jar of oil that remained and it miraculously lasted eight days, which is now commemorated with the eight-day holiday of Chanukah.90 Goldberg honored the miracle of Chanukah with the creation of another Chanukah painting in 1971 also titled Channuka (figure 30). This image once again represents a family coming together to honor the holiday with the lighting of the menorah and the reciting of prayers.[78]Above the family lighting the menorah is a variety of colors and shapes; within this, a menorah and a jug of oil are seen once again, which highlights its importance to the holiday of Chanukah.[79]Celebration with family is an important part of Judaism and is at the core of the Jewish religion; this is the reason that Goldberg centered his paintings around the traditions of Chanukah.

         Goldberg focused on Purim in his art, which is a holiday that celebrates the Jewish people’s freedom from Persia. An important part of Purim is the reading of the Megillah, the Book of Esther, which contains the story of Purim. Haman was the man who led the torture of the Jewish people while in Persia, so it is tradition to make noise when he is mentioned during the reading of the Megillah.[80]People will make noise with their feet, hands, and most commonly, with a gragger, or noise maker. Graggers are a key component of Goldberg’s Purim art. Purim Parade (figure 31) shows the joyous celebration of Purim. A man is riding on a horse with a large gragger, sharing in the celebration of the freedom of the Jewish people.[81]Additionally, throughout the rest of the painting, there are people holding graggers.[82]In the distance of the piece, one can see Goldberg’s “parents stand[ing] on the left, as his youngest brother Israel waves the gragger.”[83]Another of Goldberg’s pieces portraying Purim, Chaim’s Large Gregor (figure 32), depicts a large gragger in the center of the shtetl. In this watercolor, Goldberg and another man are at the center of the painting using the larger gragger.[84]This painting continues Goldberg’s common thread of placing his family and or himself in his art. There are also members of the town standing in the background enjoying the celebration of Purim, as is customary in Jewish tradition.[85]Goldberg’s Purim art shares the Jewish tradition of making noise to drown out Haman’s name, as well as the celebratory aspect of the holiday. Furthermore, the traditions depicted in these pieces continue Goldberg’s goal of sharing Orthodox Judaism with the world.[86]

The last chronological Jewish holiday that Goldberg focused on was Passover, an eight-day holiday. One of the most well-known aspects of the holiday is that chametz, or leavened bread, is not eaten and rather matzah, unleavened bread, is consumed. Passover requires very specific preparation, and Goldberg centered some of his Passover art around this.[87]In Burning the Chumetz (figure 33) Goldberg depicts “the boys [and the] shtetl’s Rabbi burning small bundles of Chametz ” which is not kosher for the Passover holiday.[88]An important aspect of Passover is the removal of all Chametz from the homes of Orthodox Jews. Another important step in the preparation for Passover is the making of matzah, which is shown in Matzah Making (figure 34). This oil painting represents the women of Kazimierz Dolny helping the baker of the shtetl make matzah.[89]Further, Goldberg shares his childhood experience as he is in the forefront of the painting helping the baker create the dough used to make matzah.103 These two paintings represent the work that it took to prepare for Passover and the important traditions of burning the chametz and making the matzah. These are important aspects of Passover for Orthodox Jews that Goldberg brought to life in his paintings.

In addition to the preparation for Passover, Goldberg’s art also shared the traditional practice of holding a seder, the ceremony for Passover, in one’s home. This is seen in both Family Seder (figure 35) and After the Seder (figure 36). Family Seder shows a family gathered around a table sharing a meal while holding glasses of wine.[90]Wine is a customary aspect of the Passover Seder because, throughout the steps of the service, each person is prompted to drink four glasses of wine. Passover is another holiday that is centered around gatherings in family homes, which explains the setting of both of these paintings. After the Seder shares the joyous celebration of the family at the conclusion of the holiday meal; specifically, it shares Goldberg’s sisters dancing.[91]Goldberg shared that his “sisters would simply get up and dance in their house-nighties, just like” in After the Seder.[92]Goldberg believed it was important to share the happiness of celebrating holidays in a shtetl.[93]In his holiday art, Goldberg captures Orthodox Jewish traditions for the viewer to learn from. Goldberg’s art resonates with Jews who lived in shtetls because of how he depicts the traditions of each Jewish holiday.

Through Goldberg’s art, the viewer is able to gain an understanding of the many important traditions of Jewish holidays. Throughout his career, Goldberg continued to create art centered around holidays as he felt that it was an essential aspect to understanding the lives of those who lived in a shtetl.[94]The history of those who lived in shtetls, specifically during the early twentieth century, is not to be lost in the trauma that was experienced throughout the Holocaust. This is not to take away from the experiences of those in the Holocaust, but rather to highlight the lives and religious practices of Jews prior to the tragedy. This was at the forefront of Goldberg’s artistic works as he created his shtetl art to share his beloved community of Kazimierz Dolny with the world.[95]Thus, he was able to preserve his early life and childhood in the art that outlived him.

Goldberg’s art was successful in the preservation of early twentieth-century Jewish shtetls and allows viewers to understand what it was like to live in Kazimierz Dolny. Goldberg was able to preserve his own family history, the history of Kazimierz Dolny, and the history of Orthodox Ashkenazi Jews before and after the Holocaust. Goldberg’s ability to preserve the history of his shtetl is in line with other shtetl artists. It is through the collections of these artists that modern historians are able to build a picture of what life was like during pre-Holocaust Europe. Goldberg centered his art mainly around shtetl life which proved that there was more to the Jewish European experience than the Holocaust. As seen with other Holocaust artists and writers such as Tibor Jansky and Elie Wiesel, Goldberg’s art preserves the events, and thus the history, of the Holocaust and the time period in which they were alive. Goldberg’s art has lived on beyond his death and will continue to serve as a representation of those who lived in the shtetls of early twentieth-century Poland.

Bringing art to modern-day history classrooms

        Art cultivates a climate of creativity for all students to access when it becomes a part of general education classes. Art is a frequently unused tool within history secondary education classrooms, however, it should not be. By exploring art as a component of history classes, we can explore the often untold elements of history. This is true with Chaim Goldberg’s artwork. As an artist who frequently depicted Jewish shtetl life and the Holocaust, his art allows access to personal accounts and experiences of European Jewish people in the early to mid-twentieth century. Art allows for history to be told in another format; in the classroom, we are able to explore someone’s life. In this case, it is Goldberg’s life we are able to learn about through the exploration of his art. Like writers, art in many circumstances builds off of itself; this is true with Goldberg. When exploring his art collection, the viewer is able to see how he threads details through many paintings. This is seen with many of the repetitive fixtures and people in his shtetl artwork, which leads the viewer to understand that these people are not only important fixtures in Goldberg’s life, but in all shtetl life. An example of an important fixture in general shtetl life is the water carrier, who is depicted throughout many of Goldberg’s paintings. Furthermore, Goldberg’s parents, who were a cobbler and a seamstress, were depicted throughout many of his pieces. This is done to show that these jobs were important elements in Goldberg’s life, and also the lives of those raised in a shtetl. By exploring this idea in the classroom, we are able to cultivate an understanding of shtetl life in a way we could not do by just using readings.

By exploring art, we are able to view a snapshot of someone’s life and develop an understanding of what the different elements of people’s life actually look like. This is seen when exploring the traditional Jewish elements that Goldberg depicted in his art. He depicts Kaparot which is a traditional Jewish custom of transforming one’s sins to a chicken or rooster and killing said animal as part of the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur. By viewing traditions like this we are able to pull back the curtain and help students to understand and explore these traditions more deeply. This allows students to develop a better understanding of others and helps to prevent an environment of misunderstanding and othering which can occur when exploring sacred traditions, especially those that are viewed negatively in today’s society.

Goldberg created his art to share his experiences and his life with the world. By incorporating art like Goldberg’s into the classroom, we are not only helping to fulfill the dreams of artists like Goldberg, but we are also making history more accessible and understandable.

Often as educators, especially history educators, we try to figure out how to share history with our students in a way that allows them to picture and develop an understanding of day-to-day life. Art allows for this and brings history to our modern-day students. It provides students with a window into the past in order to guide and build their understanding. Not all artwork is a direct image that helps us picture a historical event; however, it is often the images that do not depict a direct explanation of what the world looked like that helps to describe the emotions of the people during that time. This is seen with some of Goldberg’s Holocaust artwork which shows people fighting to escape and shows the Jewish religion as something to fight for and work towards. Without art in our history classrooms, we are simply telling students about the past, rather than providing them with images to help them imagine what the world actually looked like. Once art is presented to students they can then further analyze and understand history. If it were not for artists like Goldberg, as well as many others would have a hard time understanding the history of Jewish Europeans living in shtetls, traditional Jewish rituals, and the atrocities of the Holocaust.

References

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David, Colin. “Elie Wiesel: Witnessing, Telling and Knowing.” Traces of War: Interpreting Ethics and Trauma in Twentieth-Century French Writing. Liverpool University Press, 2018. 193–217.

Gerlach, Christian. “The Wannsee Conference, the Fate of German Jews, and Hitler’s Decision in Principle to Exterminate All European Jews.” The Journal of Modern History 70, no. 4 (1998): 759–812.

Goldberg, Chaim. After the Seder. 1990. Watercolor and Ink. Chaim Goldberg I Remember the Shtetl.

Goldberg, Chaim. Before Dawn. 1993. Oil on Canvas. Chaim Goldberg I Remember the Shtetl.

Goldberg, Chaim. Blacksmith. Sketch. CHG-Rosco.

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Goldberg, Chaim. Channuka. 1954. Wash and Ink. Chaim Goldberg I Remember the Shtetl.

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Goldberg, Chaim. Seven Hasidic Dancers. Sketch. CHG-Rosco.

Goldberg, Chaim. Shabbat Candles. 1969. Watercolor and Ink. Chaim Goldberg I Remember the Shtetl.

Goldberg, Chaim. The Shofar. 1971. Watercolor and Ink. Chaim Goldberg I Remember the Shtetl.

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Goldberg, Chaim. Shtetl Houses. Sketch. CHG-Rosco.

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“Shemini Atzeret / Simchat Torah.” Chabad. Accessed April 29, 2022. https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/4689/jewish/Shemini-Atzeret-Simchat-To rah.htm.

Shurpin, Yehuda. “The Origins of the Gragger: Why We Boo Haman.” Chabad. Accessed April 27, 2022. https://www.chabad.org/holidays/purim/article_cdo/aid/4321929/jewish/The-Origins-of-t he-Gragger-Why-We-Boo-Haman.htm.   

Victor, Richard Allan. The Holocaust and the Covenant in Art: Chaim Goldberg, Tibor Jankay, and Mauricio Lasansky. Michigan: UMI Microform, 1998.

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Accessed March 27, 2022.

[1] Chaim Goldberg, interview by, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, USC Shoah Foundation Institute Testimony, May 16, 1995, 6:24.

[2] Goldberg, USC, 6:52.

[3] Goldberg, USC, 7:20.

[4] Richard Allan Victor, The Holocaust and the Covenant in Art: Chaim Goldberg, Tibor Jankay, and Mauricio Lasansky, (Michigan: UMI Microform, 1998), 7.

[5] Goldberg, USC, 7:45.

[6] Goldberg, USC, 8:50.

[7] Goldberg, USC, 30:22.

[8] Goldberg, USC, 1:22:40. 9 Victor., 17.

[9] Christian Gerlach, “The Wannsee Conference, the Fate of German Jews, and Hitler’s Decision in Principle to Exterminate All European Jews,” The Journal of Modern History 70, no. 4 (1998): 759.

[10] Dan McMillian, How Could This Happen: Explaining the Holocaust, (New York: Basic Books, 2014), 3. 12 Phyllis Lassner, “The Art of Lamentation: Josef Herman’s Humanist Expressionism,” Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies 37, no.3 (Winter 2019), 171-172. 13 Lassner., 172.

[11] Victor., 23.

[12] Tibor Jankay, Cattle Car, Pencil, Tibor Jankay 1899-1994.

[13] Victor., 24.

[14] Victor., 25.

[15] Victor., 24.

[16] Colin David, “Elie Wiesel: Witnessing, Telling and Knowing,” Traces of War: Interpreting Ethics and Trauma in Twentieth-Century French Writing, (Liverpool: University Press, 2018), 193.

[17] David., 194.

[18] Victor., 35.

[19] Lassner., 172.

[20] Lassner., 172.

[21] Lassner., 173.

[22] Lassner., 173.

[23] Lassner., 174.

[24] Chaim Goldberg, Farewell, mesquite wood, CHG-Rosco.

[25] Goldberg, Farewell.

[26] “The Kippah (Yarmulke).” Chabad, accessed April 27, 2022, https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/3913641/jewish/The-Kippah-Yarmulke.htm.

[27] Chaim Goldberg, To the Unknown, wash and ink, CHG-Rosco.

[28] Goldberg, USC, 140:25.

[29] Chaim Goldberg, View in the Warsaw Ghetto 1939, Pen and Ink. CGH-Rosco. 33 “Warsaw Ghetto,” The Weiner Holocaust Library, accessed March 29, 2022, https://www.theholocaustexplained.org/the-camps/the-warsaw-ghetto-a-case-study/.

  “Warsaw Ghetto.”

[30] “Warsaw Ghetto.”

[31] Chaim Goldberg, Under the Gun, ink, UHG-Rosco.

[32] Chaim Goldberg, Under the Gun.

[33] Chaim Goldberg, Gas Chambers, bronze, CHG-Rosco.

[34] Chaim Goldberg, Gas Chambers.

[35] Cynthia Moskowitz Brody, Bittersweet Legacy Creative Response to the Holocaust (Maryland: University Press of America, 2001), 58.

[36] Shalom Goldberg, “Chaim Goldberg From the Old Shtetl of Kazimierz Dolny to the Complex Life in the Biggest City in the USA,” UHG-Rosco, March 20, 2017, http://www.chg-rosco.com/chaim-goldbergs-biography/.

[37] Chaim Goldberg, Triumph 1, sculpture, CHG-Rosco.

[38] Shalom Goldberg, Chaim Goldberg Full Circle: A Journey of 12 Creative Periods & Themes, (Boca Raton: SHIR Art Publications, 1996), 7.

[39] Goldberg, USC, 2:04:50.

[40] Goldberg, Full Circle., 7.

[41] “Representation of the Shtetl in Jewish Art: Between Reality and Fantasy,” Yad Vashem, accessed April 27, 2022, https://www.yadvashem.org/articles/general/shtetl-in-jewish-art.html. 46 “Representation of the Shtetl in Jewish Art.”

[42] “Representation of the Shtetl in Jewish Art.”

[43] Goldberg, Goldberg From the Old Shtetl of Kazimierz Dolny, 3.

[44] Chaim Goldberg, Parents II, engraving, UHG-Rosco.

[45] Chaim, My Parents, 1970, watercolor and ink, Chaim Goldberg I Remember the Shtetl.

[46] Chaim Goldberg, Blacksmith, sketch, CHG-Rosco.

[47] Chaim Goldberg, Teacher, watercolor, Artsy.

[48] Goldberg, USC, 15:53.

[49] Goldberg, USC, 1:37:19.

[50] Chaim Goldberg, The Water Carrier, ink, UHG-Rosco.

[51] Chaim Goldberg, Shtetl Houses, sketch, CHG-Rosco.

[52] Chaim Goldberg, Shtetl Houses, sketch, CHG-Rosco.

[53] “Modern and Contemporary Art,” The Met, accessed April 27, 2022, https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/480896.

[54] Chaim Goldberg, The Shtetl, line engraving, CHG-Rosco.

[55] Goldberg From the Old Shtetl of Kazimierz Dolny, 3.

[56] Chana Weisberg, “Why are Men and Women separated at Hasidic Weddings.” Chabad, accessed March 27 2022, https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/504534/jewish/Why-are-men-and-women-separated-at-Chassidic-we ddings.htm.

[57] Chaim Goldberg, Seven Hasidic Dancers, sketch, CHG-Rosco.

[58] Chaim Goldberg, Hora, sketch, CHG-Rosco.

[59] Chaim Goldberg, The Wedding, 1997, watercolor and ink, Chaim Goldberg I Remember the Shtetl.

[60] Chaim Goldberg, The Wedding, 1962, oil on canvas, Chaim Goldberg I Remember the Shtetl.

[61] Chaim Goldberg, Shabbat Candles, 1969, watercolor and ink, Chaim Goldberg I Remember the Shtetl.

[62] Chaim Goldberg, Before Dawn, 1993, oil on canvas, Chaim Goldberg I Remember the Shtetl.

[63] Goldberg, Before Dawn.

[64] Before Dawn.

[65] Chaim Goldberg, Tashlich. 1998, watercolor and ink, Chaim Goldberg I Remember the Shtetl.

[66] Lightstone, “11 Reasons We Blow the Shofar on Rosh Hashanah.”

[67] Mordechai Lightstone, “11 Reasons We Blow the Shofar on Rosh Hashanah,” accessed April 29, 2022, https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/2311995/jewish/11-Reasons-Why-We-Blow-the-Shofar-on-Rosh-Has hanah.htm.

[68] Menachem M. Schneerson, “Why Separate Men and Women in the Synagogue,” The Rebbe, accessed March 27, 1961,

[69] Menachem Posner, “What is Sukkot,” Chabad, accessed April 29, 2022, https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/4784/jewish/What-Is-Sukkot.htm.

[70] Posner, “What is Sukkot.”

[71] Chaim Goldberg, Sukkot, 1966, watercolor and ink, Chaim Goldberg I Remember the Shtetl.

[72] Chaim Goldberg, Succoth, 1971, watercolor and ink, Full Circle: A Journey of 12 Creative Periods & Themes.

[73] “Shemini Atzeret / Simchat Torah,” Chabad, accessed April 29, 2022, https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/4689/jewish/Shemini-Atzeret-Simchat-Torah.htm.

[74] Chaim Goldberg, Simchat Torah, 1969, pen and ink, Chaim Goldberg I Remember the Shtetl. 84 Chaim Goldberg, Simchat Torah.

[75] Chaim Goldberg, Simchat Torah, 1962, oil on canvas, Chaim Goldberg I Remember the Shtetl. 86 “Shemini Atzeret / Simchat Torah.” 87 Goldberg, USC, 2:13:10.

[76] Chaim Goldberg, Channuka, 1954, wash and ink, Chaim Goldberg I Remember the Shtetl.

[77] “What Is Hanukkah.” Chabad, accessed March 27, 2022,

https://www.chabad.org/holidays/chanukah/article_cdo/aid/102911/jewish/What-Is-Hanukkah.htm 90 “What is Hanukkah.”

[78] Chaim Goldberg, Channuka, 1971, watercolor and ink, Chaim Goldberg I Remember the Shtetl.

[79] Chaim Goldberg, Channuka, 1971.

[80] Yehuda Shurpin, “The Origins of the Gragger: Why We Boo Haman,” Chabad, accessed March 27, 2022, https://www.chabad.org/holidays/purim/article_cdo/aid/4321929/jewish/The-Origins-of-the-Gragger-Why-We-BooHaman.htm.

[81] Goldberg, Full Circle., 39.

[82] Chaim Goldberg, Purim Parade, 1993, oil on linen, Full Circle: A Journey of 12 Creative Periods & Themes.

[83] Chaim Goldberg, Purim Parade, 1993.

[84] Chaim Goldberg, Chaim’s Large Gregor, 1970, watercolor and ink, Chaim Goldberg I Remember the Shtetl.

[85] Chaim Goldberg, Chaim’s Large Gregor.

[86] Goldberg, USC, 35:50.

[87] Chaim Goldberg, Burning the Chumetz, 1969, oil on linen, Full Circle: A Journey of 12 Creative Periods & Themes.

[88] Goldberg, Full Circle., 41.

[89] Chaim Goldberg, Matzah Making, 1990 oil on linen, Full Circle: A Journey of 12 Creative Periods & Themes. 103   Full Circle., 39.

[90] Chaim Goldberg, Family Seder, 1971, watercolor and ink, Chaim Goldberg I Remember the Shtetl.

[91] Goldberg, Chaim, After the Seder, 1990, watercolor and ink. Chaim Goldberg I Remember the Shtetl.

[92] Goldberg, Full Circle., 42.

[93] Goldberg, USC, 10:22.

[94] USC, 50:30.

[95] Chaim Goldberg From the Old Shtetl of Kazimierz Dolny, 22.

Missing in Action: Africans in History Textbooks

Missing in Action: Africans in History Textbooks

Laura J. Dull

(Reprinted from World History Connected Vol. 18, no. 1 February 2021)

In American schools, the history of transatlantic slavery often begins with the terrors experienced by enslaved persons in ships across the Atlantic or on auction blocks in the Americas. This means that students do not learn about processes of capturing and selling people in Africa, let alone the African societies that were present when Europeans arrived. These knowledge gaps were present among the secondary and college students I have taught and observed. For example, in a seventh grade class on civil disobedience, a black student asked his teacher for details about how slave trading operated in Africa. He was curious about how people were captured—in wars or “just walking along?” The student yearned for historical context about how the monumental trade in the Atlantic worked and what Africans brought with them to the US. We teachers owe this student a fuller history, one that can combat longstanding beliefs that ‘uncivilized’ Africans were just waiting to be taken when Europeans came along.

Omissions, silences, and mystifications have plagued stories of slavery told in school textbooks and lessons. For example, curriculum and textbook writers avoid directly naming those who participated in trading or imply that the slave trade simply involved “theft” by Europeans. As David Northrup (2017) explains, “The records of the slave trade into the Atlantic make it clear that Europeans did not steal slaves but bought them for prices negotiated with their African trading partners.” Beyond historical inaccuracy, says Northrup, the myth that Europeans “stole” Africans prolongs erroneous notions that “Africans were easily exploited, and that their societies were weak and brittle.” Such conceptions “underestimate Africans’ strength, intelligence, and adaptability.” In reality, after initial attempts to kidnap slaves, the Portuguese built “permanent, as opposed to haphazard, commercial ties” by seeking out African leaders with whom they could trade in a peaceful manner. As historian Herman L. Bennett (2018) explains, West Africa’s “sovereigns regulated the slave trade, like all trade, and indeed during the earliest phase of the encounter with Europeans . . . [African leaders] bore responsibility for those deprived of their African mooring.”

The erasure of Africans as traders and trading nations denies them a place as central players in world history. Enslaved Africans are often portrayed as lacking agency as well. School materials, films, and books for popular audiences perpetuate the narrow image that slavery was based on southern plantation life and focus mostly on the terrors of enslavement, pursuing a victim narrative that can “[rob] black people of humanity.” Indeed, teaching materials “tend to center on the white experience” of planters and small farmers rather than the diverse experiences of enslaved people. These shortcomings can make it difficult for teachers seeking to tell a fuller story. As one teacher explained, “I don’t . . . understand where the proper ‘balance’ is between getting across the physical and psychological pain of slavery without losing sight of the efforts made by enslaved people to build emotional, spiritual and family and community resources to cope with the institution” (SPLC, 2018: 28).

Seeking to learn whether other countries brought Africans “onto the stage as fully drawn historical actors” in the story of Atlantic trading, I conducted a textbook analysis using the collection at the Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research (GEI) in Braunschweig, Germany. I found secondary history textbooks from countries at each point of the triangle of trade—England, Ghana, and Jamaica and the Caribbean (test preparation guides for Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate [CSEC] exams for 16 West Indian countries, including Jamaica). The textbook analysis focused on African agency on two levels. First, I asked how African traders and their actions were portrayed. I took note of the names and numbers of African and European trading nations or ethnic groups identified by the authors, reasoning that equal numbers showed that authors acknowledged a trading partnership. Next, I looked for representation of enslaved people as individuals, not simply helpless victims, by examining how much space and description the authors gave to the lives of enslaved people outside of their work and their contributions to present-day society.

English accounts reflected a Eurocentric perspective that focused mostly on the actions of Europeans and rendered African traders as invisible. For example, they named far more European nations than African nations. In addition, enslaved persons appeared primarily as brutalized victims, with little to no discussion of their social, cultural, or economic lives before, during, or after slavery. In Ghana, authors named equal numbers of trading nations and ethnic groups in the transatlantic trade. But in promoting a story of African innocence, they tended to overlook or underplay African involvement in trans-Saharan slaving that predated the Atlantic trade, suggesting instead that Africans began slave trading in the Atlantic due to a temporary bout of immorality. Their accounts also gave little space to the lives of enslaved people. Only in Jamaican and Caribbean textbooks did African traders appear as full participants in the Atlantic trade. Moreover, the diverse lives and experiences of enslaved people across time and space were described, presenting them as historical actors even amidst the terrible conditions of enslavement.

As “the self-descriptions of nation-states,” textbooks and curricula represent a country’s official stance on what and how children should learn. Textbook authors write narratives to legitimize existing political, social, and economic systems, so they often “forget” history that might undermine governmental authority or exacerbate social divisions. In the US, for example, textbook authors have presented slavery as “an aberration” rather than at the “heart of [American] history.” Authors use passive sentence constructions to avoid identifying slave traders, as in “Africans ‘were brought’ to the colony.” Many Africans have struggled with acknowledging their part in this history as well. Roger Gnoan M’Bala, an Ivory Coast filmmaker who made a movie about African slave traders, urged Africans “to open the wounds of what we have always hidden and stop being puerile when we put responsibility on others . . . In our own oral tradition, slavery is left out purposefully because Africans are ashamed.”

The complexity of slaving practices and the justifications for it are staggering: slavery has taken place across most societies throughout the history of humanity, and continues today. Captive people were significant sources of change in the societies where they lived. They provided “knowledge of new technologies, design styles, foodways, religious practices, and more.” Despite these enduring creations, there is often little discussion in American textbooks of the diversity and depth of the lives of enslaved people across time and locations. Instead, textbooks and other media propagate stereotypes that enslaved Africans were passive victims working on large plantations.

Representations of the slave trade are also limited. In many textbooks, ‘triangle of trade’ maps are used to illustrate the trans-Atlantic slave trade. According to this map, Africans were enslaved and brought to the Americas to produce raw materials that were shipped to Europe, where these materials were turned into manufactured goods to sell back to Africans. This simple image diminishes the massive scope of global trading and slaving taking place during this period. People of all ‘races’ traded for slaves and were taken into slavery between the 14th and 19th centuries. Muslim and Christian corsairs raided for slaves in the Mediterranean Sea and European coasts; European and Arab slavers traded for Indians, Tamils, and other Asians in the Indian Ocean; and Ottomans enslaved Mongols, Tatars, and others. Meanwhile, Africans had long experience with slaving before Europeans arrived on the Atlantic coastline. North and east Africans and Arabs sent about 10 million Africans across the Sahara, Red Sea, and Indian Ocean between 650 and 1900. Then, starting in 1500, Europeans and Americans transported about 10–15 million Africans across the Atlantic from 1500–1800. When slavery was abolished in Europe and the Americas, internal African slavery grew and many pre-existing trades continued. These facts are part of the historical record, but are often omitted from the story of early modern slavery. Without this context, cruel ideas circulate, such as the falsehood that “black people were meant to be slaves,” as one British teacher told his students.

England, Ghana, and Jamaica and the Caribbean were deeply interconnected during the transatlantic trade. The Portuguese began trading for captives on the west coast of Africa in the late 1400s. As British colonizers opened sugar plantations in Jamaica and the Caribbean in the mid-1600s, people in England increased their involvement in the Atlantic trade to obtain enslaved labor. Africans tended to set the terms of trade with Europeans, who paid tribute, gave gifts, signed treaties and contracts, and engaged in other diplomacy with African leaders. Europeans built castles along the coast of Ghana to conduct trading and hold captives. Some former slave castles are now used as tourist sites, enduring reminders of the slave trade. Various African ethnic groups, as well as individual merchants who led small armies, captured slaves from among other groups that are all now part of the modern nation of Ghana. They also traded with Muslims to the north. At the end of the 19th century, Britain took control of the region and called the colony the Gold Coast.

In the GEI library, I found at least three recent textbooks for each country and region. For Ghana, there were two textbooks for junior high and one senior secondary textbook covering African and Ghanaian history for the West African Secondary School Certificate Exam (WASSCE). There were three junior high school texts on Jamaican history and three Caribbean history textbooks meant to prepare students for the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) exams. Among these were two older Jamaican junior high textbooks that provided compelling stories of slave trading. Finally, four textbooks from England were reviewed: One covered the years 1509–1745 for Key Stage 3 (KS3—local, British, and world history from 1066–1901); another for KS3 provided an in-depth topic study on whether Britain should pay reparations for the slave trade; one textbook was for the International Baccalaureate middle year program, 1700 to present; and the last was for the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) for ages 15–16, 790 to present.

These questions guided analysis of each textbook’s sections on slavery and the slave trade: How was slave trading explained? In what roles did Africans appear in the story? How were enslaved Africans represented? Did authors move beyond the labor and harsh conditions of enslavement to describe enslaved people’s cultural and social lives, gender relations, and other experiences across different places and times? I looked for historically accurate details that provided insight into how trading worked and the lives of enslaved people. Sentence structures and language used to characterize trading and slavery were also examined—for example, did authors use passive construction to mask perpetrators? Did they use language that was dated or colonialist? Below, I present my analysis and provide excerpts to illustrate how the authors told the stories of slave trading and slavery.

The review starts with Jamaica and the Caribbean, as these narratives stood out for their representations of Africans and their history.

Africans in action: Jamaican and Caribbean textbooks

The curriculum for Jamaica and the Caribbean countries reflected a willingness to fully embrace the history of slavery that gave rise to their contemporary nations. As the vast majority of the populations in Jamaica and the other 15 Caribbean nations in the secondary examination community (CSEC) are descendants of enslaved Africans, their citizens have a personal stake in telling a richer, more complex story about how their ancestors came to the Americas. The exams cover nine themes, four of which are directly related to enslavement of Africans: Caribbean economy and slavery; resistance and revolt; metropolitan movements toward emancipation; and adjustments to emancipation, 1838–1876. Jamaica’s curriculum is closely linked to the CSEC program.

In the textbooks, West Africans emerged as full participants in the trade. Caribbean authors Kevin Baldeosingh and Radica Mahase (2011) explained, “as the Europeans could not invade and settle within Africa, they had to depend on African rulers to supply them with slaves.” Jamaican author Philip M. Sherlock (1966) acknowledged African power by noting that when Europeans arrived, “they [often] had to get permission from the chief or king before they dared to start trading.” Caribbean authors Brian Dyde et al. (2008) evoked historians like John Thornton (1998) and Toby Green (2019) by stressing African development and skills in trading: “Along the [African] coast during the fifteenth century, they [Portuguese] found a recognizable commercial organization in existence. This was equally capable of distributing the European goods . . .and of providing the slaves.”

Baldeosingh and Mahase provided detailed economic explanations for the growth in trade, such as African consumers’ desires for brass pots, basins, and bracelets from Germany. Their accounts contradict stereotypes of an uncivilized continent by explaining that Africans had “a fairly developed manufacturing capability [and] African goldsmiths’ skills reportedly surpassed the Europeans.” However, they contended, Europeans could produce certain goods more cheaply, which explains why those goods were more valuable than slaves to Africans. Jamaican and Caribbean authors also took note of changes over time, revealing slavery as “temporally- and spatially-changing” rather than a monolithic, static condition. According to Dyde et al., although Europeans initially kidnapped victims “during raids on coastal towns,” later, “kidnapping was carried out by Africans.” Presented as shrewd decision-makers, Africans actively shaped the trade. For example, the trade “encouraged African chiefs and headmen to distort and alter the local sanctions that led to enslavement,” the profits from which led to the rise of kingdoms like Asante and Dahomey.

Jamaican authors acknowledged that their nation was founded on the labor of captives and made the story of enslaved Africans central to their narratives. Sherlock tried to find the “balance” that eluded the teacher quoted in the introduction: “The story of slavery . . . is a story of endurance and of triumph. The African fitted himself [sic] to life in a strange land far from his own home and loved ones; he cleared the forests and tamed the land, grew food crops and made for himself a new way of life. By his strength of spirit he rose above the brutality of the system into which he was forced.”

This focus on enslaved Africans and their actions sets the tone for a narrative that included enslaved people as multifaceted individuals: terrorized laborers, but also resistors, artists, entrepreneurs, and people with flaws. Dyde et al. devoted entire sections to work and life on sugar, coffee, and cotton plantations as well as in logging and shipping industries. In addition to explaining differences in status between enslaved people working in homes and the elds, they noted political sources for divisions: “In the early days, the mistrust felt by Africans toward other Africans helped to divide slave society.” Baldeosingh and Mahase explained that such disunity was encouraged by planters, who tried to buy Africans from different regions to inhibit communication. They also included a lengthy section on “Women’s situation under slavery,” describing how women “played a significant role in undermining the system” by “spreading messages of revolt” in the markets. But enslaved and freed people were not idealized—they had to make tough decisions to survive, as when women practiced “abortion and infanticide to deprive the master of gaining more slaves” or collaborators reported on “escape plots” in forts and plantations. By portraying enslaved people as historical actors within the terrible constraints of their circumstances, Jamaican and Caribbean authors refuted more meager accounts of Africans as solely victims.

Africans as innocent: Textbooks in Ghana

Textbook authors in Ghana reflected the nation’s ambivalence about slavery and the slave trade. The senior secondary author provided a strong discussion of how trading worked, but none of the authors expanded on lives of slaves in the Americas or fully confronted the long-running trans-Saharan trade that involved West Africans. Ghana was the first country in Africa to gain independence from their colonizer, England. The country recognizes nine ethnic groups, many of whom were slavers in the Atlantic trade and enemies. For teachers, sustaining national citizenship amidst this animosity required the reduction of ethnic ties in favor of African and Ghanaian pride. To promote unity, teachers emphasized that their diverse cultures were “almost the same” and taught a “national story of subjugation, struggle, and sacrifice” in which heroic Ghanaians overcame deceptive, cruel, and racist Britons. The desire to minimize past transgressions like slave raiding was reflected in the junior high textbooks. In brief histories of Ghana’s ethnic groups, Nikoi A. Robert’s (2010) textbook named only the Denkyiras as slavers during the Atlantic trade. Junior high textbook author Agyare Konadu (2014) did not acknowledge any group as engaged in transatlantic slave trading and veiled the involvement of Africans in this awkward sentence: “The European merchants exchanges [sic] their goods such as guns, gun powder, drinks, beads, etc. with slaves [sic] from Africa and sold them to North America.” African traders were later described as undifferentiated “chiefs” or “middlemen” who were “very greedy for more money” and “enrich[ed] themselves by selling domestic slaves and captives of wars.”

Though junior high students would learn little about who was involved in trading and how it worked, high school students had the opportunity to learn the active roles of traders during the Atlantic trade. Senior secondary school author Prince A. Kuffour (2015) noted that, “Ghanaians were deeply involved in ethnic wars, slave raids and kidnapping just to satisfy the unjusti able demands by the European merchants.” Ethnic groups like the Fante, Asante, and Akwamu were named as raiders in the Atlantic trade. Kuffour also argued that Africans controlled the trade, explaining “As Africans violently resisted against [kidnapping of Africans], the Europeans came to the realization that the only practical way to obtain slaves was to bring items the Africans wanted . . . Within a short time, Europeans and Africans established a systematic way of trading that changed little over centuries.”

But Ghanaian authors downplayed centuries-long slave trading across the Sahara that demonstrates Africans’ long experience with slaving and helps explain the shift to Atlantic trading. Europeans sailed along the coast in an effort to circumvent the Saharan trade and gain direct access to African markets. West Africans also gained by this, as they could purchase trade goods more cheaply. Ghana’s founders took the name of the great trans-Saharan gold and slave-trading kingdom to the north of present-day Ghana. Robert did not mention slave trading by ancient Ghana, though Konadu said the empire became “very great as it had a lot of gold, grew a lot of food, fought many wars, conquered many states and captured a lot of slaves.” Kuffuor explained that Western Sudanese states “participated in and controlled the Trans-Saharan trade” and this “trade brought wealth . . . and enabled them to sustain, expand and consolidate their territories.” But given his stance on European slavers as “brutal and immoral” and African chiefs’ “diabolical intentions” in trading with them, it is notable that Kuffour made no mention of the cruelties committed by North African and Arab traders during the deadly journey across the desert. In fact, he emphasized African innocence prior to the arrival of Europeans, noting that greed caused by the Atlantic trade “forced the naturally moral-minded peoples of Africa to throw morality to the wind.”

The junior high textbooks did not cover the lives of enslaved Africans in the Americas, focusing instead on the trade’s negative effects on Africa, including depopulation, increased warfare, and discrimination. Kuffour’s longer textbook included sections on how captives were obtained and traded in Africa, conditions in the slave castles, and the horrific journey across the Atlantic. Kuffour introduced slave life in the Americas by stating that “Slaves faced a variety of experiences in the Americas . . . [and] nearly all involved heavy physical labour, poor housing, and insufficient medical care.” But he devoted only one paragraph to this topic, focusing on numbers of captives, mortality rates, and types of work. Kuffour included six paragraphs on achievements and contributions in arts, politics, science, and sports in the African diaspora. So while Ghanaian students had little opportunity to learn about life once Africans left the continent, high school students could get some sense of the enduring impact of Africans on American life.

Africans as invisible: British textbooks

Starting in 2008, British teachers were mandated to teach “the nature and effects of the [Atlantic] slave trade, resistance to it and its abolition.” In explaining this change, Children’s Minister Kevin Brennan (BBC, 2008) stated, “Although we may sometimes be ashamed to admit it, the slave trade is an integral part of British history.” Given the duration and impact of the slave trade on England’s history, politics, economy, and culture, it is shocking that this topic had not already been required. Nevertheless, these curriculum reforms could not overcome the textbook authors’ Eurocentric focus on the actions of white people. Most authors detailed diverse European beneficiaries of the slave trade and took full responsibility for English people having been slavers, but there was far less discussion of African participants. For example, besides “ship owners, slave traders and slave owners,” Aaron Wilkes (2014) named “many other Britons . . . linked to slavery,” including “dockworkers unloading ships full of cotton the slaves had grown, workers turning the cotton into shirts and even the shop owners selling sugar and tobacco.” On the other hand, Wilkes identified only “local African tribesmen” as involved in “swap[ping] the goods in the ship for prisoners from other tribes.” Besides being the only reference to Africans, the designation of ‘tribesmen’ by Wilkes (and Bruce et al. 2016) replicated colonialist language. Jo Thomas and Keely Rogers (2015) included a source explaining that “The economics of slavery permeated American and European life,” listing wealthy merchants from Liverpool and Bordeaux, banks, insurance companies, and universities like Yale and Brown as beneficiaries. These authors pointed out that the “only beneficiaries in Africa were the rulers and wealthy merchants who engaged in the slave trade,” otherwise it “had a wholly negative impact on African nations.”

John D. Clare’s (2010) textbook on the trade provided more coverage of European and African participation. The author provided a two-page discussion of the vicious cycle of violence caused by slave trading, focusing on the Ceddo wars in Senegal and exploits of traders like Lat Sukkabe Faal. In a listing of “Arguments against the British paying reparations” at the end of the book, Clare hinted at African motives and gains in the trade: “The British did not steal the slaves—they bought them from the African rulers in what both sides regarded as a business deal, and pumped millions of pounds into the African economy of the time.” However, in most of the 48 pages, Europeans were the primary historical actors, and students would search in vain for African agency. This is starkly illustrated in the names of African nations identified by the authors in texts (I did not count names on maps). Ghanaian, Jamaican, and Caribbean authors named equal numbers of African and European trading nations, while British author Clare named only two African regions (Senegambia and the Kingdom of Futu Toro) as involved in trading.

All the English textbooks discussed the transatlantic journey and noted that most slaves were destined to work on cotton and sugar plantations, but they provided no coverage of enslaved people’s social or cultural lives. There was little discussion of their oppression either. Wilkes did not mention any cruelty or difficulty in the lives of slaves. Bruce et al. said that enslaved Africans lived “short and brutal lives of hard work and extreme misery . . . [ate] a poor diet, faced tough punishments, and had no proper medical attention.” Thomas and Rogers provided a paragraph from Olaudah Equiano about oppressive slave ship conditions. Clare’s book on the slave trade also used Equiano’s diary to illustrate life in Africa before capture, the process of enslavement in Africa, and the journey across the Atlantic. But while the author devoted eight pages to abolition and its heroes, most of whom were white, there were only three paragraphs about Africans’ daily lives once they arrived in the Americas. Life was portrayed as unrelentingly harsh: “house slaves . . . were often better treated, but even small mistakes might result in terrible punishment—the law allowed a slave-owner to beat a slave to death.” While it is important for students to understand the cruelties suffered by enslaved people, an emphasis solely on victimization defines people only by what is done to them. It is no wonder that an African-Caribbean student in Britain reported feeling bad “about being black when we did the slave trade . . . They [teachers] made me feel ashamed.”

Citizens in Jamaica and other Caribbean countries have the opportunity to learn the most comprehensive accounts of transatlantic slave trading. African nations and traders were presented as sophisticated actors in the trade. Enslaved Africans were portrayed in nuanced ways, as people who overcame terrible oppression to create independent nations. Only the Jamaican and Caribbean textbooks provided coverage of the diversity of enslaved people’s experiences outside of their work—and in most of their textbooks, coverage far exceeded two sentences about the topic, the standard counted as covering these topics. Most of the other textbooks could not meet this standard.

Ghana’s colonial-era border brought together former slave traders and societies who were victimized by those traders. For junior high textbook authors, creating a nation out of this diversity meant ignoring inter-ethnic slaving that could stir up old wounds. None of the authors fully confronted West Africans’ complicity in the trans-Saharan trade either. In the postcolonial period, Africans found allies among Middle Eastern nations who had also suffered under European imperialism. As Simon Simonse (2005) argued, “In the context of this African-Arab solidarity there was no place for discussing the crimes committed in a period when Arabs enslaved Africans on a large scale.” Silence about this trading helps sustain the idea that Africans were innocent and morally pure before Europeans arrived.

Bennett argued that a “savage-to-slave trajectory” continues to contort Western ideas of Africa. In this conception, African history is wrongly viewed as in a state of savagery that became a source of slaves when Europeans showed up. Today, this narrative continues to obscure the history and politics of African civilizations whose interactions with Europeans and others shaped the modern world. In England, white citizens took full responsibility for engaging in and pro ting from slavery—ultimately comforting themselves that British people ended slavery in the Atlantic world. But in telling this story, they presented African traders as undifferentiated middlemen or kings, and enslaved people as brutalized victims, sidelining black people and their agency in the national narrative.

Acknowledgment of African agency would help teachers tell a more robust, candid, and humanistic story of slavery. To do this, textbook authors should identify and describe the roles of African as well as European traders (and also name Africans who tried to stop slave trading, as was done by Ghanaian author Kuffour). I argue for including African trading nations and traders not to assuage the guilt of white people by calling out African slavers or as an argument against reparations. Rather, to be viewed as participants in history, Africans need to be acknowledged as political actors—they too engaged in diplomacy, trade, oppression, and manipulation to serve their interests. Current conceptions “grant Europeans far too much power.” At the same time, educators need to be clear that enslaved people were not simply acted upon by white people. They lived rich lives before they were captured, created societies and cultures amidst the terrors of slavery, and faced additional struggles once slavery ended. Because most of the authors included very little about slaves’ lives beyond their arduous labors and vicious punishments, the image of enslaved people as brutalized victims remained unchanged. As Toby Green explained, a focus only on slavery when teaching about Africa and Africans replicates “an old trope of primitivism and oppression.” Jamaican and Caribbean textbooks stood out for their honesty, depth, and attention to historical change. Students learned about life in Africa before capture, the complex and varied lives of enslaved people, the long and contested process of emancipation, cultural and other achievements, and enduring racism.

The aims of critical linguistic analysis of materials like textbooks, according to Ruth Wodak (1989), are “to uncover and de-mystify certain social processes . . .to make mechanisms of manipulation, discrimination, demagogy, and propaganda explicit and transparent.” In the US, myths about African history and persistent racism can hinder the efforts of teachers to fully address the tragedy of the Atlantic slave trade. This study of textbooks reveals that citizens in other nations are also denied a full accounting of slavery and slave trading. I urge teachers to join with their students to bring forms of discrimination and propaganda to light. Students can evaluate the accounts below to determine which tells a better story. They could also find equivalent passages from their textbooks to compare to the narratives in other countries. In this way, students provide their own analyses of why authors write the ways they do: How do their textbooks compare with others? Do US textbook narratives support historical agency? What story should textbooks tell?

References

BBC News (2008, August 26). “All Pupils to Learn about Slavery,” BBC News.

Bennett, Herman (2018). African Kings and Black Slaves: Sovereignty and Dispossession in the Early 
Modern Atlantic. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press.

Green, Toby (2019). A Fistful of Shells: West Africa from the Rise of the Slave Trade to the Age of Revolution. Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press.

Northrup, David (2017). Seven Myths of Africa in World History. Indianapolis IN: Hackett Publishing Company.

Simonse, Simon (2005). “Addressing the Consequences of Arab Enslavement of Africans: The 
Impasse of Postcolonial Cultural Relativism,” in Kwesi Kwaa Prah, ed., Reflections on Arab-Led Slavery of Africans. Cape Town, South Africa: Centre for the Advanced Studies of African Society.

SPLC (2018). Teaching Hard History: American Slavery. Montgomery AL: Southern Poverty Law Center.

Thornton, John (1998). Africa and 
Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400–1650. Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press.

Wodak, Ruth, ed. (1989). Language, Power, and Ideology: Studies in Political 
 Discourse. Philadelphia PA: John Benjamins Publishing.

Textbooks in this Study Caribbean Baldeosingh & Mahase (2011), Caribbean History for CSEC Dyde et al. (2008), History for CSEC Exams: Amerindians to Africans, Book 1 (Grades 10-11) Dyde et al. (2008), History for CSEC Exams: Emancipation to Emigration, Book 2 (Grades 10-11) England Bruce et al. (2016), Oxford AQA GSCE History: Thematic Studies c790 to Present Day (Grade 10) Clare (2010), The Slave Trade: Should Britain Pay Compensation for the Slave Trade (Grade 7-9) Thomas and Rogers (2015), History: MYP by Concept 4 & 5
(Grade 6-10) Wilkes (2014), Key Stage 3 History: Renaissance, Reformation, and Revolution: Britain 1509–1795 (Grade 7-9) Ghana Konadu (2014), Effective Social Studies for Junior High Schools, 1, 2 & 3 (Grade 7-9) Kuffour (2015), Concise Notes on African and Ghanaian History, for Senior High Schools (Grade 12) Robert (2010), Social Studies for Junior High Schools (Forms 1–3) (Grade 7-9) Jamaica Bell-Coates et al. (2008), Living Together: Social Studies for Grade 7 (Grade 7) Black (1993), History of Jamaica
(Grade 7-9) Sherlock (1966), Jamaica: A Junior History (Grade 7-9)

Excerpts from Textbooks

1. Accounts from middle school textbooks about how the triangular trade operated.

Ghanaian textbook by Konadu (2014)Jamaican textbook by Bell-Coates (2008)
“The Transatlantic slave trade involved the buying and selling of slaves across the Atlantic Ocean to America and West India . . . The European merchants exchanged their goods such as guns, gun powder, drinks, beads etc. for slaves from Africa and sold them to North America for raw materials to feed their industries in Europe” (65).  “The Africans were snatched from their village homes along the coast of West Africa to be sold as slaves, first to the Spanish settlers, then, from 1665, to the English . . . Captains of slave ships would offer [goods], many of them manufactured in Britain, to African slave dealers” (31).  

2. Accounts from high school textbooks on how Europeans and Africans became involved in slave trading.

Ghanaian textbook by Kuffour (2015)Caribbean textbook by Dyde et al (2008)
“The first Europeans to sail down Africa’s west coast in the mid- fifteenth century attempted to acquire slaves by means of force . . . As Africans violently resisted, the Europeans came to the realization that the only practical way to obtain slaves was to bring items the Africans wanted in exchange. Within a short time, Europeans and Africans established a systematic way of trading that changed little over centuries” (272).“To begin with, slaves were obtained by
the snatching and kidnapping of suitable victims by Europeans but . . . after about 1700, although kidnapping continued, it
was carried out by Africans. The desire of European traders for large numbers of slaves, in exchange for a wide range of goods, stimulated slave raiding in the interior. It also encouraged African chiefs and headmen to distort and alter the local sanctions which led to enslavement” (123).

3. Accounts from middle school textbooks explaining what happened when British colonists in the Caribbean began buying enslaved Africans.

Jamaican textbook by Sherlock (1966)British textbook by Bruce et al. (2016)
“The story of slavery . . . is a story of endurance and of triumph. The African fitted himself to life in a strange land far from his own home and loved ones; he cleared the forests and tamed the land, grew food crops and made for himself a new way of life.
By his strength of spirit he rose above the brutality of the system into which he was forced” (62).“By 1619, African slaves were introduced to British plantations . . . Slaves had no legal rights and had to work their whole lives without payment. Any slave children born became slave owners’ property too. Purchasing slaves allowed plantations to become more pro table, as the unpaid workforce increased in size” (203).

Teaching New York History: Sources for Teachers

Teaching New York History: Sources for Teachers

Bruce W. Dearstyne

The New York state social studies/history framework includes the teaching of local and New York history at the Grade 4 level and New York and U.S. history in Grades 7/8.  U.S. history is the topic for Grade 11 but, given New York’s historical importance over time, some of the topics such as immigration and reform movements that started in New York but spread nationally, could also be taught with a New York dimension.

New York teachers are often looking for sources for these classes. This article provides some suggestions.

Books. There are many books on New York history and more coming out all the time. The blog New York Almanack carries notices of new books. Books covering all of the state’s history include Bruce W. Dearstyne, The Spirit of New York: Defining Events in the Empire State’s History, David M. Ellis, New York: City and State, David M. Ellis et al, A History of New York State , Milton M. Klein, ed., The Empire State: A History of New York and Joanne Reitano, A History of New York State. Two encyclopedias are useful for concise information on many topics: Peter Eisenstadt, ed. Encyclopedia of New York State and Kenneth T. Jackson et al, eds.,  The Encyclopedia of New York City. Beyond that, there are hundreds of books on local history, and more are being published all the time. Your school or local public library should have many of these, and they are also available for purchase. Many libraries have local history sections which may include local history books and other sources and are useful venues for student research projects and field trips.

Articles. Articles by historians in journals  are often very useful for teachers seeking information and for assignment for student readings. This journal, Teaching Social Studies, is the best source for writing in the field. The journal  New York History and The Hudson River Valley Review provide a statewide focus. New York Archives published by the State Archives Partnership Trust, carries many articles from around the state. The Trust recently initiated New York Archives Jr.  Each issue features one article from New York Archives magazine rewritten at an upper elementary level, community connections, related facts, and learning activities focused on primary source analysis. Regional journals such as Rochester History  and journals published by county historical societies feature articles of local interest which may be of particular interest to students since the articles cover “nearby history.”

The Office of State History. The Office of State History in the State Museum has a great deal of information on New York history on its website, online podcasts including “A Minute in New York State History”, and Empire State Engagements, interviews with authors of new books.

Officially designated local government historians. New York is the only state with a law  authorizing local governments to appoint official historians. Many counties, cities, towns and villages have made these appointments; some have not. Historians’ work varies depending on their priorities and support, but in many communities, they are invaluable resources and welcome opportunities to work with teachers. You can find your community’s historian on the website of the  Association of Public Historians of New York State.

Local history museums and historical societies. There are hundreds of these, located in all areas of the state.  Many hold sources that students could use for research, welcome visits by school groups, and seek other opportunities to work with the schools. There is no central directory but many are listed on Wikipedia or on the website of the Museum Association of New York. You can follow their work, and developments in state history generally, through the website of the Office of State History in the State Museum and the blog New York Almanack.

Some history programs are of particular importance because of their scope, the variety of their programs, their programs for student visits, and, increasingly, their online presentations. These include, among others the Buffalo History Museum, Empire State Aerosciences Museum (Glenville), Eastman Museum of Photography  (Rochester), Erie Canal Museum (Syracuse), Farmers’ Museum (Cooperstown), Genesee Country Village and Museum (Mumford), New-York Historical Society, Museum and Library and the New York State Museum (Albany) which features history exbibits, public events, and online presentations.

State historic sites. The state office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation maintains state historic sites and buildings in all areas of the state. They welcome school groups and some may be willing to send a speaker to the schools.

Consider the Source: Teaching With Historical Records, an online resource available at the State Archives, features document-based teaching activities.  The Archives also gives Student Research Awards for outstanding student research using historical records.

New York State History Day, part of “National History Day,” is a forum for students to compete for awards in several categories, including research papers, exhibits, documentaries, and performances.

The Historians’ Podcast features interviews and discussions with experts on New York state and local history.

Historical Society of the New York Courts is an excellent source for New York’s legal and constitutional history. Its online journal Judicial Notice features articles on important cases.

The State Archives Partnership Trust  features online podcasts and videos  on historical topics.

*New York State History Month (October).  October is designated in law as New York State History Month. This is a time to celebrate the state’s history and historians.  It would be an opportune time for attention to particular New York-related topics in schools.

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://www.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.

History Book Club with Kapka Kassabova’s Street Without a Name: Childhood and Other Misadventures in Bulgaria

History Book Club with Kapka Kassabova’s Street Without a Name: Childhood and Other Misadventures in Bulgaria

Emily Boland

History classes are often labeled as boring and repetitive by students. This begs the question of how to engage students to quell this historical boredom. Educational theory suggests students become more involved the more they are engaged and care about what they are learning. That being said, to engage students, I suggest History teachers can implement a history book club that allows students to pick books that they want to read and can relate to history.

In this article, I will suggest using Kapka Kassabova’s book Street Without a Name: Childhood and Other Misadventures in Bulgaria to be included in the proposed history book club as an example of a book that both captures the interest of students and serve as a link to learning about a country like Bulgaria which is rich with natural resources and long history. The culture and history of Bulgaria can be encapsulated through Kassabova’s writing is significant as her individual experience can illuminate students on life in communist Bulgaria. Also, the individual experience and the feelings Kassbova has throughout her childhood and later return to post-communist Bulgaria. Therefore, a history book club centered around Kapka Kassabaova’s book Street Without a Name: Childhood and Other Misadventures in Bulgaria, would explore the struggle for identity and belonging as he reflects on her past and present self, which, could lead to more knowledge about Bulgaria as a springboard to learn the about other countries as well.

The architecture of communist Bulgaria is easily identified, and the uniformity of the architecture contributes to Kassabova’s struggle for identity and belonging. The impact of the communist bloc housing can be seen through Kassabova’s childhood recollection of her home. Kassabova recalls waiting for an apartment and finally getting placed in an apartment that was small and on a nameless street. The lack of a street name distorted Kassabova’s sense of home, and is affirmed by a school project where she had to write about her home and the address. The solution to the nameless status of her street was solved by her mother’s suggestion of writing about her ideal home on Strawberry Street. However, the teacher returned the assignment with a red pen written on the paper, chiding young Kapka for not facing the reality of life as most lived in block-style apartments.[1]  Through this experience, Kassbova learned to conform to communist standards of education that included unity under the communist identity, as a result, individualism was not valued. The role of housing and architecture in communist regimes in Europe in the late to middle twentieth century is explained by Michael Kelleher’s journal article “Bulgaria’s Communist-Era Landscape.” Through this journal article, Kelleher defines the landscape of Bulgaria after residing in Bulgaria for a number of years. Through exploring the rigidity and uniformity, Kelleher claims Bulgaria utilized the Soviet Union’s model for architecture and design to better show the legacy and impact of the communist identity within a non-Soviet nation, Bulgaria.[2]

This opens another interesting line of historical inquiry, using the architecture of a country as the hook to investigate the different historical styles of architecture and the corresponding connection to important periods of history.

This perspective adds to and validates Kassabova’s childhood account of the housing in Bulgaria being drab and uniform. Moreover, the connection between Kelleher’s article and Kassabova’s writing shows the influence of housing on one’s identity and how the uniform structure voided individuality through the definitive architecture which promoted communist ideals and upheld a common communist identity. Overall, showing one aspect of Kassabova’s struggle with identity in communist Bulgaria and the importance of uniformity and realism under communism.

Furthermore, Kassabova’s identity was challenged by governmental upheaval and the fall of communism in Bulgaria. Through Street Without a Name, the reader can experience the turmoil and tumultuous end to the People’s Republic of Bulgaria. The brewing of change is addressed by Kassabova as well as the uneasy atmosphere within her school and home as rumors of a murdered journalist and a bloodless governmental coup were looming. The stress of the uniformity that consumed Kassabova’s identity was threatened and with the “televised execution of Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu by a three-man fighting squad” the fate of the Bulgaria Kapka knew was in shambles.[3]  Kapka referred to the end of the People’s Republic of Bulgaria as the last act of a forty-five-year-long theater” which indicates the manufactured identity of communism was gone, leaving her to reconstruct herself and her identity and belonging within the world. However, this experience while individual to Kassabova was a collective memory for citizens of Bulgaria. Therefore, this memory can be viewed through the idea of collective and intergenerational memory, as her experience was of a child being told by her parents. This can be used to discuss the ongoing turmoil in the modern world, as well to investigate other historical examples of government upheaval.

The significance of collective and intergenerational memory is highlighted in Paul Thompson’s journal article “Community and Individual Memory: An Introduction.” Thompson addresses the impact of collective memory that is passed down from generation to generation on the testimony of historical accounts.[4]  This can be applied to Kassabova’s account as she is informed of the political upheaval by her parents not through her direct self, which shows the use of collective memory within Kassabova’s book. Thus, displaying the transformation and destruction of Kapka’s communist identity with the fall of the Bulgarian communist regime. This information can be used to bridge discussions and lead to further explorations of other former communist governments since the fall of the Soviet Union.

Moreover, emigrating from Bulgaria resulted in a massive shift in Kassabova’s sense of identity and belonging. Kapka throughout her book glimpses toward her present self as her book splits between her past in Bulgaria and revisiting Bulgaria as an adult. However, the process of leaving and immigrating removed Kassabova’s Bulgarian past as she writes about her fascination for other countries except for Bulgaria “rids herself of two things. One, her Bulgarian past” and the question of “where are you from?”[5]This indicates an internal struggle for belonging and identity, as Kassabova feels nationless and represses her past as she separates herself from her childhood under the Bulgarian Communist regime. The act of immigrating distorts one’s life as they uproot themselves from their daily life. Also, within the context of Bulgaria, Anna Krasteva’s journal article, “post-communist discovery of immigration: the case of Bulgaria” fills in the missing information on migration patterns within communist and post-communist Bulgaria. Krasteva explains why emigration was uncommon in communist Bulgaria, as the state was closed, meaning no one left.[6]  Subsequently, the collapse of communism in Bulgaria resulted in newfound freedom of emigration. This assertion of Krasteva relates to Kassbaova, as her family took advantage of the release of emigration. This could lead to a fuller discussion of social culture and the ramifications of various emigrations in history.

However, the impact of immigration on Kassabova’s fragile identity resulted in an aimlessness and loss of belonging overall. This is observable in the second half of her book as she revisits Bulgaria and writes she is “a ghost from the past, but it isn’t their past.”[7]This indicates a disconnect of self and a fragmented identity that Kassabova, as she is haunted by her past life in Bulgaria. Moreover, this idea of change and disconnect of identity is addressed in Gabriele Linke’s journal article “‘Belonging’ in Post-Communist Europe: Strategies of Representations in Kapka Kassabova’s Street without a Name.” Linke connects sociologist and philosopher Zygmunt Bauman’s concept of liquid modernity to apply to the fragmentation of Kassabova’s life as written in her book. Linke claims the constant shift and difference to her Bulgarian past is the result of liquid modernity changing her view of her past self and the relationship she had with her Bulgarian and communist identity.[8] Moreover, this creates a disconnect regarding her identity, as she cannot fully acknowledge her past and how her past impacts her present sense of belonging and identity. Once again, this profound writing can serve to link the many stories of people like her to build an understanding of the long-term impact of history now generations past.

However, Kassabova’s work, while insightful, is not flawless and is subject to review and criticism. One such review comes from the Harvard Review, which reviews the book from the perspective of an average reader. The reviewer is Carmen Bugan, and she explains the concept of Kassabova’s book is interesting and important to learn about. The criticism of the book is in the structure, Bugan as she claims the book reads as a travel guide as opposed to a memoir. However, she appreciated the themes of restlessness and the struggle for identity within the book, as well as the quality of the writing.[9]Moreover, the analysis published by Claudia Duppé is titled “Tourist in Her Native Country: Kapka Kassabova’s Street without a Name.” This review differs, as Duppé focuses on the aimlessness and tourist-like status of Kassabova during her visit to Bulgaria. This review takes an academic and thematic approach to Kassabova’s memoir and explores the role of immigration on her identity shifts throughout the book.[10]Overall, the reviews of Street Without a Name are positive and cite the impedance of reading to better understand life during and after communism. It is always historically important to present a full picture of history, both good and bad, in addressing the criticism, students themselves can hopefully make informed judgments about the importance and validity of her claims.

To conclude, Kapka Kassabova in her memoir Street Without a Name: Childhood and Other Misadventures in Bulgaria is a powerful individual account of life under communism and after. Also, Kassabova through her own struggle for identity and belonging explains to the reader the mindset and reality of those who grew up under communism. This is shown through the separation of the book into childhood and revisiting Bulgaria, as this shows the time Kassabova took to heal and feel ready to face her past. Moreover, the rigidity and uniformity under communism definitively impact a person’s identity, as Kassabova struggled to adjust to the Western world’s looser restrictions. Overall, Street Without a Name: Childhood and Other Misadventures in Bulgaria is an important read to gain perspective and understanding of life under the iron curtain and after the fall of the iron curtain. The use of books like Street Without a Name: Childhood and Other Misadventures in Bulgaria can be used to make connections to social, political, and geography as a means to hook the students with real-world insights provided by individuals who actually lived the history that is being covered in various classes. Perhaps, using primary sources like Street Without a Name: Childhood and Other Misadventures in Bulgaria can break the notion of boring history and bring events of the past to life today!

References

Bell, John D. “‘Post-Communist’ Bulgaria.” Current History 89, no. 551 (1990): 417–29. http://www.jstor.org/stable/45316442.

Bugan, Carmen. “Street without a Name: Childhood and Other Misadventures in Bulgaria.” Harvard Review, September 18, 2020. https://harvardreview.org/book-review/street-without-a-name-childhood-and-other-misadventures-in-bulgaria/.

Duppé, Claudia. “Tourist in Her Native Country: Kapka Kassabova’s Street without a Name.” Facing the East in the West 138 (2010): 423–36. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789042030503_030.

Kassabova, Kapka. Street Without a Name: Childhood and Other Misadventures in Bulgaria. New York, NY: Skyhorse, 2009.

Kelleher, Michael. “Bulgaria’s Communist-Era Landscape.” The Public Historian 31, no. 3 (2009): 39–72. https://doi.org/10.1525/tph.2009.31.3.39.

Krasteva, Anna. “Post-Communist Discovery of Immigration: The Case of Bulgaria.” SEER: Journal for Labour and Social Affairs in Eastern Europe 9, no. 2 (2006): 25–34. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43293155.

Linke, Gabriele M. “‘Belonging’ in Post-Communist Europe: Strategies of Representations in Kapka Kassabova’s Street without a Name.” European Journal of Life Writing, 2 (2013). https://doi.org/10.5463/ejlw.2.46.

Thompson, Paul. “Community and Individual Memory: An Introduction.” The Oral History Review 36, no. 2 (2009): i–v. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20628065

[1] Kassabova, Kapka. Street Without a Name: Childhood and Other Misadventures in Bulgaria. New York, NY: Skyhorse, 2009.

[2] Kelleher, Michael. “Bulgaria’s Communist-Era Landscape.” The Public Historian 31, no. 3

(2009): 39–72. https://doi.org/10.1525/tph.2009.31.3.39.

[3] Kassabova, 120-2.

[4] Thompson, Paul. “Community and Individual Memory: An Introduction.” The Oral History

Review 36, no. 2 (2009): i–v. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20628065.

[5] Kassabova, 2.

[6] Krasteva, Anna. “Post-Communist Discovery of Immigration: The Case of Bulgaria.”

SEER: Journal for Labour and Social Affairs in Eastern Europe 9, no. 2 (2006): 25–34. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43293155.

[7] Kassabova, 280.

[8] Linke, Gabriele M. “‘Belonging’ in Post-Communist Europe: Strategies of Representations

in Kapka Kassabova’s Street without a Name.” European Journal of Life Writing, 2 (2013).

https://doi.org/10.5463/ejlw.2.46.

[9] Bugan, Carmen. “Street without a Name: Childhood and Other Misadventures in Bulgaria.”

Harvard Review, September 18, 2020.

https://harvardreview.org/book-review/street-without-a-name-childhood-and-other-misadventures-in-bulgaria/.  

[10] Duppé, Claudia. “Tourist in Her Native Country: Kapka Kassabova’s Street without a

Name.” Facing the East in the West 138 (2010): 423–36.

https://doi.org/10.1163/9789042030503_030.

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.