Education, Social Studies, History, Civics, Current Issues

History, Now and Then: Teaching Historiography with the American History Textbook Project at Ramapo College

History, Now and Then: Teaching Historiography with the American History
Textbook Project at Ramapo College of NJ

Christina Connor and Daniel J. Willever

Rationale

One of the foremost challenges in social studies education is overcoming the danger of a single narrative. High school history classes that are structured around a textbook are particularly prone to this inhibition. History is not one set of facts — it is an argument. Relying too much on one secondary text to guide instruction fails to establish this key principle for understanding what history is, how it is done, and how it is significant to the present. The challenge of textbooks is that as tertiary sources, they vary widely in quality, and tend to offer overly simplistic narratives of the past that leave little room for debate or acknowledgement of tension over what really happened and why.

While textbooks are a necessary tool for establishing a basic set of facts for history instruction, as well as providing primary source resources and activities to support effective social studies pedagogy, they greatly undermine students’ understanding of history as a discipline with its own distinct theories and skills. It should be acknowledged that authors and publishers have generally made progress including diverse primary sources in their products, thought it has come to be widely accepted that the editorial choices made by textbook companies are often driven by politics, and
textbooks that are outdated will ultimately fail to expose students to the changing narratives of the past that are continually being written and debated. And, as with any piece of historical writing, textbook narratives are ultimately shaped by the times in which they are written.

These limitations present secondary social studies teachers with an obligation as well as an opportunity to introduce students to the theory behind how historical narratives are crafted and why history is constantly changing. How could history instruction be improved if students were exposed to different interpretations of the past and an evolution of historical narratives over time? In 2020, the authors’ utilized the American History Textbook Project (AHTP) at Ramapo College of NJ to develop and implement a lesson that introduced seventy high school juniors to the basics of historiography. Two years later, a cohort of sixteen students was invited to use the collection at Ramapo College for the purposes of developing historiographical thinking through text analysis.

While many history teachers may take issue with introducing secondary students to historiography, it is hardly a new idea or practice. Both Hoefferle (2007) and Zucker (2016) define the benefits of and
propose strategies for bringing historiography into the social studies classroom. Caroline Hoefferle realized that, while her undergraduate students knew how to analyze primary documents, they “had
never before thought critically about the histories that they read” (pg. 40). One of the chief benefits of bringing historiography into the social studies classroom, therefore, is that it both supports content acquisition as well as the development of critical thinking skills. Hoefferle writes that, upon being
introduced to historiography, many of her students “wished that they had been exposed to the course in high school. . . so that they knew beforehand how to read history and how to make sense of it all” (pg. 40). In this sense, exposing younger students to historiographical thinking compliments and reinforces the work that they regularly do with primary sources. Students are frequently asked to analyze, synthesize, and develop conclusions or arguments. This same thinking should be encouraged with textbook use.

How frequently do social studies teachers present students with the opportunity to understand that history is not just a “set of facts” but an ongoing debate? Professional scholars are continually offering new perspectives and interpretations that are in turn influenced by factors such as contemporary events or personal experiences and philosophies. History classes that are structured around a single textbook minimize the need for students to think critically, and undermine their understanding of why history is always changing. In Hoefferle’s words,

“Historiography not only enlightens students as to the inside story of the historical profession, but it also makes history more alive and interesting to them. It helps them to understand that everything is not already known and agreed upon, that there is a place for them in the profession, that in the future
they can contribute to the ongoing historical debates about the past. This takes them away from being simply passive receivers of the truth, to active pursuers of the truth” (pg. 41).

Similarly, AP US History teacher James Zucker (2016) takes issue with the current approach to teaching students history which relies primarily on primary source analysis. This often assumes that students are at the same level as professional historians and often forces them to analyze sources without proper contact. Rather, Zucker moves his students’ historical thinking beyond “fact gathering” through a multi-tier approach to teaching the American Revolution. First, students read
and analyze academic articles by prominent historians, such as T.H. Breen and Gary Nash. They find thesis statements, assess the supporting evidence, and discuss the validity of the arguments in a Socratic seminar. Only after students have come to the realization that there are multiple narratives of the American Revolution do they engage in primary source-based research for deeper historical context. Finally, the class circles back, assessing the relationship between the primary sources and the scholarly articles they first analyzed. Zucker expects his students to be able to engage with questions such as: “In what ways do these sources support or refute the arguments put forth by the likes of Breen and Nash? How do the interpretations reflect their own historical time period and point of view?” This is historical thinking at its finest.

Introducing historiography to high school students conforms with the inquiry based C3 Framework for social studies, particularly Dimension 3: “Evaluating Sources and Using Evidence.” Much like
primary source analysis, we would expect students to question a historical interpretation being presented through a secondary source. Questions might include:
Who developed/promoted this narrative?

Why? What/who was included/excluded from the narrative?

How does this narrative’s interpretation promote a certain perspective?

What is the effect of this narrative on identity?

In the words of Michael J. Swogger, D.Ed, writing for the National Council of the Social Studies blog “Pardon the Interruption!” in 2017: “Where historiography takes the study of history further is by asking the students to examine the evolution of how a particular history has been told over time. . . . . [S]tudying a historical topic through a historiographical lens helps students to better understand the elasticity of history itself” (Swogger, 2017). While it seems reasonable to believe that advanced high school students should be able and expected to do this type of work, there are those who advocate for the fostering of historiographical thinking skills among much younger students. In Teaching What Really Happened, James Loewen argues that social studies teachers can make historiography approachable for children as young as 10 years old, noting that “if they can learn supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, they can handle historiography.” In theory and practice, this may be as simple as having students critically analyze the narrative put forward in their history textbook, with an eye towards the flaws of a text: “Students find it intriguing to think about what topics textbooks handle especially badly” (Loewen, 76). While it may be common knowledge to history educators that the course textbook and supplemental materials often present a singular narrative with the aim of simplicity and consensus building, challenging students to question and challenge what their textbook delivers as the “correct” understanding of the past can be a powerful approach. The realization that not everything they read in a textbook is “agreed upon” may be one of the more empowering lessons that emerges from a social studies education. Together, we may take Loewen,
Hofferle, and Swogger, and Zucker to conclude the following:

Historiography is an essential historical thinking skill because it enables students to see beyond history as the mere act of fact collection.
Historiographical thinking may be leveled to be age and ability appropriate.
Teaching historiography may make the study of history more interesting to students, taking them from passive recipients of information to active researchers for the truth.
History textbooks can be an accessible and approachable vehicle for introducing students to historiographical thinking.

These conclusions led us to develop a program, using the American History Textbook Project at Ramapo College of New Jersey, to introduce historiographical thinking to a cohort of high school students. Several characteristics of the American History Textbook Project make it an ideal
vehicle for such an undertaking.

The American History Textbook Project

The American History Textbook Project (AHTP) at Ramapo College began as a student-led project, under the supervision of an American Studies professor. Students researched materials to purchase before offering them to the college’s library as a special collection (Connor and Rice, 2012).
The majority of the collection consists of high school-level materials, but there are also some intended for elementary and middle school-age, as well as special editions for religious schools and state editions. Since 2009, the collection has grown to over 300 volumes, spanning almost 200 years (1825 to 2016); the collection continues to grow through grants and donations. In Spring 2020, when the college moved to remote operations due to COVID-19, a digital edition of the collection was created in order to meet the high demand of use while the physical collection was inaccessible
(https://libguides.ramapo.edu/digitalAHTP).

For a special collection, AHTP materials have a high level of use. At Ramapo, historiography is a key learning outcome not only in the History and American Studies programs, but also within the College’s General Education (GE) Program. As a result, undergraduates, often in their first year, who are enrolled in courses associated with this student learning outcome are exposed to historiographical
concepts, even if they are not history majors. This inclusion came as a result of a major recent revision to the GE Program that required professors develop courses that asked students to learn not only historical content (events, processes, trends, people) but also to place that learning in historical
context and to think critically about causation, connections to the present, and cultural bias. Students use the collection not as the books were intended – as tertiary sources – but rather as primary sources or artifacts to a time period. Professors found using the AHTP collection beneficial because students commented that using textbooks to understand complex historiographical concepts was more
manageable because information was presented in a less intimidating structure. In addition, professors appreciated that the textbooks covered so many topics – activism, industrialization, social issues, etc. – that using them allowed for maximum flexibility for courses.

Interest in the collection has grown outside of the College, especially among high school educators. When teachers contact the Library for a tour of collections, AHTP is often a featured discussion for
visiting groups. In the summer of 2023, a senior high school student volunteered to work with the collection and noted that working with the books, especially when seeing doodles and notes written by past students, brought a human element to his work research. Interacting with the AHTP collection allows students, even at the secondary level, to see these materials beyond static, neutral vessels of information, but as time capsules for both those who wrote the materials and those who used them. This adds an important new dimension of engagement with historical concepts.

In October, 2022, sixteen students from Ramsey High School participated in the program. The group of students consisted of five sophomores, nine juniors, and two seniors. All students had volunteered to participate and were not pre selected based upon any academic or personal criteria. Three quarters of the students had been or were currently enrolled in an honors or Advanced Placement history course. In a pre-assessment survey sent to the group, fifty percent of the students claimed that they frequently or regularly used a textbook in their history class, while more than forty percent said sometimes, rarely, or never. This was asked to gauge students’ familiarity with the components
and use of a history textbook. Among those who had utilized a history textbook recently, ten of the students indicated that they had read the book to answer specific questions or to study for a written assessment.

The session

For convenient access to the textbooks, the two-hour session was conducted in the special collections reading room of the George T. Potter Library at Ramapo College. Students were placed into groups of four based upon expressed interest in and general familiarity with one of four topics: the women’s suffrage movement, slavery and the American Civil War, U.S. immigration and immigrant groups, and the history of Native Americans during the Jacksonian Era. Students were seated with their groups at large tables. The session was run by Christina Connor, Ramapo College Assessment and Instruction Librarian and curator of the AHTP collection, and Daniel Willever, social studies teacher at Ramsey High School. To begin the session, brief introductory remarks were delivered by
Stephen Rice, Professor of American Studies at Ramapo College. Professor Rice originated the AHTP collection before it was donated to the library and taken over by Ms. Connor.

The work session was organized into four major activities followed by time for a post-assessment survey. In addition, students were given free time to interact with a small subset of textbooks that Ms. Connor selected for display due to their unique characteristics. As an activating strategy, each student was given one textbook from the collection to freely explore. During this time, many students made note of the cover art, the title, and the year of publication (which ranged as far back as the 1890s, though nearly all books were from the mid twentieth century). A few students turned to
the table of contents to see how the book was structured, and others took note of markings which indicated where the book had been used or by whom. Students were then asked to answer the question: “How does this text begin the story of American history?” The intention behind this question was twofold: first, for students to orient themselves to how the narrative of American
history was going to be told in the book they selected; second, for them to notice significant differences between the four books in their group regarding how the authors chose to begin the story. Answers varied, with some books beginning with the Columbian exchange, some with the
populating of the Americas during the last ice age, and others going back to the foundations of ancient civilizations.

Students then shared out to the whole group their perspective on why the starting point of their book may have been chosen by the authors and what its significance was. They were also free to ask questions or make general observations about the textbook they had selected. Some students use their phones to look up information about the author(s) of the book.

Following this orientation, students were distributed a copy of the session handout, designed to serve as a note catcher. This one page document, an adaptation of the resource used with undergraduate students at the college, was designed with ease-of-use in mind, for students to distillate core
understandings about the text into a simple framework which could be used for later thinking. At the top, students indicated basic identifying characteristics, such as title, author, and publication date of their book.

Below this, a matrix posed four essential questions for students to think about and answer using their book:

How much detail is given to your topic [e.g. women’s suffrage]? In what context is the topic mentioned?
What words or phrases are used to describe your topic in this book?
What aspects of this history are emphasized or deemphasized by this book?
How could this textbook excerpt influence a reader’s perspective on your topic?

In the second activity, students conducted topical research using their textbook. At any time during the session, students were welcome to read together or to exchange books, although they were to
primarily focus their attention on the one book they selected at the start of the activity.

Following this independent reading and writing time — about twenty minutes, in total — students came together for a group collaboration session. This time was reserved for them to converse about their observations and annotations. Within each topic group, students were to begin the process of comparing and contrasting how each textbook approached, organized, conveyed and conveyed the subject matter.

Each group received a large sheet of poster paper and markers to produce a graphic organizer which expressed how the telling of their historical topic had changed over time, as noted through comparison of the four textbooks. The two hour session concluded with the final activity, in which time was allotted for presentations to the whole cohort, with additional general discussion of key takeaways and questions.

Observations and data

During the session, students were observed to be highly engaged and in regular conversation, sharing the information they were finding both for the activity sheets as well as other observations made while analyzing the textbooks. Rarely did the instructors need to intervene without students first asking a question. It was often noticed that if students were using their phones, it was to look something up for the activity, not as a distraction from the session. For two hours students were
actively participating and did not need to be reminded to focus on the lesson and discussion.

The conversation was extraordinarily organic within each group, as students huddled looking from book to book, comparing text, and making notations. Most students provided a great deal of detail in their worksheets, citing a variety of examples for each question. When asked to provide words or phrases used to describe their topics, students took the time to quote excerpts from books, not just produce a simple vocabulary list. When describing how much space is devoted to their subject,
students often provided significant detail, describing both the specific space allocated for topics (e.g., sentences, paragraphs, pages), but also reflecting if the language used was simple as well as if the topic was discussed in passing or within the context of another topic.

Reading through comments on the last two questions (to describe what is emphasized/deemphasized and how the narrative could influence a reader), it was observed that students were making the
connection that how a narrative was framed could impact perspectives on a topic. For example, if a book praised the Jacksonian policy of Native American relocation because it led to expanding U.S. territories, yet minimized or failed to mention the struggles felt by native populations, students noted how a reader could come to believe Native Americans were treated fairly and the U.S. acted justly.

In other cases, students included knowledge from their own classroom lessons to assist in their analysis of materials. For example, a student reviewing women’s suffrage noted passages in her book that downplayed the struggle, and did not discuss how long and hard a process suffrage was for women as well as the violence experienced by many suffragettes. She also noted that her book failed to mention public opposition to women’s suffrage. Since this information was absent from her materials, it was clear she was pulling in outside information in order to discuss what aspects of suffrage were under represented. The amount of detail provided by students in their observations showcased how engaged they were with the materials and that their reflections developed from a
close reading.

In addition to individual worksheets, groups were also asked to create a timeline poster with all the books, which they would use when presenting out at the end of the session. This was an important piece to the discussion because it allowed students to see that while some topics improved in coverage over time, others surprisingly were more biased in later years. It gave the students the opportunity to consider if possible outside societal or political influences may have led to how a topic evolved over time.

One group used their poster session to make interesting observations regarding how the topic of slavery was treated in chapters on the American Civil War. Student K.H., for example, observed that in A History of the United States by William A. Mowry and Arthur May Mowry, published 1896, the issue of slavery was deemphasized as a cause of the war. His peer, student G.P. noted similar language in a 1950s textbook, which did not address the harsh treatment of enslaved people and downplayed slavery as a cause of the war. Another member of this group noted that a 1979 textbook by John Garrity went into greater detail of slavery as an economic and social institution with severely harmful consequences for enslaved people. The last member of the group, in assessing the 2005 textbook The Americans by McDougal Littell, observed that this textbook explicitly described the southern states’ desire to protect slavery as what caused the war. Four students utilized four texts spanning nearly 110 years of history to arrive at the conclusion that the narratives surrounding American slavery evolved significantly over time, were reflective of issues and events contemporary to the authors, and had a significant impact on how Americans viewed the past and present of their country. The group reflected on these observations in their timeline poster and presentation to the rest of the cohort.

The post-survey completed at the end of the session yielded interesting remarks from participants. Thirteen of 14 students who completed the exit survey said that the activity somewhat (8) or significantly (5) changed their understanding of how history is written and understood. In elaborating upon how the experience reformed their understanding of history as a discipline and how narratives of history evolve over time, students often revisited the topic of their textbook exploration. Said one
student: “While I understood that history textbooks change throughout history, I’ve
never looked at examples of this or investigated what this means. I learned about Jackson and Native Americans and the connotations and views of these events in multiple times [sic] periods, but specifically during the 1920s. During this time many people wanted to hide America’s past flaws
and promote nationalism after World War I and in case there was another war in the future.” This student demonstrated the importance of contextualizing a source as a
product of the time period in which it was published.

Another common insight shared by students was the search for objectivity and validity in historical writing. While some students saw the older textbooks as “more biased” or “misleading,” still others
wondered the degree to which they needed to think critically about the narratives in their own history textbooks: The ability for students to make connections between these historical texts and what they are being taught today was a significant development, as is exemplified in one reflection: “It was very interesting to see what was being taught to Americans based on what was going on at the time, and if this information they were getting was accurate. I wonder if the same thing is happening to the textbooks we are learning from today.” Similarly, another student commented that “Getting a
sense of what previous generations were taught was intriguing, especially when placed into historical context. Seeing how the textbooks develop into a more accurate depiction was pretty cool.” A third student sought to juxtapose their critical thinking vis a vis the textbook with the narratives of history delivered by their history teacher in class: “I have always thought that a textbook is more reliable than a teacher because teachers can be opinionated and books can’t.

After today I am left thinking If my previous thought is true. A book can have so many
biases that I have never considered.” The significant impact of the exercise was perhaps best expressed by another student: “. . .for someone who has never thought about how the telling of history has evolved this would be really eye opening.”

Conclusion

This project provided the authors with insight as to how secondary and tertiary sources, such as textbooks, may be used to expose high school students to a basic understanding of historiography.
Furthermore, such a strategy can lead to significant development of students’ historical thinking skills and their understanding of “history” as a discipline, as opposed to just a timeline of people, dates, and events. History professionals understand that history “wars” are nothing new;
conflicts over how the story of the past is told have been ongoing for some time and
will continue, because, as George Orwell rightly noted, “who controls the past controls the future.” However, the consequences of these debates and the motivations behind them are most likely
foreign to high school students. While school-age children may see media coverage over the removal of Confederate monuments or criticism over a “liberal” influence in the classroom, seeing the evolution of curricular materials may help provide insight as to why history debates are often heated.

All-in-all, it was clear that students valued the time spent working with the textbooks and many of them said they would enjoy doing so again in the future with different topics of exploration. It was
rewarding to see students use prior classroom knowledge and make connections to their current or former history courses. Seeing these observations helps underscore the point that high school-level students are capable of engaging with historiographical concepts and their reactions further highlight why it is necessary to do so. The moments of epiphany to which we bore witness during the textbook session were heartening and motivating.

Further exploration of this strategy for teaching historiography may focus on the degree to which students bring their new historiographical thinking skills back to their history classroom for use in an academic setting. Overall, it was encouraging to see that students were thoroughly engaged for
nearly two hours of work time and were observed to be consistently thinking out loud, organically collaborating, analytically reading texts, and utilizing advanced historical thinking skills. If additional endeavors to promote an understanding of historiography among pre-college learners prove to be as fulfilling and successful, the future of history is a promising one.

References

Connor C. & Rice S. (2012). The American History Textbook Project: The Making of a Student-Centered Special Collection at a Public Liberal Arts College. In E. Mitchell, P.A. Seiden, & S. Taraba (Eds.), Past or Portal? Enhancing Undergraduate Learning through Special Collections and Archives (pp. 271-278). Association of College and Research Libraries.

Hoefferle, C. (2007). Teaching Historiography to High School and Undergraduate Students. OAH Magazine of History, 21(2), 40–44. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25162115

Loewen, J.W. (2009). Teaching What Really Happened: How to Avoid the Tyranny of Textbooks and Get Students Excited About Doing History (Multicultural Education Series edition). Teachers College Press.

Swogger, M. (2017, March 29). Embracing Historiography in the Classroom. Pardon the Interruption! from the National Council of the Social Studies. http://connected.socialstudies.org/blogs/michael-swogger/2017/03/29/embracinghistoriography-in-the-classroom.

Zucker J. (2016, January 13). Teaching Historiography to High School Students. Process: a blog for American history. https://www.processhistory.org/jameszucker-teaching-historiography-in-highschool/.

United States Foreign Policy History and Resource Guide

United States Foreign Policy History and Resource Guide

Roger Peace

The Vietnam Memorial Wall and Women’s Memorial statue in Washington DC.

This website is designed with three purposes in mind. One is to provide a coherent overview of United States foreign policies, covering the nation’s wars, military interventions, and major doctrines over the course of some 250 years. While written for the general public and undergraduate students, it can be adapted for use in high schools. Each entry draws on the work of experts in the area of study, summarizing major developments, analyzing causes and contexts, and providing links to additional information and resources.

The second purpose is to examine great debates over U.S. foreign policies and wars, focusing especially on leaders and movements advocating peace and diplomacy. Controversy has been the hallmark of U.S. foreign policy from the War for Independence to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq in the 21^st century.

The third purpose is to evaluate U.S. foreign policies and wars from a principled perspective, one that reflects “just war” and international humanitarian norms today. This is a history about the United States’ role in the world, but it does not define “success” and “progress” in terms of the advancement of national power and interests, even the winning of wars.

The website was launched in October 2015 by Roger Peace. The Historians for Peace and Democracy became a sponsor the following month, and the Peace History Society, in June 2016. Contributors include Brian D’Haeseleer, Assistant Professor of U.S. History at Lyon College; Charles Howlett, Professor of Education Emeritus at Molloy College; Jeremy Kuzmarov, managing editor for CovertAction Magazine; John Marciano, Professor Emeritus at the State University of New York at Cortland; Anne Meisenzahl, a adult education teacher; Roger Peace, author of A Call to Conscience: The Anti-Contra War Campaign; Elizabeth Schmidt, Professor Emeritus of history at Loyola University Maryland; and Virginia Williams, director of the Peace, Justice, & Conflict Resolution Studies program at Winthrop University.

The website has a Chronology of U.S. Foreign Policy, 1775-2021 with links to pages with documents from the War of 1812 through the 21st century “War on Terror.”

There is no shortage of books, articles, and websites addressing the history of United States foreign policy. There is nevertheless, within the United States, a dearth of understanding and often knowledge about the subject. This is due in part to popular nationalistic history, which tends to obscure, overwrite, and sometimes whitewash actual history.

The central assumption of this celebratory national history is that America “has been a unique and unrivaled force for good in the world,” as the historian Christian Appy described it. This assumption underpins the more muscular belief that the more power the U.S. acquires and wields in the world, the better. In other words, the U.S. should rightfully be the dominant military power in the world, given its benefic intentions and noble ideals. This flattering self-image is often buttressed by depictions of America’s opponents as moral pariahs – aggressors, oppressors, “enemies of freedom.”

Celebratory national history is deeply rooted in American culture. As may be seen in the second sentence of the war memorial below, American armed forces are typically portrayed as fighting “the forces of tyranny” and upholding the principles of liberty, dignity, and democracy.

America’s opposition to “tyranny” has a long ideological pedigree. In the Declaration of Independence of 1776, Patriot rebels denounced the King of Great Britain for “repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.” In fact, the British objective was to raise revenue from the colonies and curtail their smuggling. However oppressive particular acts, the British government was nonetheless the most democratic in Europe, with an elected House of Commons and established rights for Englishmen that had evolved over a 600-year period. The new American government continued to build on this democratic tradition, as did the British themselves. The idea that America represented “freedom” as opposed to “tyranny” nonetheless became an ideological fixture in the new nation, invoking a virtuous and noble national identity.

In its second 100 years of existence, the United States became a world power, joining the ranks of Old World empires such as Great Britain. As the U.S. prepared to militarily intervene in Cuba and the Philippines in 1898, President William McKinley declared, “We intervene not for conquest. We intervene for humanity’s sake” and to “earn the praises of every lover of freedom the world over.” Most lovers of freedom, however, denounced subsequent U.S. actions. The U.S. turned Cuba into an American “protectorate,” and the Philippines into an American colony. Rather than fighting to uphold freedom, the U.S. fought to suppress Filipino independence – at a cost of some 200,000 Filipino and 4,300 American lives.

A half-century later, at the outset of the Cold War, President Harry Truman asserted that the United States must “support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.” Truman highlighted the tyranny of the Soviet Union and its alleged threat to Greece and Turkey, but he utterly ignored the more widespread tyranny of European domination over most of Asia and Africa. In the case of Vietnam, the U.S. opted to side with the oppressor, aiding French efforts to re-conquer the country. Truman’s fateful decision in 1950 led to direct U.S. involvement in Vietnam fifteen years later.

In 1961, President John F. Kennedy famously proclaimed that the United States would “pay any price, bear any burden . . . to assure the survival and the success of liberty.” These appealing words reminded Americans of their mythic moral identity, but they hardly guided U.S. foreign policy. During the long Cold War (1946-91), the U.S. provided military and economic aid to a host of dictatorial and repressive regimes, including those in Cuba (before Fidel Castro assumed power), Nicaragua, Haiti, Guatemala, El Salvador, Argentina, Ecuador, Chile, Brazil, Zaire, Somalia, South Africa, Turkey, Greece, Iran, Pakistan, Indonesia, South Korea, South Vietnam, and the Philippines. The U.S. also employed covert action to help overthrow democratically elected governments in Iran, Guatemala, and Chile. Despite propping up authoritarian governments and undermining democratic ones, U.S. leaders described their allies as the “free world.”

In the 21st century, the rhetoric of fighting tyranny and upholding freedom has been grafted onto the “War on Terror,” declared by President George W. Bush in the wake of terrorist attacks in the U.S. on September 11, 2001. The attacks were carried out by individuals from Saudi Arabia and other friendly Arab states, but Bush directed public fears and anger toward wars against Afghanistan and Iraq. Unable to find weapons of mass destruction or ties to al Qaeda in Iraq, Bush reverted to the standard American rationale – promoting freedom. “As long as the Middle East remains a place where freedom does not flourish,” he declared on November 7, 2003, “it will remain a place of stagnation, resentment and violence ready for export.”

Today, the U.S. is the world’s sole “superpower,” with the largest military budget, the most sophisticated weaponry, a network of over 700 military bases worldwide, and the capability to militarily intervene in other nations at will. The latter includes the frequent use of armed drones to assassinate suspected terrorists in countries with which the U.S. is not at war. Americans on the whole do not regard this overwhelming military power as a threat to other nations or global stability. British historian Nial Ferguson has commented that the “United States is an empire in every sense but one, and that one sense is that it doesn’t recognize itself as such.” The diplomatic historian William Appleman Williams described this dominant American worldview as “imperial self-deception.”

Two Sides of the Same Coin: An Observance of the Strategies Utilized in the Women’s Suffrage Movement in 20th Century America

Two Sides of the Same Coin: An Observance of the Strategies Utilized in the Women’s Suffrage Movement in 20th Century America

Cathleen Kane

On a brisk January morning in 1917, a group of one dozen women shifted on aching feet as they stood on hot bricks wrapped in newspapers in order to keep themselves warm. The women were united in front of one of the most important buildings in not only the United States, but the world. With chattering teeth, they held firmly onto their banners that were whipping in the wind and directed them toward the man who held their rights in his hands. Further downtown in the nation’s capital, groups of women worked in cozy offices planning how they would engage with the man in the White House. They worked together to write to members of some of the highest offices of the United States, the United States Congress, as well as devised letters to hand out to civilians advocating for their cause. These women, though separated by mere blocks, displayed just a few of the many strategies utilized by suffragists throughout the United States during the 20^th century. These women worked toward justice and equal rights. These women worked toward winning their right to vote.

With the right to vote as the goal, what were the kinds of strategies utilized by suffragists in 20^th century America, and why did these strategies make the difference? Two suffragist organizations, the National American Woman’s Association and the National Woman’s Party, used various strategies to gain the federal Nineteenth Amendment, granting the vote to women in the United States.^[1] Through the will to push the limits of American society and government, greater access to resources including wealthy individuals supporting the cause, and stronger leadership from both suffrage groups, the 20^th century was undeniably the time for women to gain the right to vote in America.

Historiography

The Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, passed over one hundred years ago in the year 1920, denies states the ability to prohibit citizens from voting based on the account of sex.^[2] However, when discovering how the amendment came to be, historians have primarily observed the beginnings of the women’s suffrage movement in the United States. Historians have discussed major figures including Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and analyzed how it ended – women gaining the right to vote. While limited research has been written about the strategies used and the reasons why the 20^th century was the time women were bound to gain suffrage in the United States, several works address various strategies used by 20th century suffragists and display why the 20^th century was the century for women.

Beginning with Carmen Heider, the article ““Farm Women, Solidarity, and the Suffrage Messenger’: Nebraska Suffrage Activism on the Plains, 1915-1917” depicted a strategy, newspapers, used to keep women up to date and involved in the suffrage movement despite being thousands of miles from Washington D.C. Heider described that the strategy of utilizing suffrage newspapers, specifically The Suffrage Messenger, a Nebraska newspaper under the guidance of NAWSA, appealed to overlooked and underrepresented women of the suffrage movement in the 20^th century, which included farm women.^[3] Similarly to Heider, author James J. Kenneally discussed in his work women who are often overlooked and forgotten by historians, women who were arrested for the sake of suffrage. In his article “‘I Want to Go to Jail’: The Woman’s Party Reception for President Wilson in Boston, 1919”, Kenneally discussed one of the strategies utilized by the NWP, women willingly being arrested and jailed to demonstrate their commitment to the suffrage cause. Kenneally also discussed how NAWSA displayed their commitment to President Woodrow Wilson through their support on the home front during World War I.^[4]

In Joan Marie Johnson’s article, “Following the Money: Wealthy Women, Feminism, and the American Suffrage Movement”, the author made a bold argument regarding suffrage in America and the passing of the Nineteenth Amendment. Johnson argued that “women’s suffrage passed when it did because of the significant influx of these enormous donations [given by wealthy donors who supported the cause], as well as the leadership and shaped the strategies, priorities and success of the [suffrage] movement”^[5]. In her article, Johnson also argued against the common conception held by historians that the wealthy women were controlling due to being the ones with the funds to give to the national organizations.^[6]

In Jean H. Baker’s work, Sisters: The Lives of America’s Suffragists, the author depicted the stories of some of the impactful suffragists in American history including Alice Paul with the intention of “recover[ing] the lost lives of these sisters of suffrage and through that development to understand why the suffrage movement developed when it did”.^[7] Focusing on Baker’s fifth chapter, “Endgame: Alice Paul and Woodrow Wilson”, the author described Paul’s life, the strategies she administered during her time in NAWSA and the founder of the NWP, that included parades and picketing^[8].

In the next two works, A Woman’s Crusade: Alice Paul and the Battle for the Ballot authored by Mary Walton, and Alice Paul: Claiming Power written by J.D. Zahniser and Amelia R. Fry, the three authors depicted a biography of one of the most influential and yet forgotten American figures of the 20^th century, Alice Paul. Walton argued the importance of Paul’s theory and practice of political protest. Paul modeled peaceful protest behaviors that influenced others to act in a similar manner throughout the 20^th century. Walton described that Paul established legal precedents that protected future generations during civil protests.^[9] Through Zahniser and Fry’s work, Zahniser intended to finish Fry’s mission to remember Alice Paul who “helped propel the suffrage cause to victory”.^[10]

The final work utilized was Suffrage: Women’s Long Battle for the Vote, authored by Ellen Carol DuBois. In her work, DuBois depicted the women’s suffrage movement during the 20th century, focusing on various individuals including Carrie Chapman Catt. In her work, DuBois argued that suffragism was not a “single issue movement”. DuBois stated that women of various backgrounds and races fought not only for the right to vote, but also for birth control and peace during the 20th century. ^[11]

When the women’s suffrage movement in America is discussed by historians, they tend to focus on the beginnings of the suffrage movement, with events such as the Seneca Falls Convention, or the end of the movement, in which women gained the right to vote. Historians also focus on major figures throughout the movement such as Susan B. Anthony and Lucy Burns. However, this paper takes a deeper look at the women’s suffrage movement and focuses primarily on the strategies utilized during the 20th century that aided women in gaining the right to vote. In addition, this paper recognizes the impact made by the National American Woman’s Suffrage Association and the National Woman’s Party to the suffrage movement and the strategies utilized by the two parties rather than focusing on individual women involved in the movement.

Strategies implemented and utilized in the women’s suffrage movement during the 20th century were the first of their kind to be used by women. Strategies that were utilized included the use of open-air speeches, suffragist newspapers, lobbying, parades, and picketing, all of which will be the main strategies focused on in this paper. The strategies implemented and utilized by the women of NAWSA and the NWP, in which the organizations consisted of mostly white, middle-class women, displayed that American women were not handed the right to vote, rather with these strategies, they fought for the right to vote. Were it not for the brave women sacrificing their time, money, and for some, their freedom, countless women throughout the country would not have the fundamental right given to them as American citizens.

Suffrage in the 20^th century

Before parades of suffragists donned in purple, white, and gold, marched down Pennsylvania Avenue or before open air speeches were shouted to the public, there was the suffrage movement at the beginning of the 20^th century. 1900, a new century for women to make their voices heard had appeared, but the suffrage movement in America had come to a standstill. While there had been some progress in women’s education and work outside of the home, there were not “many changes in the legal status of women”^[12]according to Jean H. Baker. Women were still not allowed to sit on juries during a legal trial, with wages that married working women earned still being controlled by their husbands, and divorce laws favoring men, women needed the vote to change their legal status.^[13] Gaining the vote was also at a standstill when the new century began in the United States as some of the largest organizations for suffrage, including NAWSA, “had run out of ideas”.^[14] While NAWSA did present new committees that would draw groups of women into the suffrage movement, such as the working class with the implementation of the Committee on Industrial Work, the strategies used by NAWSA remained in the 19th century.^[15]NAWSA strategies already established included holding annual conventions, such as the 1906 convention in Baltimore, and testifying before Congress with promises that “women throughout the country will come from generation to generation, just so long as necessary” however, these strategies were aged, overused, and in desperate need for a change.^[16]

A new century did not mean new support for the suffragists either as “many legislators yawned, cleaned their nails, turned their backs, and otherwise displayed their silent contempt for the women” during NAWSA’s yearly lobbying.^[17] The start of the 20^th century also did not place a national amendment for women’s enfranchisement any higher on legislators list of top priorities because, according to Baker, before the debate of a national amendment, “three other amendments – the income tax, direct election of senators, and prohibition – had taken precedence”.^[18] Finally, if matters could not be any more dire for a call to action at the start of the 20^th century, the founders of the suffrage movement in America were meeting their demise as Lucy Stone died in 1893 with Elizabeth Cady Stanton to follow in 1902.^[19] Death came for all of the great leaders as even Susan B. Anthony who promised to continue the fight for suffrage “‘as long as [she was] well enough to do the work’”^[20] passed away on March 13, 1906.^[21] The 20^th century needed new leaders and strategies quickly. Enter two of the most prominent figures of the suffrage movement, Carrie Chapman Catt and Alice Paul, two individuals who would go on to lead two suffrage organizations that embraced various strategies, which included the use of newspapers and picketing, to gain the vote for women in the 20^th century.

Emerging leaders and held beliefs

Being one of the most powerful suffrage organizations in the United States going into the 20^th century, the National American Woman’s Suffrage Association carried forth their traditional strategies established by previous suffragists, including Anthony and Stanton. Carrie Chapman Catt was at the helm of the organization as NAWSA’s President at the beginning of the century, 1900 to 1904, and again at the end of the battle for the ballot, resuming her position as President from 1915 to 1920.^[22] From NAWSA’s founding and throughout Catt’s first term as president, the organization focused on a state-to-state approach.^[23] A state-to-state approach involved NAWSA suffragists traveling the country to advocate for the legalization of women’s enfranchisement in a particular state, such as Colorado, rather than focusing on a federal amendment guaranteeing women across the country the right to vote. NAWSA would continue this state-to-state approach until 1915 when the reinstated President Catt saw how difficult of a task she faced, especially with a state-to-state approach. Catt realized that she would be in charge of “reorganizing the thousands of members of NAWSA into an orderly suffrage army” and “keep state chapters from flying off on their own”, therefore she needed to have a changed viewpoint in how women were to gain suffrage.^[24] Catt also witnessed the failure of a state-to-state approach after attempting to convince the voting men of New York state to enfranchise women in the state.^[25] After countless hours and resources, including advocating suffragists going door to door, New York women were still not able to vote as “only six of the state’s sixty-one counties voted in favor [of women’s enfranchisement]”.^[26] If that were not enough, Catt understood that World War I was raging in Europe with hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children being killed or injured. Catt used these unspeakable strategies to further the cause of a national amendment as she described that with full political rights, including voting, “[women] would find a way to settle disputes without killing fathers, husbands and sons”.^[27]

Catt’s changing viewpoints of a national amendment and the tactics that would follow to gain the amendment would become known as her “Winning Plan”. According to author Joan Marie Johnson, Catt’s “Winning Plan” was to gain the national amendment through campaigning in certain states, such as New York and Oklahoma, as well as lobbying Congress.^[28] Campaigning in certain states and lobbying would give momentum to pass the national amendment while also gaining women in the campaigned states suffrage.^[29] Catt made her “Winning Plan” and viewpoints known throughout her term as President as on December 15, 1915, to a crowd of five hundred suffragists, she explained that “all of NAWSA’s resources would be concentrated on winning a federal constitutional amendment”.^[30]

Besides their belief in the state-to-state approach, and the eventual approach of gaining a national amendment, NAWSA strongly endorsed its members to support the Democratic President standing in their way of the vote, Woodrow Wilson. The women supported the President in multiple ways throughout his time in the Oval Office and during the First World War. From providing First Lady Edith Wilson with flowers during the President’s visit to Boston in 1917 to endorsing women to participate in war efforts during the First World War which included “end[ing] its suffrage efforts and encourag[ing] its members to replace suffrage work activism with war work”, NAWSA supported the President.^[31] As a result of their efforts, President Wilson had “‘great and sincere admiration of the action taken’” by the women of NAWSA, therefore, to the organizations satisfaction, gaining some support to their efforts to win the amendment.^[32]

With a new century calling for new strategies, one young woman from Moorestown, New Jersey by the name of Alice Paul was ready to answer the call and experiment with new strategies to gain women the right to vote in the United States.^[33] After finding her commitment to suffrage when overseas in England, Paul came back to the United States and joined the NAWSA in 1910^[34]. Paul worked with NAWSA for two years as the leader of the Congressional Congress, “a committee of NAWSA responsible for lobbying Congress”.^[35] However, Paul’s commitment to NAWSA began to take a turn when in “mid-April” 1913, “Alice stunned the leadership [of NAWSA] with the news that she had formed a membership organization, the ‘Congressional Union’”^[36]. The Congressional Union, according to author Mary Walton, would “push for a federal amendment”, something that NAWSA did not currently align with in 1913 as they were focused on the state-to-state strategy until 1915.^[37] The Congressional Union that Paul formed was the predecessor of one of the most radical suffragist organizations to have swept the country. With radical tactics that included women picketing in front of the White House and voluntarily being arrested for the cause of suffrage, the Congressional Union would go on to be called the National Woman’s Party, and its leader would become no other than Alice Paul.

Alice Paul and the National Woman’s Party also held certain unpopular and unpatriotic beliefs as well as their belief in the national amendment. Unlike the women of NAWSA who supported President Wilson and the Democratic Party, Paul did not support the President, rather she held great anger against him. According to Baker, Paul “meant to hold Wilson and his Democratic Party responsible for the failure to get a suffrage amendment passed by Congress”.^[38] Paul would hold the President responsible throughout the suffrage movement and the women of the NWP would show their discontent to the President through committing “unpatriotic” acts. These “unpatriotic” acts, included interrupting his speech on July 4, 1916 as Mabel Vernon, executive secretary of the NWP, questioned the President on if he cared about the interest of all people, why did he oppose the national amendment.^[39] This kind of action was met with high criticism including being bashed in newspapers.^[40] Paul remained frustrated that throughout the United States’ involvement in World War I, the President relied on the women back home to aid in the war efforts, something NAWSA did not mind doing, but in return they received nothing. Paul also questioned throughout the war that if Wilson was fighting for the world to be “made safe for democracy”, then why is there still a lack of democracy on the home front considering that women were not allowed to partake in America’s democracy.^[41] Alice Paul had the goal of convincing President Woodrow Wilson that the vote for women needed to be guaranteed across the country, and through the various strategies used by both Paul’s National Woman’s Party and Catt’s National American Woman’s Suffrage Association, the 20^th century would be the century for women.

The strategies used by the National American Woman’s Suffrage Association speeches

One of the most powerful tools that a person has is their voice. The human voice can do extraordinary tasks including convince people to join a cause. One of the various strategies that NAWSA used to gain the federal amendment in the 20^th century was the use of speeches. According to historian and editor Susan Ware in the work, American Women’s Suffrage: Voices from the Long Struggle for the Vote 1776 – 1965, NAWSA, after decades of lobbying and gathering petitions, decided to take a new approach to making their suffrage message heard and create new interest in their cause, the use of open-air meetings.^[42]. An open-air meeting required participating women to stand outside of buildings and project their message of suffrage to “the average human being, busy and tired”.^[43] The practice of utilizing open-air speeches was best described by student turned suffragist, Florence H. Luscomb, who recounted in her work, “Our Open-Air Campaign”, the process of openly speaking and campaigning to the general public on the topic of women’s enfranchisement.^[44]Luscomb described that as a member of the VOTES FOR WOMEN COMMITTEE in Boston, she and her fellow suffragists spoke to diverse crowds who might have not been well-informed of the suffrage movement with listeners including children and police officers.^[45] The speakers would travel from town to town across a state to stand outside on the “busiest corner of the town square” with a “borrow[ed] Moxie box” to stand on, and begin to speak on the topic of suffrage to anyone who would listen.^[46] These open-air speeches were modeled after the English suffragettes who had much success with the strategy, and the goal was to “make it [the message of suffrage] picturesque” and to “make it easy” as the general public may already had preconceived thoughts on suffrage or little knowledge on the matter.^[47]

The demonstration of open-air speeches was one of the various strategies utilized that reinforced that the 20th century was undeniably the time for women to gain the right to vote because it aided women in gaining a new audience of potential supporters. In the 19th century, NAWSA mainly focused on projecting their message and gaining the support of politicians, such as Congressmen, through lobbying. However, with the new 20th century strategy of open-air speeches, women were advocating their enfranchisement “not to a small body of lawmakers, but to a large body of the people, those who elect the lawmakers”.^[48] Women were no longer standing in the heart of the Capitol Building having their cries for fulfillment of democracy fall onto the deaf ears of bored Congressmen, rather, they were out in the streets of major cities to express their message to those who might not be aware of the cause. By addressing the public, suffragists were given the chance to inspire others to not only join the movement, even if it just meant supporting the idea of women voting, but to also advocate for the public to use their vote and voice to elect those who do support the women’s cause during the next election.

Newspapers and other readings

Another strategy utilized by NAWSA to gain the federal amendment in the 20th century was through the creation and distribution of newspapers as well as other materials. Throughout the 20^th century NAWSA distributed newspapers nationwide, including the Woman Citizen, and regional newspapers, an example being The Suffrage Messenger, which was published in Nebraska.^[49] Newspapers did not just simply update women around the country or regionally with the latest suffrage news, these newspapers brought women together. According to historian Carmen Heider, suffrage newspapers served a much larger purpose than to be picked up, read, and then tossed aside; rather, through the columns of suffrage newspapers, women who were overlooked in the suffrage movement were represented, an example being the rural farmers of Nebraska. According to Heider, The Suffrage Messenger of Nebraska, “served as the primary means through which Nebraska activists reached out to their audiences”, inviting the women of the grandest cities to the rural plains to write to the newspapers about their suffrage experience and any questions that they may have about the movement.^[50] By reaching out through newspapers in the 20th century, activists were also reaching out to women who may not have been considered to be potential members of the suffrage movement in the previous century, women in rural communities.^[51] Newspapers provided more information to these women who were somewhat isolated from the movement, due to their large distances from cities including New York City or Washington D.C., and with suffrage newspapers, farmer’s wives could be involved in the movement. With more knowledge to a community comes more support, and with more support comes the chance to make a difference sooner.

Newspapers not only brought women together, but they also encouraged women to join the fight, including rural women of the plains, through advocating the raising of funds for the cause. The Suffrage Messenger promoted an interesting fundraising event that involved women from all around Nebraska, including women of rural areas as they could understand and appreciate the so-called “suffrage pig movement”.^[52] According to Heider, the fundraiser began in Louisiana and continued across the West due to farm women wanting to contribute to the suffrage cause, but having no money, so instead, they offered what they did have, pigs.^[53] The Suffrage Messenger ran with the idea and the women of the plains had the opportunity to present their pigs and have the animals featured on the weekly “Suffrage Pig Honor Roll ”, to promote others to donate pigs rather than money.^[54] The pigs presented by the farm women would eventually be sold to the highest bidder with the funds going toward the suffrage cause.^[55] Through bringing women together from all points of the country to write to newspapers and to entice the raising of funds for the suffrage movement in unique ways, the strategy of using newspapers allowed underrepresented women of the suffrage movement to be active participants in the fight toward women’s enfranchisement during the 20^th century.

The Woman Citizen and The Suffrage Messenger were thriving examples of how NAWSA brought citizens of the United States not only news on suffrage, but also various opportunities to participate in the battle to get women to the polls in the 20^th century, such as through fundraising events. However, newspapers were not the only pieces of literature being distributed by NAWSA in the 20^th century as they also distributed other variations of works to be read and understood. According to historian and author Joan Marie Johnson, “They [suffragists] published everything from tracts to weekly newspapers to full-scale books focused on documenting the movement, organizing workers, and converting the public to the cause”.^[56] One of the prime examples of these various kinds of works published by NAWSA was the book, Your Vote and How to Use It, authored by NAWSA member Gertrude Foster Brown.^[57] After the women of New York state received the right to vote in 1917, NAWSA and Brown decided that it was time to publish a work in regards to how to vote. The work would be geared toward the “average” woman, whether she was working or tending to her home as a wife or mother, because it was essential for women to understand how to utilize their vote.^[58]Throughout the work, Brown described major points of information for new voters to learn about including what government was and the business of government, which were topics that women may have had little to no experience with or knowledge about before receiving the right to vote.^[59]

Through the use of other literary materials, including books, NAWSA enlightened women on how to utilize their vote and the importance of voting as the 20th century progressed. NAWSA was emphasizing to New York women that they had the opportunity that very few other women had, therefore, they needed to utilize it in order to display to other voters, especially male, that the decision to give women the vote was the correct one. With more women rushing to the polls on election day, due in part thanks to literature published by NAWSA, women displayed that they were not only enthusiastic about the vote, but women had the ability to vote for representatives that fought for national suffrage.

Lobbying

As the 19^th century progressed into the next, NAWSA, while the organization implemented new strategies to gain the federal amendment, remained true to one of their original strategies, lobbying. The act of lobbying consisted of groups of women seeking support from a politician on the issue of women’s suffrage as this would possibly lead to the politician gaining favor for the issue at the highest level, such as in Congress. During the 19th century, NAWSA’s lobbying efforts relied on the “uncompensated devotion of its adherents”, however, as the United States entered the 20th century, women had the desire to become paid for their efforts, therefore if they were to keep up with lobbying, NAWSA needed to find funds, and fast.^[60] In May 1917, the women’s desires for payment would come true as NAWSA received its first check from a wealthy donor named Mrs. Frank Leslie who left over one million dollars to NAWSA’s suffrage fund to be used any way President Carrie Chapman Catt saw fit.^[61] With the outrageous funds, Catt not only paid some of the women for their time, but with more money now available, she saw that a new century meant a new way to lobby.

Lobbying transformed in the 20th century and helped lead the way for the federal amendment to pass as the practice no longer became a disorganized group of volunteers annoying Congressmen, rather, it became a well-oiled machine. With Maud Wood Park leading NAWSA’s congressional lobbying efforts in March of 1917, the organization soon had twenty-five regular lobbyists, almost all of whom were volunteers.^[62] The twenty-five women lived and worked in Washington D.C. in order to get into contact with 435 members of Congress and 96 senators sitting in Washington D.C. at one time in the year 1917.^[63] The lobbyists also worked with state congressional chairmen who represented NAWSA’s state branches to, according to historian and editor Susan Ware, put the idea of suffrage into the minds of those in the highest positions of power in the country.^[64] Director Maud Wood Park also received guidance on the new, 20th century tactic of “Front Door Lobbying” from Helen Hamilton Gardener, a NAWSA member who had close relationships with powerful Democratic politicians including Speaker of the House Champ Clark and even Woodrow Wilson himself.^[65] Under the leadership of Wood and the guidance of Gardener, the NAWSA lobbyists of the 20th century learned the “delicacies of effective lobbying” which they did not implement in the previous century.^[66] These “delicacies” consisted of methods that were lady-like which included “don’t nag, boast, [or] lose your temper”, but methods that also showed the Congressmen that they were determined with methods that included “overstay[ing] your welcome and allow[ing] yourself to be overheard”.^[67] Working together as one unit, the lobbying women and the state congressional chairmen needed to “compel this army of lawmakers to see woman suffrage, to talk woman suffrage every minute of every day until they heed our plea” as this was to be the woman’s hour and century.^[68]

The strategies used by The National Woman’s Party Parades

Before being expelled from NAWSA and establishing the Congressional Union in 1914, which would become the National Woman’s Party, suffrage leader Alice Paul took part in developing one of the grandest strategies established during the 20th century to gain the federal amendment, parades. Parades were a new concept to women’s suffrage fight and it was a unique way to not only engage women to participate in the ongoing fight, but to also present to the American public the message of the suffragists. With the occurrence of a parade, the possibilities in broadcasting a message to a national audience were great with one of the most famous examples of a parade occurring the day before President Wilson’s inauguration. Wanting to make themselves and their message of suffrage memorable, Alice Paul and the women of NAWSA had the idea of marching down the traditional parade route that the newly inaugurated President would travel on, including Pennsylvania Avenue.^[69] Paul understood the importance of the parade route being down Pennsylvania Avenue as it would send the message that “women stood at the gateway of American politics, willing and able to stand alongside men as full-fledged citizens”, therefore adding to the visual reasoning of the parade.^[70]

On March 2, 1913, the day before President Woodrow Wilson was to be inaugurated, more than eight thousand women marched down the streets of Washington D.C. led by Alice Paul with a crowd of 250,000 onlookers gazing at the spectacle before them.^[71] The parade offered participants from all around the country and from all walks of life including “social workers, teachers, business women, and librarians”, to join the walk for suffrage.^[72] With this 20th century strategy, women were brought together to speak as one voice to demand “an amendment to the Constitution of the United States enfranchising the women of the country”.^[73] Through the display of the parade, the women were also entertaining the public through interesting visual displays, but they were displaying to the American public and government that most women stood united on the issue of suffrage. They showed the crowds that women’s suffrage is no longer just a few hundred women gathering to speak, rather it was thousands of women seeking their enfranchisement.

While the 20th century strategy of parades drew in mass crowds of suffragettes to participate, so too did it draw in large crowds of spectators, including those who were not too happy to see the women marching for suffrage. Shortly after the parade began, “spectators challenged suffragists’ right to the street” as crowds full of rowdy and drunk men began to surround the women on all sides, blocking them from continuing forward on their route.^[74] After storming the streets, the men proceeded to act in rude and dangerous ways as described in the March 3, 1913 issue of the Woman’s Journal and Suffrage News. The front page of the newspaper, published a day after the event occurred, described how “women were spit upon, slapped in the face, tripped up, pelled with burning cigar stubs and insulted by jeers and obscene language too vile to print or repeat”.^[75] Though these actions were disturbing and awful to the women, Alice Paul and the other leaders of NAWSA “recognized that a publicity coup awaited them” as a result of these violent acts.^[76] After these vicious attacks, newspapers, including The Woman’s Journal and Suffrage News, published the accounts of several women including Anna Howard Shaw who not only described the bite that she received but how she was never “so ashamed of our national capital before”.^[77] Through describing their accounts and feelings of what happened during the parade, suffragists drew attention, and more so, sympathy from the American public and government officials in regards to what occurred. With this newfound attention and sympathy, the suffrage movement was not only discussed, but it showed to the American public and government that the women were brave to fight off these men, therefore, they deserved the vote.

Picketing

On January 9, 1917, the women of the Congressional Union, soon to become the National Woman’s Party, gathered in their Washington D.C. headquarters to scheme.After delivering yet another speech to President Wilson that same afternoon about women’s enfranchisement, suffragist Maud Younger expressed her concerns to the group. They already “‘had speeches, meetings, parades, campaigns, organizations’’ to show American society and government that they desired the vote, but she questioned what new method could be utilized by the women to draw attention to their cause.^[78] The new method was created by Alice Paul and Harriot Stanton Blatch, daughter of one of the founders of the suffrage movement in the United States, Elizabeth Cady Stanton.^[79] The 20th century strategy would not only impact the women’s movement moving forward, but the way that Americans protest.^[80] The strategy involved picketing in front of the most important building in America, the White House. The strategy utilized in the 20th century, made headlines as it was the first documented time in American history that a group, male or female, picketed in front of the White House, therefore forcing the attention of President Wilson and making him consider the idea of women suffrage.^[81]

The protest-altering practice of picketing began in the early morning of January 12, 1917, as NWP members braced for the cold with their winter coats, while “their torsos were bisected by purple, white and gold sashes”, the colors of the National Woman’s Party.^[82] Unlike in the past century, the suffragists were not clamoring to meet with the President and speak on the subject of suffrage through speeches or lobbying, rather, the ladies of the 20th century were silent as they allowed for their strongly worded picket signs and banners to do the talking, therefore putting pressure on the President to act. Day in and day out for nearly three months, January to March 1917, the silent sentinels of the National Woman’s Party would stand outside of the prestigious institution with signs that bore messages directly toward President Wilson with phrases including “MR. PRESIDENT, WHAT WILL YOU DO FOR WOMAN SUFFRAGE?”.^[83] With the 20th century strategy of picketing, the women not only attempted to gain the attention of the President, but also the media. After they saw women standing outside of the White House with “unpatriotic” banners and signs, newspapers went on a feeding frenzy, including the New York Times, as they found their new story.

Published on “January 11”, The New York Times claimed that the members of the NWP created “organized harassment of the President” and the newspaper bashed the women by calling their act petty and a monstrosity.^[84] The article continued as The Times tried to influence its readers that if women were given the vote, the government would be overrun with voters who believe that the act of picketing in front of the White House was “natural and proper” for them to do as well, therefore creating “political danger”.^[85] The New York Times was not the only organization to disapprove of the suffragists actions, but so too did NAWSA’s president, Carrie Chapman Catt look on with disdain as she described the picketing as “‘a childish method of appeal” and one that “will never bring a result’”.^[86] Although they were bashed in newspapers across the country and by Catt, the suffragists’ message was out, newspapers across the country were talking about women’s enfranchisement. With more discussions came more support, donations, and supplies to continue the campaign including “thermoses of coffee, and sometimes mittens or fur pieces” from individuals supportive of the cause.^[87] The 20th century strategy of picketing not only drew support and attention to the suffrage cause, but it enhanced the pressure on Woodrow Wilson as he had two options, “he could remove the pickets. Or he could give them the ballot”^[88]. Through the immense pressure put on Wilson and their determination to hold out for as long as possible, the 20th century would end in women gaining the right to vote.

Conclusion

After years of pushing the limits of American society and government, the women’s suffrage movement had a major victory with the Nineteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution, being ratified on August 18, 1920. Unfortunately, the fight for suffrage was not over for all women because despite their enormous efforts throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, various groups of women, including African American women, did not immediately receive the right to vote. Due to Jim Crow laws that enforced racial segregation and through states placing obstacles at the polls, including poll taxes and literacy tests, it became increasingly harder for women of color to vote.^[89] African American women and women of color would continue the fight for women’s suffrage until the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was signed into law on August 6, 1965. The act outlawed discriminatory voting practices, including the imposition of prerequisites including poll taxes or literacy tests, therefore allowing African American women and women of color to enact their right to vote as citizens of the United States without the worry of obstacles standing in their way.^[90]

While the National American Woman’s Suffrage Association and the National Woman’s Party utilized different strategies to gain women the right to vote, these two organizations both held the belief and fought for women’s suffrage, making them two sides of the same coin. Throughout the 20th century, NAWSA and the NWP transgressed the boundaries put in place for women during the century, including the idea that women needed to allow male voters and politicians to decide if and when women’s enfranchisement would be enacted.

While there were great strides and victories made by the suffragists of the 19th century, 20^th century suffragists understood that with changing times came changing strategies and adapted their methods to make their message of suffrage heard. Suffragists of the 20th century had a greater will to push American society and government, greater access to resources including wealthy individuals, and stronger leadership in the forms of Carrie Chapman Catt and Alice Paul. With these ideals along with their strategies of developing suffragist newspapers, new tactics of lobbying, and publicity stunts including parades and picketing in front of the White House, the 20th century was undeniably the time for women to gain the vote in America.

A note for teachers

The work presented above is my senior capstone project in which I developed for the conclusion of my history major. As a secondary education and history major, therefore a future history teacher, I strive to make little known stories of history told, especially in my classroom. Not having had learned about the women’s suffrage movement until my first year of college, I have developed a passion for the history of the movement, not only because I am woman, therefore I owe great thanks to the women who fought for my right to vote, but also because I never learned about the subject in middle school or high school. It is vital that as history teachers, we teach all history, including the history that represents the students in our classroom. Although my work focuses primarily on NAWSA and the NWP, two organizations in which white women were primarily members, there are countless African American women and women of color that were featured in the suffrage movement. I encourage you to look into the suffrage movement and teach your students to research the movement before falling into the preconceived notions of the women’s suffrage movement including that white woman, especially middle-class women, were the only ones fighting for suffrage.

Another preconceived notion to consider and to teach your students the truth about is that women were “given” the right to vote. In my work above I describe the strategies used by women in the 20th century; these strategies were implemented by women for women as they had to fight for their rights, they were not just handed to them. I encourage you to look into other strategies utilized throughout the 19th and 20th centuries as there are countless more including women being arrested for the sake of suffrage and various women developing enthralling speeches. From these strategies, whether you research them or your students research them, countless examples of peaceful protests can be found, and these strategies developed during the women’s suffrage movement inspired other peaceful protest strategies utilized throughout major movements of the 20th century such as the Civil Rights Movement.

I understand that as teachers we must adhere to the curriculum presented to us, and that curriculum may sometimes leave out topics of historical significance, such as the women’s suffrage movement. However, you can incorporate the suffrage movement and women’s history overall, into your lessons based around the curriculum you were given as I have done it in my own lessons that I have taught so far in my field work. The first way that you can incorporate women’s history into your lessons is by incorporating women into your examples. When I was in my field observations this fall, the class I was observing, United States History I, was learning about the Gilded Age and its philanthropists. My cooperating teacher wanted to dive deeper into history and not just present the well-known names of Rockefeller and Carnegie, rather, she wanted to find new names that could serve as inspiration for our students. This led her to learn about Madam C.J. Walker, an African American philanthropist who became one of the wealthiest female entrepreneurs of the Gilded Age and of all time. This was so simple for her to do; she did some quick research on famous women of the time period, and it made a huge impact on those in the class, therefore I encourage you to take a few minutes and do the same.

Researching for examples of women of the time period is not the only great way to bring women’s history into your classroom as there is another way that I implemented during my field work this fall, creating a lesson around women’s history. While we just finished the Gilded Age and still had a few lessons before we would briefly touch on the women’s suffrage movement, my cooperating teacher encouraged me to develop my own lesson, and he was enthusiastic at the idea of me doing a lesson on women’s history. I decided to do my women’s history lesson not on the women’s suffrage movement, rather I wanted to give myself a challenge and I wanted to give a review to my students. Another way that you could implement women’s history into your lessons is through developing a lesson around women’s history in the time periods that you already covered. For example, in our class, we covered the colonies, the American Revolution, the Civil War, and the Oregon Trail, therefore, I found female historical figures involved during those time periods and developed my lesson around them. I developed my own and utilized others’ worksheets around Phillis Wheatley, women of the American Revolution, Sojourner Truth, women of the Civil War, and women of the Oregon Trail. For all of the subjects I utilized articles from various historical websites as well as primary sources. This lesson only took one class period, and my students, after completing the activities, expressed how much they enjoyed learning about the women of these time periods and some students even expressed that they have never even had the chance to learn about the women I included in the lesson. This lesson can be implemented during any time period in which you are teaching and it is a great, and easy, way to implement women’s history into your classroom.

Women’s history is an often forgotten subject. There are countless women that have made their mark in history, including Alice Paul and Carrie Chapman Catt, but it is up to us, history teachers, to keep their stories alive. The women’s suffrage movement is also a topic that is not discussed in-depth in high school history classes, but this topic provides the opportunity to dive into various subjects including the peaceful protest strategies first developed during the movement, and the various women that worked together to fight for a tremendous accomplishment. I encourage you to take the chance, even if it’s just by implementing women into examples, or by creating a lesson revolving around women’s history to try to implement this little known history, along with many others in your classroom as all stories deserve to be told and these stories can impact and inspire countless students.

References

Primary Sources

Florence H. Luscomb. “Our Open-Air Campaign” in American Women’s Suffrage edited by Susan Ware. United States: Library of America, 2020: 307 – 314.

Gertrude Foster Brown. “From Your Vote and How to Use It” in American Women’s Suffrage edited by Susan Ware. United States: Library of America, 2020: 565 – 568.

Maud Wood Park. “To NAWSA Congressional Chairmen” in American Women’s Suffrage edited by Susan Ware. United States: Library of America, 2020: 520-524.

Retrieved from the Library of Congress. Front page of the “Woman’s journal and suffrage news” with the headline: “Parade struggles to victory despite disgraceful scenes” showing images of the women’s suffrage parade in Washington, March 3, 1913. Washington D.C., 1913. Photograph.

The Library of America. (2020). American Women’s Suffrage. Edited by Susan Ware. United States: Library of America.

The New York Times. “Silent, Silly, and Offensive” in American Women’s Suffrage edited by Susan Ware. United States: Library of America, 2020: 525 – 527.

Secondary Sources

Baker, Jean H. Sisters: The Lives of America’s Suffragists. New York: Hill and Wang: (1^st), 2005.

DuBois, Ellen Carol. Suffrage: Women’s Long Battle for the Vote. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2020.

Harris & Ewing. Cameron House or “Little White House.” Congressional Union Convention headquarters showing glimpse of Cosmos Club at left, Belasco theater at right and glimpse of U.S. Treasury building in background. United States Washington D.C, 1916. [Jan] Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/mnwp000438/.

Heider, Carmen. “Farm Women, Solidarity, and the Suffrage Messenger Nebraska Suffrage Activism on the Plains, 1915-1917”. Great Plains Quarterly (2012). *FARM WOMEN, SOLIDARITY, AND THE SUFFRAGE MESSENGER NEBRASKA SUFFRAGE ACTIVISM ON THE PLAINS, 1915-1917 (unl.edu)

Johnson, Joan Marie. “Following the Money: Wealthy Women, Feminism, and the American Suffrage Movement”. Journal of Women’s History 27, no. 4 (2015): 62-87. https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/article/605149/pdf

Kenneally, James J. “’I Want to Go to Jail’: The Woman’s Party Reception for President Wilson in Boston, 1919”. Historical Journal of Massachusetts, (Winter 2017): 103-133. https://www.westfield.ma.edu/historical-journal/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/I-Want-to-Go-to-Jail.pdf

National Archives, “Voting Rights Act 1965”, Milestone Documents, February 8, 2022, https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/voting-rights-act.

United States Congress, “The Constitution of the United States: The Nineteenth Amendment”, Constitution Annotated, U.S. Constitution – Nineteenth Amendment | Resources | Constitution Annotated | Congress.gov | Library of Congress

Walton, Mary. A Woman’s Crusade: Alice Paul and the Battle for the Ballot. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.

Zahniser, J.D. and Fry, Amelia R. (2014). Alice Paul: Claiming Power. The United States of America: Oxford University Press, 2014.

^[1] The National American Woman’s Association and the National Woman’s Party will be abbreviated throughout the work as “NAWSA ” and the “NWP ”, respectively.

^[2] United States Congress, “The Constitution of the United States: The Nineteenth Amendment”, Constitution Annotated, U.S. Constitution – Nineteenth Amendment | Resources | Constitution Annotated | Congress.gov | Library of Congress

^[3] Carmen Heider, “Farm Women, Solidarity, and the Suffrage Messenger: Nebraska Suffrage Activism on the Plains, 1915 – 1917”, Great Plains Quarterly (2012): 115.

^[4] James J. Kenneally, “‘I Want to Go to Jail’: The Woman’s Party Reception for President Wilson in Boston, 1919”, Historical Journal of Massachusetts 45, no. 1 (2017): 103-127.

^[5]Joan Marie Johnson, ““Following the Money: Wealthy Women, Feminism, and the American Suffrage Movement”, Journal of Women’s History 27, no. 4 (2015): 63.

^[6] Ibid, 2,3.

^[7] Jean H. Baker. Sisters: The Lives of America’s Suffragists. (Hill and Wang: New York. (1st), 2005), 11.

^[8] Ibid, 183-230.

^[9] Mary Walton, A Woman’s Crusade: Alice Paul and the Battle for the Ballot, (Palgrave Macmillan: New York, 2010), 252.

^[10] J.D. Zahniser and Amelia R. Fry, Alice Paul: Claiming Power, (Oxford University Press: The United States of America, 2014), 4.

^[11] Ellen Carol DuBois, Suffrage: Women’s Long Battle for the Vote, (Simon and Schuster: New York, 2020), 3-5.

^[12] Baker, Sisters: The Lives of America’s Suffragists, 188.

^[13] Ibid, 189.

^[14] Ibid, 189.

^[15] DuBois, Suffrage: Women’s Long Battle for the Vote, 161.

^[16] Ibid, 161.

^[17] Baker, Sisters: The Lives of America’s Suffragists, 189.

^[18] Ibid, 190.

^[19] Ibid, 190.

^[20] DuBois, Suffrage: Women’s Long Battle for the Vote, 165.

^[21] Ibid, 165.

^[22] Johnson, “‘Following the Money’: Wealthy Women, Feminism, and the American Suffrage Movement”, 66.

^[23] Johnson describes that from the 1880s to the early 1910s, NAWSA focused on a state to state approach to suffrage. (Ibid, 65).

^[24] DuBois, Suffrage: Women’s Long Battle for the Vote, 205-206.

^[25] Ibid, 202.

^[26] Ibid, 203.

^[27] Ibid, 207.

^[28] Johnson, “’Following the Money’: Wealthy Women, Feminism, and the American Suffrage Movement”.

^[29] Ibid, 68.

^[30] DuBois, Suffrage: Women’s Long Battle for the Vote, 206.

^[31] Kenneally, “‘I Want to Go to Jail’: The Woman’s Party Reception for President Wilson in Boston, 1919”, 113. Heider, “Farm Women, Solidarity, and the Suffrage Messenger: Nebraska Suffrage Activism on the Plains, 1915-1917”, 115.

Baker, Sisters: The Lives of America’s Suffragists, 215.

^[32] DuBois, Suffrage: Women’s Long Battle for the Vote, 223.

^[33] Zahniser and Fry, Alice Paul: Claiming Power, 5.

^[34] Baker, Sisters: The Lives of America’s Suffragists, 197.

^[35] Ibid, 206.

^[36]Walton, A Woman’s Crusade: Alice Paul and the Battle for the Ballot, 84.

^[37]Ibid, 84.

^[38] Baker, Sisters: The Lives of America’s Suffragists, 206.

^[39] Walton, A Woman’s Crusade: Alice Paul and the Battle for the Ballot, 135

^[40] Ibid, 135.

^[41] Ibid, 160.

^[42] Susan Ware, American Women’s Suffrage: Voices from the Long Struggle for the Vote 1776 – 1965, (Literary Classics of the United States, Inc.: New York, 2020), 307.

^[43] Ibid, 307.

^[44] Florence H. Luscomb, “Our Open-Air Campaign”, in American Women’s Suffrage: Voices from the Long Struggle for the Vote 1776 – 1965, ed. by Susan Ware (Literary Classics of the United States, Inc.: New York, 2020), 307-314.

^[45] Ibid, 308.

^[46] Ibid, 310.

^[47] Ibid, 307.

^[48] Ibid, 307.

^[49] Heider, “Farm Women, Solidarity, and the Suffrage Messenger: Nebraska Suffrage Activism on the Plains, 1915-1917”, 115.

^[50] Ibid, 114, 116.

^[51] Ibid, 114.

^[52] Ibid, 119.

^[53] Ibid, 119.

^[54] Ibid, 119.

^[55] Ibid, 119.

^[56] Johnson, “‘Following the Money’: Wealthy Women, Feminism, and the American Suffrage Movement”, 69.

^[57]Gertrude Foster Brown, “Your Vote and How to Use It”, in American Women’s Suffrage: Voices from the Long Struggle for the Vote 1776 – 1965, ed. by Susan Ware (Literary Classics of the United States, Inc.: New York, 2020), 565.

^[58] Ibid, 565.

^[59] Ibid, 566-67.

^[60] DuBois, “Suffrage: Women’s Long Battle for the Vote”, 219.

^[61] Ibid, 219-220.

Johnson, “‘Following the Money: Wealthy Women, Feminism, and the American Suffrage Movement”, Journal of Women’s History 27, no. 4 (2015): 70

^[62] DuBois, “Suffrage: Women’s Long Battle for the Vote”, 220.

Maud Wood Park,, “To NAWSA Congressional Chairmen”, in American Women’s Suffrage: Voices from the Long Struggle for the Vote 1776 – 1965, ed. by Susane Ware, (Literary Classics of the United States, Inc.: New York, 2020), 520.

^[63]Ware and The Library of America, American Women’s Suffrage: Voices from the Long Struggle for the Vote 1776 – 1965, 520.

^[64] Ibid, 520.

^[65] DuBois, “Suffrage: Women’s Long Battle for the Vote”, 222.

^[66] Ibid, 222.

^[67] Ibid, 222.

^[68] Carrie Chapman Catt. “The Crisis”, ed. by Susan Ware (Literary Classics of the United States, Inc.: New York, 2020), 495.

^[69] Zahniser and Fry, Alice Paul: Claiming Power, 135.

^[70] Ibid, 136.

^[71]Baker, Sisters: The Lives of America’s Suffragists, 183-85.

^[72] Walton, A Woman’s Crusade: Alice Paul and the Battle for the Ballot, 72-73.

^[73] Ibid, 72.

^[74] Zahniser and Fry, Alice Paul: Claiming Power, 146.

^[75] Retrieved from the Library of Congress. Front page of the “Woman’s journal and suffrage news” with the headline: “Parade struggles to victory despite disgraceful scenes” showing images of the women’s suffrage parade in Washington, March 3, 1913. Washington D.C., 1913. Photograph.

^[76] Zahniser and Fry, Alice Paul: Claiming Power, 149.

^[77] Ibid, 149.

^[78] Walton, A Woman’s Crusade: Alice Paul and the Battle for the Ballot, 147.

^[79] Ibid, 147.

^[80] Ibid, 147.

^[81] Baker, The Lives of America’s Suffragists, 214.

^[82] Ibid, 148.

^[83] Ibid, 148.

^[84] The New York Times, “Silent, Silly, and Offensive” and “Militants Get 3 Days; Lack Time to Starve”, American Women’s Suffrage: Voices from the Long Struggle for the Vote 1776 – 1965, ed. by Susan Ware (Literary Classics of the United States, Inc.: New York, 2020), 525.

According to historian and editor Susan Ware, the New York Times published an article the day after the women’s first picket in front of the White House, which was on January 12, 1917. The editors were offering a hypothetical situation of a socialist group picketing in front of the White House and that this “impossible piece of news” being printed “tomorrow morning”, indicating that it would be printed on January 12.

^[85] Ibid, 526.

^[86] Carrie Chapman Catt, “Carrie Chapman Catt to Frances M. Lane, 14 February 1917”, in A Woman’s Crusade: Alice Paul and the Battle for the Ballot, ed. by Mary Walton, (Palgrave Macmillan: New York, 2010), 154.

^[87] Walton, A Woman’s Crusade: Alice Paul and the Battle for the Ballot, 153.

^[88] Ibid, 152.

^[89] National Archives, “Voting Rights Act 1965”, Milestone Documents, February 8, 2022, https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/voting-rights-act.

^[90] Ibid.

The Revolt That Changed Everything: The Haitian Revolution’s Immediate Effect on the United States

The Revolt that Changed Everything: The Haitian Revolution’s Immediate Effect on the United States

Noah Phayre

The year is 1804, and the New World is functioning as it had for the past thirty years since the American Revolution. After the war, a new constitution, and three presidential administrations, America had begun to find its footing as a new nation. With this, many Americans began to get used to their existence as a small democratic nation. However, whether the American people knew it or not, their world was about to drastically change. 1,888 miles south of the US, another revolution had been fought and won on the island of Saint-Domingue. The rebels, much like the US patriots, were able to cast off the yoke of a powerful European empire and establish the second democracy in the Western Hemisphere. However, this rebellion was much different than the one that occurred back in 1776. Unlike the US driving out the British and establishing a new government, the rebels of 1804 were living under much harsher oppression. These rebels were slaves who were living on Saint-Domingue under French colonial rule. In 1791, the slaves revolted against the French starting a twelve year bloodbath that would end in the abolition of slavery on the island and the establishment of the Empire of Haiti.

The United States, though in theory should be very pleased with another democracy emerging nearby, were none too happy about this development. This mostly stemmed from the fact that the Haitian government were all freed slaves. This idea of a successful African rebellion was so foreign to the American government. The success of a slave revolt also flew in the face of the then legal practice of slavery in the United States. This caused the US to avoid recognizing Haiti as a nation until the start of the Civil War. However, despite all of this, the US was greatly affected by the Haitian Revolution as well as their early interactions with the new nation. First, the Louisiana Purchase, which was caused due to the French needing money after the war’s economic devastation on the nation. This exchange doubled the US’ size and allowed it to begin expanding as a nation, taking its first steps to becoming a world power. But even beyond the Louisiana Purchase, the Haitian Revolution and its aftermath still affected the US greatly in terms of trade, foreign policy, and thoughts on how to deal with the issue of slavery.

Sadly, the Haitian Revolution as well as its profound impact on the United States is often not talked about when discussing how America became what it is today. It is very important that these effects be discussed and understood by a broader audience. There is a lack of awareness in terms of the connections between the Haitian Revolution and the growth of America. This proposal aims to answer the question of just how the Haitian Revolution impacted the United States in its immediate aftermath. Ultimately, through qualitative research this paper attempts to explain that the Haitian Revolution affected the United States in a way that caused it to grow into a far more powerful nation.

Teaching this event is an undertaking, as there are many ins and outs in regards to this revolution. Educating students based on the historiographic data found in this paper can actually prove to be a superior style as opposed to an ordinary lesson. With the information gleaned from the historians that are cited in this essay, students can achieve a much deeper understanding of the Haitian Revolution as well as its impact that it had on the United States.

Historiography

Beyond just simply understanding the events, impact, and significance of certain episodes in history, there is a much deeper understanding one can acquire when studying certain key events. In the craft of historiography, a deeper analysis of history is made, where instead of reading for the information about a topic, the purpose is to understand how historians wrote and by extension, felt about said topic. In the case of the Haitian Revolution and its immediate effect of the United States, scholars range in their specific takes on the topic. Scholarship on the topic also has numerous areas of interest that different authors focus on. While some focus on the economic implications, others focus on the racial statements that the revolution made to the US. Other scholars fixate on the level of coverage the Haitian Revolution receives and how it reflects a larger issue with how history is written. These numerous points of focus often shed light on the historians who are behind them, as educators it is important to look past what the author is saying and think about why they are saying it.

However, all of these scholars touch on specifics that merely scrape the surface in regards to correlation of the Haitian Revolution to the US. But what is not touched on is how these numerous aspects and results of the conflict helped jumpstart the US into becoming the powerhouse it is today. This fact is often overlooked in classrooms, hence why many teachers breeze through the Revolution during lessons or just omit it from their courses entirely. Upon deeper inspection, many sources about the Haitian Revolution fail to elaborate on just how significant the slave insurrection was when it comes to paving the way for America to expand. While many authors like to praise and critique many aspects of the Revolution’s significance they often ignore how their many points of interest come together to reveal a much grander impact on America. A plethora of sources that has been compiled helps shed light on the absence of scholarship on this matter. Moreover, this will show why further research into how the Haitian Revolution molded America is certainly necessary and lastly how more teaching on this subject is also important.

Most scholars see the Haitian Revolution as a landmark event in terms of the fight against slavery. However, certain authors tend to lean more towards how the fight against racism was affected by the revolution. For example, Philippe Girard notes how after only two years into the Haitian Revolution, the First French Republic declared slavery an abolished practice. Girard discusses this in his piece, “Making Freedom Work: The Long Transition from Slavery to Freedom during the Haitian Revolution.” and goes on to explain how racism was talked about much more after the revolution. He backs this up by going through the long history of the fight against different forms of slavery and racism that were seen during the years during and after the revolution.^[1]

Mitch Katchun builds off of Girard’s focus on racism in his own work, “Antebellum African Americans, Public Commemoration, and the Haitian Revolution: A Problem of Historical Mythmaking.”. In Katchun’s piece, he elaborates on how the revolution had an effect on the fight against slavery and racism, but specifically in Antebellum America. Katchun complements the ideas of Girard but goes deeper when discussing how the revolution specifically started conversations about racism in enslaved African American circles. Citing the 1811 slave march in Louisiana led by Charles Deslondes, the author puts a lot of emphasis on how the events in Haiti inspired the fight against slavery to be expanded but in a more tangible way, such as another revolution.^[2] This facet of the impact of the revolution is one of the most widely discussed, however it can be expanded upon in numerous ways as shown by other scholars. It must also be noted that accounts such as this are valuable for teachers. This showcases how the Haitian Revolution influenced the slaves in the southern United States and was an early seed that was planted in their minds that would eventually grow into slave revolts within the US.

Numerous other authors chime in on the discussion of the Haitian Revolution’s impact (racially speaking) on the US. Tim Matthewson dives into this racial layer with his piece “Abraham Bishop, ‘The Rights of Black Men,’ and the American Reaction to the Haitian Revolution.”. In his writing, Matthewson discusses Abraham Bishop, an American man who wrote three pieces regarding the Haitian Revolution in the 1790s. Bishop supported the revolution and urged America as a whole to get behind the rebel’s cause. He stated how the US supported the French Revolution and also staged their very own revolution as well. With that said, Bishop argued that the US should support the similar cause in Haiti, but stated that it was due to the issue of slavery that prevented the US from doing that.^[3] Unlike the previous two scholars, Matthewson uses Bishop’s writings to showcase how white people were affected by the events in Haiti and started to defend the black people in the US. Overall, this subset of scholarship on the Haitian Revolution’s impact on the US was heavily focused on race which played a large role in the narrative of the event. However, other scholars attempt to break away from the ever prominent racial aspect and focus on other areas such as economic and political effects.

When looking at how the Haitian Revolution changed the US economically and politically, certain authors touch on a bevy of policy changes, and repercussions during and after the war. An example of this comes in the form of Robin Blackburn, a scholar who in her piece “Haiti, Slavery, and the Age of the Democratic Revolution.” touches on how the US had to begin forming its own international policies. One such policy was its refusal to recognize Haiti. This included an embargo on the new nation, despite it being a massive trading partner when under French control. This changed the US’s treatment of other nations when it came to trade as it set a precedent with Haiti that essentially states that the US will not trade with another nation and ignore what’s beneficial for itself if it does not support the government of that nation. This stems from the statement made by the success of the slave rebels.

This is focused on by Blackburn who infuses the issue of race and slavery but adds an economic/political spin to it. She notes how the US put itself in a bizarre situation by supporting other democratic revolutions (Like the French) but not ones such as Haiti. This is due to the fact that the US would be forced to admit (in a sense) that the black slaves were capable trading partners, which flies in the face of the notion that black people were sub-human and deserved to be nothing more than slaves. And as Blackburn points out, it only became worse when Haiti survived for decades after the revolution. So the US opted to simply not recognize the island nation, something that would continue up until 1862.^[4] This is interesting for educators as it can be used by teachers to explain two layers of the issue that the US was faced with during this time. The US’ problem was not just a racial one, it was an economic one as well. Author Tim Matthewson brings up how the US immediately reacted to the revolution and what he states is very telling. In his piece “George Washington’s Policy Towards the Haitian Revolution ” the author states that under the first presidential administration in the US, American merchants actually were allowed to aid the French with supplies and even men. This was in hopes to defeat the slaves, showing that the US had been willing to help squash all slave revolts in the name of maintaining the practice.^[5] Matthewson uses this little known fact to highlight the idea that the US was very much a pro slavery nation, and that even before the revolution had been won, the US had already been trying to put it down.

Another scholar adds to the discussion by way of citing the particular benefits and unintentional problems that the rebellion had on America. This scholar is Jim Thomson, author of “The Haitian Revolution and the Forging of America.”

In his piece, Thompson adds to the discussion of the Haitian Revolution’s effect on the US by highlighting a few results of the conflict. One was how France had to sell the Louisiana Territory to the US to get money to fund Napoleon’s conquest of Europe. This important moment for the US, a moment that doubled its size was caused by the Haitian Revolution’s economic impact on France. This dent in the already fragile economy of France caused Napoleon to work with the US which resulted in the monumental Louisiana Purchase.^[6]

These particular scholars prefer to highlight why Haiti changed the United States’ political and economic status in the world. Whereas previous authors focused on race, this group, specifically Thompson who really hones in on that aspect of the relationship between Haiti and America. Blackburn is different as she focuses on the impacts politically and economically, however she infuses a bit of race into her point of study. Citing how the political relationship between the two nations was tense due to the issues of race and slavery, Blackburn connects what the previous scholars have noted about the revolution with her own part of the conversation. This blends the two areas of study together and actually shows how these different impacts (racial, political, economic) did not exist apart from each other but rather built off each other to make a much larger impact on the United States.

The final area of study that scholars seem to focus on, is the historiography of this tense relationship between Haiti and the United States. Many scholars often go into why the revolution has not been noted as a larger event historically and why the aforementioned impacts it had on other nations (specifically the US) have often been downplayed. John E. Baur makes mention of this in his piece “International Repercussions of the Haitian Revolution.”. In it Baur states that there has never been a full scale study of the impacts of the Revolution and just rather numerous articles and pieces about certain aspects of it and its impact.^[7] This gets at exactly what this proposal aims to achieve, putting those pieces together to create a full scale study on the topic of Haiti’s impact on the US. With more study into this topic, teachers can better utilize this monumental moment from history by implementing it into their curriculums.

This historiographical aspect to the topic is unique as it explains why the topic of the revolution and its effects has not been given the recognition it deserves. Thomas Reinhardt answers this question in his piece “200 Years of Forgetting: Hushing up the Haitian Revolution.”. In his work, Reinhardt states that the authors who wrote about the revolution spoke of it in a demeaning manner. The brutality of the insurrection was what most scholars used as their rationale for why black people are barbaric and without Western guidance they will act savagely as they did back in Africa. Reinhardt notes how the success of the rebellion and establishment of the Haitian nation was completely undercut by these writers who simply wanted to discredit black people.^[8] Reinhardt asserts that writings like those were why many people did not pay much attention to the Haitian Revolution and its significance.

Adding to the idea that there was a concerted effort to diminish the importance of the Haitian Revolution is author Manuel Barcia. Barcia agrees with the ideas of Reinhardt in that white historians were made uncomfortable by the success of the uprising. In his piece “Comment: From Revolution to Recognition: Haiti’s Place in the Post-1804 Atlantic World.” Barcia particularly takes note of what the success of black people meant for the rest of the world. Barcia notes that acknowledging the fact that the Haitian rebels won and were able to run a sustainable nation would mean that one would have to acknowledge the fact that black people were just as skilled as anyone else. This of course threatened the status quo of white people dominating black people in society, which Barcia says is why it has not been touched upon by mainstream history. One interesting point made by the author is how the US in particular would trade with Haiti (covertly) but still not recognize them as a nation. This, according to Barcia, helped justify the lack of coverage writers gave Haiti as it was not recognized by the US until decades after the revolution.^[9]

The final historian being examined is Shannon Marie Peck-Bartle. In her piece “Toussaint L’Ouver-Who? An Anthropological Approach to Infusing the African Diaspora into Caribbean History.” Peck-Bartle adds to the discussion on the lack of recognition the rebellion has received. The piece pushes that the reason why the impact of Haiti has not fully been appreciated is because the Western world has spun a Eurocentric narrative of the events since 1804. This is to say that the West essentially took credit for Haiti’s success by asserting that without their European philosophies and culture, the Haitians could never have been able to successfully stage an insurrection and maintain a stable society for as long as they did. Peck-Bartle challenges this notion by pushing that rather than European culture creating the revolution, it was African culture that actually helped unite the Haitian rebels to be able to succeed.^[10] This information is valuable for teachers as it offers the opportunity to look at what is being taught in schools and see how culturally imbalanced the material is. The Eurocentric nature of most classes is unfortunate but also a very real thing and topics like the Haitian Revolution and its historiography help show teachers that there is not a lot of representation for numerous cultures around the world.

This third subsection of scholarship on the Haitian Revolution is unique as it focuses on the historiography of the event. Different scholars discuss different avenues of why this topic isn’t explored as often as it should. While people like Baur point out how there has been no full scale look into this event and its impact, people like Reinhardt and Barcia provide the reasons why. With Reinhardt asserting that the West simply went out of its way to paint the revolution in a bad light and Barcia explaining that this was because the alternative was to acknowledge the fact that black people were capable of both freeing and governing themselves. Peck-Bartle actually veers from this and states that actually the West chose to take credit for the Haitian’s success instead of outright ignoring or demonizing it. Overall, these scholars helped explain why the revolution doesn’t get as much attention and just why its impact on the US is not highlighted as often as it should.

Conclusion

Upon review of all ten sources it is quite clear that they all have their merits and add to the discussion about Haiti’s revolution and its impact on the US. The sources focusing on race helped explain why the US had such an awkward relationship with the new nation. Girard and Katchun particularly provided strong arguments that supported their theses. The economic/politically based scholars helped pinpoint what changes occurred in the US because of the revolution. Blackburn is the most prominent of these scholars as she mixes both the racial component previously discussed along with the political components. She successfully adds to the discussion and links two different areas of study. The final section is the historiographical section that hones in on why the impacts of the Haitian Revolution aren’t discussed as much as they should be. Again, these scholars connect the two other areas of study, the racial and economic/political by explaining why racism and Eurocentrism created a historiography that neglects the Haitian Revolution’s impact. This section seems to have the most debate over the truth behind why Haiti has been neglected. While Reinhardt and Barcia seem to agree with Peck-Bartle that race plays a major role in the downplaying of Haiti’s significance, they disagree with her when she says the West took credit for Haiti’s success and impact.

With the exception of the historiographical section, the scholarship on Haiti and its impact on the US is rather cohesive. The scholars mostly agree with each other and some of the different subsets actually blend well with each other, creating a clearer image of what the effects the Haitian Revolution had on the US were. The biggest issue these authors have is that they do not go deeper with their claims. They state that the revolution impacted the United States and list examples of how it did so. They also explain why there hasn’t been much research done on the topic. But the scholarship lacks one major point of focus, and that is how all of these subsets come together. What this proposal attempts to explore is how the Haitian Revolution immediately affected the United States. Furthermore, upon answering that question, this proposal aims to show how this impact absolutely molded the US into the world power that it is today. By infusing the three most prominent areas of study in regards to the revolution, this proposal will expand upon what has already been stated. The large scale implications for the United States brought on because of the Haitian Revolution and its success will be uncovered and ultimately show how a seemingly insignificant slave revolt changed the trajectory of a country that would become one of the most powerful nations on Earth.

Educational value

The Haitian Revolution serves as a historic reminder of the triumphs of African people. It also serves as an interesting point of study when examining its relationship with the United States. The revolution’s mere existence shed light on the US’ own issues with slavery as well as early signs of the nation’s hypocrisy. The issues of racism and slavery are interconnected to the revolution; these two topics envelop the history of the modern west and cannot be ignored. With this said, these topics can be showcased through lessons about the Haitian Revolution as well as the island nation’s relationship with the United States.

The beauty of this topic is that it goes even deeper than that as it can also be used as a way to examine the historiography of the subject, something that is often overlooked in classes today. Examining how people have written history helps show students how people viewed a certain topic back then as well as how they view it now. These are valuable for both students and educators alike. Lastly, the study into the Haitian Revolution helps show how the US became the nation that it is today. Looking at the success of the US through the lens of the Haitian Revolution can help expand students’ understanding of the success of other people outside of the US. It can also showcase some of the inspiration for change in the US, namely the fight to end slavery. Overall, the educational value of the Haitian Revolution stretches far beyond its use as a fun and exciting historic episode. Through its links to race relations, slavery, economics and historiography, the Haitian Revolution truly makes for a great area of focus for educators who want to make their students better and more well-rounded scholars in the field of history.

References

Barcia, Manuel. “Comment: From Revolution to Recognition: Haiti’s Place in the Post-1804 Atlantic World.” American Historical Review 125, no. 3 (June 2020): 899–905. doi:10.1093/ahr/rhaa240.

Baur, John E. “International Repercussions of the Haitian Revolution.” The Americas 26, no. 4 (1970): 394–418. https://doi.org/10.2307/980183.

Blackburn, Robin. “Haiti, Slavery, and the Age of the Democratic Revolution.” The William and Mary Quarterly 63, no. 4 (2006): 643–74. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4491574.

Girard, Philippe. “Making Freedom Work: The Long Transition from Slavery to Freedom during the Haitian Revolution.” Slavery & Abolition 40, no. 1 (March 2019): 87–108. doi:10.1080/0144039X.2018.1452683.

Kachun, Mitch. “Antebellum African Americans, Public Commemoration, and the Haitian Revolution: A Problem of Historical Mythmaking.” Journal of the Early Republic 26, no. 2 (2006): 249–73. http://www.jstor.org/stable/30043409.

Matthewson, Tim. “Abraham Bishop, ‘The Rights of Black Men,’ and the American Reaction to the Haitian Revolution.” The Journal of Negro History 67, no. 2 (1982): 148–54. https://doi.org/10.2307/2717572.

Matthewson, Timothy M. “George Washington’s Policy Toward the Haitian Revolution.” Diplomatic History 3, no. 3 (1979): 321–36. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24910116.

Peck-Bartle, Shannon Marie. “Toussaint L’Ouver-Who? An Anthropological Approach to Infusing the African Diaspora into Caribbean History.” Social Studies 111, no. 3 (January 1, 2020): 155–62. https://search-ebscohost-com.rider.idm.oclc.org/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=EJ1246807&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

Reinhardt, Thomas. “200 Years of Forgetting: Hushing up the Haitian Revolution.” Journal of Black Studies 35, no. 4 (2005): 246–61. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40027220.

Thomson, Jim. “The Haitian Revolution and the Forging of America.” History Teacher 34, no. 1 (January 1, 2000): 76–94. https://search-ebscohost-com.rider.idm.oclc.org/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=EJ649663&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

^[1] Girard, Philippe. “Making Freedom Work: The Long Transition from Slavery to Freedom during the Haitian Revolution.” Slavery & Abolition 40, no. 1 (March 2019): 87–108.

^[2] Kachun, Mitch. “Antebellum African Americans, Public Commemoration, and the Haitian Revolution: A Problem of Historical Mythmaking.” Journal of the Early Republic 26, no. 2 (2006): 249–73.

^[3] Matthewson, Tim. “Abraham Bishop, ‘The Rights of Black Men,’ and the American Reaction to the Haitian Revolution.” The Journal of Negro History 67, no. 2 (1982): 148–54.

^[4] Blackburn, Robin. “Haiti, Slavery, and the Age of the Democratic Revolution.” The William and Mary Quarterly 63, no. 4 (2006): 643–74.

^[5] Matthewson, Timothy M. “George Washington’s Policy Toward the Haitian Revolution.” Diplomatic History 3, no. 3 (1979): 321–36.

^[6] Thomson, Jim. “The Haitian Revolution and the Forging of America.” History Teacher 34, no. 1 (January 1, 2000): 76–94.

^[7] Baur, John E. “International Repercussions of the Haitian Revolution.” The Americas 26, no. 4 (1970): 394–418.

^[8] Reinhardt, Thomas. “200 Years of Forgetting: Hushing up the Haitian Revolution.” Journal of Black Studies 35, no. 4 (2005): 246–61.

^[9] Barcia, Manuel. “Comment: From Revolution to Recognition: Haiti’s Place in the Post-1804 Atlantic World.” American Historical Review 125, no. 3 (June 2020): 899–905.

^[10] Peck-Bartle, Shannon Marie. “Toussaint L’Ouver-Who? An Anthropological Approach to Infusing the African Diaspora into Caribbean History.” Social Studies 111, no. 3 (January 1, 2020): 155–62.