- Zinn Education Project https://www.zinnedproject.org/period/ww1/ Free lessons and resources for teaching people’s history in K-12 classrooms. For use with books by Howard Zinn and others on multicultural, women’s, and labor history. Tue, 23 Jan 2024 00:49:36 +0000 en-US hourly 1 191940966 A People’s History of the United States: 1492 – Present https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/peoples-history-of-the-united-states https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/peoples-history-of-the-united-states#respond Tue, 01 Mar 2011 22:41:25 +0000 http://www.zinnedproject.org/wp/?p=67 Book — Non-fiction. By Howard Zinn. 2005, with a new introduction by Anthony Arnove in 2015. 784 pages.
Howard Zinn's groundbreaking work on U.S. history. This book details lives and facts rarely included in textbooks—an indispensable teacher and student resource.

The post A People’s History of the United States: 1492 – Present appeared first on Zinn Education Project.

]]>
Since its original landmark publication in 1980, A People’s History of the United States has been chronicling U.S. history from the bottom up.

Known for its lively, clear prose as well as its scholarly research, A People’s History tells U.S. history from the point of view of — and in the words of — America’s women, factory workers, African-Americans, Native Americans, the working poor, and immigrant laborers.

As historian Howard Zinn shows, many of our country’s greatest battles — the fights for a fair wage, an eight-hour workday, child-labor laws, health and safety standards, universal suffrage, women’s rights, racial equality — were carried out at the grassroots level, against bloody resistance. Covering Christopher Columbus’s arrival through President Clinton’s first term, A People’s History of the United States features insightful analysis of the most important events in U.S. history.

Library Journal calls Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States “a brilliant and moving history of the American people from the point of view of those. . . whose plight has been largely omitted from most histories.” Packed with vivid details and telling quotations, Zinn’s award-winning classic continues to revolutionize the way U.S. history is taught and remembered.

The book has appeared in popular media, like The Sopranos, The Simpsons, Good Will Hunting, Lady Bird, and the History Channel documentary The People Speak. [Publisher’s description.]

More than two million copies sold.

The 35th anniversary edition, published in November of 2015, includes a new introduction by Anthony Arnove. He begins,

Howard Zinn fundamentally changed the way millions of people think about history with A People’s History of the United States. He would be the first to say, however, that he didn’t do so alone. The book grew out of his awareness of the importance of social movements throughout U.S. history, some of which he played an active role in during the 1960s and 1970s and beyond, namely the Civil Rights Movement, mass mobilizations to end the Vietnam War, as well as other antiwar movements, and the many movements for higher wages and workers’ rights and the rights of women, Latinos, Native Americans, gays and lesbians, and others.

ISBN: 9780062397348 | HarperCollins

Teacher Quotes

Julian Hipkins III

As a teacher, the Zinn Education Project website is invaluable because it provides activities that directly relate to A People’s History. Last week we did The People vs. Columbus, et al. which places all the parties involved in the arrival of Columbus on trial for the murder of the Tainos. The activity was so interactive that teachers from other classrooms had to ask us to quiet down. Students were able to better understand the motives and consequences behind the arrival.

Even though A People’s History can be a bit difficult for some students, the activities on the Zinn Education Project website makes the content accessible regardless of their reading level.

—Julian Hipkins III
HIgh School Administrator, Washington, District of Columbia

My first lesson as a student teacher was using an excerpt from A People’s History of the United States to teach about Columbus. I was working at Booker T. Washington Middle School in NYC. A student raised her hand and said, “Howard Zinn is my uncle!” I was honored, my hero’s niece! For Christmas, I got a signed copy!

—Francesca Miller
Teacher, New York, New York
Woman holding Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States book

More than thirty years ago, I had the pleasure of sitting next to Howard Zinn on a cross-country flight to check out graduate programs. Despite my being somewhat star-struck, he was one of those easy to “fall into conversation with” seatmates — kind, engaging, and interested in why I was traveling.

When I revealed that I was considering becoming a social studies teacher, he said “You must do that. The world needs teachers like the one you will be.” The voice of the universe had spoken and I have been a classroom teacher for the past thirty years, using parts of A People’s History of the United States and his inspirational approach to understanding the American experience.

—Annie Barnes
High School Humanities Teacher, Los Angeles, California

I grew up very trusting (too trusting) of the mainstream media and the accounts of our nations history from my textbooks. For years I was under the impression that the United States of America was the greatest nation in the world with no flaws — the epitome of democratic perfection. I would sing the national anthem proudly at baseball games and digest all the stories of our founding fathers that led me to idolization.

Then I read Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States and everything changed. I became more curious about who was writing the history and their motivations. I developed a lens by which to critically judge the events and accounts I read in newspapers and history books. I was more thoughtful about a mainstream version of our history informed how another might see the world differently than me.

His book was the catalyst — opening me to a deeper understanding of myself, my biases and how they manifested subconsciously into sexism, racism, classism, and other forms of intolerance. After doing more work, reading books like The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander and Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates, I found my way with conviction into activism. Each day I do this work I feel increasingly more empowered to be an aware and mindful ally to the Movement for Black Lives and other movements who struggle to dismantle systems of violence and oppression.

—Brendan Orsinger
Organizer with the James Reeb Voting Rights Project, District of Columbia
A Peoples History of the United States Book | Zinn Education Project

I read A People’s History of the United States in the summer before my junior year of high school — fifteen years ago now. It was an interesting time. This would have been 2005-2006, so the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were well underway, and I was beginning to pay attention to what those around me were saying about war.

As I sat in Boston Common reading my paperback copy of A People’s History, I must have had dozens of people come up to me to tell me how much it had changed their lives. Some were former students, some were fans, some were college students reading Zinn for the first time. Howard Zinn gave me a gift — a radical awakening. His work has that kind of power. You don’t forget injustice easily, and he unearths the injustices the other textbooks would rather forget.

I had the distinct honor of meeting Zinn when he gave the opening remarks at an adaptation of Grace Paley’s work. For all that Zinn was — activist, educator, historian, pacifist, mensch — he reminded me of why our people fight for justice. I love the long, anti-capitalist, anti-white supremacist tradition he carried forward as a Jew. We are obligated by our religion to fight for all who are oppressed, and every time I read Zinn, I am graced with that reminder, and that memory.

I believe in the power of radical change through progressive education and fully support the work of the Zinn Education Project.

—Becky Eidelman
Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning Graduate Student, Boston, Massachusetts

A People’s History of the United States makes my students think. They are shocked by it, moved by it, question it, challenge it, and are motivated to find out more of our history because of it.

—Ralph J. Coffey
High School Social Studies Teacher, South Bronx, New York

I have used Howard Zinn’s book for years with high school students. I have begged for money to buy classroom sets to have to supplement the regular and AP curriculum. Whenever my students ask for where they can get real history my first choice is to pull this book off my shelf. I have started buying copies to give as graduation gifts for my Social Studies teacher candidates before they go into the field. Zinn has a special place in my heart that I always have to share with anyone who truly cares to know the facts.

In my current Social Studies method’s courses I now require Zinn’s book with my methods textbook. I also have all the Zinn Education Project resources linked to my course page. I use the resources to help teach my preservice teachers how to find underrepresented voices.

One of the issues we deal with is the lack of representation of those who truly built this nation in our curriculum and textbooks. The Zinn Education Project’s resources help bridge this gap. Students appreciate the perspectives of the these missing voices being added.

—Britine Perkins
College Social Studies Teacher Educator, Prairie View, Texas

I am an 8th grade Humanities teacher at Melrose Leadership Academy in Oakland.

I just finished chapter 4 of A People’s History of the United States on tyranny with my 8th graders, and I have never seen so many of my students engaged in discussion! One of my normally non-avid readers came up to me at the end of the class and said, “Ms. V, this is such an interesting book!”

I am so proud to be using Howard Zinn’s work! Thank you!

—Marisa Villegas
Middle School Humanities Teacher, Oakland, California

I routinely use A People’s History of the United States in my APUSH class to differentiate between the narrative and facts. We always read the chapter on Christopher Columbus to really set the standard on how history has been romanticized away from truth to promote pure patriotism.

—Tyler George
High School Social Studies Teacher, Clinton, Michigan

From A People’s History of the United States, I use Howard Zinn’s chapter on the U.S. -Mexico War as a starting point to teach my students Imperialism, Manifest Destiny, and Westward Invasion.

Along with the book, students read primary sources from many sources, including Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. These sources have even inspired their own anti-war protest signs.

—April Tondelli
History Teacher, Chicago, Illinois

Because of this book, I understood early in my college career the importance of the true, unfiltered words of the actual actors in a historical event. As a result, I was drawn further into the study of history and, eventually, into my career as a history teacher. What A People’s History brought to my attention is that American history is much more interesting than that. Our history is an exciting, sometimes appalling, struggle for power and that makes us just like every other country that has ever existed.

A long list of “good guys” with no one to struggle with is neither a true story nor a good story. It doesn’t resonate because it leads the student to believe that we are all waiting for the next exceptional leader, instead of becoming a force for change in our own communities. A People’s History helped me recognize this as a student of history and inspires my attempt to bring true stories to young people, weary of the inaccessible lists that history teaching has become.

—Reynolds Bodenhamer
HIgh School Social Studies Teacher, Gulfport, Mississippi

In my classroom, I use Chapter One from A People’s History of the United States — the arrival of Columbus — juxtaposed with the “textbook’s” telling of the impact of Columbus’ arrival.

My students focus particularly on the primary sources therein to discuss perspectives of history, and how history is recorded and retold. Who decides which history is learned?

—Stefanie Santangelo
Teacher, Oakton, Virginia
Dawn Fontaine (photo) | Zinn Education Project

In my first year of teaching 15 years ago, I was browsing local bookstores for resources that could supplement the textbook that I resented. I became a history teacher to help students make history a living part of their lives and the textbook seemed to have the opposite effect. I grabbed A People’s History of the United States and have yet to put it down.

The way in which Howard Zinn makes history compelling for students is undeniable and a resource that I have decided I — and my students — cannot be without. Many students who find themselves in alternative programs will often say that teachers never made school interesting. Zinn’s work gave me the resource I needed to capture the internal sense of justice so many urban students have. As an educator, I am filled with excitement that although I opened the window with the help of Howard Zinn, they have made the effort to examine what is outside.

—Dawn Fontaine
High School Social Studies Teacher, Springfield, Massachusetts
Berry Craig

I have been a Howard Zinn fan since I picked up a copy of A People’s History when it first came out. I have cited it in more newspaper opinion columns than I can remember. I also quoted from it many times in my lectures at West Kentucky Community and Technical College, where I was on the faculty for 36 years. I recommended the book to my students. I still recommend the book to my union brothers and sisters — I’m the webmaster-editor for the Kentucky State AFL-CIO, a member of the state executive board and a retiree-member of AFT Local 1360. More than a few have bought copies of it.

—Berry Craig
Professor Emeritus of History, West Kentucky Community and Technical College, Louisville, Kentucky

Reading Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States as a freshman in college solidified my desire to study history. I was enamored by the book’s passionate prose and its unwavering condemnation of the crimes of the U.S. government. I was equally shocked by the fact that almost none of it was taught in my U.S. history class; it felt like I was reading something forbidden or scandalous, which kept me interested and engaged. Whether conscious of it or not at the time, reading through it with that lens surely also inspired me to study education later on.

—Gertrude Carrington
Social Studies Teacher, New York

Back in high school, I was lucky enough to have a dynamic, outside-of-the-box teacher. Instead of the usual textbooks for our U.S. history class, this teacher gave us a snippet of Howard Zinn.

Thanks to that introduction, A People’s History of the United States became one of the defining books of my young education. That book opened my eyes to new perspectives, concepts, and historical figures that directly impacted my life.

Thanks to that early exposure, I got involved in social justice and human rights work, and now get to help inspire similar awakenings in students today through my work with the Speak Truth to Power education curriculum!

—Andrew Graber
Teacher Educator, Washington, District of Columbia

Reading text from the front lines of strikes, the innards of factory life, the embattled marches of the women’s suffrage movement, and the fields of the tenant farmer, puts a human face on what can seem a faceless “movement.”

—Scott Camillo
High School Social Studies Teacher, Washington, District of Columbia

I will never forget, as a brand new social studies teacher in Brooklyn, being told of Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States by veteran teacher Jack Urlich at Sarah J. Hale High School back in 1986.

Jack emphasized that this was the seminal work and could easily be used in the classroom. My students always found the readings refreshing compared to the stale textbooks.

I continue to use A People’s History of the United States in my classroom today.

—John Elfrank-Dana
High School Social Studies Teacher, New York, New York

Reading A People’s History opened my eyes to new ways of teaching writing. On a number of occasions, I taught a course in “Local History,” which asked students to research and write about people, places, and events in their communities. This experience underlined how “history” is a human product, with all its attendant biases and challenges, in terms of “objectivity” or “truth.”

I also used, in classroom instruction, pages from various history textbooks, covering the same events, but showing distinct differences in perspective.

The lesson that stands out is a series of three versions of the Great Railroad Strike of 1877, an event that happened to a large extent in Pennsylvania, where our college is located. One text (the most frequently used) gave a bland statement of mere facts and suffered from what we now call “both-siderism.” Another supported the railroad companies’ view of the strike and emphasized how destructive to commerce the strike was. A third (Zinn’s) supported the workers’ perspective and pointed out the nearly slave wages and working conditions of that time.

This lesson did lots to open up students’ eyes to history as a human document, made by us. It inspired students to write more truly and with more interest in their chosen topics. I believe Zinn’s work helped me see how we can make the past, personal and social, more alive and honest.

I tried to bring such ideas to my final position at the college, when I directed faculty development, encouraging my colleagues to create learning experiences that students could attach to, feel real ownership of. Thus, actually doing better work, and learning more. If I hadn’t taught English, I would have taught History. And, I would have used Howard Zinn’s text as the absolute antidote to “status quo” teaching.

—James Benner
College English Teacher (Retired), Manasquan, New Jersey

Read more quotes from teachers about the impact of Howard Zinn and A People’s History of the United States on their work.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1. Columbus, the Indians, and Human Progress
Chapter 2. Drawing the Color Line
Chapter 3. Persons of Mean and Vile Condition
Chapter 4. Tyranny Is Tyranny
Chapter 5. A Kind of Revolution
Chapter 6. The Intimately Oppressed
Chapter 7. As Long as Grass Grows or Water Runs
Chapter 8. We Take Nothing by Conquest, Thank God
Chapter 9. Slavery Without Submission, Emancipation Without Freedom
Chapter 10. The Other Civil War
Chapter 11. Robber Barons and Rebels
Chapter 12. The Empire and the People
Chapter 13. The Socialist Challenge
Chapter 14. War Is the Health of the State
Chapter 15. Self-help in Hard Times
Chapter 16. A Peoples War?
Chapter 17. Or Does It Explode?
Chapter 18. The Impossible Victory: Vietnam
Chapter 19. Surprises
Chapter 20. The Seventies: Under Control?
Chapter 21. Carter-Reagan-Bush: The Bipartisan Consensus
Chapter 22. The Unreported Resistance
Chapter 23. The Coming Revolt of the Guards
Chapter 24. The Clinton Presidency
Chapter 25. The 2000 Election and the “War on Terrorism”

The post A People’s History of the United States: 1492 – Present appeared first on Zinn Education Project.

]]>
https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/peoples-history-of-the-united-states/feed/ 0 67
Bread and Roses, Too https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/bread-and-roses-too/ Mon, 26 Dec 2005 20:07:51 +0000 http://www.zinnedproject.org/wp/?p=476 Book — Fiction. By Katherine Paterson. 2006. 275 pages.
Moving young adult historical-fiction novel based on a major strike in Lawrence, Mass., in 1912.

The post Bread and Roses, Too appeared first on Zinn Education Project.

]]>
breadA moving story based on a major strike in Lawrence, Mass. in 1912. With two teenagers as the protagonists, Paterson introduces the reader to the IWW, major figures such as Big Bill Haywood and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, multi-nationality worker solidarity, the role of labor songs, and the various tactics used by the company to undermine the strike.

“The famous ‘Bread and Roses’ strike of 1912 in Lawrence, Mass. is the setting for this novel written for young adults. Rosa, an Italian immigrant lives in tenement housing with her baby brother, widowed mother and older sister who both work in the mills. While they join in solidarity, the labor strike, Rosa worries about their safety and how her family will survive with no income. Jake, a few years older than Rosa, works in the mill to support himself and his alcoholic father and cannot go to school. These two characters meet and offer two different perspectives of many issues including, labor unions, working conditions, child labor, education, and immigration. Once again Ms. Paterson has created characters kids can understand and identify with, using an historic setting that makes this a book ideal for both Language Arts and Social Studies.” —Amy Miller, 7th grade Language Arts Teacher

ISBN: 9780547076515 | Houghton Mifflin

The post Bread and Roses, Too appeared first on Zinn Education Project.

]]>
476
Testing, Tracking, and Toeing the Line: A Role Play on the Origins of the Modern High School https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/testing-tracking-and-toeing-the-line/ Tue, 10 Nov 2009 16:56:21 +0000 http://www.zinnedproject.org/wp/?p=590 Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow. Rethinking Schools. 13 pages.
A role play on the origins of the modern high school allows students to question aspects of schooling they often take for granted, such as tracking (“ability grouping”) and standardized testing — and to reflect on the racial biases of these so-called reforms.

The post Testing, Tracking, and Toeing the Line: A Role Play on the Origins of the Modern High School appeared first on Zinn Education Project.

]]>
What we don’t teach in school can be more important than what we do teach. When we fail to engage students in thinking critically about their own schooling, the hidden message is: Don’t analyze the institutions that shape your lives; don’t ask who benefits, who suffers, and how it got to be this way; just shut up and do as you’re told.

Soldiers take a psychological test (the exact type of examination is unclear) in Camp Lee in Virginia in November 1917, the year the United States entered World War I and Woodworth first developed his test. Source: National Archives

To explore some of the historical roots of the modern high school, I wrote a role play that I hoped would allow students to question aspects of schooling they often take for granted, such as tracking (“ability grouping”), standardized testing, guidance counseling, student government, the flag salute, bells, required courses with patriotic themes, and extracurricular activities like athletics and the school newspaper. These now commonplace components of high school life were introduced in the early years of the 20th century, a time of growing union militancy and radicalism, and large-scale immigration from southern and eastern Europe, accompanied by vastly increased high school enrollment.

Underlying the new reforms was a consensus among leading educators that social class stratification was here to stay, and that high schools should abandon a single academic curriculum for all students.


Rethinking Our ClassroomsLesson originally published by Rethinking Schools | Zinn Education Project

This lesson was originally published by Rethinking Schools in Rethinking Our Classrooms: Teaching For Equity and Justice (Volume 1).


Background Materials

  • Paul Davis Chapman,  Schools as Sorters, New York University Press, 1988 (especially Chapter 5, “The Use of Intelligence Tests in Schools: California Case Studies”).
  • David Tyack, The One Best System: A History of American Urban Education, Harvard University Press, 1974.
  • Joel Spring,  The American School, 1642-1985, Longman, 1986 (especially Chapter 7, “Education and Human Capital”).
  • Robert S. Lynd and Helen M. Lynd, Middletown, Harcourt, Brace, 1929 (especially part II: “Training the Young”).
  • Jeannie Oakes,  Keeping Track: How Schools Structure Inequality, Yale University Press, 2005 (Chapter 2, “Unlocking the Tradition”).
  • Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America, Basic Books, 1976, (Chapters 5 and 6, “The Origins of Mass Public Education” and “Corporate Capital and Progressive Education”).

The post Testing, Tracking, and Toeing the Line: A Role Play on the Origins of the Modern High School appeared first on Zinn Education Project.

]]>
590
Lawrence, 1912: The Singing Strike https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/lawrence-1912-singing-strike/ https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/lawrence-1912-singing-strike/#comments Thu, 19 Nov 2009 17:23:11 +0000 http://www.zinnedproject.org/wp/?p=703 Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow and Norm Diamond.
Role play on the 1912 Bread and Roses strike in Lawrence, Mass.

The post Lawrence, 1912: The Singing Strike appeared first on Zinn Education Project.

]]>
Bread and Roses March, 1912 | Zinn Education Project: Teaching People's History

Click for more resources for teaching about the Lawrence Textile Strike of 1912.

This activity embodies a couple of key insights of Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States. One is that history is not inevitable. People’s choices matter. Through role play, students in this lesson explore some of the actual dilemmas faced by strikers in Lawrence, Massachusetts, in 1912. Here, the teaching methodology is designed to match the history itself, as students portray Industrial Workers of the World (I.W.W.)  organizers deciding how — and for what — to conduct a massive strike. The other is that social class matters. Too often, traditional textbooks and curricula neglect the way social class has shaped our country’s history and how people’s understanding of class has influenced their actions.

Social class is at the heart of this lesson, as it is at the heart of so much of Howard Zinn’s work. This activity — co-authored with Norm Diamond and included originally in the book The Power in Our Hands: A Curriculum on the History of Work and Workers in the United States — highlights how unions can have different goals and structures than the ones that predominate today.

One Big Union, by Josh MacPhee. Source: Justseeds

In “Lawrence, 1912,” students contrast the American Federation of Labor and the Industrial Workers of the World. Students act as, and empathize with, union organizers. The role play illustrates, well, the power in our hands — one of the first major victories for U.S. labor, and an inspirational instance of worker solidarity. This lesson broadens students’ sense of what workers can and do fight for beyond wages and benefits.

This is one of the 16 lessons available from The Power In Our Hands.

Classroom Stories


I have used the Lawrence Singing Strike lesson in the classroom for two years now, and it’s become one of the most successful activities that I do! It’s been incredible to see how students go about problem-solving as they take on the role of striking workers, figuring out how to prioritize their demands, which strategies they should use, and how they can best organize.

It’s a unique role play in that students have a lot of control over how they work through the issues-and they don’t have to play super structured “set” roles. It’s completely student centered. It’s SO interesting to see which classes end up selecting one leader, which ones end up with a more democratic setup, etc.

The feedback that I have received from students is that it feels like a valuable way to learn as they are working together in an authentic way to solve a problem. I highly recommend this activity!

—Kate Jensen
High School Social Studies Teacher, New York

 

The post Lawrence, 1912: The Singing Strike appeared first on Zinn Education Project.

]]>
https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/lawrence-1912-singing-strike/feed/ 1 703
The Singing Strike and the Rebel Students: Learning from the Industrial Workers of the World https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/singing-strike-and-the-rebel-student https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/singing-strike-and-the-rebel-student#respond Sun, 08 Nov 2009 21:49:59 +0000 http://www.zinnedproject.org/wp/?p=1452 Reading for Teachers. By Bill Bigelow. 7 pages.
Author describes how students applied strategies from the Lawrence strike to their own present day activism.

The post The Singing Strike and the Rebel Students: Learning from the Industrial Workers of the World appeared first on Zinn Education Project.

]]>
The Singing Strike and the Rebel Students: Learning from the Industrial Workers of the World (Teaching Activity) | Zinn Education Project: Teaching People's History. . . This sudden outburst of student activism was, in fact, not so sudden. Over the year, Linda’s and my class focused on issues of social justice and resistance — ours was a “talk back” curriculum. We wanted students to feel themselves part of an American, even international, tradition of struggle against oppression. From Taíno Indian resistance against Columbus and Spanish colonialism, to Shays’ Rebellion of poor farmers after the American Revolution, to the Abolition movement, to our most recent unit on the U.S. labor movement, we hoped students would draw inspiration and wisdom from the past. Linda and I thought they ought to know that if they act against injustice, they’re in good company. “History is not just stories about dead people,” we told them the first day of class. “History should be of use.”

Through role plays, simulations, improvisations, class discussions, and assignments of imaginative and personal writing, we tried to encourage critical thought and student initiative.

In brief, this was the pedagogical context that may have provoked students’ response to Willamette Week’s attack — not to mention that this was an extraordinarily talented, big-hearted group of young people. But a role play students had just completed on the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and the 1912 Lawrence, Massachusetts, textile strike — “the singing strike” — shaped the specific form of student actions.

Rethinking Schools

The post The Singing Strike and the Rebel Students: Learning from the Industrial Workers of the World appeared first on Zinn Education Project.

]]>
https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/singing-strike-and-the-rebel-student/feed/ 0 1452
Socialists and Wobblies https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/socialists-and-wobblies/ Tue, 11 Nov 2008 17:24:55 +0000 http://www.zinnedproject.org/wp/?p=1571 Teaching Activity. By Gayle Olson-Raymer. 17 pages.
Questions and teaching ideas for Chapter 13 of Voices of a People's History of the United States on the labor movement at the turn of the century.

The post Socialists and Wobblies appeared first on Zinn Education Project.

]]>
Teaching With Voices of a People's History

Today’s generation of young adults have a difficult time imagining the early twentieth century. Indeed, it is hard to imagine a time when there were 100,000 registered Socialists, 1,200 of whom held elected offices; when there were 4,000 labor strikes in a single year; when an avowed Socialist ran for president and received 900,000 votes; when women put their lives on the line for the right to vote. These were heady times, full of spirited resistance to a system that had ignored working Americans for far too long.

Almost a hundred years later, the actions and deeds of those who dared to question the establishment are vivid reminders of our power as ordinary Americans. It is an important message — the power of our dissenting voices and of our commitment to a more egalitarian society for our students to hear.

Reprinted from Teaching with Voices of a People’s History of the United States, published by Seven Stories Press.

 

The post Socialists and Wobblies appeared first on Zinn Education Project.

]]>
1571
Protesting the First World War https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/protesting-the-first-world-war/ Tue, 11 Nov 2008 17:26:51 +0000 http://www.zinnedproject.org/wp/?p=1582 Teaching Activity. By Colby Smart.
Questions and teaching ideas for Chapter 14 of Voices of a People's History of the United States on anti-war efforts during the first World War, as well as the U.S. government's response.

The post Protesting the First World War appeared first on Zinn Education Project.

]]>
Teaching With Voices of a People's History

Evocative primary source documents are especially important to our discussions of World War I. While any analysis of the war “to make the world safe for democracy” demonstrates the downward spiral into militaristic violence that ushered in a century of unparalleled destruction, most traditional discussions are devoid of antiwar voices and actions. Yet without this perspective, students leave the subject of World War I thinking that the vast majority of Americans willingly fought in the war and/or unquestioningly supported the war effort. As historians, we know that such was not the case.

In Chapter 14 of Voices of  a People’s History of the United States, students are exposed to first-hand accounts of how Americans opposed the war and the trend toward militarism. These voices not only illustrate the widespread nature of the antiwar movement, they also highlight the federal government’s calculated reaction to the movement and the way in which the war influenced art and literature among the generation who survived the war.

Photo Credit: Library of Congress

From Library of Congress.

Our students will learn of the dynamic nature that comprised the antiwar appeal to the imperialistic foundation of the war, and they will come away with an understanding of how the views of these antiwar activists were, in many cases, systematically suppressed. Finally, these documents of resistance better equip our students with the tools they will need to become, critical, responsive and thorough practitioners of historical thought.

 

 

Reprinted from Teaching with Voices of a People’s History of the United States, published by Seven Stories Press.

 


Text Excerpts and Readings

Helen Keller with a soldier.

Excerpts from the January 5, 1916 speech by Helen Keller at Carnegie Hall, from Chapter 14 of Voices of a People’s History:

“The future of the world rests in the hands of America. The future of America rests on the backs of 80,000,000 working men and women and their children. We are facing a grave crisis in our national life. The few who profit from the labor of the masses want to organize the workers into an army which will protect the interests of the capitalists . . .

“Congress is not preparing to defend the people of the United States. It is planning to protect the capital of American speculators and investors in Mexico, South America, China, and the Philippine Islands. Incidentally, this preparation will benefit the manufacturers of munitions and war machines . . .

“Every modern war has had its root in exploitation. The Civil War was fought to decide whether slaveholders of the South or the capitalists of the North should exploit the West. The Spanish-American War decided that the United States should exploit Cuba and the Philippines. The South African War decided that the British should exploit the diamond mines. The Russo-Japanese War decided that Japan should exploit Korea . . .

“Strike against all ordinances and laws and institutions that continue the slaughter of peace and the butcheries of war. Strike against war, for without you no battles can be fought. Strike against manufacturing shrapnel and gas bombs and all other tools of murder. Strike against preparedness that means death and misery to millions of human beings. Be not dumb, obedient slaves in an army of destruction. Be heroes in an army of construction.”

Read full speech online.


The Truth About Helen Keller

The Truth About Helen Keller is a critical analysis of the representation of Helen Keller in children’s literature and textbooks.


10 Readings for Students

Chapter 14 of Voices of a People’s History, “Protesting the First World War” offers 10 readings for students with perspectives that are often missing from textbooks.

  • Helen Keller, “Strike Against War” (January 5, 1916)
  • John Reed, “Whose War?” (April 1917)
  • “Why the IWW Is Not Patriotic to the United States” (1918)
  • Emma Goldman, Address to the Jury in U.S. v. Emma Goldman and
  • Alexander Berkman (July 9, 1917)
  • Two Antiwar Speeches by Eugene Debs (1918)
    • “The Canton, Ohio Speech” (June 16, 1918)
    • Statement to the Court (September 18, 1918)
  • Randolph Bourne, “The State” (1918)
  • e.e. cummings, “i sing of Olaf glad and big” (1931)
  • John Dos Passos, “The Body of an American” (1932)
  • Dalton Trumbo, Johnny Got His Gun (1939)

 

The post Protesting the First World War appeared first on Zinn Education Project.

]]>
1582
Hubert Harrison https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/harrison-hubert/ https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/harrison-hubert/#comments Tue, 12 Sep 2006 20:47:22 +0000 http://www.zinnedproject.org/?p=4585 Profile. By Jeffrey B. Perry.
Overview of the life and work scholar and activist Hubert Harrison.

The post Hubert Harrison appeared first on Zinn Education Project.

]]>

We are saddened to learn of the death of Jeffrey Perry on September 24, 2022. He devoted decades to documenting and publishing the work of Hubert Harrison, including with the essay below. In Perry’s memory, we encourage everyone to carry on that effort of introducing more readers to Harrison’s brilliant work.

By Jeffrey B. Perry 

Hubert Harrison (1883-1927) is one of the truly important figures of early twentieth-century America. A brilliant writer, orator, educator, critic, and political activist, he was described by the historian Joel Augustus Rogers as “the foremost Afro-American intellect of his time.”

Labor and civil rights leader A. Philip Randolph described Harrison as “the father of Harlem Radicalism.” Harrison’s friend and pallbearer, Arturo Schomburg, fully aware of his popularity, eulogized to the thousands attending Harrison’s Harlem funeral that he was also “ahead of his time.”

Born in St. Croix, Danish West Indies, in 1883, Harrison arrived in New York as a 17-year-old orphan in 1900. He made his mark in the United States by struggling against class and race oppression, by helping to create a remarkably rich and vibrant intellectual life among African Americans, and by working for the enlightened development of the lives of “the common people.”

He consistently emphasized the need for working class people to develop class consciousness; for “Negroes” to develop race consciousness, self-reliance, and self-respect; and for all those he reached to challenge white supremacy and develop modern, scientific, critical, and independent thought as a means toward liberation.

A self-described “radical internationalist,” Harrison was extremely well-versed in history and events in Africa, Asia, the Mideast, the Americas, and Europe. More than any other political leader of his era, he combined class consciousness and anti-white supremacist race consciousness in a coherent political radicalism. He opposed capitalism and maintained that white supremacy was central to capitalist rule in the United States.

He emphasized that “politically, the Negro is the touchstone of the modern democratic idea”; that “as long as the Color Line exists, all the perfumed protestations of Democracy on the part of the white race” were “downright lying”; that “the cant of ‘Democracy’” was “intended as dust in the eyes of white voters”; and that true democracy and equality for “Negroes” implied “a revolution . . . startling even to think of.”

Working from this theoretical framework, he was active with a wide variety of movements and organizations and played signal roles in the development of what were, up to that time, the largest class radical movement (socialism) and the largest race radical movement (the “New Negro”/Garvey movement) in U.S. history. His ideas on the centrality of the struggle against white supremacy anticipated the profound transformative power of the Civil Rights/Black Liberation struggles of the 1960s and his thoughts on “democracy in America” offer penetrating insights on the limitations and potential of America in the twenty-first century.

Harrison served as the foremost Black organizer, agitator, and theoretician in the Socialist Party of New York during its 1912 heyday; he founded the first organization (the Liberty League) and the first newspaper (“The Voice“) of the militant, World War I-era “New Negro” movement; and he served as the editor of the Negro World and principal radical influence on the Garvey movement during its radical high point in 1920. His views on race and class profoundly influenced a generation of “New Negro” militants including the class radical A. Philip Randolph and the race radical Marcus Garvey.

Considered more race conscious than Randolph and more class conscious than Garvey, Harrison is the key link in the ideological unity of the two great trends of the Black Liberation Movement — the labor and civil rights trend associated with Martin Luther King Jr., and the race and nationalist trend associated with Malcolm X. (Randolph and Garvey were, respectively, the direct links to King marching on Washington, with Randolph at his side, and to Malcolm, whose parents were involved with the Garvey movement, speaking militantly and proudly on street corners in Harlem.)

Harrison was not only a political radical, however. Rogers described him as an “Intellectual Giant and Free-Lance Educator,” whose contributions were wide-ranging, innovative, and influential. He was an immensely skilled and popular orator and educator who spoke and/or read six languages; a highly praised journalist, critic, and book reviewer (reportedly the first regular Black book reviewer “in Negro newspaperdom”); a pioneer Black activist in the freethought and birth control movements; a bibliophile and library builder and popularizer who helped develop the 135th Street Public Library into what became known as the internationally famous Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture; a pioneer Black lecturer for the New York City Board of Education, and one of its foremost orators). His biography offers profound insights on race, class, religion, immigration, war, democracy, and social change in America.

Jeffrey B. Perry was an archivist, bibliophile, and historian. Read more at Jeffrey B. Perry’s website.

The post Hubert Harrison appeared first on Zinn Education Project.

]]>
https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/harrison-hubert/feed/ 1 4585
Remembering Jim Crow: African Americans Tell About Life in the Segregated South https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/remembering-jim-crow/ Sun, 16 Apr 2006 17:17:22 +0000 http://www.zinnedproject.org/?p=4816 Book — Non-fiction (with CD). Edited by William H. Chafe, Raymond Gavins and Robert Korstad. 2008. 346 pages.
Extensive oral history of African American life under segregation.

The post Remembering Jim Crow: African Americans Tell About Life in the Segregated South appeared first on Zinn Education Project.

]]>
rememberingjimcrowBased on interviews collected by the Behind the Veil Project at Duke University’s Center for Documentary Studies, this remarkable book presents the most extensive oral history ever of African American life under segregation.

In vivid, compelling accounts, men and women from all walks of life tell how their day-to-day activity was subjected to profound and unrelenting racial oppression. At the same time, Remembering Jim Crow is a testament to how black southerners fought back against the system, raising children, building churches and schools, running businesses, and struggling for respect in a society that denied them the most basic rights.  [Publisher’s description.]

ISBN: 9781595583345 | The New Press

 

The post Remembering Jim Crow: African Americans Tell About Life in the Segregated South appeared first on Zinn Education Project.

]]>
4816
A People’s History of the United States: Highlights from the Twentieth Century (Audio) https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/peoples-history-of-the-united-states-highlights-audio Fri, 09 May 2003 17:14:30 +0000 http://www.zinnedproject.org/?p=5547 Audio. By Howard Zinn. Read by Matt Damon. 2003. 8 hours, 44 minutes.
Audio book version of excerpted highlights from A People's History of the United States.

The post A People’s History of the United States: Highlights from the Twentieth Century (Audio) appeared first on Zinn Education Project.

]]>
peopleshistory_audioKnown for its lively, clear prose as well as its scholarly research, Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States is the only volume to tell America’s story from the point of view of — and in the words of — its women, factory workers, African-Americans, Native Americans, working poor, and immigrant laborers. Here we learn that many of our country’s greatest battles — labor laws, women’s rights, racial equality — were carried out at the grassroots level, against steel-willed resistance. This edition of A People’s History of the United States features insightful analysis of some of the most important events in this country in the past one hundred years.

Features a preface and afterword read by the author himself.  [Publisher’s description.]

ISBN: 9780060754143 | HarperAudio

The post A People’s History of the United States: Highlights from the Twentieth Century (Audio) appeared first on Zinn Education Project.

]]>
5547