ANALYSIS OF AMERICAN HISTORY TEXTBOOKS
1965 - 1995
History, despite its wrenching pain,
Cannot be unlived, and if faced
With courage, need not be lived again.
- MAYA ANGELOU
Textbooks are used extensively in American history classes, so I have chosen the analysis of textbooks as the basis of my study. Ten previously used textbooks and ten currently used textbooks are analyzed in this chapter. The previously used textbooks were obtained from the Bonnie F. Johns Educational Media Center in Prince George's County, the only place that keeps an archive of old textbooks from this time period that have been used in the area's school systems. Because most school systems do not keep such an archive, it was impossible to get a representation of the entire Washington Metropolitan area in terms of the older textbooks. But I have found, from collecting the new textbooks, that the various school systems in the area tend to use many of the same textbooks from the big publishing companies: DC Heath; Globe Book Company; Harcourt Brace and Jovanovich; Houghton Mifflin; MacMillan/McGraw Hill; Scott Foresman; and Silver Burdett/Ginn.
The currently used textbooks are titles which the following cities or counties in the Washington Metropolitan Area use: Washington, DC; City of Alexandria, VA; Arlington County, VA; Fairfax County, VA; Loudoun County, VA; Montgomery County, MD; Prince George's County, MD; Howard County, MD; and Baltimore City, MD. I excluded the Social Studies textbooks devoted solely to Geography, World History, Politics, Civics, Maryland, and Virginia that were used at grade levels five through eight, and focused on the textbooks that exclusively cover American History. Of the textbooks that cover American History, I chose the ten most commonly used textbooks.
In analyzing the textbooks, I looked for coverage of several categories that I felt were important in order for students to understand the Native American experience in American history. The categories are: Pre-Contact America; The Age of Exploration; Christopher Columbus and the 1492 Encounter; Pestilence; Population; Ecological Impact; Geopolitical Impact; Relations Between the Indians and the Colonists; The Indian Wars; and The Twentieth Century.
This covers a substantial amount of information,
and every detail and argument concerning Native American history
could not be covered in the scope of this thesis. I singled out
the aspects that seemed most important in terms of a school-aged
child's understanding of the subject. Additionally, since it
was impossible, even within these limitations, to cover every
detail contained in every textbook in my discussion, I have included
a chart at the end of some of the sections that outlines the coverage
of that subject in the textbooks, and information which was relevant
to my discussion. The previously used textbooks are listed in
order of the date they were published, from oldest to newest,
in order to demonstrate any changing patterns that evolved between
1965 and 1989. Since all of the currently used textbooks, save
one, are published in the 1990s, they are listed in order of grade
level, from lowest to highest. The Pestilence, Population, Geopolitical
Impact, and Ecological Impact sections do not include charts because
there was limited amount of detail involved in each of these sections,
and therefore all relevant information was adequately covered
in the discussion.
PREVIOUSLY USED TEXTBOOKS | |||
TEXTBOOK | GRADE | YEAR | PUBLISHER |
Exploring Our Country | 5 | 1965 | Follett Publishing Co. |
Living in the Americas | 5 | 1966 | The Macmillan Co. |
Living in the United States | 6 | 1966 | The Macmillan Co. |
Five Centuries in America | 8 | 1966 | American Book Co. |
Liberty and Union |
8 | 1972 | Houghton Mifflin |
America! America! |
8 | 1977 | Scott, Foresman & Co. |
The American People | 5 | 1982 | DC Heath and Co. |
America Past and Present | 5 | 1983 | Scott, Foresman & Co. |
Our Country's History | 5 | 1983 | Scholastic Social Studies |
The United States: Its Past, Purpose and Promise | 8 | 1988 | Janus Books |
CURRENTLY USED TEXTBOOKS | |||
TEXTBOOK | GRADE | YEAR | PUBLISHER |
America Yesterday and Today | 5 | 1994 | Scott, Foresman & Co. |
Exploring America's Heritage |
5 | 1991 | DC Heath and Co. |
The United States Past to Present | 5 | 1989 | DC Heath and Co. |
America Will Be | 5/6 | 1994 | Houghton Mifflin |
The United States and Its Neighbors | 5/6 | 1994 | MacMillan/McGraw-Hill |
The United States: Its History and Neighbors |
6 | 1994 | Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich |
America: The People and the Dream | 7 | 1994 | Scott Foresman & Co. |
The American Nation | 7 | 1995 | Prentice-Hall |
A More Perfect Union | 8 | 1994 | Houghton Mifflin |
A History of US series: The First Americans; Making Thirteen Colonies; From Colonies to Country; The New Nation; Liberty for All; War, Terrible War; Reconstruction and Reform; An Age of Extremes; War, Peace, and All That Jazz; All The People |
5 - 8 |
1994 | DC Heath and Co. |