Oral History Research Center jmccartney Wed, 10/07/2009 - 15:06
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Photo, "The Kim Sisters at a table in Reno"
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Established in 1905, Las Vegas, NV, officially became a city in 1911. Its growth and development over the course of the 20th century is documented through this diverse collection of oral histories. Eight oral histories, in video, audio, and transcript format, expose aspects of daily life in early Las Vegas from the 1930s to the 1960s. Las Vegas showgirls Anna Bailey, Carol Baker, Betty Bunch, Sook-ja, Ai-ja, Mia Kim, and Virginia James discuss working conditions on the Las Vegas strip in the 1960s and 70s as well as their involvement with prominent shows, the racial integration of showrooms, and the growth of the Las Vegas Korean community. Present-day Las Vegas comes to life through oral histories and videos of six women in their 70s and 80s who tap dance together several times a week at the West Las Vegas Arts Center. Segregation, integration, the Nevada Test Site, and local history in Las Vegas are the focus of the oral history roundtable with Rose Hamilton and four other women who grew up together in Las Vegas and remain friends to this day.

Instigating a Ban on "Spirituous Liquors"

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Lithograph, The Tree of Temperance, 1872, Currier & Ives, LOC
Question

What caused the temperance movement in the U.S.?

Answer

The causes of the temperance movement in the United States can be understood as emerging from religious, social, and economic circumstances. Distinct from 20th-century prohibitionists who supported total abstinence through public policy, supporters of the 19th-century temperance movement sought disciplined drinking, and found an early advocate in Dr. Benjamin Rush’s 1784 essay The Effects of Spirituous Liquors. In words intended to influence individual behavior, Rush argued that alcohol, when overused, was unhealthy. A few years later, this message was expanded into one of the reasons for the formation of an organization in Andover, MA, which intended to improve society through pledges of abstinence. By 1826, the American Temperance Society, a federation of over 8,000 temperance societies in towns and cities across the United States, claimed a million and a half members.

. . . women had special reasons to create their own temperance societies.

These enthusiasts were attracted to a message they heard from the pulpit: too much alcohol was a sin against God. The famous Congregational, later Presbyterian pastor Lyman Beecher was one of the most famous evangelical preachers who delivered this message when he urged all ministers to discuss the problem with their congregations, making clear that parents must stop drinking at home and employers must stop offering their employees grog. Imbued with the understanding that all Christians must strive for perfection, church members became willing participants in organized temperance societies. The Second Great Awakening, the crusade that began in the 1790s and continued into the early 19th century, further emphasized the responsibility of every believer for their own soul.

One of the other catalysts for the temperance movement was the increased availability of spirits for a generation of Americans whose water supplies were often contaminated. During the 1820s, the decade when the American Temperance Society was organized, the per capita levels of American drinking were at an all-time high. All forms of liquor, whether whiskey distilled from the surpluses of grain or the ubiquitous and powerful cider fermented from apples, were easily purchased in grocery stores or enjoyed in the all-male taverns that became the clubs of workmen.

For supporters of the temperance movement, public drunkenness became a distressing sign of how far the United States had strayed from its roots among those prudent hardworking founders. As the United States industrialized, employers sought sober disciplined workers who came to work on time. At the same time, women had special reasons to create their own temperance societies. Shunned in male associations, they confronted drunkenness in their homes. The great leader of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, Frances Willard, had an alcoholic brother and she was only one of many women who found salvation in a movement that sought to control a problem with both public and private ramifications.

For more information

Rush, Benjamin. "An Inquiry into the Effects of Spirituous Liquors on the Human Body : To Which is Added, a Moral and Physical Thermometer." Boston: Thomas and Andrews, 1790.

Brown University Library Center for Digital Scholarship. Alcohol, Temperance, & Prohibition.

Bibliography

Gusfield, Joseph. Symbolic Crusade: Status Politics and The American Temperance Movement. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1963.

Rorabaugh, W. J. The Alcoholic Republic: An American Tradition. New York: Oxford University Press, 1979.

Borden, Ruth. Women and Temperance The Quest for Power and Liberty. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1981.

U.S. Coast Guard

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The United States Coast Guard, one of the five U.S. military branches, protects the environment and U.S. citizens, economic interests, and security in the world's oceans and bodies of inland water. Specific duties include rescue operations and maritime law.

The Coast Guard's home on the web is certainly not the easiest to navigate of the Armed Forces sites. However, it does contain a noteworthy amount of content which could be put to use in the classroom, particularly background information for teachers or for student reports.

Items worth your attention include a Coast Guard blog with posts on the organization's history; a list of Coast Guard historical events, organized by day of the year; overall and regional history overviews, most in the form of PowerPoint presentations or articles; and histories of Coast Guard assets, missions, and personnel, including women and minorities.

Primary sources are also available in abundance. These include oral histories divided by theme and military engagement, back issues of official magazines, a selection of documents dating from 1791 through the late 20th century, and galleries of historic photographs. The photographs can be compared to recent images and artworks located within the Coast Guard multimedia gallery. Of the magazines, the majority offer back issues from the 2000s. However, The Reservist offers issues dating as far back as the 1950s.

If you are looking specifically for children's activities, check out "Just for Kids (and Teachers!)", which offers coloring books, information on animal mascots adopted by various Coast Guard units, teacher's guides for lighthouse and Coast Guard history, and images of lighthouses. You may also want to peruse the suggested reading list for even more in depth preparation.

Another item worth your attention is a page devoted to U.S. revenue cutters during the War of 1812. On this page, you can find paintings, ship's plans, and illustrations of the cutters and their personnel; histories of individual cutters, Captain Frederick Lee, and prisoners of war; brief overviews of the role played by the cutters; and a bibliography to assist further research.

Finally, if you want to get the kids out of the classroom and you are in the Connecticut area, you could try the U.S. Coast Guard Museum. Not in New England? Try the artifact finder to pinpoint museums in your state with Coastie artifacts.

Maryland Historical Society Collections Online

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Painted tin hat shield, Maryland Historical Society, 1940.23.1
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The Maryland Historical Society owns millions of objects which could be key to bringing history to life for your class. A growing number of these items can be found in their digital collections.

The collections can be searched by title, creator, individual collection, or subject. At the time of writing, there are nine collections—the American Civil War; War of 1812; Paintings; African American History; Women's History; Mining the Museum (items on exhibit); Benjamin Henry Latrobe, an architect known for design the U.S. Capitol and the Baltimore Basilica; and works on paper. Artifacts include photographic images, engravings, broadsides, handwritten documents, a flag, a shadowbox, a knife, sketches, clothing, paintings, swords, a shield, a canteen, and more.

The original handwritten version of "The Star-Spangled Banner" may be of particular interest.

History: The National Park Service

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Logo, NPS History and Culture website
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Historical aspects of many of the 384 areas under the National Park Service's stewardship are presented in this expansive site. A "Links to the Past" section contains more than 25 text and picture presentations on such diverse history-related topics as archeology, architecture, cultural groups and landscapes, historic buildings, and military history. Of particular interest to teachers, a section entitled "Teaching with Historic Places" features more than 60 lesson plans designed "to enliven the teaching of history, social studies, geography, civics, and other subjects" by incorporating National Register of Historic Places into educational explorations of historic subjects. Examples include an early rice plantation in South Carolina; the lives of turn-of-the-century immigrant cigar makers near Tampa, Florida; a contrast between the Indianapolis headquarters of African-American businesswoman Madam C. J. Walker and a small store in Kemmerer, Wyoming, that grew into the J. C. Penney Company, the first nationwide department store chain; the Civil War Andersonville prisoner of war camp; President John F. Kennedy's birthplace; the Liberty Bell; Finnish log cabins in Iowa; and the Massachusetts Bay Colony's Saugus Iron Works. Especially useful for teachers interested in connecting the study of history with historic sites.

Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition

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Image, Page from the journals, Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition
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This well-designed site presents the Nebraska edition of the Lewis and Clark journals, edited by Gary E. Moulton. The site provides the complete text of all the journals from the 1803–1806 expedition, as well as introductions, prefaces, and sources. The material is searchable by keyword and phrase.

There are 29 scholarly essays about the expedition. An image gallery offers 124 images of pages from the journals, 95 images of people and places, and 50 images of plants and animals encountered on the expedition. The maps section includes 12 explanatory maps and nine images of maps from the journals. Additionally, there are 27 audio excerpts of journal readings and eight video interviews with the editor of the project. The website stands as an outstanding resource for researching the history of the Lewis and Clark expedition.

Hannah Arendt Papers

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Graphic, The Hannah Arendt Papers
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Due to copyright restrictions, only a small portion of the more than 25,000 digitized items from the Hannah Arendt papers can be viewed outside of three locations. Visitors who are not at the Library of Congress, New School University in New York City, or Carl von Ossietzky University in Oldenburg, Germany, may, however, view almost all of the collection's documents relating to the Adolph Eichmann trial and Arendt's book, Eichmann in Jerusalem. Material in this collection includes correspondence with holocaust survivors, minutes of the trial, Arendt's notes, and positive and negative reviews of the book. About one quarter of Arendt's general correspondence from 1938 to 1975, arranged alphabetically by correspondent, is available. Visitors may access eight folders of notes, lectures, fiction, and poetry from the 1920s and 1940s and all of Arendt's appointment books from 1972 to 1975. All material is in facsimile, much of it in German. Most of a collection of lecture notes, correspondence with students, and royalty statements for Arendt's books from 1949 to 1975 is available offline. Nearly half of a collection of drafts of Arendt's books, On Revolution and Between Past and Future may also be accessed from any location. Although limited, the site will be interesting for research on Arendt, modern Europe, and philosophy.

Jewish Women and the Feminist Revolution

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Photo, Sonia Pressman Fuentes receiving EOCP Award, Jewish Women and. . .
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This exhibit explores the contributions of Jewish women in Feminism's "Second Wave" during which Jewish women helped work "to transform American society and Jewish life in America." It offers a collection of images, a timeline, and six thematic essays. The interactive timeline using the exhibit images allows the visitor to follow the role of Jewish women in the resurgence of the feminist movement from the 1960s through the end of the 20th century. The thematic essays—"Foremothers," "From Silence to Voice," "Setting the Feminist Agenda," "The Personal is Political," "Feminism is Judaism," and "Confronting Power"—combine images, audio clips, and statements from prominent Jewish feminists, as well as short biographies of the feminists. The visitor can search the entire collection of more than 90 objects and stories from Jewish feminists used in the essays or browse the collection by person, format, topic, or date. A useful resource for researching Jewish women or the history of the feminist movement.

A Portion of the People: Three Hundred Years of Southern Jewish Life

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Oil on canvas, Mary Olivia Lucas Harby. . . , c. 1830, A Portion of the People
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This exhibit tells "the story of Southern Jewish settlers and their descendants from the late 1600s through the 21st century." It currently consists of two presentations, each with more than 50 pages presenting an image from the exhibit's collection with accompanying explanatory text. Images include portraits, maps, historical documents, photographs of Jewish ritual books and religious and cultural objects, paintings and photographs of synagogues, and photographs of Jewish businesses. "First Families" explores the period from the 1600s to the 1820s through more than 50 images and "This Happy Land" explores the antebellum and Civil War years through more than 90 images. (The presentation "Pledging Allegiance," recounting the story of Jewish migration to the South in the first half of the 20th century, is under construction.) Visitors can listen to six interviews featuring voices from the past (transcripts are available). Additionally, a photographic essay with more than 40 photographs, "Palmetto Jews" by Bill Aron, examines Jewish life in South Carolina over the past 50 years. There is no site search capability.

Film Review: Iron Jawed Angels

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glass negative, Alice Paul, Bain News Service, LOC
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Today, when it seems that everyone is getting a make-over, so are the suffragists. Iron Jawed Angels, a recent film by HBO, dramatizes the final years of the American woman suffrage movement, from 1912 to the winning of the vote in 1920. Historians familiar with the classic documentary One Woman, One Vote (1996) will be amused by how the suffragists have been updated and recast to mirror our own contemporary sensibilities. This film portrays these women as you have never seen them before: shopping for fashionable hats, smoking and lounging in their undergarments, and marching to a soundtrack of hip-hop rhythms. They are more than “new women”; they are 21st-century women in their casual manner, informal speech, and attitudes toward men and sexuality. With this approach, the film modernizes our political foremothers in an attempt to win new audiences in a postfeminist age.

The film modernizes our political foremothers in an attempt to win new audiences in a postfeminist age.

Tensions between veteran activists and “new suffragists” are at the heart of the story. Hilary Swank stars as the outspoken and determined Alice Paul, and Frances O'Connor plays her faithful comrade, Lucy Burns. The dynamic duo represents the more youthful, radical wing of the movement, which confronts the more conservative Carrie Chapman Catt (Anjelica Huston) and Anna Howard Shaw (Lois Smith), president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). Allied with the Democratic party and the new president, Woodrow Wilson, Catt continues to support a gradual state-by-state campaign. She is portrayed as traditional, stuffy, and arrogant compared to the playful, optimistic, and impatient Paul who launches public demonstrations, supports a federal suffrage amendment, demands immediate results, and condemns the Democrats and Wilson, even in the midst of war. Paul and her allies eventually split with NAWSA to form a separate organization, the National Woman's Party. While historians have focused on the militant tactics of the new suffragists, the film fixates on their colorful personalities to separate them further from the old guard.

For an audience new to women's history, it conveys the very serious barriers to women's political participation and social justice.

Although the filmmakers try to reinvent the image of the suffragists, the storyline is based on the real troubles and triumphs of the campaign's final years. For an audience new to women's history, it conveys the very serious barriers to women's political participation and social justice. When the activists are physically attacked as they protest peacefully, the true hostility toward woman suffrage comes alive. The movie also contains a chilling portrayal of Paul's jail experience, showing her psychoanalyzed in the mental ward and violently force-fed after initiating a hunger strike. The film even acknowledges the racial tensions between white suffragists and African American activists, highlighting Paul's conflict with Ida B. Wells before the Washington, DC, parade in 1913. The film does take many liberties, however. For example, it overstates the influence of the radicals in winning the vote, downplaying the concerted effort of the entire suffrage spectrum and the impact of women's work and volunteerism during World War I. While historians have described Alice Paul as intellectually vigorous, personally conservative, and politically militant, the film transforms her into a spunky rebel who knows how to have fun but is still fully committed to her cause.

But this emphasis on beauty and charisma would surely disturb the suffragists, who would find these characters very foreign.

Is this what it takes to attract new audiences to women's history? In an age when many young women resist the feminist label, the film invites them to connect with feminists who are single, young, independent, sexually vibrant, and, of course, physically attractive. But this emphasis on beauty and charisma would surely disturb the suffragists, who would find these characters very foreign. This approach will also irritate historians of gender who have worked hard to define the suffragists as serious political actors and to integrate them into the American historical narrative. Viewed with a critical eye, Iron Jawed Angels could be useful for instructing students about history and popular culture, Hollywood and historical interpretation. It also forces us to grapple with more than feminism and its discontents. It can generate needed reflection on the ways historians can also be guilty of constructing historical personalities as they want to see them, by ignoring issues of race or dismissing the personal failures of our subjects. The challenge, then, remains to promote interest in women's history and still teach about who we think the suffragists were, rather than who we want them to be.

Bibliography

This review was first published in the Journal of American History, 91:3 (2004): 1131–1132. Reprinted with permission from the Organization of American Historians (OAH).