Defining Who We Are Through the Past

What is History? Why do I study it? Why do you come to this blog? Why do we care about our past?

These are questions I think about from time to time. Sometimes I know exactly why I study what I study, why I do what I do. Other days, I’m not so sure. What benefit can studying the past bring to my life? To society in general?

To begin, I need to define history. The dictionary on my computer defines history as “1. the study of past events, particularly in human affairs, 2. the whole series of past events connected with someone or something, 3. a continuous, typically chronological record of important or public events or of a particular trend or institution.” That last part troubles me, how do we define what is important? But I’ll keep this simple and go with the first part – the study of past events. That works, simple enough. Well how do we find about these events? How far in the past do we go? Historians typically deal with written documents – this limits the time frame and the people studied. Other students of the past, particularly archaeologists look at objects to better understand the past and may (or may not) have opportunities to study a more broad past. But this seems like a more manageable definition: they study of past events through written records or objects.

But what people do we study? A student recently displayed frustration with history because so often it is “His Story.” And for a long time, traditional history did focus on the male experience and the male perspective. In fact, for that same period much of history focused on the men, the elite classes, the leaders of any given society. The average person became lost in the picture that many historians painted. But historians have long since left this trajectory. Historians study all areas of the world, slaves, working class, men, women, racial minorities, religions, cultures, art, environment… the list goes on and on. What we study, I think, simply comes from what we want to understand better, what we are naturally interested in.

So history studies the past and can literally study any aspect of any past that left behind some type of record. History might study the past but I do not believe it can reconstruct it. We will never know the “truth” of history. We are left to interpret the records, to make a whole picture from only  a few pieces. This might be my favorite part of history and perhaps why I study it. I love that history is not a science, but an art. I love the interpretation and that one interpretation might change or be challenged with newly found records or simply a different set of eyes reading the same documents. In an earlier post asking for your thoughts on history, one comment discussed this inability to find a “truth in history.” He writes:

I’ve long since shed my pure and idealistic notions of the discipline history as a pure science of truth and discovery, but I still think there is a lot of room for collective self discovery in its complicated processes. I guess that is still pretty idealistic, though. The key is to be engaged in it in a holistic way. Engaged in that it is an active [not passive] part of our lives. That’s why this blog is awesome. Engagement also means critically evaluating whatever we read. Holistic in that we use knowingly use the term “history” in a variety of ways. Like many of these blanket words, we could be arguing some point uselessly not realizing that the debate centers around terms and premises that are completely different. True “apples and oranges” type stuff. We don’t all have to agree, we just need to be wise about stuff. For instance, Zinn clearly states his biases and Woods does not. Holistic might not the best word, but you catch my drift.

What a great comment! He also provides a great definition of history that I feel compelled to share: “History is a dialectic that helps us define who we are and where we are going more than just the brute facts/musings on yesteryears.” He continues, “I like my history multidisciplinary and with a fair amount of tension.” Me too!!

But why study past events? I asked a group of students this question in a recent summer school course. They provided a variety of answers: to better understand ourselves, to prevent repeating past mistakes, to be entertained. I kind of love that last reason for the simple reason that I love the stories that history offers us. None of these answers are wrong. And I have a feeling there are many more reasons. As of today, this blog has 2,187 hits – for a little blog that isn’t advertised that demonstrates to me that quite a few people are interested in history. So why are you interested? Why do you want to know about the past?

Thinking Grad School?

Hello fellow History lovers!

I know that its been a while since the last post and I’m preparing a good about what is history for when hit 2000 hits. But it’s been a busy August, so again this is a short post. I know there is a good chance that some of you reading this are fellow grad students or prospective grad students. I wanted to share a great Open Letter to New Grad Students. This has some excellent advice for those of you applying or going into your first year of graduate school. It can also be a reminder for some of us already in the middle of it.

Today is the 90th anniversary of women’s suffrage! That’s right after over 70 years of women fighting for more rights and the vote, they finally succeeded with the 19th Amendment in 1920. A great post about suffrage can be found at Suffering for Suffrage, 90 Years Since. You can also read about one of the first women’s conventions, Seneca Falls, on an older post here at Fun with History.

Finally, if you haven’t already – comment or message me about what you think history is and why we study it! I have heard some great things, but I’m hoping to hear some more before the post is up.

From P.T. Barnum to Michael Jackson

A couple of days ago was the 199th birthday of P.T. Barnum and while I didn’t write a blog about him then, I have been thinking about him ever since. Really, I haven’t been thinking about P.T. Barnum the man, but rather what he and his museum and later circus reveal about nineteenth century America and its connections to the twenty-first century. Barnum is well known for showing his audiences the rare, the absurd, and the inhumane (included in his exhibitions were a dead “mermaid” and an man of African descent, dressed as a poorly named “What Is It?” images of both exhibits are provided below). But what I love about this period of American history is not that people poured into his museum to gape at the spectacle, but that they interacted with the exhibits. In Barnum’s world, people were the judges; they could declare what was real and what was not real about the specimen placed in front of them.
For example, the mermaid of course was not a mermaid but the upper body of some primate species literally sewn to the bottom of a fish. The audience could often easily see the stitches creating this mythical creature. They would point out the flaws of the exhibit and prove they had not been duped by Barnum’s folly. In the changing world of the Age of Jackson, Americans felt that much of their lives were uncontrollable. The nation was still young, but was quickly forging ahead (and westward). The nation experienced a great market revolution along with the beginning of urbanization. The new economies created a series of boom and busts, causing great financial pain to American families. For many, religion created an opportunity to find something real in a quick paced world, inviting the Second Great Awakening (another personal favorite piece of American history). But with Barnum, and other forms of entertainment, audiences controlled their understanding of what was presented to them. Where the economy, the government, the city, and the confidence men (known today as con men) might fool the average American, Barnum could not. Not all exhibits were as blatantly created as the mermaid, but audiences debated with each other about what they believed was real and what was Barnum’s creation.
And then there is Barnum’s “What Is It?” an exhibit portraying an African man as something in between human and animal. “What Is It?” provides this opportunity for American citizens to work out their understanding of slavery and race in a public forum, but removed from the realities of cruelty and abolition. “What Is It?” both provided a voice for what Rudyard Kipling would later refer to as the “white man’s burden,” a need to civilize all other races and a voice for slave masters who claimed their slaves were not people, but property. “What Is It?” was Barnum’s most successful exhibition of the Civil War years, reflecting a nation trying to figure out its relationship with both slavery and race. Like exhibits such as the mermaid, Americans used entertainment and frivolity as a way to work through very serious and real social issues.
Just as it is in contemporary culture, entertainment is often a mirror to real social issues we confront on a daily basis. While it is often difficult to articulate our feelings about race, religion, the economy, the loss of jobs, and two unpopular wars, we can mourn the death of the king of pop. What did he let us experience through both his music and his death? Where do we see the Barnum in Jackson?

Barnum’s Mermaid

What Is It

Happy Independence Day!

Hello everyone!

Short post today! Today is, of course, the celebration of our nation’s independence from Great Britain. The Second Continental Congress actually voted for independence on July 2, but on July 4 the Declaration of Independence was approved and would quickly spread throughout the colonies.

You can read the Declaration of Independence here: Declaration

My blog also includes several posts about independence: Declaring Independence and Moving Toward Independence

Other important events that happened today in U.S. history: in the Civil War the Confederate Army surrendered Vicksburg to the Union Army in 1863, President Calvin Coolidge was born in 1872, and the first Pacific cable, between San Francisco and Manilla, is opened by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1903.

Enjoy the fireworks and barbecues, but don’t forget the importance of this historical day!

The Second War of Independence

Today in 1812, the U.S. declared war against Great Britain.
In the early years of the nineteenth century, the U.S. experienced tumultuous relationships with both Great Britain and France. Both nations had targeted U.S. ships and made international trade for the U.S. nearly impossible. Napoleon declared that France would put aside French trade restrictions and in response, President Madison took him at his word and reimposed the ban on British trade. To retaliate, the United Kingdom began seizing more American ships and continued to impress sailors.
In response, the U.S. declared war.  Politicians in Congress were torn over the idea of war. Convinced that the war would ruin American commerce, Federalists did not support the war. Supporters wanted to seize British territory in North America. Many also believed that Great Britain never accepted the outcome of the Revolution and they saw that American independence hung in the balance. Supporters of the war also believed that victory would be easy as Great Britain was preoccupied with Napoleon in Europe.
How wrong they were! While president, Thomas Jefferson had crippled the military power in an effort to cut costs and due to his own dislike toward having a standing army. Congress tried to increase the army to 75,000 but even the most hawkish states failed to meet their quota of soldiers. Additionally, Congress remained hesitant to raise taxes to finance the war.
The War of 1812 was a two-front struggle, fighting the British and the Native Americans. For a year, pan-Native Americans led by Tecumseh held the Americans up. However, in 1813 they were defeated and Tecumseh died during the Battle of Thames. In March 1814, an army of Americans and pro-assimilation Cherokees and Creeks came under the command of future-president Andrew Jackson. Jackson’s troops defeated the hostile Creeks, known as the Red Sticks, at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend. The Red Sticks lost 800 of their own in that battle. As a result, the U.S. gained over 23 million acres of land, more than half the Creeks’ land.
The U.S. attacked the British by invading Canada through Detroit, Niagara, and Lake Champlain, but failed dismally in 1812. In 1814, Napoleon was defeated and the British were able to focus on the U.S. They planned to attack in the northern, central, and southern parts of the country. They made their first move at Lake Champlain, but were surprisingly defeated. The British did strike a symbolic blow when they captured Washington, D.C. and burned the Capitol and the president’s home. The executive building was whitewashed to cover the burn stains, giving it the nickname White House. The British also targeted Baltimore, bombing Fort McHenry for twenty-five straight hours. Francis Scott Key saw the flag still flying above the fort at dawn and quickly wrote the Star Spangled Banner.
The final target was New Orleans where 75,000 British troops found a motley crew led by Andrew Jackson. Jackson’s troops included regular soldiers, militia members, frontiersmen, citizens from New Orleans (including several companies of free African Americans), Choctaw Native Americans, and a group of pirates. Surprising everyone, the outnumbered and ill-equipped Americans defeated the British and made Jackson an overnight hero.
Just as anti-war activists arrived in Washington armed with proposals of amendments that would hopefully move the country out of the war, Jackson’s victory was being announced. A treaty was signed in Belgium, technically ending the war. The Treaty of Ghent was signed in December 1814. It failed to restore the previous status quo. No territory changed hands and no provisions were included that would stop impressments or provide neutral shipping rights, the main causes of the war.
In hindsight, it seems ridiculous that the military weak and disunited U.S. would declare war on one of the world’s super powers. The U.S. had no way to finance the war, which bankrupted the nation. However, due to Britain’s preoccupation with European struggles, they were not able to direct all of their attention on the infant nation. Still Great Britain easily defeated the American invasions of Canada and imposed a blockade that all but destroyed American commerce. The war did launch several prominent political careers, notably that of Andrew Jackson. Finally, the war gave control to the U.S. of its regions, never again would the British or Native Americans pose a real threat to American control in North America, providing the true independence from Britain that war supporters had been demanding.