Category: HISTORY

On February 27, 1860, Abraham Lincoln gave one of the most important and effective speeches of his political career. His speech at Cooper Union was a rhetorical masterpiece and helped make him the Republican candidate for president.

Lincoln’s debates with Stephen A. Douglas in 1858 allowed him to reach a national audience. In those debates, Lincoln argued that Douglas’s doctrine of popular sovereignty—that the people of the territories could decide for themselves whether they wanted slavery—meant an indifference to the spread of slavery. Worse, it was a betrayal of America’s principles. Rather than trumpeting the cause of self-government, Douglas’s doctrine of popular sovereignty was its death knell. If whites could decide to enslave blacks, then Lincoln argued, there was nothing to prevent some whites from deciding to enslave other whites. Only adherence to the self-evident truth that all human beings were equal could save popular sovereignty—self-government—for all.

Douglas continued to press his case, however. In September, 1859, he published an essay in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, “The Dividing Line between Federal and Local Authority,” arguing for his version of popular sovereignty and claiming that this was in line with the thinking of the founding generation. He delivered speeches on the same subject, all in an attempt to secure the presidential nomination of the Democratic party. In October, John Brown carried out his raid on Harper’s Ferry, further inflaming the sectional issue that threatened civil war.

In this fateful situation, Republicans in New York City invited Lincoln to give a speech scheduled for February 1860. Lincoln had his own presidential ambitions, but to become the Republican candidate, he needed to win the support of eastern Republicans, who tended to favor Senator William Seward of New York. Lincoln had to show that he, and not the more experienced and better-known Seward, was the man to defeat Douglas.

Lincoln prepared for his speech by doing extensive research in the Illinois State Library. He read primary documents—principally the words of the thirty-nine people who signed the Constitution—and historical records—how those thirty-nine voted on issues of federal control of the territories. He did so to fight Douglas on the ground that Douglas claimed as his own. Douglas claimed that the founding generation understood the question of who controlled the territories, whether the federal government or those who lived in the territories, better than anyone else. Lincoln showed that on Douglas’s own terms, Douglas was wrong. The documents and records showed that a substantial majority affirmed federal control of the territories. Showing this to be true, Lincoln showed that popular sovereignty as Douglas presented it was false. 

Lincoln concluded this part of his speech by arguing that on the issue of slavery Americans ought to return to the position of the founding generation. “Let [slavery] be again marked as an evil not to be extended, but to be tolerated and protected only because of and so far as its actual presence among us makes that toleration and protection a necessity.” This was not because Americans had to accept the views of the founding generation. They were free to reject those views, but only, Lincoln argued, “upon evidence so conclusive and argument so clear” that it outweighed their authority. But evidence and argument showed the founders right on the issue of slavery and supported their authority.

In the next section of his speech, Lincoln addressed southerners. He considered and countered one by one their objections to the Republican Party, repeatedly appealing to the standard Douglas had raised “of our fathers, who framed the government under which we live.” In this section, he also offered a concise statement of how to evaluate the Dred Scott decision (1857). Notoriously, this decision held that African Americans, free or slave, whose ancestors were brought to the United States and sold as slaves could not be American citizens, and that the Missouri Compromise (1820) was unconstitutional because the federal government did not have the power to exclude slavery from any federal territory. In discussing the decision, one thing Lincoln showed was that the Court based its ruling on a misstatement of fact. The Court’s decision stated that “the right of property in a slave is distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitution.” Lincoln pointed out that such a right was not “distinctly and expressly affirmed” in the Constitution. On the contrary, Lincoln said, 

Wherever in that instrument the slave is alluded to, he is called a ‘person’; and wherever his master’s legal right in relation to him is alluded to, it is spoken of as ‘service or labor which may be due,’ as a debt payable in service or labor. Also, it would be open to show, by contemporaneous history, that this mode of alluding to slaves and slavery, instead of speaking of them, was employed on purpose to exclude from the Constitution the idea that there could be property in man. (Lincoln was alluding to a remark Madison made at the Constitutional Convention.)

Overall, Lincoln’s consideration of the southern view showed, as he said, that southerners would abandon the Constitution, if they could not get their way. This was as willful and arbitrary an assertion of power as slavery itself.

Finally, Lincoln addressed his fellow Republicans. He stressed to them that the fundamental issue was whether slavery was right or wrong. Republicans held it was wrong. They should act on this understanding. They must stand by their duty “fearlessly and effectively.” Lincoln closed with a stirring imperative: “Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.” 

Scholars often note that Lincoln’s Address at Cooper Union lacked the flourishes and embellishments of mid-nineteenth century speeches. It reads, most say, as if it were a lawyer’s brief. This is true, but this is also what gave the speech its rhetorical force and its political effect. The country was at the brink of war, passions at fever pitch. Lincoln stood for a calm, factual, reasoned consideration of the case. Southerners, for example, claimed Republicans were revolutionaries, and tried to associate them with fanatical abolitionists. Lincoln’s tone and words undid this criticism, as his presentation of the case revealed southerners to be unreasonable hysterics. Using this rhetorical approach, Lincoln took the advice he offered in a great speech from early in his career, the Lyceum Address (1838). In perpetuating the Republic, Lincoln had then argued, “passion has helped us; but can do so no more. It will in future be our enemy. Reason, cold, calculating, unimpassioned reason, must furnish all the materials for our future support and defense.”

As Lincoln stood on the speaker’s platform at Cooper Union, unimpassioned reason stood in opposition to fiery willfulness, a cool presentation of the facts to willful misrepresentation. Amid the political storm, Lincoln presented himself and Republicans as a calm rallying point. Their position was consistent with historical fact, political necessity, and moral principle. His audience understood this, and enough Americans came to understand it to bring Lincoln to the White House. 

When we read Lincoln’s Cooper Union speech we are in effect a jury hearing the words of the greatest advocate of the Constitution’s and America’s founding principles as thoroughly anti-slavery. It is remarkable that still today those who claim to be most passionate in their defense of freedom repeat the mistaken facts and arguments of those who then advocated slavery. As we steer a way through our own political storms, we should remember the importance of fact and reason, and above all renew our faith that right makes might.  

For more on Abraham Lincoln’s writings, see our CDC volume, Abraham Lincoln, available for free download or hard copy purchase.

Teaching American History provides various free resources for American history and government teachers, including our popular seminars, multi-day seminars, and extensive database of original source documents. Still, to paraphrase a famous campaign slogan from the 1990s, for TAH, it’s the documents, stupid! Seriously, that’s because we believe the best way to learn about American history and government is by bringing the words of those who lived it into the classroom.

Most teachers discover our database when searching for a specific document. When our site pops up in the search results, and they click on our site, they see that we have thousands of primary source documents, many accompanied by introductions and study questions. Still, here are some tips that help you locate documents you want to use with your students.

Say you want to use Thomas Jefferson’s letter to John Holmes expressing his concerns about the Missouri Compromise. There are several ways to search for the letter. You could enter Thomas Jefferson to John Holmes in the search bar on the documents page. This is the best way to find a specific document. The more information you have, the better. However, you may not know who the recipient of a letter was. In that case, you could search for the documents authored by Thomas Jefferson by typing only his name into the search field. We have 93 Jefferson documents in our collection, so you must dig further. You know the Missouri Compromise was in 1820. If you search “Jefferson 1820,” 49 documents are listed. The first is Jefferson’s letter to Holmes. One more pointer. Our author drop-down menu lists authors alphabetically by first name, not last.

Suppose you are looking for something other than a specific document. You may hope to find a new document that will freshen your approach to teaching a particular topic. In that case, we recommend you explore our Core Document volumes. Our Core Document volumes are curated by scholars, with each book focusing on a specific topic. Titles include Reconstruction, Native Americans, Gender and Equality, Slavery and Its Consequences, and The Great Depression and the New Deal. Each book has an introduction, as does each document in the book. Each collection also contains study questions to use with students, and a thamtic table of contents which groups the documents according to the collection’s key themes. Study questions, arranged in pairs, include one question relevant to a single document and a second question that pairs each document in the collection with others in the collection.

Two Core Document Collections cover the entire scope of American history. Documents and Debates volumes 1 and 2 each contain 15 chapters that together cover American history from 1493 to 2009. Each chapter consists documents that present different views on a key issue.  Chapter 1 in Volume 1 is titled “Early Contact.” Volume 2 concludes with a chapter called “America and the World.” Each chapter is a case study that can be printed and shared with students or linked to a classroom management program for lessons during several class periods.

All Core Document paperback volumes are available to purchase for $12.99 in the TAH bookstore. You can also choose to download a FREE PDF version of the book. 

Ray Tyler was the 2014 James Madison Fellow for South Carolina and a 2016 graduate of Ashland University’s Masters Program in American History and Government. Ray is a former Teacher Program Manager for TAH and a frequent contributor to our blog.

By the end of 1967, almost 20,000 Americans had died in Vietnam and the total number of American troops had increased to over 500,000, but progress in the war was hard to see. The November 11, 1967 issue of the New York Times reported on a Gallup poll that found 59 percent of Americans in favor of continuing the war in Vietnam. Of those who wanted to continue the war, 55 percent wanted a military effort greater than President Lyndon Johnson was willing to make. Seven percent even supported the use of nuclear weapons. Thirty-five percent wanted a decrease in the war effort, while only ten percent wanted immediate withdrawal. The polling data and Johnson’s discussions with members of Congress and some members of his administration suggested to him that support for his conduct of the war was slowly ebbing away.

In response, Johnson orchestrated a campaign to build support for his war. He brought military commanders home from Vietnam, who spoke of light at the end of the tunnel in their public appearances, and had administration officials give similarly optimistic speeches, while he himself made a series of appearances and speeches across the country. As Johnson’s public relations campaign unfolded, the North Vietnamese planned a major offensive in the south. Like many in the United States, the North Vietnamese leadership were frustrated that the war was not progressing as they had hoped it would. They therefore decided to undertake a General Offensive/General Uprising. Using North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong troops, as well as guerillas and terrorists, the North hoped to deliver a decisive blow. It would lead the people of South Vietnam to rise in support of the North, the Army of South Vietnam to desert or defect, and the government of South Vietnam to collapse. To support the offensive, the North increased the infiltration of personnel and supplies into the South, including through the port of Sihanoukville in supposedly neutral Cambodia. The North also received more aid and assistance from the Soviet Union and China. It renewed efforts to secure its home front through a purge of party officials and increased efforts against counter-revolutionaries, while it sought to disguise its intentions by launching peace feelers. Toward the close of 1967, it announced a truce for the Tet or lunar holidays that would take place in January.

The General Offensive began with attacks throughout the South at the end of January. The communists enjoyed initial success, even penetrating the U.S. embassy grounds in Saigon. Viet Cong main force and North Vietnamese Army units attacked provincial capitals and major cities, as well as U.S. and South Vietnamese bases, camps, and airfields. In cities and villages, the Viet Cong assassinated government officials. United States and South Vietnamese forces rallied, however, and turned the North’s initial success into defeat. The fighting devastated the Viet Cong and inflicted heavy casualties on North Vietnamese forces. Some of the most intense fighting occurred in Hue, a provincial capital in northern South Vietnam, where the house-to-house fighting continued through February. After the communists were driven out of Hue, evidence emerged of a massacre of several thousand people: government officials, other civilians, including foreign nationals, and South Vietnamese soldiers home for the Tet holiday. Smaller massacres had occurred in other places. Many civilians were killed during the General Offensive or Tet Offensive, as it was called by the Americans. Tens of thousands were made refugees.

Although a military defeat for the North Vietnamese, the offensive brought them a political victory in the United States. Trying to build support for the war, the Johnson administration had done nothing to prepare the American public for the coming offensive, of which it had been warned in advance by U.S. intelligence. But senior officials at the Embassy in Saigon and in Washington were skeptical of the reports. As an official military history put it, “They believed, correctly as it turned out, that a nationwide offensive was beyond North Vietnamese and Viet Cong capabilities.” Reports and images of the fighting shocked Americans. One showed the national chief of police on a street in Saigon summarily executing a Viet Cong suspected of having killed a South Vietnamese officer and his family. Events in Vietnam did not cause support for the war to collapse, but they did decrease support for Johnson. On March 12, 1968, Johnson managed only a narrow victory over McCarthy in the New Hampshire primary. Robert Kennedy entered the race four days later. 

The Tet offensive also caused a reconsideration of the strategy in Vietnam among key officials in the Johnson administration. The military wanted to exploit communist losses by going on the offensive again; it requested the addition of slightly more than 200,000 troops. Civilians in the Pentagon and the White House raised doubts about the troop request and the strategy it was meant to serve. The new Secretary of Defense, Clark Clifford, was opposed to the military’s plans. He foresaw only more casualties, with no end in sight. He suggested to Johnson a much smaller troop increase—about a tenth of what the military had requested—coupled with pressure on the South Vietnamese to do more.  

Johnson gave a major speech on the war on March 31, 1968. He explained that the Tet offensive had failed in its objectives but that the communists had not given up their effort to conquer the South. He renewed the offer of negotiations, ordering a halt to bombing except in the area immediately above the demilitarized zone, where North Vietnamese main forces were still staged for attack. He detailed the steps the South Vietnamese would take to increase their role in the war. He reported that he was sending only support troops to Vietnam (a smaller number even than Clifford had recommended) and that the troop level would remain where it had been, at 525,000. He reiterated his call for a tax increase, explaining that deficit spending was straining the American economy. (Inflation reached 3 percent in 1967, rising from a very low level.) America’s objective was what it had always been, “peace and self-determination,” as the best way to protect America’s interests. He concluded with the shocking announcement that “I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President.” Johnson was exhausted and saw little chance that he would achieve much, if anything, even if he won re-election.

Nothing came of Johnson’s peace initiative. The fighting continued. In fact, more Americans died in Vietnam in 1968—16,899—than in any year of the war. The bombing resumed. The character of the war had changed, however. Viet Cong losses during Tet among political cadre, guerillas, and main force units was so great, and the violence they had inflicted on civilians so marked, that they never fully recovered, militarily or politically. As a consequence, South Vietnamese and American efforts had greater success. South Vietnamese control of the countryside increased and continued to increase in subsequent years. Yet in America, ironically, public support for the war continued to decline. By the end of 1968, total dead from the war reached 35,540. Riots in Newark and Detroit in the summer of 1967 and in Washington, D.C. and during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1968 added to a sense of crisis and disintegration.

David Tucker is General Editor of TAH publications. He is writing one of TAH’s narrative histories, America during the Age of the Vietnam War, from which this post is excerpted.

A Conversation with Sonja Czarnecki

“In order to understand history, you have to do history,” Sonja Czarnecki insists. “You need to see how historical narratives are made.” To give students insight into the work of historians, Czarnecki assigns research projects in all of the courses she teaches at Bishop Seabury Academy in Lawrence, Kansas. She also pursues her own research. In October, Czarnecki’s article “Migrant Music” was published in The Chronicles of Oklahoma. Czarnecki, a 2022 graduate of the Master of Arts in American History and Government program, wrote the paper for a “Great Texts” course taught by Professor Stephen Tootle on John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath.

Probing the Historical Portrait of Migrant Farmworkers

Czarnecki’s article examines the popular portrait of midwestern farmworkers who migrated to California in the 1930s, a portrait drawn by historians, folklore collectors, and Steinbeck’s novel. She focuses on two amateur folklorists from New York who traveled to migrant farmworker camps during the Great Depression to record what they considered the “authentic” folk music of Oklahoma, Missouri, Arkansas and Kentucky. In fleeing the dustbowl conditions of the Midwest, the migrants had “left behind many of their material possessions,” Czarnecki writes, but the folklore collectors “reasoned that they brought instead an intangible cultural heritage in their stories and songs.” Hence the collectors brought rather specific expectations to their encounters with migrant musicians.

In 1940, Charles Todd and Robert Sonkin visited seven Farm Security Administration camps in California’s Imperial Valley, carrying along recording equipment provided by celebrated folklorist Alan Lomax. Lomax hoped the young men would bring back audio documents for the Archive of American Folk Song at the Library of Congress. The migrants Todd and Sonkin met were happy to sing, some hoping to be “discovered” for careers in radio. At first, they sang popular commercial tunes or the white gospel songs heard on religious programs. Todd and Sonkin found it necessary to explain to the migrants what sort of songs they were looking for. Czarnecki writes, 

Todd carefully filtered the selection of songs for recording. Material that failed to distinguish the Okies as unique, or that did not fit Todd’s notion of ‘folk,’ usually did not make the cut. In this way, Todd and Sonkin reinforced the stereotype of the Okies as country bumpkins, making them seem far less connected to mainstream American culture than they actually were.

The folklorists’ work “had the insidious effect of exaggerating regional and racial differences” among Americans, Czarnecki added, even as the radio and record industries were blurring those differences, giving Americans common cultural referents. 

Preparing to write the paper, Czarnecki listened to “hundreds” of migrant song recordings available at the Library of Congress website, also reading notes Todd and Sonkin made about the migrants who performed them, letters between Todd and Lomax, and scholarly articles on the emergence of folk music as an American genre. “I had a blast. I cranked it out over Thanksgiving break, and then I thought, ‘Maybe I should try publishing it.’” After sending the essay to the Chronicles of Oklahoma in late 2022, she forgot about it. Then, last June, while attending the National History Day Contest with a student of hers who was competing, she saw on her iPhone the email announcing the article had been accepted. “I felt like I’d won my own History Day contest!” Czarnecki says. Then she muses, “More graduate students should submit their research papers, because you never know.”

Research Empowers Students of History

Research work benefits everyone, Czarnecki feels. At Bishop Seabury, a small independent school in the Episcopal tradition, high school students take two or more of Czarnecki’s courses. She asks freshmen taking World History and juniors taking US History to complete a large independent research project. They must follow the guidelines set for the National History Day competition, although they may choose whether or not to enter the contest. “Most kids find a topic that they care about,” Czarnecki says. Recently, students have investigated the invention of radar, the impact of the bicycle on early feminism, and the Russian Civil War.

Since all of the projects must incorporate primary sources, students learn how to access online archives such as the Hathi Trust and newspapers.org. Czarnecki watches students display confidence and a sense of “authority” over the topics they’ve researched as they explain their work to others. Older students interview the freshmen, and all those competing in National History Day are interviewed at the district level by parent volunteers. Having crafted their own historical narratives, students also feel empowered to evaluate the work of professional historians more critically. 

High school students are not “too young” to probe historians’ methods, Czarnecki said, given what’s at stake. “Who gets to construct truth? How do historians come to know what they think they know—and are they right? You know, history only became interesting to me when I realized that historians disagree with each other!” Historical narratives, Czarnecki tells her students, always reflect “the concerns of the writers, their reading, their hopes and ideologies. All this affects what gets reported and what doesn’t. It shapes the stories we Americans tell about our past—and who we believe we are.” Czarnecki mentions the “Lost Cause” narrative of the Civil War. Despite losing the war, “the South won the story” during much of the following century, delaying a reckoning with racial injustices that persisted long past emancipation.

Why Historical Narratives Conflict

Conflicting narratives of American history arise inevitably from Americans’ ongoing debate over which political principles should take precedence in civil life.  A careful reading of the Constitution reveals what American democracy “looks like structurally.” But it is harder to define and enumerate “the characteristics of civil society” in America. Early in Czarnecki’s senior-level Politics and Government course, students do a gallery walk, studying fourteen signs Czarnecki posts around the classroom. Each describes some component of democracy, such as free and open elections, freedom of the press, transparency in government, economic freedom, an independent judiciary, and so on. Students then attempt to rank these components in priority order. 

Their study of US History as juniors has already made them aware of “internal contradictions among all these democratic principles.” In her US history course, Czarnecki uses scenarios developed by the Harvard Case Method Institute to get students probing these tensions. For example, one case study puts students in the position of delegates to the Constitutional Convention, debating Madison’s proposal for a federal negative over state laws. The debate touches on the tension between majoritarianism and individual liberty, Czarnecki says.

How MAHG Expanded Czarnecki’s Teaching

Czarnecki’s MAHG studies more than prepared her to take on such questions. For eleven years, while serving as Dean of Students at Bishop Seabury, she taught world history. Completing the MAHG program, she stepped down from her role as Dean so as to also teach courses in US history and government. “I was raring to go! After getting exposed to the huge variety of materials we read and discussed, I felt almost too prepared. While I haven’t had time to process and filter into my teaching everything I was exposed to, some primary documents I learned about through MAHG have become essential texts.” She mentions Lincoln’s Fragment on the Constitution and the Union, which compares the Declaration’s principle of human equality to a painted “apple of gold” and the Constitution to a “frame of silver” that highlights and preserves equality. Asked how students react to Lincoln’s analogy, she gestures, her hand moving outward from her head like an expanding insight. “It’s amazing, really beautiful,” she says.

Now she sees herself preparing students for lives of civic engagement. Along with teaching research methods and critical thinking, she makes opportunities for students to meet and talk with civic leaders in both political and nonpartisan positions. “Kansas is small enough that I could invite former governor and Director of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius to visit my class two weeks ago.” Through the League of Women Voters (she is president of her local chapter), she organized a panel of City Commissioner candidates who took her students’ questions. “In Lawrence, our city commission race is non-partisan. It’s important for students to see leaders debating issues without the screen of politics.” 

All of the resources Czarnecki brings to her teaching—primary documents, research opportunities, encounters with current leaders—prepare students to participate in the ongoing dialogue of democracy.

George Hawkins, a 2019 graduate of TAH’s Master of Arts with a Specialization in Teaching American History and Government (MASTAHG) program, was named South Dakota Teacher of the Year in October. Administered by the Council of Chief State School officers, this prestigious award program honors one teacher from every state and territory of the US. Hawkins was selected as “the best of the best” from a pool of nominees working in every subject area and grade level in South Dakota. Yet Hawkins himself attributes his effectiveness to the alternative school program in which he works. The program requires creative collaboration among colleagues who are specialists in different subject areas. Hawkins sees teaching as team effort to that helps young people work and learn cooperatively..

Hawkins has worked for 12 years in the New Tech Network of schools and academies. Established in 1996, this national nonprofit helps schools and school districts implement project-based learning, in which students acquire academic knowledge while completing projects that put that knowledge to work. In addition to making learning more “experiential,” the New Tech model inculcates the “soft skills” young people need to succeed in the increasingly innovative and team-based work environment created by the digital revolution. 

Hawkins’ Discovery of the New Tech Approach

When Hawkins first set out to teach, he was unaware of this teaching approach. He did his student teaching in a traditional classroom. Trying to meet the curricular standards for history and government while teaching students who showed little interest in those subjects frustrated him. “I concluded teaching was not for me,” he recalled. Instead, he went to law school, graduating as the 2008 housing crisis threw the economy into recession. “I hung out a shingle and took whatever cases I could get. I got a lot of court-appointed public defender cases, many of them filed for abuse and neglect.” Such cases were even more “soul-sapping” than the rigidities of the traditional education system. Learning of a Social Studies opening in an intriguing, “alternative” public high school, Hawkins considered giving teaching another go.

As he sat in the principal’s office of Sioux Falls’ two-year-old New Tech High School, waiting to be interviewed, a student walked up to him and introduced herself. “She shook my hand,  looked me in the eye and said, ‘How are you doing? My name is Susan. What’s your name? May I help you with anything?’ The student was a sophomore. I thought, ‘Where am I? At what other high school in America do sophomores introduce themselves to randomly visiting adults, offering to help them?”

Hawkins came to understand that “at New Tech schools, students interact with each other constantly, engaging in tough conversations as they work cooperatively on projects. They also meet frequently with adults—community partners who are invited to class to share their knowledge and advice. They quickly learn the ‘soft skills’ involved in interpersonal communication.”

Joining the New Tech teaching staff as it began its third year of operation, Hawkins helped the school build out its junior-level program. He stayed there nine years, until the program was renamed the Project Based Learning (PBL) Academy and absorbed as a curricular track at the new Jefferson High School in Sioux Falls. This solved a problem many New Tech schools face: students who attend them often leave behind extra-curricular options such as band, choir, and sports offered at larger, traditional schools. At Jefferson High, students in the PBL Academy can participate in extracurriculars without leaving campus.

Interdisciplinary Learning

Hawkins works closely with a teaching partner who specializes in English Language Arts. Project-based learning lends itself to an interdisciplinary approach. Hawkins shares most of his instruction responsibilities with his teaching partner. They work cooperatively in a large space created by merging two collapsible-walled rooms. He and his partner instruct two classes of juniors, each class lasting for two periods. “Some days my partner takes the lead, other days I take the lead; some days we lead as a team.”

Hawkins says the interdisciplinary, project-based learning approach allows him to “tap into students’ interests and aptitudes while at the same time teaching my particular content area. I’m super passionate about social studies, but many of my students are not. They may be more interested in art, science, or math. We just finished an activity that tapped into the math focus of some students. While studying the Gilded Age, we had them take on roles as oil barons.” Students bought and sold oil, using a fictional currency that Hawkins himself invented for use in various classroom projects.

In the New Tech model, “content doesn’t exist in silos,” Hawkins says. “Early on, the teaching staff at New Tech decided that every course in the program should incorporate literacy tasks. Working with a teaching partner who specializes in English, that’s easy to do.” But numeracy also needs reinforcement. Teachers in the PBL Academy take responsibility as a whole for the core competencies that state testing tracks. “Those English and math scores are a reflection on all of us,” Hawkins says. Moreover, any realistic account of history covers economic and financial factors.

Soon after he began working at New Tech, a student’s question pushed Hawkins to wonder how to integrate math with social studies. “While studying the Civil War, we put students in the role of travel agents and asked them to design tours of historical sites related to the war. Then we staged a “Travel-Con” expo in which each team prepared an exhibit showing the tour stops, what travelers would experience, and why these sites were important. A student commented, ‘In the real world, I wouldn’t just be assigned a convention space; I could ask for the part of the room I wanted, couldn’t I?’ In fact, anyone organizing a convention would charge for a prime spot,” Hawkins reflected. “I wondered how we might do that in class. I decided to invent a classroom currency and economic system. It has grown ever since.”

Integrating Math Helps Hawkins Integrate Social Skills

Each project period lasts for three to four weeks. Midway in a project, Hawkins holds an auction in which students bid on project options. Students pay for options that simplify or enhance their project work, using “money” they have “earned” in the course of other projects. For example, as they study the 1920s, they invest in fictive versions of Coca Cola, US Steel, and other enterprises, watching stock prices rise and calculating the best moment to cash in on their stock and withdraw bank deposits. Those who miscalculate, losing their savings when the market crashes, are forced into project parameters demanding greater inventiveness.

For example, as students study the mid-20^th century Civil Rights era, they develop model city parks commemorating civil rights activists. Hawkins encourages them to look beyond heroes like Martin Luther King, Jr. and investigate activists for other causes, like feminism, the American Indian Movement, immigrants’ rights, and so on. After researching their ideas, teams bid on 1′ x 1′ project boards Hawkins and his teaching partner prepare. Some have streams or other land features. Some are connected to other teams’ boards, so that completing the project entails coordinating with those teams. Students also bid on options such as the right to add a written explanation to the project board; lacking funds for that, they will need to design features that reveal the memorial’s meaning without words. They may bid on the right to use first person pronouns when they present the finished project. Without this right, they “must talk about their team members’ work instead of their own”—which pushes them to work and learn cooperatively.

Why Hawkins Enrolled in MASTAHG

Hawkins was awarded a James Madison fellowship in 2015. While participating in an effort to revise the South Dakota State Social Studies Standards, Hawkins met a Madison fellow who suggested he investigate Ashland University’s Master’s program. The program is designed to deepen teachers’ content knowledge while accommodating their teaching schedules. Enrolling, Hawkins found it “an amazing program.” What he learned in one course overlapped with what he learned in the next, deepening and broadening his knowledge. New discoveries proved immediately useful: “Many times after an online evening class, I’d put what we discussed into the next day’s teaching,” Hawkins said.

The program increased his “comfort level” with the primary documents he taught. “As a teacher, you feel that you have to know it all. But sometimes you just don’t. So you gloss over concepts—you mention them, but quickly move on.” MAHG seminars, in which teachers work and learn cooperatively, “cause teachers to pause over the documents they teach, thinking them through. I saw connections I’d never seen before that I could now show to students. Learning occurs when we make those connections. If all we learn are isolated facts, we’re doing little more than getting ready for Jeopardy.”

While earning his Master’s degree, Hawkins taught a project-based government course. “My partner and I assigned a Federalist/Antifederalist debate,” Hawkins said. Students prepared for the debate by reading Federalist and Antifederalist essays Hawkins had been studying in the Masters program. Hawkins felt confident as he pushed students to make connections between the arguments made during the ratification period and the arguments over constitutional government that occur today. He had already thought through those connections with his fellow teachers in the Master’s program.

Confidant that he can steer students through the complicated intellectual terrain of American political thought, Hawkins helps students gain their own intellectual independence. Hawkins sees the effectiveness of his Master’s degree—and of the New Tech teaching approach—as he watches students’ confidence grow over the course of their junior year. “Students begin the year with tons of questions. ‘Where’s this? How do I do this? Tell me this.’ They bring a checklist of the reassurances they need. But we steadily push them to take ownership of what they’re doing. By the end of the year, when we walk around among the project teams to see how they are progressing, students say, ‘We’ve got this, Mr. Hawkins. We’re good.’”

Summarizing his teaching goals, Hawkins says, “I want my students to become critical thinkers who are willing to ask questions. I can never give them all the information they need to know; I can’t make every concept instantly clear. I hope they learn to make note of what they read and hear, and then to process that with a critical eye. If they learn to ask, ‘What is this author or speaker trying to tell me?’ and ‘What do I think about it?’—that will take them miles.”

This month marks the 175th anniversary of Elizabeth Blackwell’s graduation from medical school, making her the first woman to be registered to practice medicine. Read more about her achievements in the field of public health.

As we strive to realize equality of opportunity across race, gender, and other categories, Americans can learn from those who came before us. Elizabeth Blackwell defied the norms of yesterday to empower the women of tomorrow. The first woman to earn a medical degree in the United States, she also became the first woman registered to practice medicine in on the Medical Register of the General Medical Council for the United Kingdom. Later she helped to open the first medical college for women in the US, where she promoted hygienic medical practices.

Blackwell’s Quaker and Abolitionist Upbringing

Blackwell grew up as the third of nine children in a middle-class Quaker family in England. Her father, Samuel Blackwell, supported the family by operating sugar refineries; yet he challenged the norms of the sugar industry by questioning its reliance on slave labor. After emigrating to the United States in 1832, he started a new sugar refinery and had many interactions with sugar plantation owners in the South and Caribbean. He would be quoted in Thomas Weld’s  “American Slavery As It Is” (1839), explaining how sugar planters worked their enslaved to death because it was economical to replace them with new African captives. In a letter to his family in England he wrote, “The Spirit of slavery blackens and curses everything here morally and politically, and I fear will work like a canker until perfect rottenness will be the end and ruin of these states.” He and his family joined the Anti-Slavery Society of New York, meeting such notable abolitionists as William Lloyd Garrison, who, as Blackwell wrote in her autobiography, “was a welcome guest in our home.” Samuel Blackwell’s willingness to defy societal norms would be passed on to his offspring. 

Samuel Blackwell and his wife, Hannah, were also progressive in allowing their daughters to be just as educated as their sons. This would have a profound impact on the course of Elizabeth Blackwell’s life. After her father’s untimely death, the family moved from New York to Ohio. The three older sisters (including Elizabeth) started a boarding school for girls to help provide for the family. In 1844, Elizabeth became head teacher at a schoolhouse in Henderson, Kentucky. It was here that she came to face to face with the harsh realities of slavery. “I dislike slavery more and more every day . . . . To live in their midst, utterly unable to help them is to me dreadful.” Returning to Ohio to live with her family, Blackwell cultivated friendships with prominent reformers who lived nearby, in the Walnut Hills suburbs of Cincinnati: the family of Lyman Beecher, President of Lane Seminary; seminary professor Calvin Ellis Stowe, and eventually Lucy Stone, an abolitionist and women’s rights advocate, who married Blackwell’s brother Henry. Stone was the first woman from Massachusetts to graduate from college. She and Henry collaborated on the Marriage Protest in May 1855.

Decision to Earn a Medical Degree

Working in medicine would only become an interest to Blackwell when a family friend, Mary Donaldson, turned ill. Blackwell went to visit Mary, dying of what was probably uterine cancer, who confided in Blackwell her wish for a woman doctor, to spare her of the shame of being examined and treated by men. As Blackwell wrote, Mary “died of a painful disease, the delicate nature of which made the methods of treatment a constant suffering to her.” The idea of becoming a doctor actually repulsed Blackwell. She wrote, “I hated everything connected with the body, and could not bear the sight of a medical book.” But the idea was planted in her head, and she could not shake it. The feeling of fulfillment in helping others appealed to her, as did the notion of being fully committed to something. Blackwell would now commit herself to being the first female doctor. 

However, in 1845, there were no medical schools open to women. Blackwell wrote to every family doctor known to her family seeking advice on what steps to take. Some dismissed her idea outright. Others wrote more kindly, advising that it would be nearly impossible for her to be accepted into a medical school. Finding a new teaching job in Asheville, North Carolina, Blackwell studied with the school’s principal, Reverend John Dickson, who had worked previously as a doctor. In 1847, she moved to Charleston, where she taught music while studying privately under Dr. Sam Dickson, brother to John Dickson and a professor at the local medical school. She studied Greek and read all the medical books that Dr. Dickinson provided. 

Having worked to save money, studied on her own and under the tutelage of qualified doctors, Blackwell decided in 1847 to apply to medical schools. She wrote to more than twenty, and was met with a resounding “No.” Women were thought to lack the intelligence to be a doctor,  and to be too delicate for the sight of blood. 

Defying Prejudice to Gain Medical Training

On October 20, 1847 the Dean of the Geneva Medical School in upstate New York wrote that the students and faculty had agreed to admit Blackwell as a student. He enclosed a resolution from the students which said, “That one of the radical principles of a Republican Government is the universal education of both sexes; that to every branch of scientific education the door should be open equally to all; that the application of Elizabeth Blackwell to become a  member of our class meets our entire approbation.” 

Despite having agreed unanimously to admit Blackwell, the students actually did not want her there. She did not make friends with other students. At times, her professors would discourage her from attending lectures showing the male body or the reproductive systems. Yet Blackwell was studious and undeterred despite whatever obstacle she was faced with. She wrote a note to a particular Professor Webster about the need for her to attend these lectures, and he relented. 

On January 23, 1849 Blackwell graduated from Geneva Medical School at the top of her class. A townsperson in the audience at the commemoration, Margaret Munroe Delancey, wrote to her sister Josephine about the ceremony that “the ladies carried the day!”

After graduation, Blackwell wanted to pursue a career as a surgeon, and that meant more schooling. She hoped to take a residency at La Maternité in Paris. Yet even her diploma from Geneva Medical College did not suffice to allow her access. She was relegated to midwifery duties. It was here, while treating an infant with opthalmia, that she accidentally sprayed her own face with contaminated fluid, causing her to lose sight in her left eye. This incident, she later wrote, ended her dreams of becoming a surgeon, “for the condition of the affected organ entirely prevented that close application to professional study which was needed. Both anatomical and surgical work were out of the question.” In 1850, Blackwell returned to London to study at St. Bartholomew. While there she focused on diagnosing and studying cases presented. 

Blackwell’s Contributions to Medicine

By the summer of 1851, she had returned to New York and was in the process of setting up her own practice. The next obstacle in her way was the refusal to rent her rooms. Finally, she found rooms to rent but could not advertise in front of the building. She placed advertisements in the New York Tribune but did not see many patients. By 1852, she started to lecture to girls and women about health. She would go on to publish these lectures in a book, The Laws of Life with Special Reference to the Physical Education of Girls. With this following, she was able to create a small family practice which would turn into a larger practice, a dispensary offering outpatient medicine. 

Things began to change when Blackwell’s sister Emily and their friend Marie Zakrzewska,  a German immigrant, obtained medical degrees. In May 1857, they were able to open a hospital on Bleeker Street in New York, the New York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children. It was here the women would start to train nurses as well. The hospital served some of the neediest population of New York City. In 1865, the hospital applied for permission to open a medical school and began to raise capital. In November of 1868, the Women’s Medical College of the New York Infirmary opened. 

Elizabeth Blackwell became the school’s first professor of hygiene, giving it equal importance to other subjects. Medical training prior to this ignored hygiene, leading to countless infections and deaths. It took female pioneers like Florence Nightingale and Elizabeth Blackwell to prioritize cleanliness, ample light and fresh air in patient care. The Women’s Medical school stayed open until 1899, when Cornell started allowing women to study there. 

“It is not easy to be a pioneer—but oh, it is fascinating. I would not trade one moment, even the worst moment, for all the riches in the world.” Elizabeth Blackwell had a dream and determination. Whatever obstacle was in her way, she found a way to adapt and get around it. Blackwell laid the foundation for all women who want to pursue a medical career, while providing a powerful example of perseverance in the face of discrimination.

Lauren Goepfert is a student in the Master of Arts in American History and Government program at Ashland University. Named the 2018 Madison Fellow for the state of Florida, she now teaches at Longwood High School on Long Island, NY.