Why are certain prominent and significant people written out of US History?

[Smarmie Doofus]

And more importantly: HOW is this accomplished? How are they "disappeared".

Good example: Henry Wallace. Barely knew he existed until about 10 years ago, so thoroughly in love with HST and the Cold War was/is the US MSM.

Then there's General Smedley Butler. Also completely omitted from the master narrative. Probably for saying things like this:

>>I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.
[edit]>>>>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smedley_Butler

Christ. Sounds like the lyrics to a Phil Ochs song. So where've they been hiding him?

1. Can anyone recommend further reading on Butler and especially on his apparent, fairly "late in life" political evolution?

2. Who else is GLARINGLY missing from US textbooks... and from the more or less generally agreed on because-its-been-foisted-on-us version of US history?

[knitter4democracy]

1. When I've subbed in history, I'm always amazed at what's glossed over.

Union history, in particular, is definitely lacking. How we really got Hawaii is always missing, too.

[hobbit709]

3. Or the REAL reason TX fought for independence from Mexico

[kentauros]

13. I'm not a history buff,

nor do I have the kind of interest in history as most people here. However, I have always like this quote (partially paraphrased) from the fictional character Michael Garibaldi on Babylon 5:

"Why do we define our history by the wars? Why not the peace? Because people like to see things fall apart."

There's more, but you get the gist. People like the exciting and "sexy" history. And, they don't care if it's true or not.

Now I did always love James Burke's "Connections" series. If only all of history could be taught that way!

[knitter4democracy]

26. I know several teachers who teach by the connections.

Most history teachers I've worked with do their best with the crappy sources they have, but it's not like it's easy when the state standards are so limiting. I wonder where Common Core is going to take us with social studies.

[kentauros]

34. And I think I learned (not to mention retained) more

from college and university history classes than I ever learned in grade school. Even worse, is that I remember more about ancient history thanks my first Art History class in that period.

And it's not like that kind of history was difficult to learn or understand. But it's like I said before: it's the wars, and the politics, that gets taught, and next to nothing on the accomplishments of the human race.

That's cool that some teachers use that technique, of connecting things in history. I would bet their students retain more about history than the ones having to memorize lists and dates. And I don't even want to think about what Common Core is going to do...

[Recursion]

33. Wars are easy to teach. Dates, names, battles, etc.

Teaching peace history is a lot harder, but a lot more worthwhile.

[kentauros]

35. I would think teaching peace-history would be more inspiring to students, too.

If it inspires them, then they're more willing to learn on their own, beyond what the class teaches

[msongs]

58. except there's not that much "peace" history to teach about... nt

[kentauros]

59. Sure there is!

Scientific accomplishments, technological advancements, art and architecture, music, et cetera.

Basically everything that is not war and politics

[Recursion]

73. Even politics: what if Clay, Calhoun, and Webster got as much time as the Civil War?

That is, the people who avoided war for two generations might be more important to learn about than the people who didn't avoid it.

[kentauros]

76. That's true.

I don't have a problem with the teaching of political history. Only that it's still pretty much war-centric, when there's so much more to it. And memorization is worthless. It's something that must be discussed.

If you think about it, what happens in the other subjects taught? Math has equations to be solved. English has sentence structure to be learned. Science has a little bit of math and history, yet history is nothing more than listening and remembering. There's nothing active (or none that I recall) in the teaching of it.

If there is some way to emulate Burke's Connections model for all history teaching, then you'd likely get kids more engaged in not only learning it, but wanting to talk about it

[Benton D Struckcheon]

97. "Peace" history could be incredibly fascinating

Read the stuff by Braudel or (largely forgotten now in the US but still well-known in Europe) Henri Pirenne. Braudel is all about economic connections and trade around the world, and to read Pirenne is to immerse yourself in the social and economic life of the Middle Ages.
Anyway, the thing about teaching re war is that even that stuff is not well-taught: in college I took a world history course and when we got to WWII it was all about how the Russians were fighting the Germans, with only a wee bit about the West and of course the US. The prof, when asked, pointed out that no one thought you could get to Germany through the Italian Alps. The way there went through France, and all those battles in North Africa and Italy were just a way to give the American generals some practice fighting over there before D-Day. He also said Stalin was going nuts trying to get the West to invade France and really get going. Eisenhower deliberately held back in order to keep American casualties to a minimum. His point, one that's stuck with me ever since, is that the Russians beat the Germans, and could have done it all by themselves if they were forced, which they almost were.
From D-Day to the final surrender was less than a year. Think about that. The Russians were fighting them for four years before the invasion on D-Day, pretty much all by themselves. They measure their dead in that war in the tens of millions.

[hobbit709]

2. Debs, Norman Thomas, and many others.

War is a Racket is good reading.

[Ron Green]

4. I think this is gonna be a good thread.

[Smarmie Doofus]

7. Kind of accidental if it is.

I started out reading something related to the New Deal ( I THINK on DU) and there was a brief reference to the "Bankers' Plot", which I had to read-up on real quick... which, of course led to Gen. Butler.

Needless to say.... there was a lot there that I did not know about Smedley.

Question is : why? i.e. just my laziness? Or is there a more complicated dynamic at work here?

[leveymg]

5. Oliver Stone had the movie rights to Butler's story, but hasn't produced it.

It could be that financial backing isn't forthcoming to publicize this particular counter-establishment figure. Big Money in Hollywood, as in other industries, is predominantly Right-wing.

That's why in recent years the Academy has rewarded the Director making films glorifying IED disposal units in the Iraq War and CIA/Navy Seals hit team, and why we're unlikely to see "War is a Racket" on the big screen, anytime soon.

P.S. - For a fascinating teaser of what could have been on the optioned script based on the late Jules Archer's 2005 book, "The Plot to Seize the White House", please see: http://septemberbaits.weebly.com/the-plot-to-seize-the-white-house.html

[leveymg]

10. P.P.S. - For more background on Oliver Stone's aborted Butler film project, please see:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/06/07/982851/-The-Plan-to-Breitbart-FDR

[Cary]

6. History is a discipline and the fact is that there are few who actually possess that discipline.

We all get some rudimentary education but real scholarship requires much, much more than the average education in history.

Anyone who has experienced the difference between survey courses in college and upper level graduate courses understands this.

[Recursion]

8. Butler, at least, is pretty famous

HUAC (though it was called something else at that point) investigated his claims in 1935 and couldn't find any evidence that MacGuire was serious, and definitely couldn't find any evidence that he had half a million paramilitaries ready to go as he claimed. The evidence suggests that either MacGuire was pulling Butler's leg, or Butler was exaggerating. So, basically, the Business Plot was "written out of history" because there was never any firm evidence for it.

[leveymg]

12. That is an incredible misrepresentation of what happened.

HUAC suppressed its own written report after it found evidence that MacGuire had indeed contacted Butler after MacArthur also turned down the plotters which included directors of the Du Pont family, Singer Sowing Machine, and Morgan Bank. The "not serious" spin was put on the story by The New York Times to downplay the story after FDR and the Chairman of the Committee decided to give the plotters a pass rather than risk a civil war in the depths of the Depression. Whatever concessions were extracted from the plotters, we will probably never know.

[Recursion]

22. Oh, it's clear MacGuire, Bush, and Du Pont would have liked to have done it

The missing bit was that MacGuire seems to have been BSing everybody about how many brownshirts he actually had (he claimed 500,000; the committee found evidence for a few dozen).

[leveymg]

31. Committee report found that a number of major financiers and industrialists signed on.

It was essentially a conspiracy by some of America's wealthiest people to repeat Mussolini's Fascist Party 1923 seizure of power, "The March on Rome." That's what really significant. Here's the report: http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/McCormack-Dickstein_Committee

From a summary of the sections initially deleted restored in 1975. Read it for yourself: http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/McCormack-Dickstein_Committee#Deleted_Text

The McCormack-Dickstein Committee "delet(ed) extensive excerpts relating to Wall Street financiers including Guaranty Trust director Grayson Murphy, J.P. Morgan, the Du Pont interests, Remington Arms, and others allegedly involved in the plot attempt. Even today, in 1975, a full transcript of the hearings cannot be traced."[1]

"Journalist John L. Spivak, researching Nazism and anti-Semitism for New Masses magazine, got permission from Dickstein to examine HUAC's public documents and was (it seems unwittingly) given the unexpurgated testimony amid stacks of other papers",[2] which he printed.

^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ Text in Red is deleted excerpts, click the ^ to see the deleted text.

For the original text and the deleted text side by side, see Suppressed testimony of the McCormack-Dickstein Committee below.

[brush]

39. Don't leave out Prescott Bush, HW's father and W's grandfather.

Also, this is why the repugs so hate the New Deal programs like Social Security. They were forced to accept them by FDR after their coup plot was foiled. He threatened to expose them all as traitors if they didn't go along with his New Deal programs. Them and their descendents and have been trying to get rid of or privatize the New Deal programs ever since.

[leveymg]

61. Prescott Bush and George Herbert Walker were involved in financing Hitler, not this plot.

The 1934 Businessman's Plot was mostly Morgan Bank and DuPont interests. Bush and Walker were Harriman Brown Bros., a different cell of American fascists and would-be Masters of the World. The two groups had in common the powerful Wall St. law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell, a cloak & dagger outfit run by the Dulles Bros., the older of the two being John Foster Dulles, who was also Chair of RNC at the time and later Eisenhower's Secretary of State, meanwhile Allen Dulles, the younger, went on to be Director of the CIA.

Sullivan & Cromwell was a nexis for the financing, rearming, and supplying of Nazi German, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan; in some cases its clients, including Rockefeller's Standard Oil, continued doing business with both sides even after December 1941.

At least, that's what the documented record shows.

[brush]

63. Yet another group of fascists during the '30s?

Bush I know was involved with the American Liberty League, DuPonts as well I believe, in trying to recruit Gen. Smedley Butler to lead a force to overthrow the Roosevelt Admin.

[leveymg]

64. The DuPonts and Morgan Bank interests were at the heart of the '34 plot. Bush/Walker worked at

Last edited Mon Mar 4, 2013, 05:32 PM - Edit history (2)

that time to finance Hitler through setting up shell corporations and hidden bank accounts for a client of Harriman Brown Bros., Fritz Thyssen.

In November, 1932, Thyssen and Hjalmar Schacht were the main organisers of a letter to President Paul von Hindenburg urging him to appoint Hitler as Chancellor. Thyssen also persuaded the Association of German Industrialists to donate 3 million Reichsmarks to the Nazi Party for the March, 1933 Reichstag election. As a reward, he was elected a Nazi member of the Reichstag and appointed to the Council of State of Prussia, the largest German state (both purely honorary positions).

Bush and Walker were on the boards of a number of German companies seized in 1942 by the Custodian of Enemy Alien Property. Among those companies was the Hamburg-American Line, favored conveyance of German intelligence, and the Silesian-American Company, which operated coal companies in the area of Poland where the Germans constructed a large synthetic gasoline plant. That area is better known for the Auschwitz concentration camp that supplied slave labor to those mines and to the synthetic petroleum facility.

Thyssen was head of the German Steel Trust, an early, major supporter of the Nazi Party, and later a convicted war criminal. Early after the War started, he wrote a confessional autobiography, "I Paid Hitler." Prescott Bush and George Herbert Walker were his banking partners, which made them Hitler's American bankers.

[Octafish]

87. BBC fellah found a box of stuff in Washington...

...from that Dickstein Committee in which Prescott Bush's name popped out. The BBC's "Document" program did an excellent report.

[Egalitarian Thug]

27. Yes it is. Are you surprised?

Every time we let these parasites get away with their crimes, we end up paying and paying, and the they comes back and try it again.

Right-Wing, it's not just for republicans.

[Smarmie Doofus]

14. Well... not so fast:

>>>The McCormack-Dickstein Committee confirmed some of Butler's accusations in its final report. "In the last few weeks of the committee's official life it received evidence showing that certain persons had made an attempt to establish a fascist organization in this country...There is no question that these attempts were discussed, were planned, and might have been placed in execution when and if the financial backers deemed it expedient."[67] [n 1][n 2]>>>>>>
---wiki (again)

Besides... I'm not referencing just the Business Plot. It's kind of remarkable ( isn't it?) for an individual who was so utterly identified with US..... ahem... ( Dare I say it? I dare.) imperialism, with both its implementation AND its rationalization to turn so COMPLETELY against it in such a public and passionate way. Only to be ignored.


Check-out the quote in OP again. I never saw it before. Did you?

[Recursion]

16. Isn't that from "War is a racket"?

*shrug*. I've come across that more times than I can count. His writings (even that one) are on reading lists for Marines, though, so maybe that's why.

[Smarmie Doofus]

19. News to me if it is. *Marines* are assigned this? n/t

[Recursion]

21. Well, a biography of him that included it. We also read Che Guevarra

Not sure why that surprises so many people, but it always seems to.

[leveymg]

20. House Speaker McCormick maintained his committee's conclusion the "business plot" was real.

Wiki:

Many years later, McCormick continued to vouch for Butler: "General Smedley Butler was one of the outstanding Americans in our history. I cannot emphasize too strongly the very important part he played in exposing the Fascist plot in the early 1930s backed by and planned by persons possessing tremendous wealth."[22]

In a book about art collector Robert Sterling Clark, art historian and non-profit executive Nicholas Fox Weber wrote: "Butler's testimony to the House Committee, which was played down in the newspaper and magazine accounts at the time, and made to seem largely specious by influential commentators, seems credible about the attempt to overthrow FDR, and Robert Sterling Clark's role in it. Butler's Claims, moreover, were supported by the committee's subsequent investigations and conclusions."[6]

[rurallib]

9. the whole Native American history is only told

as a sidebar to the white history.

[Smarmie Doofus]

18. That is a *given*.

I'm making the assumption that EVERYONE here knows that.

And understands why: you can't "disappear" an entire continent full of people without full-blast, top-gun, state of the art, everybody together now, utterly concerted re-write of history.

I'm looking now at the less generally recognizable rewrites and disappearances that shape ( or have *mis-shapen*) the way we look at things today... without our even being aware of it.

[knitter4democracy]

29. That's why I try to cover what I can in my classes.

I teach English and Spanish (home sick today), and I make sure to do what I can. My seniors loved "Smoke Signals" this last fall and beg to watch it again at least once a week. Students know there are parts missing in their education and love it when connections are filled in.

[kwassa]

88. Is it a good movie?

A friend of mine from high school, more than 40 years ago, was in the film.

[knitter4democracy]

94. It's an excellent movie!

I have yet to have a class of students not fall in love with it.

[Nye Bevan]

37. To be fair, they didn't exactly build enormous libraries documenting their history (nt)

[villager]

11. "War is the Health of the State" Great essay by Randolph Bourne

Bourne is another American writer who's been "downplayed" due to his views...

[FSogol]

15. "Following the death of Christ, there was a period of readjustment that lasted

approximately 2000 years." - Kurt Vonnegut Jr on what our history would look like one day.

[Starry Messenger]

17. Going to a history museum in Mexico City was very eye-opening.

I have lots of candidates for my pet "written out" people, but over-all I'm thinking that the US version of history vis a vis Mexico is the one that bothers me the most.

It was only in Mexico that I first learned of these folks: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Patrick's_Battalion

[Recursion]

25. There's a theory that that unit was where the term "Gringo" came from

Because they sang "Green Grow the Rushes" while marching.

[Smarmie Doofus]

62. I went to the same museum about 20 years ago and remember thinking....

..."I have to go to fucking MEXICO to find out that these people even existed."

'Course... that was pre-internet. Still, even back then we knew all about the Abraham Lincoln Brigade ( at least liberal/lefty-types did) but nothing at all about the St Patrick Brigade. For a variety of reasons of course but the main one concerns the question , "Who's ox is being gored?'

Perhaps Mr. Stone might take a stab at this one if the "Butler" project never takes off.

[Starry Messenger]

65. That would be an amazing film.

I had the same feeling of being utterly stunned. I looked up more about them when I got back. Evidently there is a yearly piping procession in their honor memorializing the battle.

[Smarmie Doofus]

72. Right about now it would catch *fire*. (In more ways than one.)

It touches on so many American political soft spots and taboos.

It would have to be an indy. I don't think even Stone could raise the $$$ for the kind of big budget project he likes to do.

[Ken Burch]

23. Here's some more folks and things kids should be taught about in U.S. schools:

Nat Turner
John Brown
Mary Harris "Mother" Jones
Big Bill Haywood
The Haymarket Martyrs
Marcus Garvey
W.E.B. Dubois
Wayne Morse
Juaquin Murrieta
Dorothy Day
Emma Goldman
The Catonsville Nine
Anna Mae Aquash-Pictou
The Mattachine Society/The Daughters of Bilitis
Robert LaFollette
Vito Marcantonio
Paul Robeson
The Abraham Lincoln Brigade
The National Emergency Committee for Civil Liberties
The Seattle General Strike of 1919
The West Coast Dock Strike of 1934

...that's for openers.

[Bigmack]

30. Centralia Massacre... nt

[Recursion]

36. That's a hard one

Neither the Wobblies nor the Legion came out of that looking good.

[Hayabusa]

45. Are we thinking about the same Centralia massacre?

I'm thinking about MO during the Civil War when Confederate partisans raided a train and murdered Union soldiers on leave.

[Recursion]

46. Oh, I guess not

I was thinking of the 1919 Armistice Day march in Centralia, WA, where the IWW and American Legion had a shootout.

Thanks for that; I didn't know about the MO one. Kind of interesting to see how Jesse James and Bleeding Kansas relate to one another.

[Hayabusa]

50. I didn't know about the WA, one.

Thanks for clarifying, though. I guess I knew about the Civil War one because I live near the area. I even went to the reenactment of the battle that followed.

[Smarmie Doofus]

70. Wiki describes it as a "massacre" not as a shootout. The account reads more like self defense.

With a lynching thrown in for good measure:

>>>Centralia Massacre of 1919
See main article: Centralia Massacre (Washington).


In this political cartoon from the Portland Telegram a Legionnaire prepares to hit a ball labeled "Bolshevism" with a rifle butt labeled "100 per cent Americanism" beside a quote from Theodore Roosevelt: "Don't argue with the reds; go to bat with them and go to the bat strong!"
November 11, 1919, the first anniversary of Armistice Day and the occasion of the American Legion's formal launch at its Minneapolis Founding Convention, was also a historical moment of violence and controversy. On that day a parade of Legionnaires took place in the mill town of Centralia, located in Southwestern Washington.[43]
Plans were made by some of the marchers at the conclusion of their patriotic demonstration to storm and ransack the local hall maintained by the Industrial Workers of the World, a radical labor union which had been the target of multiple arrests, large trials, and various incidents of mob violence nationally during the months of American participation in World War I.[43] Plans for this less-than-spontaneous act of violence had made their way to the ears of the Wobblies, however, and 30 or 40 IWW members had been seen coming and going at their hall on the day of the march — some of whom were observed carrying guns.[43]
At 2 pm the march began at the city park, led by a marching band playing "Over There."[44] Marchers included Boy Scouts, members of the local Elks Lodge, active-duty sailors and Marines, with about 80 members of the newly established Centralia and Chehalis American Legion posts bringing up the rear.[44] As the parade turned onto Tower Avenue and crossed Second Street, it passed IWW Hall on its left.[44] The parade stopped and Legionnaires surrounded the hall.[44]
Parade Marshall Adrian Cormier rode up on horseback and, according to some witnesses, blew a whistle giving the signal to the Legionnaires to charge the IWW headquarters building.[44] A group of marchers rushed the hall, smashing the front plate glass window and attempting to kick in the door.[44] Just as the door gave way, shots were fired from within at the intruders.[44] This provided the signal to other armed IWW members, who were stationed across the street to set up a crossfire against potential invaders and they also began firing on the Legionnaires.[45] In less than a minute the firing was over, with three AL members left dead or dying and others wounded.[46]
Taken by surprise by the armed defense of IWW headquarters, many Legionnaires rushed home to arm themselves, while others broke into local hardware stores to steal guns and ammunition.[46] Now armed, a furious mob reassembled and charged the IWW Hall again, capturing six IWW members inside.[46] The mob proceeded to destroy the front porch of the hall and a large bonfire was built, upon which were torched the local Wobblies' official records, books, newspapers, and mattresses.[46]
One local Wobbly named Wesley Everest escaped through a back door when he saw the mob approaching the hall.[46] He fled into nearby woods, exchanging gunshots with his pursuers.[46] One of those chasing the fleeing IWW man was hit in the chest several times with bullets and was killed, running the death count of Legionnaires to four.[46] Everest was taken alive, kicked and beaten, and a belt wrapped around his neck as he was dragged back to the town to be lynched.[46] Local police intervened, however, and Everest was taken to jail, where he was thrown down on the concrete floor.[46]
Legionnaires formed armed vigilante groups and began raiding local pool halls and checking those present IWW membership cards.[47] Another group assembled at the local Elks Hall and met for two hours, discussing what was to be done.[47]
At 7:30 pm, on cue, all city lights in town went out for 15 minutes and Legionnaires stopped cars and forced them to turn out their headlights.[47] The Elks Hall gathering entered the jail without meeting resistance and took Wesley Everest, dragging him away to a waiting car but leaving other incarcerated Wobblies in jail cells unhindered.[48] A procession of six cars drove west to a railroad bridge across the Chehalis River.[49]
A rope was attached to Everest's neck and he was pushed off the bridge, but the lynching attempt was bungled and Everest's neck was not snapped by the fall.[49] Everest was hauled up again, a longer rope was substituted, and Everest was pushed off the bridge again.[49] The lynch mob then shined their car headlights on the hanging form of Everest and shot him for good measure.[49]
Although a mob milled around the jail all night, terrorizing the occupants, no further acts of extra-legal retribution were taken.[49] Everest's body was cut down the next morning, falling into the riverbed below, where it remained all day.[50] As night fell Everest's body was hauled back to town, the rope still around his neck, where it was refused by local undertakers and left on the floor of the jail in sight of the prisoners all night.[50] No charges were ever filed in connection with the lynching.[51]
Twelve IWW members were ultimately indicted by a grand jury for first degree murder in connection with the killing of the four Legionnaires and a local left wing lawyer was charged as an accessory to the crime.[51] A January 1920 trial resulted in the conviction of six defendants on charges of second degree murder.[52]>>>>
[edit]

[Recursion]

71. You skipped the part where the Wobblies shot three unarmed Legionnaires with their rifles

But, like I said, nobody came out of that looking very good.

[Smarmie Doofus]

75. Didn't skip it. Included it:

>>>A group of marchers rushed the hall, smashing the front plate glass window and attempting to kick in the door. Just as the door gave way, shots were fired from within at the intruders. This provided the signal to other armed IWW members, who were stationed across the street to set up a crossfire against potential invaders and they also began firing on the Legionnaires. In less than a minute the firing was over, with three AL members left dead or dying and others wounded. >>>

But it seems unlikely that the Legionnaires were there were breaking windows and busting in the door in order to sell cookies. And, under the circumstances, the Wobblies might have felt the need to certainly at least *prepare* to use lethal force . Which they did.

Was it justifiable homicide? Apparently not.... according to the "court system" of Centralia, Wash in 1919.

I'm not sure that means much, though.

[Recursion]

78. Sorry, I missed that. The bloodstains were in the center of the street

The snipers didn't take out the people rushing the hall, they took out the leaders behind the mob. *shrug*

If nothing else, the massacre is a good example of the Rashomon effect. Actually now that I think of it in high school US History we did a mock trial of the Boston Massacre soldiers as a way of exploring that. I was defense counsel in my team and got the acquitted.

[Ken Burch]

91. And those at Everett and Ludlow as well.

The whole heritage of the IWW should be discussed.

[raccoon]

43. And Denmark Vesey. nt

[Ken Burch]

90. Good one.

And the Underground Railroad, with an emphasis on the fact that slaves did a lot to free themselves(no offense to the white abolitionist heritage, but the self-rescue aspect needs to be brought up too, for obvious reasons).

[RZM]

48. I don't think Nat Turner or John Brown are glossed over at all

I had a fairly normal educational experience and I was familiar with both from roughly Jr. High on.

I remember during Black History Month in High School, the principal made an announcement every morning highlighting an important black figure. One day he did Nat Turner. What struck me was that the principal didn't seem to know very much about him - he sounded like he was reading off a sheet that was just handed to him. I was already familiar with Turner's revolt at that point.

[hfojvt]

67. I probably would not include Nat Turner

People like Henry George, Edward Bellamy, Walter Rauschenbusch, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman were fairly influential in their day. Everybody hears about Jane Addams and Hull House in Chicago, but no mention of Denison House in Boston or Vida Scudder.

Charles Sheldon is probably the best selling author that most people have not heard of.

Then there's Elijah Lovejoy.

Karl Menninger writes of him

"That great American hero, editor, school teacher, and Presbyterian clergyman Elijah Lovejoy left the pulpit and returned to the press in order to be sure his words reached more people. The Civil War might have been averted and a peaceful emancipation of slaves achieved had there been more like him.

After observing one lynching, Lovejoy was committed forever to fighting uncompromisingly the awful sin of slavery. Mob action was brought against him time after time; neither this nor many threats and attempts on his life deterred him. Repeated destruction of his presses did not stop him. "If by compromise is meant that I should cease from my duty, I cannot make it. I fear God more than I fear man. Crush me if you will, but I shall die at my post ..."

And he did, four days later, at the hands of another mob. No one of the ruffians was prosecuted or indicted or punished in any way for this murder (Some of Lovejoy's defenders were prosecuted! One of the mob assassins was later elected mayor of Alton!)" "Whatever became of sin?" 1973 p. 210

Loewen writes of Turner

"By way of comparison, consider Nat Turner, who in 1831 led the most important slave revolt since the US became a nation. John Brown and Nat Turner both killed whites in cold blood. Both were religious, but, unlike Brown, Turner saw visions and heard voices. In most textbooks, Turner has become something of a hero. Several textbooks call Turner 'deeply religious'. None calls him a 'religious fanatic'. They reserve that term for Brown." "Lies my teacher told me" p. 178

[Ken Burch]

92. You could use Turner as an example of what something like slavery does to the human mind.

In both cases, the real objection mainstream history had to Brown and Turner was that they killed white slavers BACK(rather than just letting the white slavers do all the killing).

I'd also like to see a large discussion of the point that, while it was amazingly admirable that the 1960's Civil Rights movement was largely nonviolent, that nonviolence was never something the black freedom movement OWED white America.

I'm not being pro-violence here, just anti-hypocrisy.

[Benton D Struckcheon]

95. The Civil Rights folks would have been massacred.

They knew it too. As it was, there were still bombings, at least one massacre of civil rights workers, and of course the infamous police beatings they endured despite never having threatened anyone.
For further info, read "Slave Nation". That's a very eye-opening book. Jesse James was killed trying to get at the former governor of Mississippi (a northern Republican who had vigorously advocated for the Army to step in and protect southern blacks who were attempting to vote and to serve in the Mississippi state gov't (remember that the Democratic Party of the time were the pro-slavery folks)), something I didn't know until I read this book.

[Ken Burch]

98. Yes, they would have-that wasn't my point, though.

What I was saying was that they didn't OWE it to white folks to be nonviolent. It was the best tactics, but white America had no right to demand it of them. That's all.

[el_bryanto]

24. There's plenty of people who are forgotton for a number of reasons

1. There's like a million interesting and influential people - the writers of history books and the teachers choose what they think is important and teach that, to a certain extent based on their personal interests or, in some awful cases, based on the decisions of certain legislatures. If I were to teach history (which I am technically qualified to do) - I would try and cover everything, but naturally focusing on things that interest me most.

2. Certain people are harder to put into the general narrative. This is why it's easier to talk about Harriet Tubman than John Brown. Or Martin Luther King than Booker T. Washington. Louis Armstrong over Duke Ellington or Charlie Parker.

3. History teachers and history textbook, particularly in high school, are well aware that any controversy can cost them jobs and big sells. Yes, Eugene Debs is pretty important, but is he worth the potential arguments, calls from parents, questions from backwards school boards?

Just some thoughts.

Bryant

[graham4anything]

28. Louis Armstrong was integral to music in general.Without him and Bing Crosby, there was nothing.

Without Louis Armstrong or Bing Crosby, there would be ZERO popular music and zero recorded music as we know it today.

Duke Ellington came many years later, and so did charlie Parker.

But Louis Armstrong and Bing Crosby led to everyone else.

[el_bryanto]

32. And he's also easier to teach - he pandered to a white audience.

I disagree on Duke Ellington - i'd say he was at least as important as Louis Armstrong and possibly more so.

[graham4anything]

40. Why not teach all 3 of them. Bing Louis Duke

Duke (who by the way, I saw twice in concert at Carnegie Hall in the 60's), was one of the biggest creative and influencial as a composer and orchestral leader, though he did not sing as others in his band took vocals.

BTW, I love this song- Duke and Bing on lead vocals Three little words

<iframe width="640" height="360" src="

?feature=player_detailpage" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Louis and Bing were the two greatest entertainers ever.

Without Bing, there would never have been Popular Recorded Music as we know it,
and no Elvis, Beatles, and everything that followed.(Sinatra included, and Bing might have had the most pitch perfect voice from day one til the end).
The people prior to Bing are basically all but forgotten (Billy Murray, Henry Burr, George Gaskin, and other turn of the century singers).

I Give all their due.

But Duke has never been forgotten.

[el_bryanto]

44. That goes back to my original point

If you and I were to teach a jazz sympsium for some reason - it's not like I wouldn't mention Bing Crosby, and it's not like you wouldn't mention Duke Ellington. But we'd focus on what we know more about and what we feel more passionate about. That's not wrong - there's good reasons to do that. You are going to be more energetic and interesting talking about something you are passionate about.

I think the problems come in more when local schoolboards or state legislatures try to ensure that the history of White People isn't forgotten.

Bryant

[graham4anything]

53. I was also referring to actual recording history itself-see 3rd paragraph.

Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby (May 3, 1903 – October 14, 1977)[3] was an American singer and actor. Crosby's trademark bass-baritone voice made him one of the best-selling recording artists of the 20th century, with over half a billion records in circulation.[4]

A multimedia star, from 1934 to 1954 Bing Crosby was a leader in record sales, radio ratings and motion picture grosses.[5] His early career coincided with technical recording innovations; this allowed him to develop a laid-back, intimate singing style that influenced many of the popular male singers who followed him, including Perry Como,[6] Frank Sinatra, and Dean Martin. Yank magazine recognized Crosby as the person who had done the most for American G.I. morale during World War II and, during his peak years, around 1948, polls declared him the "most admired man alive," ahead of Jackie Robinson and Pope Pius XII.[7][8] Also in 1948, the Music Digest estimated that Crosby recordings filled more than half of the 80,000 weekly hours allocated to recorded radio music.[8]

Crosby exerted an important influence on the development of the postwar recording industry. He worked for NBC at the time and wanted to record his shows; however, most broadcast networks did not allow recording. This was primarily because the quality of recording at the time was not as good as live broadcast sound quality. While in Europe performing during the war, Crosby had witnessed tape recording, on which The Crosby Research Foundation would come to have many patents. The company also developed equipment and recording techniques such as the Laugh Track which are still in use today.[9] In 1947, he invested $50,000 in the Ampex company, which built North America's first commercial reel-to-reel tape recorder. He left NBC to work for ABC because NBC was not interested in recording at the time. This proved beneficial because ABC accepted him and his new ideas.[9] Crosby then became the first performer to pre-record his radio shows and master his commercial recordings onto magnetic tape. He gave one of the first Ampex Model 200 recorders to his friend, musician Les Paul, which led directly to Paul's invention of multitrack recording. Along with Frank Sinatra, Crosby was one of the principal backers behind the famous United Western Recorders recording studio complex in Los Angeles.[10]

During the "Golden Age of Radio," performers often had to recreate their live shows a second time for the west coast time zone. Through the medium of recording, Crosby constructed his radio programs with the same directorial tools and craftsmanship (editing, retaking, rehearsal, time shifting) being used in motion picture production. This became the industry standard.

[marmar]

38. Until you get to college (and even then it depends on the professor).......

...... formal history is nothing but a celebration of war, Eurocentrism and capitalism.

[raccoon]

107. You got that right. nt

[kiva]

41. Because the time allotted to "social studies" or "history",

depending on the school system, has shrunk to almost nothing.

Because history is in high school is often taught by coaches who need to teach a second subject and math is too hard and they don't know science and English is too picky, so let them teach history, it's just a collection of names and dates and places, right?

Because parents in K-12 complain if the curriculum doesn't match their preferences, and administrators cave.

Because some students don't want to discuss, read about, hear about or know anything that won't be on the test - and these people and events aren't on the test.

Because by the time students get to college in many states - including mine - they can get a degree without taking a single history class.

So yeah, there are many cool things in history that students never hear about.

[Nevernose]

42. Our high schools no longer teach pre-1900 American History

I am not joking or exaggerating. They say they don't have time to teach it, it's not in e high school curriculum, and isn't measured on the (impending) Civics Proficiency Exam.

I was going to read Edwards' "Sinners..." with my eleventh graders earlier this year, but they didn't know who the Puritans were.

[DearHeart]

93. I think that some aren't even teaching post-WWII history.

Year or so ago, my niece was a couple of months away from graduating...I put on "Thirteen Days" and she asked what the movie was about and I told her that it was about "The Cuban Missile Crisis," and she responded, "What's that?" My head almost exploded! I asked her what she had learned about the 60's and it was pretty much only JFK assasination, the fact of Vietnam (nothing in depth). I was shocked and appalled at the lack of history being taught! And this was a highly rated high school, internal baccalaureate program. Just ridiculous!

I know that they don't really have a lot of time, but you could at least skim over the topics.

[Nevernose]

99. And that was the case until recently

But now so many people complain about not learning any recent history, that they don't learn anything that happened before 1900. And of course, even though we aren't in Texas, the books are still watered-down, prejudiced fluff that could pass approval in Texas. Well, they would be if we weren't dead last nationwide in per pupil spending and had books printed in the last ten or twelve years.

[DearHeart]

108. Since I don't have kids, I don't know what they're teaching in high schools

They don't seem to be teaching critical thinking, history, english...is it all math & science?

[Nevernose]

109. I'm an English teacher, actually

And while they'd love to turn our schools into little math and science factories, there aren't enough math and science teachers to go around. Of course, there is a state-wide test for reading and writing, so the English teachers get pressed pretty hard, too.

We also have nearly totally eliminated vocational classes and classes with immediate, real world benefits (think Home Ec), as all students are pushed into identical college prep tracks. It doesn't even make sense for the college bound kids to all have identical courses of study, much less all students regardless of ability.

It's all about testing, or raising the bar, or raising standards, or some other late-breaking buzzword, and is very rarely about educating children. Most of this, I believe, can be laid at the feet of the politization of eduction and the burgeoning corporate interest in our schools.

[DearHeart]

110. It does seem like some people are trying to turn the schools into little factories.

Everyone studies the same things...not what they're interested in or what they're good at. Seems like they want all of the kids to either be doctors/scientists or MBAs, and nothing else. But, these kids need the critical thinking classes and some need vocational classes; not everyone can or should be a doctor/scientist or MBA.

I feel so bad for teachers having to try and really "teach" in these times. And, I feel bad for these kids...with the emphasis only on testing, they're being short-changed.

Have a great weekend!!

[SheilaT]

47. Basically, there is only so much time in the school day and the school year.

American history in particular is a rapidly moving target. My mother was born in 1916, so when she was in high school they only had to cover about 150 years of American history. My younger son graduated high school in 2005, so he needed to add on an additional 75 years, which is --wait, where's my calculator -- oh I'll do the math by hand. That's 50% more history to cover. Choices have to be made about what to teach, and the courses are only intended as a survey anyway.

The real crime is that history is generally taught so badly that kids lose all interest and think that what happened before they were born is completely irrelevant. Such a shame, because history really does matter.

I have basically zero knowledge of Smedley Butler, although I have heard the name at various times in the past, because that's not an era of history that particularly interests me. The Tudors, on the other hand, can't get enough of them. Unfortunately, the popularization of various TV shows and movies and novels about those people has given many a totally false view of them and how they behaved and why. Sigh.

[RZM]

51. Good point

It's hard enough to get the kids to be able to point out their own state on a map - let alone teach them about Mother Jones and the IWW.

Baby steps. If you jump right in to hardcore labor history, few would be able to follow.

[OldDem2012]

49. You might be interested in Smedley's role in blowing the whistle on this....

Wall Street's Plot to Seize the White House - Facing the Corporate Roots of American Fascism

QUOTES:

"In 1933, Butler was approached by men representing a clique of multi-millionaire industrialists and bankers. They hated U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) with a passion, and saw his “New Deal” policies as the start of a communist take-over that threatened their interests. FDR even had the temerity to announce that the U.S. would stop using its military to interfere in Latin American affairs! Wall Street’s plutocrats were aghast! They had long been accustomed to wielding tremendous control over the government’s economic policies, including the use of U.S. forces to protect their precious foreign investments. Because of Butler’s steadfast military role in upholding U.S. business interests abroad, the plotters mistakenly thought they could recruit him to muster a “super-army” of veterans to use as pawns in their plan to subjugate or, if necessary, eliminate FDR.

Butler played along in order to determine who was behind the plot. He later testifying under oath before the MacCormack-Dickstein House Committee on un-American Activities. During that testimony Butler named those who were directly involved in the plot. He also identified an powerful organization that was behind the scenes coordinating and backing the plot. This organization, the American Liberty League, was comprised of some of America's wealthiest bankers, financiers and corporate executives.

However, the House Committee did not properly investigate the coup plot. In fact they helped to cover it up. The powerful fascists plotters behind the coup were never questioned, let alone arrested or charged with sedition or treason. The Committee even dropped from their report of Butler's testimony most of the names of these wealthy bankers and corporate presidents whom Butler had identified. Butler was of course outraged and he went on national radio to name the names of those behind the coup plot. A sympathetic reporter from the Philadelphia Herald, Paul Comly French was one of the only mainstream journalists to help Butler expose the plotters. John Spivak, a reporter, from the socialist magazine New Masses, interviewed Butler and helped him to put the coup plotters' names onto the public record. For the most part, the mainstream media either ignored the story or went to great lengths to ridicule General Butler.

Although Butler's patriotic efforts did thwart this fascist coup plot, the Wall Street bankers and corporate leaders who sponsored it continued to conspire behind the scenes to rid America of FDR and to smash his “New Deal.” Evidence of continued efforts by powerful U.S. fascists to regain control of the White House is illustrated by a 1936 statement by William Dodd, the U.S. Ambassador to Germany.

Does any of that sound like it could be happening today? You bet it does!

[Nay]

52. What I noticed was the treatment of Smedley Butler in the National Museum of the Marine Corps

in Triangle, VA. He is given space, of course, and there are several quotes from him, but NONE of the quotes deal with his lambasting of the 'empire' or his disgust with what went on generally. I realize this museum is mainly a hagiographic monument to the Marines, but just once I'd like to see the unvarnished truth somewhere that the actual public can read it and maybe, just maybe, wonder about the way things are. Guess not.

[Smarmie Doofus]

56. My point exactly.

But US history... as it is generally understood, taught and transmitted... is one massive hagiographic monument.

Perhaps it works the same way in all cultures, I don't know.

But I think it's good to be forever on the lookout for the most 'offensive offenses' , if you will.

Butler's one of 'em.

[Tikki]

54. These two: Ephram Squire and Edwin Davis...sorta my heroes...

http://www.peopleofthestone.com/squier-and-davis-forgotten-patrons-american-archaeolgy


Tikki

[One_Life_To_Give]

55. How many humans have lived just during recorded history?

Millions of lifetimes of personal histories. And we try to distill a few volumes that are "worth reading" from all that has ever happened.
Do we start US History with 1776/07/04 or 1775/04/19 or 1620? (1492, 4000BC, 40,000BC)
Is it possible to understand a Butler, Lindbergh, Adams, or Jefferson without understanding their personal view of history and the world.
How do we begin to interpret the Federalist papers and constitution without some understanding of what it was like to grow up being a James Madison.

[JDPriestly]

105. Good points. Excellent post.

[Blue_In_AK]

57. The labor movement is pretty well glossed over.

[Recursion]

80. I dunno. I remember learning about Gompers, Debs, and Lewis, plus Haymarket and the Bonus army

And that was in a pretty run of the mill public high school in Mississippi.

[Blue_In_AK]

85. That may be true,

but I'm still hearing historical labor stories that I've never heard before.

[Recursion]

86. Oh, me too, definitely

It may have been an advantage of absurdly old textbooks, too; ours stopped at "the growing involvement in Indochina"

[Blue_In_AK]

96. I don't remember ever getting much past WW II

I graduated from HS in 1964. And they didn't teach much about labor in Texas. In fact, we were taught about "the War Between the States" from the Cinfederate perspective. I'm sure my education.is totally skewed.

[nadinbrzezinski]

60. Whole swaths of labor history

As to how...committees decide on textbook material, and tend to follow the "big man in history school."

Granted, you cannot have all in basic history books, and you should not leave Lincoln out...but he can be "disappeared" just as easily.

I prefer process, where the individuals matter, but movements are just as important. It s also easier to keep kids interested. This is one huge clue of why tat won't happen...history should not be boring, but it is. And if you go into ideology and movements, people will know what fascism is. We can't ave that.

[Spike89]

66. It (they) conflicts with the narrative of US exceptionalism

This country was perilously close to revolution with major factions on both the right and left mobilizing. Capitalism on the extreme right was openly aligning itself with the fascist movements in Germany and Italy. The left was just as openly pushing for a communist revolution like Russia and China.

FDR (with much help from Butler) managed to avoid the right-wing coup, but couldn't openly declare "victory" without risking a very fragile economy and more important, giving more fuel to the growing unreast among labor. Although the CCC and other works projects of the New Deal aren't ignored in history, their main purpose--getting the hordes of unemployed men out of the cities where they were "easy" to organize by the left--has been replaced with the simple "putting people back to work" rationale.

When we shifted to a war economy with fascist Germany, Italy, and Spain as the enemy, it was obviously impossible politically to identify the leading commercial institutions of the US as fascist. In much the same manner, the end of the war and the immediate beginning of the Cold War made communism the enemy--and recognizing just how powerful the pro-communist sentiment had been in the 30s was simply politically impossible.

The history we wrote was all about the US as the unfailing leader of all that was good in the world--the reality that we were on a razor's edge between choosing both of the "boogiemen" of the 20th Century just didn't fit the feel good story.

[Retrograde]

68. And pretty much anything that happened in large swaths of the country before the Anglo-Americans

There were European settlements in New Mexico since c. 1608, and a major uprising against them in the 1670s, but from the history I was taught everything west of the Hudson seems to have been a blank slate until the "real" Americans showed up. I doubt anyone not living in California or New Mexico has heard of De Anza, one of the more able explorers and governors, for example.

IMHO, one reason is lack of time: a lot happened in a lot of places, and high schools only have a limited amount of time to cover everything. Plus, there's an East Coast bias in publishing (sort of makes a little sense since it is one of the more densely populated areas) so American history tends to be written as a push inwards from the original colonies, ignoring, say, the French settlements in the Mississippi Valley and the Spanish in the Southwest. Did you know there were Russian settlements in California in the 1800s?

[WinkyDink]

69. U.S. history and actual historians have not so done. U.S. school textbooks are a different issue.

[SoCalDem]

74. Every day there is more "history", and school boards decide

what textbooks are used.

Teachers have only so much time to cover what the curriculum (and testing) demands, so everyone gets snippets here and there, but not much of recent history.

If you stopped 5 ADULTS and asked them to name 2 things about :

Lincoln
Washington
FDR
Nixon

don't we all know what those two things would probably be?

the "also participateds" in history are only mentioned in passing.

If people want to actually learn history, they must go to college (probably major in it) and/or be self taught through reading a LOT.

Most people take a little as possible when they are in school, many choosing substitutes, so "JayWalking" becomes true for too many adults.

How old were you the last time you officially studied history? ( I was 18 Medieval History at KU)

[Blue_Tires]

77. Given how much military worship is ingrained in us from childhood

it's no surprise that the "Bonus Army" gets so little attention...

It's impossible to overstate the shocking significance of our army opening fire on our veterans (veterans of the deadliest and most psychologically lethal warfare in history) in our national capital....

[Manifestor_of_Light]

79. Helen Keller was a Socialist.

she was well aware of the links between blindness and poverty.

Norman Thomas, Presbyterian Minister and Socialist Candidate for President. My dad voted for Norman Thomas in 1932. He said there was basically no diff between the Democratic and Republican platforms that year, and that later FDR implemented the recommendations of the Socialist platform.


Robert Green Ingersoll, famous agnostic who gave many speeches.

A sample of Ingersoll from http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_G._Ingersoll

"What is blasphemy? I will give you a definition; I will give you my thought upon this subject. What is real blasphemy?
To live on the unpaid labor of other men — that is blasphemy.
To enslave your fellow-man, to put chains upon his body — that is blasphemy.
To enslave the minds of men, to put manacles upon the brain, padlocks upon the lips — that is blasphemy.
To deny what you believe to be true, to admit to be true what you believe to be a lie — that is blasphemy.
To strike the weak and unprotected, in order that you may gain the applause of the ignorant and superstitious mob — that is blasphemy.
To persecute the intelligent few, at the command of the ignorant many — that is blasphemy.
To forge chains, to build dungeons, for your honest fellow-men — that is blasphemy.
To pollute the souls of children with the dogma of eternal pain — that is blasphemy.
To violate your conscience — that is blasphemy.
The jury that gives an unjust verdict, and the judge who pronounces an unjust sentence, are blasphemers.
The man who bows to public opinion against his better judgment and against his honest conviction, is a blasphemer.
Why should we fear our fellow-men? Why should not each human being have the right, so far as thought and its expression are concerned, of all the world? What harm can come from an honest interchange of thought?"


Huey Long. He might well have been the fascist dictator of the United States had Roosevelt not enacted the New Deal to put people to work and stop a revolution.

[Smarmie Doofus]

83. AND... a Wobblie:

>>>Keller joined the Industrial Workers of the World (known as the IWW or the Wobblies) in 1912,[21] saying that parliamentary socialism was "sinking in the political bog". She wrote for the IWW between 1916 and 1918. In Why I Became an IWW,[23] Keller explained that her motivation for activism came in part from her concern about blindness and other disabilities:>>>

wiki

[Cleita]

81. Isabella Baumfree aka Sojourner Truth.

Never heard of her until recently. Although we were taught about Harriet Tubman, for some reason or other this woman was never mentioned in any history class I took.

[Skittles]

103. Lucretia Mott

http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/0103.html

[KamaAina]

82. Malcolm X

especially the end of his life (much like Dr. King). He made the hajj to Mecca and came back a changed man. He saw Muslims of every color in the rainbow, even white ones from Bosnia. From then on, his political narrative became less and less about hating Whitey. It is believed that this may have led to his assassination.

[Smarmie Doofus]

84. Malcolm is well known to my generation.

Probably due to his autobiography which was often *assigned* in some schools in the 70's.

And Hollywood has left at least an *image* of him w. the Spike Lee doc.

But I'm not sure how much of this filters down to school curriculum, for example. Probably squeezed in w. about 10-12 other AA icons during Black History Month .

If even that.

[kwassa]

89. We read "The Autobiography of ..." in high school English class.

[Journeyman]

100. The history I've read is quite broad and comprehensive. Guess the difference is . . .

I've never let my schooling get in the way of my education.

[sabrina 1]

101. Glaringly absent from history in the US is the way we treated Native Americans

and the many wonderful writings of Native Americans who were there. Wise, brilliant and insightful writing, but apparently not worthy of note in this country yet. We have a long way to go before we evolve into a nation that is tired of killing people and believes it is somehow honorable to do so. But other nations finally grew up so maybe we will also, some day.

[JDPriestly]

102. On a different, local level, in LA, we have the fascinating

character, Charles Fletcher Lummis. Only in the area in which he lived is he known, but he was a real hero of the old West and of our city.

Charles Fletcher Lummis (1 March 1859, in Lynn, Massachusetts – 24 November 1928, in Los Angeles, California) was a United States journalist and Indian activist; he is also acclaimed as a historian, photographer, poet and librarian.

. . . .

In 1884, Lummis was working for a newspaper in Cincinnati when he was offered a job with the Los Angeles Times. At that time, Los Angeles had a population of only 12,000. Lummis decided to make the 2,200-mile journey from Cincinnati to Los Angeles on foot, taking 143 days, all the while sending weekly dispatches to the paper chronicling his trip. The trip began in September and lasted through the winter. He suffered a broken arm and the heavy snows of New Mexico, yet the trip left him enamored with the Southwest and its Spanish and Native American inhabitants. In 1892, his writings during the trip were published as a book, A Tramp Across the Continent.
Editor at the Los Angeles Times

Upon his arrival, Lummis was offered the job of the first City Editor. There was no lack of work as he covered a multitude of interesting stories from the new and growing community. Work was hard and demanding under the hard-driving pace set by publisher Harrison Otis. However, Lummis was happy until he suffered from a mild stroke that left his left side paralyzed.
New Mexico

In 1888, Lummis moved to San Mateo, New Mexico to recuperate from his paralysis. He rode about the plains holding a rifle in one good hand while shooting wild jack rabbits. Here he began a new career as a prolific freelance writer, writing on everything that was particularly special about the Southwest and Indian cultures. However, some of his remarks written about corrupt bosses committing murders in San Mateo drew threats on his life, so he moved to a new location in the Pueblo Indian village of Isleta, New Mexico on the Rio Grande.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Fletcher_Lummis

Pal of Teddy Roosevelt, bit of a womanizer but an amazing and eccentric personality. Just fascinating. He was considered to be a "booster" of early Los Angeles. Among other things, he lead the effort to build the Southwest Museum, chose the location which has an amazing view. His story is really exciting. Yet I bet you never heard of him. I wish they would make a movie about his life.

On edit, I add that Lummis was a great friend of the Indians and a good influence on Teddy Roosevelt with regard to one tribe. Lummis persuaded Teddy Roosevelt to at least give them land when he displaced them, if I remember correctly, upon the building of San Diego. (Not sure about those details.) The Southwest Museum is/was a museum dedicated to Indian history, artifacts, culture and also Southwest and South American artifacts and culture to a lesser extent.

The Southwest Museum is now being "managed" by the Autry Museum. Its future is uncertain. This is very, very unfortunate. I would like to see it remain a true museum of the American Indian on the West Coast. A real tribute to the American Indian.

[Neoma]

104. First name that comes to mind is Nellie Bly.

[woo me with science]

106. The Rockefellers and other oligarchs, and,

in general, the role of MONEY in virtually every political decision through history, including all of our wars.

Money is the single greatest driving force in this nation's history of political decision-making, and it is the issue least likely to be discussed in classrooms.