The Vanishing Union Officer

[Pamela Troy]

From the Washington Post:

In the version of history being taught in some Virginia classrooms, New Orleans began the 1800s as a bustling U.S. harbor (instead of as a Spanish colonial one). The Confederacy included 12 states (instead of 11). And the United States entered World War I in 1916 (instead of in 1917)…

The review began after The Washington Post reported in October that "Our Virginia" included a sentence saying that thousands of black soldiers fought for the South. The claim is one often made by Confederate heritage groups but rejected by most mainstream historians. The book's author, Joy Masoff, said at the time that she found references to it during research on the Internet. Five Ponds Press later apologized.

The unusual review process involved five professional scholars. The results, said three of those involved in the process, proved disturbing.

Only three found this disturbing? What did the other two say?

The right wing war on reality continues -- and where better to attack it than in the way history is taught? The old myth about masses of black Confederate troops fighting for Dixie is especially dear to the heart of conservatives who want to erase the ugly fact that the south’s “cause” was based on white supremacy. The 1st Louisiana Native Guard, a PR stunt by the Confederacy, is cited by these revsionists, in spite of the fact that it lasted only one year and never saw any actual military action. Still, you can find it being cited on right wing sites, usually accompanied by the following picture:



This picture is a carefully cropped fabrication. Here is the original picture before some Confederate apologist retouched it. What it shows are black Union soldiers posing for a studio photo with their white Union officer:



More can be read about the history of this spurious photo in this fascinating essay by Jerome Handler, (identified as Senior Scholar at the Virginia Foundation of the Humanities) and Michael Tuite, who (identified as the former Director of Digital Media Lab at the University of Virginnia Library.)

What does it say about a political movement when it attempts to rewrite history to the point of fabrication?

What does it say about the inroads extremism has made into our mainstream when a public school textbook includes this blatant level of revisionism?

Crossposted from Thoughtcrimes

[Codeine]

1. Holy shit! Excellent post.

I've seen that misused a billion times on the historical sites I frequent. Thanks for the heads-up! :hi:

[Jakes Progress]

2. Now that corporations own the firms that publish history books

it is probable that truth will be an elusive goal for our grandchildren.

[Recursion]

4. Was there a time when textbooks weren't published by publishing companies? (nt)

[baldguy]

7. No, but before the book was written to comply to the curriculum set by state school boards.

Today, the curriculum is set to conform to the book.

[dsc]

9. no it isn't

It varies state by state but state departments write the standards and often develope the curriculum and then they set out to adopt books, trying to find those which match the curriculum most closely. They don't get the books first and then develope the curriculum.

[Jakes Progress]

15. You are out of the current loop.

There are only a handful of publishing firms that produce materials for the majority of schools. Because Texas is a state-wide adoption state and because there are so many students, most companies write their materials to conform to Texas standards. There is an unholy bond between the Texas lege and coroporate interests. Check your Molly Ivins. You get Texas textbooks whether you want them or not.

Do you really think that the textbook companies are going to write the truth about the gulf oil spill, about WMD, about the economic crisis when their parent companies would look bad if they did. If you believe that, it is very naive. Quaint and cute, but naive.

[Jakes Progress]

13. Education publishing companies didn't belong to giant corporate conglomerates

They used to be just companies. Now, there are only a few that publish the books for most of the schools and those companies are part of the portfolios of international corporations that also own banks, oil companies, suppliers of military materials. You know - too big to fail.

[EFerrari]

14. I once read an article about how the industry has roots in BushCo

but have never been able to find it again. It might have been The Nation ca. 2005 or so.

[Jakes Progress]

16. Can't find that article, but

I worked in the schools here in Texas when the legislature ponied up millions of dollars for supplementary reading programs. Schools had to write a grant to the state to get the funding. It was made very clear to those writing the grants that they would get the money only if their grant called for using one particular set of materials, and that proved to be true. Millions of dollars of tax money were set aside to purchase one company's materials, very regressive, phonics based materials from a company part owned by a bush brother. A supervisor in a district next to ours refused to write the grant for the materials which she knew to be actually harmful to children's development. The superintendent had the grant rewritten by a consultant from the company in question so that the district would get the money. Just one of the reasons I decided to retire.

[EFerrari]

19. You know, it could have been this one in 2002

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x428208

but I remember it being later. Maybe he did a follow up.

[Recursion]

20. Bell & Howell? McGraw-Hill?

These guys have been big for decades. (Though actually Bell & Howell is now "Proquest" or something like that.)

[JVS]

3. Disappearing people: It's not just for the USSR anymore.

[kenfrequed]

5. This should be above politics

This should be a story onto itself and the mainstream media owes it to Americans to cover this!

[gratuitous]

18. Nothing is above politics anymore

And for every mean little trick like this that's caught, I'd bet there are a lot that slip by unnoticed, setting or changing the terms of the discussion, and if possible re-making reality. When these trolls are caught out, they either squall like spoiled brats or just shrug and move on, confident that we haven't found every last turd they slipped into the punch bowl.

The mainstream media is either too lazy or apathetic to care about it. Every now and then someone might get a little worked up, but really, the well-known liberal bias of facts and reality has to cede equal time to the people with an agenda. Insisting on the truth for its own sake is just . . . kind of quaint, anymore. Like your grandma insisting you use a coaster on the Formica.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

6. That's some Creative Editing.

[SteppingRazor]

8. As far as the "three found it disturbing" thing...

I think that's not saying that two of them did not find it disturbing. It's saying that, of the five who reviewed it, the Post talked with three, and they all found it disturbing.

[myrna minx]

10. Excellent as always, Pamela. K&R n/t

[EFerrari]

11. I heard a historian argue the other night that Lincoln won the war

because of black Union soldiers. It was in this presentation:

Eric Foner, history professor at Columbia University, examines Abraham Lincoln's thoughts on slavery. Mr. Foner relays that early in Lincoln's political career he was "naturally anti-slavery" but adhered to the Constitution's protection of the institution in the original slave states. According to the author, Lincoln's thinking shifted following the debate over the expansion of slavery to Kansas and Nebraska in 1854. Mr. Foner follows President Lincoln's political maturation and his complete refutation of slavery that the author contends is fully realized following the Civil War. Eric Foner discusses his book at the Newberry Library in Chicago.

http://www.booktv.org/Program/11995/The+Fiery+Trial+Abraham+Lincoln+and+Amercan+Slavery.aspx

[sulphurdunn]

17. It was the issue of the expansion

of slavery into the West that made the war inevitable. The South knew it could not maintain its agricultural slave system or compete with the industrialization of the North without such expansion and that their "peculiar institution" would be doomed.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

12. AG Ken Cuccinelli ...

will take immediate steps to recover the money that Virginia has been bamboozled into spending on these fraudulent books.

Sure.

[rpannier]

21. Thanks for the post.

Wish I had seen it earlier so I could have rec'd it