Civil War and Class Conflict
Teaching Activity PDF. By Gayle Olson-Raymer. 16 pages.
Questions and teaching ideas for Chapter 10 of Voices of a People’s History of the United States on “The Other Civil War” – the class conflict fought by the poor in the north and south.
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“Class conflict?” many students ask, “What does the Civil War have to do with class conflict?” Indeed, among the thousands of books that dissect the Civil War from almost every angle, most fail to examine what was happening within the divided nations during the four years the two sides waged war upon one another. Traditional texts unravel the causes and consequences of the war, the military battles, and the multiple tragedies of the conflict without looking at what Howard Zinn calls “The other Civil War” — the class conflict fought by the poor who lived in the industrializing North and by those who lived in the impoverished rural South.
By including the voices of class resistance, a more complete story emerges about the lives of ordinary Americans in the period 1861–1865. More importantly, their voices highlight the continuous thread of class conflict that arose in colonial America, became a permanent part of the political, economic, and social fabric of post-Revolutionary America, played a powerful role in the shaping of nineteenth and twentieth century America, and continues to influence the lives of Americans in the twenty-first century.
Reprinted from the Teaching with Voices of a People’s History of the United States.
Published by Seven Stories Press.
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Zinn Education Project
Thursday, February 9th at 13:07 The National Museum of the American Indian is in the early planning stages for an exhibit on the Native people of New York State and the surrounding regions. They seek insights into how teachers are covering historic and contemporary issues around Native Americans in their classrooms so that they can best integrate the needs of students and teachers into the exhibition. If you are currently teaching, or have recently taught content related to Native Americans from the Northeast, they would appreciate hearing your input on the survey at the link below. As a thank you, you will automatically be entered in a raffle to win one of three books.
Zinn Education Project
Thursday, February 9th at 7:31 On this day in 1950, Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy delivered a speech during which he claimed to hold a list of known communists in the U.S. State Dep't. The speech grabbed national headlines and launched the paranoia and persecution now known as “McCarthyism.”
Here are classroom resources, including a young adult novel, on McCarthyism:http://zinnedproject.org/posts/tag/mccarthyism
Are there other books, films, lessons you recommend to teach about McCarthyism?
History in Pictures - February
On Feb 9, 1950, Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy delivered a speech at the McLure Hotel during which he claimed to hold a list of known communists in the U.S. State Department. The speech grabbed national headlines and launched the paranoia and persecution now known as “McCarthyism.”
Here are classroom resources, including a young adult novel, on McCarthyism: http://zinnedproject.org/posts/tag/mccarthyism
History in Pictures features just a few of the many stories that are often left out of the textbooks. The sources for these stories include: This Week in History from Peace Buttons (http://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/thisweek.htm), Planning to Change the World: A Social Justice Plan Book for Teachers (http://www.justiceplanbook.com/), This Day in Civil Rights History (http://zinnedproject.org/posts/13684), History.com (http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history), 50 American Revolutions You Are Not Supposed to Know (http://zinnedproject.org/posts/11632), A People's History of the United States (http://zinnedproject.org/posts/67), Black Facts Online (http://www.blackfacts.com), Today in Labor History (http://www.unionist.com/big-labor/today-in-labor-history), and many more.
Zinn Education Project
Thursday, February 9th at 7:04 Happy birthday Alice Walker. A good day to listen to one of Walker's interviews on Democracy Now!.
Please share your favorite book, essay, or quote by Alice Walker.
Alice Walker on "Overcoming Speechlessness: A Poet Encounters the Horror in Rwanda, Eastern Congo an
www.democracynow.org
As the 2010 Pulitzer Prize winners are announced, we speak with the first African American woman to be awarded a Pulitzer Prize for fiction: author, poet and activist Alice Walker. She was awarded the 1983 Pulitzer for her novel The Color Purple. She was written many books since then. Her latest, ju...
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