Teddy Bear

One of the things that has come out, in my US History 2 class this semester, is students' fascination with Theodore Roosevelt. Partly because of the way I have organized the first four weeks' content, he is a recurring presence. Another person who seems very present is Jane Addams. I wonder whether I could use them as examples of a couple of approaches to what America means in the first Gilded Age? Maybe add Andrew Carnegie? Balance him with a woman, who would that be? Ida Tarbell? Ida Wells? Mrs. Astor of the 400?

I'm not really a believer in the Great Man theory of history, so it's a bit odd I'm thinking of hanging my new approach to US History partly on people (I’m also thinking of adding my Environmental History content, so it wouldn’t be the only POV). I wonder whether I could find interesting characters all the way through that I could hang a set of stories to? Who would be representative enough of particular points of view that they might stand for groups? One of the things a bright student said about Teddy Roosevelt was that she had been quite a fan of his, before we explored him in more detail. She had imagined him as an outdoorsman and the Progressive who created the national parks. The imperialist bully sort-of turned her off, however. I think this is an interesting experience for a student to have, metaphorically. To see beyond the heroic, PR-created facade. There are still things to appreciate about TR. But he's a bit of a monster too.

So maybe I should look for more people to be pillars supporting chapters of content and points of view in my history. They shouldn't be all the usual suspects. Maybe the Ranneys should be in there as a representative Yankee family. Maybe I should have a representative immigrant family. For that matter, I might want to use some of the people I found in my own research. If I thought Albert M. Todd or Charles Knowlton was worthy of coverage in a book, maybe they represent something interesting and valuable for students to understand. Why should my research be held apart from my teaching?

People in history can stand in for ideas, and are often more interesting than the ideas alone. In fact, the ideas really aren't that interesting, much of the time, without the really idiosyncratic characters that have them. Albert and Lucy Parsons were so bizarre. Don't they help explain something about the weirdness of the anarchist movement in 1880s Chicago?

What's the next step? Probably to locate people I want to make the pillars in the chapters each week. If there are a pair each week, serving as counterpoints, that would mean a minimum of thirty per semester and per volume of the two-part text. This might be kind-of cool, now that I think of it. What if I took a pair like Richard Nixon and Rachel Carson? They're connected by ecology, which is ironic in itself. Or John F. Kennedy and Neil Armstrong, connected by the moon landing. There are also obvious pairings such as W.E.B. DuBois and Booker T. Washington. Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass? Or is it Lincoln and Douglass (instead of Lincoln and Douglas?)? This could go hand-in-hand with shifting to a decade-by-decade approach. Who best represents each decade? Gloria Steinem vs. Phyllis Schlafley? Malcolm X and MLK Jr.? Eleanor Roosevelt and whom? Who pairs with Charles Lindbergh? Or with Woodrow Wilson? Probably Thomas Lamont. Maybe some people who are joined in a moment, such as William McKinley and Leon Czolgosz.

Who are the most talked about people in their own decades? Muhammad Ali, Marilyn Monroe. Mary Pickford? Will there be some folks whom everyone was talking about in, say, 1925 but we don't even remember them? According to ChatGPT, that would be Zelda Fitzgerald. Others in the 1920s seem to include Clara Bow (the "It Girl") and, as I suspected, Mary Pickford. For men (based on newspaper mentions), it returns Lindbergh, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Babe Ruth, and Al Capone. Maybe it would be interesting to follow this thread a bit.