Continuity or Change?

John Adams signed the Sedition Act, which voided parts of the First Amendment, including freedom of the press and free speech. John Adams later said voting for Thomas Jefferson would be voting for the Devil. Jefferson’s supporters called John Adams “King John.” But then President Andrew Jackson’s detractors referred to him as “King Andrew.” 

                                       

Abraham Lincoln did suspend habeas corpus, had the military detain certain legislators to ensure Maryland voted to stay in the Union, and had protesters arrested. Woodrow Wilson also had protesters arrested during the Great War. Refusing to go to war due to religious reasons could have resulted in being thrown in prison at that time. I believe that last conscientious objector was released in 1933. 

Teddy Roosevelt routinely attacked his predecessor and fellow Republican, William Howard Taft. But then his cousin was also attacked. "Roosevelt is a socialist," said Rep. Robert Rich, which was a sentiment held by various corporate leaders. Others wondered if Communists infiltrated FDR's administration and there was talk among some Republicans (who were the minority in Congress) to try to impeach FDR. Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-WI) claimed spies from the Soviet Union infiltrated the presidency of fellow Republican and one-time Supreme Allied Commander Dwight Eisenhower. McCarthy's military exploits were found to be akin to fairy tales and so he was mocked in his nickname "Tail-gunner Joe." The House impeached Bill Clinton for lying about having committed adultery. And then there was Nixon who famously said if the president does it, it's not illegal. Many in his administration ended up in jail. "I am not a crook," he repeated and repeated and repeated.

            

Every president has been portrayed at sometime during their presidency as someone who will destroy the pillars of this country, a potential king or dictator. The country remains, the Constitution is intact, and the center of the American experiment, democracy and capitalism, remain firmly in place.  

This isn’t normal,” “threat to democracy,” “disgraceful,” “dangerous,” “treasonous” and similar sentiments are being alleged every day by more members of Trump's own party and retired military leaders. To name a few, Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE), Senator and one-time GOP presidential candidate John McCain, Gov. and one-time GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney, George Will (columnist Washington Post who recently renounced his affiliation with the GOP),  Stephen Walt (Foreign Policy magazine), Ben Shapiro (Alt-right author, speaker, radio personality), John Brennan (ex-Director, CIA), General Barry McCaffrey, and Admiral William McRaven.

Is there more continuity or more change among major themes in US history? I am interested in five major themes to Trump’s time in office: Press, Race, Immigration, Patriotism, and Foreign Policy. I am going to look at those themes in other presidencies. I’d like to research and write an OER ancillary or reference guide in a non-traditional format. The first chapter would cover the 2016 election to the present examining those five themes. The rest will be chronological, from Washington to Obama, examining those themes in various presidencies. Then the final chapter will address the big question: Continuity or Change?  On Inauguration Day, 2017, Peabody and Emmy Trustees Award winner Dan Rather wrote “These are not normal times.” Was that a sentiment regularly repeated since 1789 or unique to 2017? 

                                            

Comparing the words and actions of whoever is in power to those of Richard Nixon 

has been low-hanging fruit of political cartoonists. Memes, however, are relatively new.

Fall’s Focus

Even though the words and ideas coming out of Washington DC are unique during my lifetime, those will be examined in a scholarly work I outlined below. My classes on US history from 1877 to the present will continue to focus on women’s history in my lectures and and by reading primary source documents on women’s history. But this semester, assignments will focus on local history as I’ve heard from more students interested in learning about the history of their neighborhoods after they heard a six hour lecture series on the history of the neighborhood surrounding the college -Magnolia Park.

Those students will be reading two monographs on Houston. One examines migration history, segregation, and the blurring of race (Houston Bound: Culture and Color in a Jim Crow City) and the other looks at racial identity in the 1970s (Brown, Not White: School Segregation and the Chicago Movement in Houston).

Students will have the choice to complete various assignments on their neighborhoods or the larger Second Ward. Those projects will include their own histories, oral histories of residents from the various neighborhoods, traditional research papers on those neighborhoods, and histories of unique buildings and businesses. The final assignment will be letters to future Eastside campus students about the experiences of my students at the college. There will be a website that will display students’ works in the hope of adding to the rich history of Houston’s Eastside started by Dr. Irene Pocatello.

This project is dedicated to the memory Dr. Irene Pocatello, a past president of Houston Community College’s Eastside campus and a champion of recording the tapestry of the neighborhood surrounding the college, Magnolia Park in what is commonly known as the Second Ward. In celebration of the neighborhood’s 100th anniversary, Dr. Pocarello launched various projects to record the centennial, to include an oral history project and a monograph of the first 100 years of Magnolia Park. Dr. Pocatello was from Magnolia Park and died in 2018.

The Fall 2018 will be the first time I am using this format. Throughout the semester I will ask for students’ feedback: What they liked and didn’t like and why, as well as their ideas on enhancing the project.

Hidalgo Park quiosco 

OER Strategy - Part II - Document Collections

Over the years I have collected many hundreds of primary source documents and academic journal articles on a wide array of US history but with a focus on women, African American, and Mexican American history. I have made some of those available in the Canvas classes. Starting in the Fall I will put all of my documents and articles together into two ancillaries. One will be just about US women's history entitled "Arise All Women How Have Hearts." That is the title of a poem Julia Ward Howe wrote in 1870. Then I will all of my collected OER materials under the title "Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About History But Were Afraid to Ask." That's a spin on the title of a 1972 Woody Allen movie.

I will then allow students to select anything from those ancillaries to read each week. That will mean, however, that I will need to create assignments that are sufficiently broad so that whatever students select to read can be used in successful completion of those assignments. Which means more work for me. Yikes!

Ultimately (before the Thanksgiving break is the goal) I want to put both of those ancillaries on PressBooks.

OER Strategy - Part I - My Textbook

I am implementing an OER strategy, as opposed to just trying something here and something there. First, I am moving my US history ancillary from the Rice platform (OpenStax) where the book has been available since 2010 to PressBooks: https://ourstory.pressbooks.com/. I will be moving the material sometime before the Fall semester begins. The book covers US history to 1877 and so I will be able to use that resource in my Hist 1301 classes. I will assign a few chapters then ask for feedback from my students and rewrite as necessary. I have received much interest in the book on the Rice platform over the years from California to Sweden, but as a legacy author Rice does not promote the book and so people have a hard time finding the book. Heer is the URL for the book on the Rice site: https://cnx.org/contents/2IDlLfJX@8.2:kGr-4VFA@2

The other reason for the move to PressBooks is because the college' s OER program is trying to coordinate all OER to one platform. OER is part of the college's larger Z-Degree program:  http://www.hccs.edu/zdegree/.

Four Down, Two to Go

Two of my four classes in the first Summer semester were on-campus. In those two classes I used 100% OER; the students, as a class, voted on their assignments and I accepted late submissions with a one grade penalty. For the first time I had 100% completion, 100% succession (passing) in both classes. The other part of the equation was my attitude. I became more laid back and less of the task master.