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This review has been accessed times since September 30, 2005

Giordano, Gerard. (2003). Twentieth-Century Textbook Wars: A History of Advocacy and Opposition. History of Schools and Schooling, vol. 17. New York: Peter Lang.

Pp. 189 including References and Index
$29.95 (paper)     ISBN 0-8204-5228-9

Reviewed by Lisa Zagumny
Tennessee Technological University

September 30, 2005

From a historical perspective, public schools in the United States have always been volatile ground for debate. The heterogeneity of public school constituents and the varying purposes for formal education allow for such controversy and, at the same time, require dialogue. While calm, thoughtful dialogue on an array of educational topics has taken place, heated debates are more common in educational writing. The emphasis on controversy accentuates just how culturally contested formal education and its various manifestations in the United States really are; the politics of knowledge thrive in educational materials (Apple 1993).

School textbooks, the most constant element in public schools throughout the history of public schools in the United States, have been and continue to be sources of much controversy and debate. Attacks on school textbooks have a long history and understanding this history allows us to situate current debates. This is where Gerard Giordano’s (2003) Twentieth-Century Textbook Wars necessarily fills a gap in the literature on school textbooks. Giordano addresses the attacks on school textbooks more so than the textbooks themselves. While he necessarily discusses textbook content in order to situate the various arguments, his primary focus is the longstanding tradition of attacks on textbooks.

Textbook content is analyzed in Frances FitzGerald’s (1979) America Revised, James Loewen’s (1995) Lies My Teacher Told Me, Joseph Moreau’s (2003) Schoolbook Nation, and Ruth Miller Elson’s (1964) engaging Guardians of Tradition. On the other hand, Giordano’s book is similar in approach to Jonathan Zimmerman’s (2002) provocative Whose America? and looks at the broader context in which arguments over textbooks arose. Giordano, however, does not restrict his research to history textbooks and also includes hundreds of quotes of criticisms of textbooks from an array of political perspectives. For a researcher of school textbooks, Twentieth-Century Textbook Wars reads like a tediously thorough reference book. Tedious in a good way; painstakingly researched and well balanced.

In his discussion of textbook publishing companies and their profit-driven motives, Giordano highlights the numerous opponents and proponents of schoolbook publishing companies. While an inherent conflict of interest seemed apparent to most, not all critics condemned publishing companies for their desired high profits. Creating superior, effective materials, in part, necessitated higher yet reasonable costs. Free textbook policies stemming from the nineteenth century free school movement expanded the market for textbooks because of the increased student population. Of course, free education and textbooks sparked controversies as did the call for textbook uniformity.

With the continued expansion of the publishing industry from the late nineteenth century into the twentieth century, critics wondered whether or not state governments could save money by publishing the books themselves. Tremendous debate ensued and Giordano carefully recounts the debacles that occurred in both California and Kansas providing numerous examples from various political stances. He even includes a political cartoon from the time as further evidence of the controversy surrounding textbook publishing. The increasing demand for school textbooks ensured increasing prices from and profits for commercial publishers. Here Giordano provides arguments for and against the rising costs with entertaining cost comparisons from proponents. For these advocates, school textbook prices were reasonable in comparison to the annual funds spent on booze, cigars, movies, and candy.

World War I and World War II affected textbook publishing with wartime regulatory movements but publishing companies came up with new, creative marketing strategies. Advertisements for other books published by the same company appeared in textbooks and some companies even advertised various consumer goods. Another avenue of attack arose from concerns over competition among textbook publishers. As the twentieth century advanced, fewer and fewer companies had the highest percentages of production. The most recent example provided by Giordano is the Macmillan/McGraw-Hill merger in the 1980s. Depending on the political and philosophical stance of the critic, such mergers were either problematic or beneficial.

In his discussion of attacks on nationalism in school textbooks, Giordano explains how conflicts over nationalism are most noticeable during wars and periods of national and international strife. He is careful to acknowledge that criticisms of nationalism, whether promotion or condemnation of nationalism, in school textbooks is not a twentieth century phenomena. Giordano includes examples from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Legislative regulation of textbook content particularly during times of war has really always been a concern in the United States. Nationalism promoted as a heightened sense of patriotism in school textbooks is well researched and Giordano provides numerous examples from throughout the twentieth century. World War I had a tremendous effect on schoolbook content and the representations of various nations within the books. Textbook critics often charged authors and publishers with intentionally portraying the people and countries that the United States was in conflict with in derogatory ways. Nationalistic bias while often blatant in schoolbooks can also be quite subtle as Giordano points out.

Bias and demeaning depictions are not limited to written descriptions. Frequently visual images portray people and countries outside of the United States, and sometimes even people within the United States, in derogatory, unflattering ways. Giordano includes an example from a history textbook that pictures immigrants to the United States as destitute, exotic foreigners who look out of place. The extreme nationalism that took place between World War I and World War II was a western phenomenon and Giordano cites seven sources that detected nationalistic bias in European textbooks.

Giordano devotes considerable attention to the amity movement in the 1920s and its effect on school textbooks. Echoing the broader social concern that nationalism may contribute to war, textbook critics urged educators to inform their students of cooperative governmental efforts like the League of Nations. Peace and international cooperation became more commonplace in school textbooks as evidence of the cultural context of the time.

The popularity of anti-war attitudes began to diminish with World War II despite public sentiments toward nationalism and alterations to nationalistic textbook materials. Giordano successfully captures the political controversy that came with World War II and its effects on school textbooks. Some schoolbook authors continued to promote international cooperation and even critique United States policy nationally and internationally. Authors who wrote from such perspectives like Harold (Giordano mistakenly writes Howard) Rugg and George S. Counts were attacked by critics as subversive and un-American. Revisionist authors continued to be attacked during the Cold War era, yet critics of school textbooks were aware that many of the criticisms could be traced to conflicting political camps. Giordano includes twelve sources that make clear the varying opposition to textbook content again reflecting the broader social upheaval of the time. This is by far Giordano’s finest chapter. His thorough attention to nationalism in school textbooks is almost a meta-analysis of textbook critiques. He carefully lays out varying arguments that reveal the complexity of perspective and interpretation. The fierce controversy over nationalism emphasizes just how culturally contested schoolbooks really are. Giordano’s timeline of textbook controversy does not parallel the history of education; it is the history of education.

While addressing racism in school textbooks, Giordano again situates a twentieth century phenomena with its nineteenth century precedents. Racism in schoolbooks was prolific in the nineteenth century and continued well into the next century. Giordano limits racism to African Americans and American Indians, explaining how these groups were described as savages and barbarians in schoolbooks. Not only were the written descriptions disparaging, the visual images reinforced degrading stereotypes. Several visual illustrations are included in order to demonstrate such overt bias.

Giordano spends a good deal of time addressing the various methods suggested by educators to detect bias in school textbooks. Beginning in 1933 with Alexander, methods for detecting racism became more elaborate over the twentieth century. Overt racism was fairly straightforward to detect but the researchers were also concerned with uncovering material omitted from books. Again, both written and visual depictions were equally flawed by omissions. Or, when visual illustrations included Africans or African Americans, for example, they are depicted as subservient to the whites in the image or the overall racist context of slavery, for example, is softened as all involved are shown happily working together. Giordano includes three such visuals representative of this clandestine racism excessive in school textbooks.

By the mid twentieth century, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the American Council on Education published reports on racism in schoolbooks and provided advice on not only detecting bias but made suggestions for racially integrated groups of critics. These organizations also acknowledged the complexity of uncovering racism; covert racism and errors of omission are more challenging to detect. Although some critics acknowledged racism was being reduced in schoolbooks and revisions were being made, concerns over representations of other minority groups (or the lack there of) arose as did questions about substantive change.

Giordano’s attention turns to textbooks being attacked as pedagogical tools at the end of his discussion of racism. Critics accused textbooks of failing to challenge students in terms of developing their critical thinking skills. Dependent upon the teaching methods used in the books, critics really rallied against the philosophy behind the method. Such criticisms are further evidence of the politics of knowledge, or in Giordano’s words, “Proponents of each of these philosophies judged that books based on the alternative approach were at best inadequate but more likely injurious” (p. 81). Besides failing to teach critical decision-making skills, critics charged textbooks lacked an author’s voice and this exclusion made the books less interesting or even boring. Alternative teaching materials became popular suggestions but school textbooks remained the foundation for classroom learning. Despite its mainstay in education, the schoolbook continued to be criticized as being dumbed down and even blamed for students’ poor historical knowledge. But, when authors did include their voice, editors often suggested changes in order to anesthetize the information. Giordano provides a chief example of publishing companies desires to avoid controversial material. A section on the New Left in a history textbook was ultimately eliminated from the revised edition because it discussed dangerous characters that challenged mainstream thinking. Malcolm X and Che Guevara still remain invisible in most American history textbooks. So, while the last section of the chapter strays from arguments about racism in schoolbooks and really belongs in the final chapter on textbooks as pedagogical tools, Giordano stays true to his original intent of sharing controversies over textbook content.

Giordano’s discussion of criticisms of gender stereotyping begins in the 1970s although depictions of women and girls in school textbooks had long been an issue of contention. Not as common as debates over nationalism or racism in schoolbooks, sexist written and visual depictions were prominent in nineteenth and twentieth century textbooks. Giordano does discuss early twentieth century textbooks that rarely include any written description or visual images of women or, when women are included, they are depicted in an unflattering manner or as only worthy of working in the home. Women confined to a private sphere of work in the home are commonplace in nineteenth century textbooks unless, of course, they are non-white women who are repeatedly depicted performing arduous task outside the home. This stereotype carried well over into the twentieth century. Giordano briefly mentions one study that criticizes schoolbooks for the lack of depictions of African American women. Janice Trecker (1971) investigated more than a dozen history books for high school students published between 1937 and 1969. She found women to be rarely mentioned and when they were, the representations were both incomplete and inaccurate. She also notes the lack of African American women in these same texts. While Giordano is really trying to address an overall gender bias and ensuing debates, concerns about representations of women in school textbooks require acknowledging the interwoven complexities of gender and race.

Related to race and gender are allegorical representations of women in many of these textbooks. Giordano claims such depictions are patriotic visuals meant to enhance nationalistic sentiments. While that may be their purpose, allegories are complex symbols intended to convey very specific meanings. A unified sense of identity, limited to a particular group of people is often the underlying intention behind allegories. As Thomas Hylland Eriksen (1993) reminds us, “The use of ethnic symbols in nationalism is intended to stimulate reflection on one’s own cultural distinctiveness and thereby create a feeling of nationhood” (p. 103). Moreover, supposed benign symbols of liberty further raise conflicts over identity. Linda McDowell (1999) explains that, “the symbolic images of women often bear little or no relation to the position of women in those societies at particular times” (p. 199).

Concerned with the developmental impact of reading materials on students, critics charged that representations portrayed girls as passive and boys as active and that any changes made in the textbooks were really superficial. Some critics claimed such stereotypes were as harmful to male students as to female students. Sexist language also came under fire for its deleterious effects. Publishing companies, of course, responded to the criticisms by developing various strategies to detect sexism and guidelines for reducing gender bias. There were, however, critics who claimed publishers conceded too much with their revisions. Like the critics debating the most appropriate teaching methods in Giordano’s chapter on racism, hence revealing their philosophical persuasion, the critic of feminism here, reveals his political stance on gender issues and equity.

Giordano does a fine job explaining the nineteenth century precedents for religious, particularly Protestant, content in schoolbooks. Religious content was explicit in nineteenth century textbooks, but began to appear less often in twentieth century books. Giordano addresses religion and science in textbooks, specifically arguments concerning lessons on evolution. Prior to the 1925 Scopes trial, some state legislatures had proposed bills forbidding the instruction of evolution. Once Scopes lost his trial, further anti-evolution bills were introduced. According to Giordano’s numbers, the legislative impact of silencing teachers on teaching evolution was tremendous: 37 bills in 20 states between 1921 and 1929 (p. 117). Publishing companies maneuvered around the controversy by using euphemisms for evolution.

Religion appeared less and less in school textbooks over the twentieth century and the exclusion was problematic for conservative groups like the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR). Textbooks were further attacked for undermining Christian values. Debates over religious content, or the lack there of, have continued well into the twenty-first century and reflect the volatility of differing and sometimes conflicting belief systems.

Giordano does discuss Jewish stereotyping in school textbooks. Most early twentieth century textbooks explained Puritan actions as extreme but rarely, if ever, mentioned Jewish or Catholic persecution or their denial of political rights. Jewish prejudice continued into the twentieth century school textbooks, yet most critics either denied or dismissed it entirely. While Giordano does acknowledge serious prejudice against Jews, the wealth of current and past research on anti-Semitism in schoolbooks published in the United States could have further strengthened his presentation of debates over religious intolerance.

Obviously lacking in this chapter is any discussion of bias toward Muslims. Nineteenth century textbooks vilified and exoticized Muslim women and men as well as a variety of non-Christian religious groups. While such overt discrimination may have subsided in twentieth century textbooks, the very omission of any discussion of the variety of religious intolerance is problematic.

Giordano also deals with schoolbooks as instruments for learning and the various debates concerning the physical attributes of the books, the books influence on teachers, and the numerous technological challenges to textbooks. Various proponents of textbooks were interested in determining physical features that enhanced learning. Giordano cites a few late nineteenth century examples and moves on to early twentieth century arguments for certain print types that eased reading. One needs only to peruse nineteenth century textbooks to see the wide variety of book sizes and print type in efforts to make the books more user-friendly. A small sample of twenty-two geography schoolbooks published in the nineteenth century United States reveals a size range from 3 ¾” x 5 ¾” (Olney 1832) to 4 ½” x 6 ½” (Morse 1817) to 7 ½” x 9 ½” (Colton 1875) to 8” x 10” (Redway and Hinman 1897) to 10” x 12 ½” (Frye 1895).

Giordano also expresses that readability became a concern in the early twentieth century with graded content in schoolbooks. He credits William McGuffey with anticipating such an improvement. Again, nineteenth century textbooks set the precedent for this later move. Schoolbooks, besides McGuffey Readers, published as early as the 1850s, were graded for beginner, intermediate, and advanced studies. Readability formulas, however, were a twentieth century phenomena that despite their impracticality became widely used throughout the century.

The section on pictorial aids is somewhat problematic. As various printmaking processes became more affordable for publishing companies, visual images became increasingly common in school textbooks. Engravings from artists’ drawings were common until the last quarter of the nineteenth century when photographs supplied the original image for the print. Visual images in schoolbooks began sparingly in the 1830s, but by the middle of the century, numerous illustrations were common. By the end of the nineteenth century, hundreds of visuals could be found in schoolbooks, contradicting Giordano’s timeline. For example, Redway and Hinman’s (1897) Natural Elementary Geography has 264 visual illustrations and twelve color maps in only 144 pages. The rising costs due to the increase in visual illustrations, of course, caused controversy. As the publishing companies claimed the materials were improving the textbooks and helped to enhance student learning, critics charged the pictures were more of a marketing tool than a pedagogical tool.

Textbooks were repeatedly criticized for stifling teacher creativity and numbing the minds of students. Some even went so far as to suggest doing away with textbooks altogether. On the other hand, schoolbooks were championed for encouraging teacher creativity through their various suggestions for teaching and enhancing student learning despite poor teaching. The continued use of textbooks, however, demonstrates an overall agreement of their usefulness.

Giordano concludes with threats from technology over the course of the twentieth century. From radio to film to television to computers and now the Internet, textbooks have seemingly always been on the verge of disappearing or being replaced. Whatever the latest and greatest innovation in popular media, the school textbook manages to hold a prominent place in classroom instruction. Despite the sometimes very public controversies over schoolbook content, it is obvious from Giordano’s research that textbooks are by far the most constant element in public schools and will continue to be surrounded by debate.

References

Apple, Michael. (1993). Official Knowledge: Democratic Education in a Conservative Age. London: Routledge.

Colton, Joseph Hutchins. (1875). Colton’s New Introductory Geography. St. Paul, Minnesota: D. D. Merrill.

Elson, Ruth Miller. (1964). Guardians of Tradition: American Schoolbooks of the Nineteenth Century. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.

Ericksen, Thomas Hylland. (1993). Ethnicity and Nationalism: Anthropological Perspectives. London: Pluto Press.

FitzGerald, Frances. (1979). America Revised: History Schoolbooks in the Twentieth Century. Boston: Little, Brown and Company.

Frye, Alexis Everett. (1895). Grammar School Geography. Boston: Ginn and Company.

Loewen, James. (1995). Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong. New York: Simon and Schuster.

McDowell, Linda. (1999). Gender, Identity and Place: Understanding Feminist Geographies. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Moreau, Joseph. (2003). Schoolbook Nation: Conflicts over American History Textbooks from the Civil War to the Present. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Morse, Jedidiah. (1817). Geography Made Easy. 19^th ed. Boston: Thomas and Andrew.

Olney, Jesse. (1832). A Practical System of Modern Geography. 11^th ed. Hartford: D. F. Robinson and Company.

Redway, Jacques and Russell Hinman. (1897). Natural Elementary Geography. New York: American Book Company.

Trecker, Janice Law. (1971). Women in U.S. History High School Textbooks. Social Education, 35, 249-260.

Zimmerman, Jonathan. (2002). Whose America? Culture Wars in the Public Schools. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

About the Reviewer

Lisa Zagumny
Department of Curriculum and Instruction
Tennessee Technological University
Lisa Zagumny’s expertise is in nineteenth century schoolbooks and the construction of a US national identity. Her research interests include gender, race, and class, as well as the use of visual illustrations in educational materials.

Copyright is retained by the first or sole author, who grants right of first publication to the Education Review.

Editors: Gene V Glass, Kate Corby, Gustavo Fischman

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