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Top Ten Most Embarrassing Moment in the History of the Textbook (in no particular order)

Issue #18

The war on Harold Rugg, 1938—1942
In 1938, the Advertising Federation of America (AFA) launched an attack on mild-mannered Columbia historian Harold Rugg. Rugg’s offense: authoring a textbook that portrayed the advertising industry in an unfavorable light. Rugg’s widely used junior high school social studies text An Introduction to the Problems of America stated, "It would be impossible to carry on our economic life today without advertising." It also praised the AFA for taking steps to eliminate objectionable advertising. The advertisers weren’t interested in that part, however. They focused on Rugg’s claims that the advertising industry misrepresented goods, used paid testimonials, and encouraged people to buy things they didn’t need. The AFA was joined by Bernie Forbes (the publisher of Forbes magazine), the National Association of Retail Manufactures, and the conservative New York State Economic Council, whose president sent out a newsletter urging members to ask, "Are Rugg books in your schools?" Bradner, Ohio, held an anti-Rugg book-burning, and two board members in Binghamton, New York, suggested doing the same. The final blow for Rugg came in 1940, when American Legion magazine published "Treason in the Textbooks." A cartoon on the front cover depicted Rugg as a slant-eyed Satan, placing pink-shaded eyeglasses on unwitting schoolchildren. Meanwhile, right-wing lunatics across the country charged that Rugg’s work was "financed by the Russian government!" Rugg had never been affiliated with either the Communist or Socialist parties, but it needn’t have mattered. Few of the critics read his books.

By the end of the controversy, textbook publishers had learned an important lesson. In 1938, sales of Rugg’s high school and elementary text had totaled 289,000 copies. Six years later, they had dwindled to 21,000. Thus, the easiest way for publishers to avoid such dramatic losses was to anticipate any possible controversy–and avoid it.

Reading, Writing, and Captains of Industry
In 1928, the FTC began uncovering evidence that the National Electric Light Association, the American Gas Association, and the American Railway Association had been secretly influencing the nation’s textbooks. Since 1919, the utility companies had been lobbying state education departments to remove books containing "any unfair, biased, incorrect and misleading statements concerning public utilities." The companies had also been creating school curricula with titles like Aladdins of Industry. The FTC eventually shut down the operation, and the public outcry proved sufficient to discourage textbook attacks by special interest groups for several years. There was, however, one exception: The Florida Chamber of Commerce complained when geography textbooks contains more pictures of California than Florida.

John T. Flynn joins the revolution
John T. Flynn, a staff member of the New Republic, was a fierce critic of big business when, in 1936, he published some timely advice to the "acquisitive writer": "To Get Rich, Scare the Rich." Of the wealthy, Flynn wrote:

The Red Menace sparkles on every side. Raids upon his money bags are a threat on every quarter. This is a natural atmosphere for the rich man’s terrors. Scare him some more. Then invent some racket for protecting him from these perils. One good field . . . is the schools. There the Bolsheviki are ceaseless . . . [O]rganize an agency like, for instance, the National Republican Lettergram Service of Washington, D.C. Send out letters, bulletins, circulars and pamphlets keeping the loyal teachers advised of the march of the Reds upon the schools. Then you can call on patriotic rich men to subscribe $100, $150, or maybe $1,000 to carry on the great work . . .

Apparently, Flynn took his own advice a little too seriously. Fifteen years later, he got a job with America’s Future, where he led the fight against the Red Menace. The new Flynn wrote books like Glorifying the Soviets and Textbooks Are Perverted, attacked Democrats and labor leaders, and charged FDR with leading the country down the road to totalitarianism.

The Daughters of the American Revolution
The Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR), whose motto is "God, Home, and Country," have been among the most vocal critics of schoolbooks. Over the years, DAR’s list of objectionable items have included: work tunes and folk songs; mental health programs; all international activities; the Peace Corps; methodism; Supreme Court; fluoridation; and (big shock here), public education. DAR has even attacked UNICEF Christmas cards, which it claimed were "part of a broader communist plan to destroy religious beliefs and customs and to transfer Christianity in a ‘One World Peace Festival.’ "

In 1961, DAR published a report, Textbook Study, blacklisting 170 schoolbooks for being subversive. Grounds for rejection included, among others: 1. describing the U.S. as a democracy rather than a republic; 2. emphasizing the Bill of Rights rather than the original instrument, the Constitution; 3. Failing to warn students that "the government does not provide anything except which it dispenses from the taxpayer’s pocket"; and 4. including too much "realistic literature."

Textbooks as Test Prep
Textbook company Harcourt Brace was exposed in 1999 for using its position as the creator of Texas’s standardized tests to push its math books. Fliers circulated by the company read in part: "Why choose Harcourt Brace for your math program? . . . [It is the] only program to have tests written by the same company that helps to write the TAAS [Texas Assessment of Academic Skills] tests and actually wrote the Parents’ Study Guide for TAAS: Harcourt Brace Educational Measurement." Through its lobbyist at the Texas State Legislature, which was considering banning textbooks published by companies that write the tests, the company denied any collusion, saying that a separate and distinct branch of the company produces the test and calling the person who wrote the flier an "idiot." With the help of such "idiots," Harcourt Brace had sold Texas $25 million of its K—8 math texts the previous school year.

This book and others like it were a direct assault on progressive education. Verne Kaub was also the author of Satan Goes to School, and the Yale Whitewash.

Product Placements
In a McGraw-Hill textbook published in 1995 and revised in 1999, kids learn math courtesy of brand-name products. The book, Mathematics: Applications and Connections, asks students to "express the diameter of an Oreo cookie as a fraction" and calculate the surface area of a box of Cocoa Frosted Flakes. Lands End, the text reads, is where "Consumers can purchase unique clothing and accessories, and products for the home." Although McGraw-Hill lobbied (unsuccessfully) to defeat legislation in California outlawing brand names in textbooks, a spokesperson for the publisher denied any wrongdoing.

Texas!
To assure that history courses emphasize "our glowing and throbbing history of hearts," Texas established its own textbook committee in the early 1960s. Some of the more ambitious proposals brought forth by the committee have included a requirement that texts omit all references to Pete Seeger, Langston Hughes, and anyone else fingered by the House of Un-American Activities; and a bill requiring every public school teacher to swear his/her belief in a supreme being. In addition to the state efforts, citizens groups have pressured schools as well. One called Texans for America objected to a text that contained four pictures of George Washington that "lacked his familiar features of kindness and dignity." (The Texans also charged that the song "He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands" smacked of one-worldism.)

Through the combined efforts of the state government and right-wing crazies, textbooks have been transformed, as shown in these examples from a 1950s geography text, The American Continents:

Original version: "Today, other countries help us in protecting our land against possible attack. Radar listing posts . . ."

Changed to: "With radar we can quickly detect the approach of enemy aircraft or missiles."

Original version: "Because it needs to trade, and because it needs military help, the United States needs friendship of countries throughout the world. But, to keep its friends, a country must help them, too."

Changed to: "The United States trades with countries in all parts of the world. We are also providing military help to many nations. In addition, the United States aids many countries in other ways."

Original version: "It is often hard for people of different countries to understand each other. They come from different backgrounds. They eat different foods, wear different clothes, speak different languages. The United States sometimes finds it difficult to agree with its neighbors in all things. Nor do other countries always agree with us."

Changed to: "It is often hard for people of different countries to understand each other. They come from different backgrounds, wear different clothes, speak different languages. The people of some nations have forms of government different from ours. Often they do not enjoy the same freedom and opportunity as our people."

Texas’s textbook committee remains to this day. It has become so influential that it actually helps determine the texts used nationwide. Publishers have been known to print special Lone Star editions of American history.

The Wizard of Oz was objectionable to fundamentalists in Tennessee because it portrays a witch as good and because it says courage, compassion, and other traits are personally developed rather than God-given. (Los Angeles Times, 11/1/86)

Hazardous to Whose Health?
Orangeview Junior High in California removed several books in the series Lives of Notable Gay Men and Lesbians from its library in September 2000. School officials explained the decision by stating that the reading level was too high for Orangeview students and that the books constituted a "safety hazard" (because students who checked them out might be harassed). [This isn’t really a textbook example, but we wanted to mention it anyway.–ed.]

Secular Humanism
Concern over "secular humanism" dates back to the 1950s, when Orthodox Catholics and Jews fought the increasing secularization of schools. However, these efforts were small potatoes compared to the cries of evangelical fundamentals in the late 1970s and 1980s.

In 1975, educational consultant Onalee McGraw, with the blessings of the conservative Heritage Foundation, published an article attributing lower test scores and the decline of quality public education to a lack of belief in God. His solution: eliminate humanism.

Whereas earlier movements took on particular schoolbooks or courses, the Bible-beating, humanist-fearing fundamentalists challenged the nature of public education itself. The reforms that progressives had introduced to improve learning were, for fundamentalists, part of the problem. The Moral Majority attacked not only multiculturalism and new math but unstructured academic approaches such as the open classroom and creative writing. Such open-ended methods, they argued, broke down the standards of right and wrong by asking questions without providing definite answers.

The fight over secular humanism came to a head in 1987, when a federal district judge in Alabama banned 44 history and home economics textbooks from the county’s public schools. The plaintiffs in the case successfully argued that education promoted humanism and that humanism was, for all practical purposes, synonomous with atheism. (As the defense suggested, by this definition, vegetarianism and psychoanalysis would also be religions.) The fundamentalist victory was short-lived, however; it was reversed by a federal appeals court later that year.

In the end, perhaps the worst part of the secular humanism debacle was that the fundamentalists were right (but for the wrong reasons). The textbooks were indeed objectionable. In fact, during the Alabama case, one of the key witnesses called by the state ended up supporting the opposition. Harvard psychiatrist Robert Coles was no friend of the censors, but after reviewing the textbooks, he pronounced them "pure psychological trash." For example, Cole pointed out a tenth-grade home economics book called Relationships, which discussed psychological character types. The "irrational-conscientious’’ type, for example, was described as having strong religious faith and as being "cold and unfeeling.’’ Their "repressed hostility makes them far too literal-minded and rigid in their righteousness.’’ (In the teacher’s guide, Jesus, Mohandas Gandhi, and Martin Luther are listed as examples.)

Even more glaring, some of these books portrayed an America stripped of its Christian past. In one book the Pilgrims are identified as "people who make long trips." The discussion of Thanksgiving neglected to mention who they were thanking. According to a New Republic writer, religious groups, if they were mentioned at all, were usually portrayed as the lunatic fringe. The index to the book Our Land, Our Time was typical: it listed "religious cults," but not "religion," "Christianity," "Catholicism," or "Judaism."

And on the left
In the 1960s, the NAACP, feminist groups, and other civil rights organizations stepped up efforts to police textbook content. Although the efforts to correct humiliating stereotypes and diversify perspectives were long overdue, the result of these efforts was a strict avoidance of what was deemed negative representation. So, for example, the word "darkie" was erased from Stephen Foster songs in school songbooks (so that Foster’s famous line, "Oh, darkies how my heart grows weary" was changed to "Oh, old folks . . ." or "Oh, brother . . ."). And the liberal use of "nigger" meant that Tom Sawyer had to go. Such an narrow view of history made it all the more difficult for African Americans–indeed, all Americans–to reckon with the deeply intrenched of racism in this country.