Hollywood's Reconstruction and the Persistence of Historical Mythmaking

Autor/in	Briley, Ron
Titel	Hollywood's Reconstruction and the Persistence of Historical Mythmaking
Quelle	In: History Teacher, 41 (2008) 4, S.453-468 (16 Seiten) PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0018-2745
Schlagwörter	Stellungnahme; Historical Interpretation; Historiography; Films; Primary Sources; United States History; Modern History; History Instruction; Racial Bias; Racial Relations + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Historische Interpretation; Geschichtsschreibung; Film; Primärquelle; Neuere Geschichte; History lessons; Geschichtsunterricht; Racial discrimination; Rassismus
Abstract	Historiography is often overlooked as a fascinating subject by most contemporary students, whether in the secondary history classroom or undergraduate course. Some sense of the changing historical interpretation of a topic such as Reconstruction may be provided through contrasting passages from a modern history text with earlier editions of books printed before the intellectual impact of the civil rights movement. Such an exercise makes its point, but from the student's perspective it is also somewhat sterile. For, as many teachers lament, students tend to get their history from the silver screen rather than the printed page. In support of this observation, the author suggests history teachers to incorporate Hollywood's Reconstruction into the classroom by contrasting contemporary historical scholarship with the powerful images offered by film texts such as "The Birth of a Nation" or "Gone With the Wind," both of which are readily available in VHs or DVD format for classroom use. Between 1915 and World War II, such seminal films as "The Birth of a Nation" (1915) and "Gone With the Wind" (1939) played a crucial role in formulating popular perceptions and misperceptions of Reconstruction. In Media-Made Dixie, Jack Temple Kirby argued that D. W. Griffith's racist epic "The Birth of a Nation" reflected the historiography of the day as contained in the works of Woodrow Wilson, Walter L. Fleming, and William Dunning. Introducing the historiography of Reconstruction through cinematic primary sources such as the two films should encourage historical thinking in the classroom and meet such history standards as examining continuity and change, understanding multiple points of view, interpreting historical perspectives and evidence, and evaluating historical narratives. (Contains 29 notes.) (ERIC).
Anmerkungen	Society for History Education. California State University, Long Beach, 1250 Bellflower Boulevard, Long Beach, CA 90840-1601. Tel: 562-985-2573; Fax: 562-985-5431; Web site: http://www.thehistoryteacher.org/
Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2017/4/10