The Antebellum American textbook author's populist history of Roman land reform and the Gracchi brothers.

Autor/in	McInnis, Edward
Titel	The Antebellum American textbook author's populist history of Roman land reform and the Gracchi brothers.
Quelle	In: Journal of educational media, memory, and society, 7 (2015) 1, S. 25-50Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext kostenfreie Datei Link als defekt meldenVerfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	online; gedruckt; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	2041-6938; 2041-6946
DOI	10.3167/jemms.2015.070102
Schlagwörter	Schulbuch; Geschichte (Histor); Geschichtsunterricht; Römisches Reich; Agrarreform; Altertum; Kommission; Griechenland; Vereinigte Staaten-Südstaaten
Abstract	This essay explores social and political values conveyed by nineteenth-century world and universal history textbooks in relation to the antebellum era. These textbooks focused on the histories of ancient Greece and Rome rather than on histories of the United States. I argue that after 1830 these textbooks reinforced both the US land reform and the antislavery movement by creating favorable depictions of Tiberius and Caius Gracchus. Tiberius and Caius Gracchus (known as the "Gracchi") were two Roman tribunes who ought to restore Rome's land laws, which granted public land to propertyless citizens despite opposition from other Roman aristocrats. The textbook authors' portrayal of the Gracchan reforms reflects a populist element in antebellum American education because these narratives suggest that there is a connection between social inequality and the decline of republicanism.
Erfasst von	Leibniz-Institut für Bildungsmedien \| Georg-Eckert-Institut (GEI), Braunschweig
Update	2015/4