To think about what i think its core dialectic was. The tension between democracy and efficiency. These were both ideals that people from a Broad Spectrum of political backgrounds in the progressive era believed were important. And they believed they were not incompatible, but you can see some ways in which they were fundamentally at some tension. So again, throughout class today be thinking about democracy versus efficiency. So the central question for historians of the early 20th century what is progressivism . A famous article that came out in 1982 was entitled in search of progressism, which i think aptly summed up the way that the historians were rummaging around, knowing that the progressive era existed but quibbling about what counted as progressive his. Who counted, when it started. Some people limit only to the Political Party that it was named for. Others define it much more broadly. So for me in this class this is how im going to define progressivism. In the broadest sense,
Emphasis on research and writing. Over the semester, weve examined various disasters. First of all the psychological and physical problems at jamestown, disaster sermons in responses to fires, hurricanes and epidemics in colonial america, famine suffered by the donner party, the potato family, disaster of tourism, the impact of the triangle shirt waste factory and disaster art that emerged from the 1930s dust bowl. Today were discussing polio an american story. You all received questions that i posted and im enterintereste this topic because i teach a seminar in the 1950s. Looking at polio reveals so many different issues that affected that decade. Before starting, though, i just want to mention one thing in light of what we were talking about in terms of dust bowl art, i was reading the new york review of books and there is a review of a novel that Woodie Guthrie wrote. It doesnt get a very good review. But obviously he gets some attention. Youll be pleased to know that the introducti
you can read faster than i can talk so i won t read the slides. i want you to see beautiful places i love. they are history and parks and recreation and national resources and frankly the lungs of the city are largely these forts and the parks. so there we start. as frank said the city was unprotected down below. this is fort washington. if you haven t been there, you should go. it s quite different from the forts that were built during the civil war. after bull run, lincoln knew the city was vulnerable. that s when he ordered director major general john g. barnard to design forts around the city to protect it. here they are. these are the ones available there. it was quite an amazing feat to build all those. it was just tremendous. here they are there. i ve circled them here on this old map, the ones that are under government ownership today. the park service owns all the ones in washington, d.c. and one in maryland and one in virginia. the ones in virginia are owned by lo
who writes his memoir 40 years after the fact, writes it in a flowery 19th century flowery style. when wallace says they arrived here in the morning and lit their camp fires, he ll say something like, you know, the ste ste steely ska gave way to the orange sun and which was great. you have to balance what wallace says in his memoir with his telegrams from the battlefield. his after reaction report two weeks later because wallace had a way of making himself sound really good. and, you know, he did a very brave thing here. can t get away from that. and as i say in the book, i believe and i think the judgment of history is that what wallace did here did safe washington, d.c.. so this battle took place on july 9th, 1864 and right now it s november 2nd, 2007. it s a beautiful day. but one thing to keep in mind about this battle is it was very, very hot. they didn t have thermometers, at least no one referred to a thermometer in their memoirs, but it had to have been in the upper
tonight watch as the national park service commemorates 150th anniversary of the battle. we ll also take a look at how the attack failed and why the u.s. colored troops were unjustly blamed. author kevin levine on the contribution of the u.s. colored troops and immediately following the civil war. here are some of the highlights for twheekd. friday on c-span and prime time, we ll visit important sites in the history of the civil rights movement. saturday night at 8:00, highlights from this year s new york ideas forum including cancer biologist andrew hessel. on sunday, q&a with new york congressman charlie wrangle at 8:00 p.m. eastern. friday night at 8:00 on c-span2, indepth. saturday on afterwards at 10:00, retired neurosurgeon and columnist ben carson. and saturday, lawrence goldstone on the competition between the wright brothers and glen curtis to be the predominant name in manned flight. american history tv on c-span3 on friday at 8:00 eastern. a look at hollywood