17,394
edits
Changes
→Social: Blacks
====Annales School of social history====
====Annales School of social history====
[[Annales School]], the French approach to [[Social history]], emphasizing geography, long durations, quantitative data and "mentalités"; focus is pre-1789; highly influential in Europe and Latin America
[[Annales School]], the French approach to [[Social history]], emphasizing geography, long durations, quantitative data and "mentalités"; focus is pre-1789; highly influential in Europe and Latin America
===Black history===
The history of [[slavery]] has always been a major research topic for white scholars, but they generally focused on the political and constitutional themes until the 1950s, generally ignoring the black slaves themselves. During [[Reconstruction]] and the late 19th century, blacks became major actors in the South. The [[Dunning School]] of white scholars generally cast the blacks as pawns of white Carpetbaggers but [[W.E.B. Dubois]], a black historian, and [[Ulrich B. Phillips]], a white historian, studied the African-American experience in depth. Indeed, Phillips set the main topics of inquiry that still guide the analysis of slave economics.
In the black community, in the first half of the 20th century Carter G. Woodson was the major scholar studying and promoting the black historical experience. Woodson insisted that the study of African descendants be scholarly sound, creative, restorative, and, most important, directly relevant to the black community. He popularized black history with a variety of innovative strategies and vehicles, including Association for the Study of Negro Life outreach activities, Negro History Month (now [[Black History Month]], in February), and a popular black history magazine. Woodson democratized, legitimized, and popularized black history.<ref> Pero Gaglo Dagbovie, "Making Black History Practical and Popular: Carter G. Woodson, the Proto Black Studies Movement, and the Struggle for Black Liberation." ''Western Journal of Black Studies'' 2004 28(2): 372-383. Issn: 0197-4327 Fulltext: [[Ebsco]]</ref>
Benjamin Quarles (1904-96) and John Hope Franklin (1915-2009) provided a bridge between the work of historians in black schools such as Woodson, and the black history that is now well established in mainline universities. Quarles grew up in Boston, attended Shaw University as an undergraduate, and received a graduate degree at the University of Wisconsin. He began in 1953 teaching at a black college in Baltimore, followed by Brooklyn College and finally professorships at the elite University of Chicago and Duke University. Franklin was less a scholar than a symbol of the acceptance of black history in the academy.
Black history always sought out black agency--even slaves had a certain amount of control over their lives. The assumptions was that slaves were passive and did not rebel was debated in the 1950s and rejected. Many of the white scholars were former Communists or members of the far left, and they looked for violent rebellion. They found few such rebellions, but much unrest. Herbert Gutman and Leon Litwack showed that in reconstruction how former slaves fought to keep their families together and struggled against tremendous odds to define themselves as free people. [[Robert Fogel]], a former Communist who moved to the right, enraged the left when he used quantitative methods to show that the housing, food, clothing and living conditions of the slaves were reasonably favorable. He was awarded the Nobel prize in Economics for his work.
Today proponents of black history argue that it promotes diversity, develops self-esteem, and corrects myths and stereotypes. Opponents, including [[Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.]] and [[Oscar Handlin]], complain that such curricula are dishonest, divisive, and lack academic credibility and rigor.<ref> Abul Pitre and Ruth Ray, "The Controversy Around Black History." ''Western Journal of Black Studies'' 2002 26(3): 149-154. Issn: 0197-4327 Fulltext: [[Ebsco]]</ref>
===Comparative===
===Comparative===