James W. Loewen - Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong

Table of Contents

Daisy Bates, Thomas Hart Benton, Bartolom de las Casas,
Medgar Evers, James Horton, Charles Ives, Helen Hunt Jackson,
Helen Keller, Samuel Leibowitz, Abraham Lincoln,
John Prentiss Matthews, Chester Nimitz, Robert Gould Shaw,
Adolphine Terry, Mark Twain, Elizabeth Van Lew,
and all the others.

Listed in alphabetical order, these people talked with me, suggested markers or memorials that I should critique, recommended sources, commented on entries, corrected my mistakes, let me stay at their house, or provided other moral or material aid. The book and/or my life while writing it would have been worse without their aid, so readers who think the book bad enough as it stands owe them particular gratitude. I thank them very much: Ken Ames, Fred Armstrong, Dick Atlee, Bill Ayers, Bruce Baker, Will Bagley, Ed Bearss, Cynthia Beeman, Lynda Behan, Ira Berlin, Sanford Berman, Carole Blair, Cindy Bloom, Paul Bloom, Rebecca Bowman, Linda Brew, Bob Brischetto, Carol Bro, Gene Brock, Pete Brown, Thomas Brown, Fitzhugh Brundage, Lonnie Bunch, Vernon Burton, Bonnie Ann Campbell, Donald Capps, George Chester, Jennie Chinn, Richard Church, John Coski, Tom Crouch, Richard Nelson Current, Roger Davidson, R. Townsend Davis Jr., Armand Derfner, Marcia Dickson, John Dittmer, Chris Dodge, Mary Dyer, Bill Evans, Bill Fargo, Gordon Fellman, Paul Finkelman, Henry and Helen Finney, Shelley Fisher Fishkin, Susan Franzen, Matt Gernstein, Mary Giles, Hal Glatzer, Asa Gordon, Henry Guerra, Harold Gulley, Elise Guyette, Dick and Lois Harger, Bonnie and Baxter Harris, Casey Hatton, William Haviland, Steve Heath, Joe Herzenberg, Michael Hill, Sudie Hoffman, James Hollandsworth, Sara Holmes, John Howard, Andrew Huebner, Doug Imboden, Donald Irish, Dayle Irwin, Clifton Johnson, James B. Jones Jr., Lauren Kaminsky, Carol Kammen, Helmi Kortes-Erkkila, David Labaree, April Lambert, Poka Laenui, Lucy Loewen, Nicholas Loewen, Katherine Long, David Lowenthal, Paul Luebke, Sara Martin, Ken Meter, Nancy Murray and HIP-HOP students, Martha Norkunas, Jim OBrien, Carole S. ONeill, Lynn Phillips, Ryan Phillips, Dwight Pitcaithley, Joe Pitti, Larry Pizer, Kevin Poe, Dorothy Redford, Ishmael Reed, Yvette Rosser, Fath Davis Ruffins, Judith K. Schafer, Saul Schniderman, Tony Scott, Edward H. Sebesta, Rick Shenkman, David Shiman, Diane Skvarla, Tricia Stadelmaier, Cinder Stanton, Julia Stein, Mark Stoler, Bryce Suderow, Lee Sultzman, Mike Swickey, Lonn Taylor, Billy Townsend, Fred Ulrich, Mark Van Ells, John Michael Vlach, Kyle Ward, Leon Waters, Robert Weyeneth, Keith Wheelock, Jon and Nancy Wilkman, Darlene Wilson, Melissa Winkler, C. Vann Woodward, Mack Woodward, Leonard Zettel, and Jim Zwick.

In addition, this book depended upon literally hundreds of citizens across the United States who sent me ideas, gave me information about historic sites in their locales, and otherwise shared information. Thank you!

I also thank three institutions: The New Press and especially my editor, Diane Wachtell, for consistent encouragement and intelligent criticism; the National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian Institution, for the privileges of Senior Research Fellow; and Catholic University of America, for adjunct faculty privileges at its Life Cycle Institute.

At the end of each entry, a source note lists citations in the approximate order in which they are relevant to the entry, allowing the luxury of footnotes without letting them overpower the page. Abbreviations in the source notes include postal codes for state names, u. for university, UP for university press, and GPO for Government Printing Office. Sites on the World Wide Web are listed by title when appropriate, URL, and date accessed; if a URL is too long for one line, it wraps to the next line without a hyphen, to avoid ambiguity.

Leon Waters, 23; James W. Loewen, 34, 39, 46, 37, 55, 58, 104, 119, 136, 165, 170, 187, 198, 274 (2), 297, 336, 392, 423, 431 (2), 439, 448; Karen Osborne, 45; Alaska Div. of Tourism, 51; Robert Weyeneth, 78; Nevada State Historic Preservation Office, 83; Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory/ DOE, 85; Idaho State Historical Society, 89; Smithsonian Institution NMAH Photo office, 131; Muscatine Dept. of Parks and Recreation, 144; Hannibal Convention and Visitors Bureau, 150; Chicago Sun-Times, 156; National Park Service, 168; Library of Congress, 180, 190, 212, 220, 291; Louisiana Times Picayune, 218; Jessica Murray/Project HIP-HOP, 231; Patrick Hood, 244; Corbis/Bettmann, 248; Howard University Moorland-Springarn Center, 252, 276, 277, 348, 395; James B. Jones, Jr., 258; National Archives, 284; Metro Richmond Convention and Visitors Bureau, 311; The New Press, 341; Annemei Curlin, 386; University of Vermont Archives, 426.

Alabama ..... 239
Alaska ..... 51
Arizona ..... 99
Arkansas ..... 197
California ..... 57
Colorado ..... 110
Connecticut ..... 408
Delaware ..... 352
District of Columbia ..... 327
Florida ..... 266
Georgia ..... 261
Hawaii ..... 54
Idaho ..... 89
Illinois ..... 152
Indiana ..... 157
Iowa ..... 144
Kansas ..... 126
Kentucky ..... 164
Louisiana ..... 206
Maine ..... 442
Maryland ..... 338
Massachusetts ..... 413
Michigan ..... 170
Minnesota ..... 136
Mississippi ..... 230
Missouri ..... 148
Montana ..... 102
Nebraska ..... 127
Nevada ..... 82
New Hampshire ..... 430
New Jersey ..... 383
New Mexico ..... 119
New York ..... 385
North Carolina ..... 288
North Dakota ..... 133
Ohio ..... 173
Oklahoma ..... 123
Oregon ..... 74
Pennsylvania ..... 357
Rhode Island ..... 436
South Carolina ..... 268
South Dakota ..... 130
Tennessee ..... 250
Texas ..... 177
Utah ..... 93
Vermont ..... 425
Virginia ..... 290
Washington ..... 76
West Virginia ..... 325
Wisconsin ..... 151
Wyoming ..... 108

When I was a boy on our annual summer vacation trips, the family car seemed to stop at every historic marker and monument. Maybe yours did, too. Dad thought it was good for us, and I suppose in a way it was. Little did he suspect that it was also bad for usthat the lies we encountered on our trips across the United States subtly distorted our knowledge of the past and warped our view of the world. My sister and I needed to unlearn the myths we were learning in school, but the historic sites we visited only amplified them and taught us new ones.

My most recent book, Lies My Teacher Told Me, told how American history as taught in most high schools distorts the past and turns many students off. One result is that only one American in six ever takes a course in American history after graduating from high school. Where then do Americans learn about the past? From many sources, of coursehistorical novels, Oliver Stone moviesbut surely most of all from the landscape. History is told on the landscape all across Americaon monuments at the courthouse, by guides inside antebellum homes and aboard historic ships, by the names we give to places, and on roadside historical markers. This book examines the history that some of these places tell and the processes by which they come forward to tell it.