There have been a couple of books published on the subject. I personally have a
problem with conflating garden variety plagiarism with academic fraud though
they are cut from the same cloth but a starting point would be Weiner's
Historians in Trouble: Plagiarism, Fraud, and Politics in the Ivory Tower.
I think the problem of academic historians wildly overstating their pet theories
is easy to find. Just this week, one such appeared in the Washington Post
claiming that malaria caused Cornwallis's surrender at Yorktown and prevented a
stalemate. More along the line of the 4th grade textbook is patent inaccuracies
mutating into facts. I wouldn't encourage anyone, for instance, to rely on
Stephen Ambrose's World War II work because it is shot through and through with
demonstrable inaccuracies. He, btw, was an established academic historian before
becoming popular. And this is much more in line with the textbook problem.
I don't believe academia (and I say this from my day job perspective in dealing
with peer review issues at the National Institutes of Health) is any more or
less prone to dishonesty than any other professional endeavor. But, at least on
the life sciences side the pressure to publish "novel" research is incredible
and the penalty for not doing so is severe. So I don't know that we should be
surprised when bad research or fake research appears.
----- Original Message ----
From: "Kimball, Gregg (LVA)" <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Wed, October 20, 2010 11:04:19 AM
Subject: Re: [VA-HIST] Virginia 4th-grade textbook criticized over claims on
black Confederate soldiers
Sorry if I offended, Mr. Crews.
Perhaps I am a bit sensitive to this as a university trained historian,
although I have never worked in an academic setting. I honestly would
welcome responses to my question, because criticism of academics is rife
in our popular culture. The question of authority in historical
presentations is important to me, especially because I work on projects
aimed at a broad audience. Other than Peter Novick's very fine book,
That Noble Dream, I have not read any book-length works that
systematically look at such questions.
Certainly folks here express opinions, but it also doesn't seem
innappropriate to request further documentation of a claim that's being
made.
I certainly don't want to start a war. Again, my apologies.
Gregg
-----Original Message-----
From: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Bill Crews
Sent: Wednesday, October 20, 2010 10:46 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [VA-HIST] Virginia 4th-grade textbook criticized over
claims on black Confederate soldiers
I didn't intend to start a war over this, much less with the moderator.
Has there been a systematic study that supports any other statement made
on this list? If the standard for future discussions is that every
statement has to be footnoted that's fine but right now this is looking
a lot like a personal ax being ground.
----- Original Message ----
From: "Kimball, Gregg (LVA)" <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Wed, October 20, 2010 10:13:29 AM
Subject: Re: [VA-HIST] Virginia 4th-grade textbook criticized over
claims on black Confederate soldiers
Hello all,
First, as moderator of the list, I appreciate the civil tone and
on-point discussion that this thread has so far generated. Let's keep it
that way.
I would need more than two examples (one of whom is not even a
historian) of bad researchers to support the claim that bad work is
"widespread" among academic historians. Is there a systematic study
that supports such a conclusion?
Gregg
-----Original Message-----
From: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Bill Crews
Sent: Wednesday, October 20, 2010 10:02 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [VA-HIST] Virginia 4th-grade textbook criticized over
claims on black Confederate soldiers
I don't have a dog in this particular fight but I would like to note
that crappy research and extraordinary claims is as widespread amongst
academic historians as any other place. One has to look no farther than
Michael Bellisles, Ward Churchill, and any number of lesser lights who
were widely published, cited, and honored and yet were eventually
exposed as frauds. When one gets into the realm of historians who
publish for the general public the problem is magnified several fold.
----- Original Message ----
From: Margaret Peters <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Wed, October 20, 2010 9:32:00 AM
Subject: Re: [VA-HIST] Virginia 4th-grade textbook criticized over
claims on black Confederate soldiers
It is incredible to me that this text was not reviewed by a competent
and unbiased and knowledgeable historian. I recall back in the 1970s
working directly with the Board of Education on its then new materials
for 4th graders and carefully evaluating how various controversial facts
were presented. It is very disturbing that this was not being done in
this case. Sadly it is a mind-set that far too many so-called scholars
accept. Some of it goes back to the lack of any sort of accreditation
for historians. Relying solely on a secondary source as questionable as
the SCV who clearly have a specific agenda is just plain wrong. Anyone
can call themselves a "historian," these days.
Margaret T. Peters
Historian with the Virginia Department of Historic Resources 1968-2002.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Jon Kukla" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, October 20, 2010 9:04 AM
Subject: Virginia 4th-grade textbook criticized over claims on black
Confederate soldiers
*Virginia 4th-grade textbook criticized over claims on black Confederate
soldiers
*
By Kevin Sieff
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
A textbook distributed to Virginia fourth-graders says that thousands of
African Americans fought for the South during the Civil War -- a claim
rejected by most historians but often made by groups seeking to play
down slavery's role as a cause of the conflict.
The passage appears in "Our Virginia: Past and Present," which was
distributed in the state's public elementary schools for the first time
last month. The author, Joy Masoff, who is not a trained historian but
has written several books, said she found the information about black
Confederate soldiers primarily through Internet research, which turned
up work by members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.
Scholars are nearly unanimous in calling these accounts of black
Confederate soldiers a misrepresentation of history. Virginia education
officials, after being told by The Washington Post of the issues related
to the textbook, said that the vetting of the book was flawed and that
they will contact school districts across the state to caution them
against teaching the passage.
"Just because a book is approved doesn't mean the Department of
Education endorses every sentence," said spokesman Charles Pyle. He also
called the book's assertion about black Confederate soldiers "outside
mainstream Civil War scholarship."
Masoff defended her work. "As controversial as it is, I stand by what I
write," she said. "I am a fairly respected writer."
The issues first came to light after College of William & Mary historian
Carol Sheriff opened her daughter's copy of "Our Virginia" and saw the
reference to black Confederate soldiers.
"It's disconcerting that the next generation is being taught history
based on an unfounded claim instead of accepted scholarship," Sheriff
said.
"It
concerns me not just as a professional historian but as a parent."
Virginia, which is preparing to mark the 150th anniversary of the
beginning of the Civil War, has long struggled to appropriately
commemorate its Confederate past. The debate was reinvigorated this
spring, when Gov.
Robert
F. Mc-Don-nell (R) introduced "Confederate History Month" in Virginia
without mentioning slavery's role in the Civil War. He later apologized.
The Sons of Confederate Veterans, a group of male descendants of
Confederate soldiers based in Columbia, Tenn., has long maintained that
substantial numbers of black soldiers fought for the South The group's
historian-in-chief, Charles Kelly Barrow, has written the book "Black
Confederates."
The Sons of Confederate Veterans also disputes the widely accepted
conclusion that the struggle over slavery was the main cause of the
Civil War. Instead, the group says, the war was fought "to preserve
their homes and livelihood," according to John Sawyer, chief of staff of
the Sons of Confederate Veterans' Army of Northern Virginia. He said the
group was pleased that a state textbook accepted some of its views.
The state's curriculum requires textbook publishers and educators to
explore the role African Americans played in the Confederacy, including
their work on plantations and on the sidelines of battle. Those
standards have evolved in recent years to make lessons on the Civil War
more inclusive in a state that is growing increasingly diverse.
When Masoff began work on the textbook, she said she consulted a variety
of sources -- history books, experts and the Internet. But when it came
to one of the Civil War's most controversial themes -- the role of
African Americans in the Confederacy -- she relied primarily on an
Internet search.
The book's publisher, Five Ponds Press, based in Weston, Conn., sent a
Post reporter three of the links Masoff found on the Internet. Each
referred to work by Sons of the Confederate Veterans or others who
contend that the fight over slavery was not the main cause of the Civil
War.
In its short lesson on the roles that whites, African Americans and
Indians played in the Civil War, "Our Virginia" says, "Thousands of
Southern blacks fought in the Confederate ranks, including two black
battalions under the command of Stonewall Jackson."
Masoff said of the assertion: "It's just one sentence. I don't want to
ruffle any feathers. If the historians had contacted me and asked me to
take it out, I would have."
She added that the book was reviewed by a publisher's advisory council
of educators and that none of the advisers objected to the textbook's
assertion.
Historians from across the country, however, said the sentence about
Confederate soldiers was wrong or, at the least, overdrawn. They
expressed concerns not only over its accuracy but over the implications
of publishing an assertion so closely linked to revisionist Confederate
history.
"It's more than just an arcane, off-the-wall problem," said David
Blight, a professor at Yale University. "This isn't just about the
legitimacy of the Confederacy, it's about the legitimacy of the
emancipation itself."
Pulitzer Prize-winning historian James McPherson of Princeton University
said, "These Confederate heritage groups have been making this claim for
years as a way of purging their cause of its association with slavery."
Masoff said one of her sources was Ervin Jordan, a University of
Virginia historian who said he has documented evidence -- in the form of
19th-century newspapers and personal letters -- of some African
Americans fighting for the Confederacy. But in an interview, Jordan said
the account in the fourth-grade textbook went far beyond what his
research can support.
"There's no way of knowing that there were thousands," Jordan said. "And
the claim about Jackson is totally false. I don't know where that came
from."
The book also survived the Education Department's vetting and was ruled
"accurate and unbiased" by a committee of content specialists and
teachers.
Five Ponds Press has published 14 books that are used in the Virginia
public school system, all of them written by Masoff.
Masoff also wrote "Oh Yuck! The Encyclopedia of Everything Nasty" and
"Oh Yikes! History's Grossest Moments."
==============
Jon Kukla
________________
www.JonKukla.com <http://www.jonkukla.com/>
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