I have just received a copy of the current issue of Civil War History
that contains a very interesting article by Carol Sheriff, "Virginia's
Embattled Textbooks: Lessons (Learned and Not) from the Centennial Era,"
Civil War History 58 (March 2012): 37-74. A professor at the College of
William and Mary, Sheriff (with the aid of her daughter) brought to
public attention in the autumn of 2010 the fourth grade Virginia history
book that contained a great many factual and interpretive errors,
leading ultimately to the removal of the textbook from the state's list
of approved texts.
 
Looking for reasons why that book was defective led Sheriff to the
records of the Virginia State Textbook Commission that oversaw the
publication of three standard Virginia textbooks during the 1950s, books
that were controversial in their time and were withdrawn during the
1970s. Sheriff's article traces how the state's ham-fisted attempt to
dictate the contents of textbooks in the 1950s ultimately left the field
wide open for publishers to issue textbooks without proper vetting for
accuracy or reliance on the best available scholarship.
 
It is fascinating reading, which I highly recommend to everybody, not
only to people who have a particular interest in the Civil War period,
because the article is not about that, only, or even chiefly. It is
about textbooks and education.
 
Brent Tarter
The Library of Virginia
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Please visit the Library of Virginia's Web site at
http://www.lva.virginia.gov
 

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