Race and
Membership in
American History
An Interdisciplinary Approach
Tuesday, August 9
Connections
Spread the LOVE (word)!
Visit to “Race” exhibit
World Cafe
Our gallery visit will work in the following way:
1)Divide up into three groups.
2)Spend 10 minutes looking in one section.
3)A bell rings!
4)Spend 5 minutes writing a response to a key question (on
a poster-sized post-it).
5)Rotate sections (you’ll do this three times)
6)Revisit your initial poster
Taking Stock
A look at the origins of race
Creating a Working Definition
What is “race”?
Racial Literacy Quiz
Racial Literacy Quiz
⦿ Why is there so much misinformation and
in particular, categories of
misinformation?
⦿ What does it mean to navigate this
conversation without adequate accurate
information?
P. Camper
S. Morton
Challenging the “science”
⦿ Frederick Douglass (p. 59)
⦿ Race: the Power of an Illusion (episode 1)
⦿ Race: the Power of an Illusion, Episode 1
Reconsider your working definition
⦿ “Race”
⦿ Four corners for others’ definitions
Why did the idea become
so well accepted?
The beginnings of the
eugenics movement
Evolution of an idea
⦿ Malthus
⦿ Darwin
⦿ Galton
⦿ Davenport
Evolution of an idea
⦿ What does ___ say about nature or human
nature in particular?
⦿ What does ___ say or imply about progress
for a society?
As you share, look for how the ideas build and
modify over time.
Walkers and Talkers
Create an image that conveys the main ideas of
your reading.
Duplicate that image in small form.
Make sure everybody in your group can speak to
the images.
Walkers will take the small image with them.
Talkers will speak from the large image.
San Francisco Race Betterment Pavillion
Panama-Pacific Exposition (1915)
San Francisco Race Betterment Pavillion
Panama-Pacific Exposition (1915)
Eugenic Health Exhibit
Kansas State Fair Topeka, Kansas (1927)
First Prize Winner
Best Baby Contest
Battle Creek, Michigan (1914)
Cover of
Social Work
Pamphlet
(1915)
Poster from
Race Betterment
Foundation
Battle Creek, Michigan
(1920)
American Eugenics Society’s Flashing Light Exhibit
Sesquicentennial Exposition
This graphic appeared in a popular
textbook, General Psychology, as
late as 1961. It was published by
Henry Garrett, Chairman of the
Columbia University
Department of Psychology.
Revisiting the museum
Or
Casting and
Collecting at a 100-
year old
Anthropology
museum
REPRESENTATION AND THE
HISTORY OF
THE MUSEUM OF MAN
◼First building in Balboa Park for the 1915
Panama Exposition
◼Original collections: objects from “scientific”
expeditions to Central and South America,
SE USA
◼Displays of ethnographic objects, human
remains, photography, and “folk” art
THE MUSEUM’S HISTORY…
WORLD’S FAIRS: A PHENOMENON
St. Louis World’s Fair, 1904
WORLD’S FAIRS: A
PHENOMENON
San Francisco World’s Fair, 1915
WHAT DO YOU SEE?
“PYGMY CANNIBALS”
HUMAN ZOOS
SAN DIEGO EXPOSITION 1915
WHAT DO YOU SEE?
Physical Anthropology Exhibit, 1915
WHAT DO YOU SEE?
WHAT DO YOU SEE?
The fundamental features of the exhibits in this
group are three series of thoroughly true-to-
nature busts, showing by definite age-stages,
from birth onward to the oldest persons that
could be found, and in both sexes, the three
principal races of this country, namely, the
“thoroughbred” white American (for at least three
generations in this continent on each parental
EXHIBIT DESCRIPTION
From the “Descriptive Catalog of the Section of Physical Anthropology,” Panama-California Exposition, 1915
No choice was made of the subjects beyond that
due to the requirements of pedigree, age and
good health. The whites and negroes were
obtained with a few exceptions in Washington
and vicinity, but their places of birth range over a
large part of the eastern, southern and middle
states; for the Indian the Sioux was chosen, a
characteristic and in very large measure still a
“FACING” OUR HISTORY
http://www.museumofman.org/collections/ethnogr
aphic-collections/
“A Changing America”
The Progressive Era
What is
“The Progressive Era”?
What is progress?arWW
Some people define the word progress as
“growth” or “movement” while others
view it as a “step forward” or a “ladder
reaching upward”.
-Do you agree? Why or why not?
Gallery Walk of Images
• What image is being portrayed?
• How is “progress” being defined?
• What are the “untold stories”?
Choose one image
• Describe what you see – avoid
interpretations or feelings at start
• THEN, what story is told by this
image?
• What information is given about
societal context of America during the
Progressive Era?
Defining movements of
Progressive Era
• Immigration: 15 million from 1890-1914
• Industrialization: changes where as well as how goods
are made, sparks dissonace between citizenship
concerns and growing economic machine
• Urbanization: closer proximity, lack of infrastructure,
shifting gender roles
• Emancipation: “Free” → equal participation
“Clash of Cultures”?
• Production emphasized
• Character
• Scarcity
• Religion
• Past idealized
• Local culture
• Substance
• Consumption emphasized
• Personality
• Abundance
• Science
• Looked to the Future
• Mass Culture
• Image
Strategy
Gallery Walk
https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-
library/teaching-strategies/gallery-walk
Photographs for Gallery Walk are in
separate slideshow
Readings
● “Marvels of a Marvelous Age”–R&M, p. 92-94
● The End of the Frontier - R&M, p. 96-98
● “The Progress” and Poverty - R&M, p. 124-128
● “The Kind of World We Lived In” - R&M, p. 133-139
● Rumors and Fears - R&M, p.129-132
Lemon Grove Incident
Exit Cards

Interdisciplinary seminar day 2