TIPHC Newsletter, May 27-June 2, 2018

The Issue on the Table: Is “Hamilton” Good For History?

In a new book, top historians discuss the musical’s educational value, historical accuracy and racial revisionism

Photo: Opening night of the Broadway musical “Hamilton” at the Richard Rodgers Theatre (WENN Ltd / Alamy Stock Photo)

(Smithsonianmag.com) Even if it hadn’t won big at the 2016 Tony Awards, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton: An American Musical would remain a theatrical powerhouse and a fixture of contemporary American culture. It’s likewise been seen as a champion of U.S. history, inspiring Americans young and old to learn more about their founding fathers, particularly the “forgotten” Alexander Hamilton.

Professional historians are no exception to getting wrapped up in the excitement created by Hamilton, and they’ve begun to wonder what impact the show will have on history as an academic discipline. Though Miranda has said in interviews that he “felt an enormous responsibility to be as historically accurate as possible,” his artistic representation of Hamilton is necessarily a work of historical fiction, with moments of imprecision and dramatization. The wide reach of Miranda’s work begs the question of historians: is the inspirational benefit of this cultural phenomenon worth looking past its missteps?

Historians Renee Romano of Oberlin College and Claire Bond Potter of the New School in New York capture this debate in their new volume Historians on Hamilton: How a Blockbuster Musical is Restaging America’s Past, a collection of 15 essays by scholars on the historical, artistic and educational impact of the musical. Romano, who hatched the idea for the book, says she was inspired by “the flurry of attention and conversation among historians engaging with [Hamilton], who really had very divergent opinions on the quality, the work it was doing, the importance of it, the messages it was sending.” (more)

The Most Damaging Myths About Slavery, Debunked

(History) Were U.S. slaves in any way responsible for their own misery? Were there any silver linings to forced bondage? These questions surface from time to time in the American cultural conversation, rekindling a longstanding debate over whether the nation’s “peculiar institution” may have been something less than a horrific crime against humanity.

When rapper and clothing designer Kanye West commented on TMZ.com that slavery was a “choice,” and later attempted to clarify by tweeting that African Americans remained subservient for centuries because they were “mentally enslaved,” he set off a social-media firestorm of anger and incredulity. And after a charter-school teacher in San Antonio, Texas asked her 8th-grade American history students to provide a “balanced view” of slavery by listing both its pros and cons, a wide public outcry ensued. The homework assignment was drawn from a nationally distributed textbook.

Such controversies underscore a profound lack of understanding of slavery, the institution that, more than any other in the formation of the American republic, undergirded its very economic, social and political fabric. (more)

Commentary: The least we can do for Dallas’ first black voter is to protect her house

Juanita Craft as a young woman, when she increased the NAACP’s membership in Dallas and throughout Texas, and led protests and sit-ins.

(Dallas News) The 1930 Craftsman-style bungalow looks like any other on the block of this Fair Park neighborhood. Its white clapboard is perhaps brighter, more intact, its yard more manicured, but it is no less humble than any other home along Warren Avenue. Architecturally unimportant, its significance stems from what happened inside.

A woman named Juanita Craft lived here from 1950 until her death in August of 1985, when she was 83. During that time, and well before, Craft reshaped Dallas like few others before or since, gathering in this house a flock that became a family that became an army of makers of good trouble. It was a destination for foot soldiers and world leaders.

Her name adorns this house — and a rec center, a clinic, a post office. I guarantee most Dallasites do not know why. (more)

TIPHC Bookshelf

Published scholarship on black history in Texas is growing and we’d like to share with you some suggested readings, both current and past, from some of the preeminent history scholars in Texas and beyond. We invite you to take a look at our bookshelf page – including a featured selection – and check back as the list grows. A different selection will be featured each week. We welcome suggestions and reviews. This week, we offer, “The Last Battle of the Civil War, Palmetto Ranch,” by Jeffrey Wm Hunt.

More than two months after Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia on April 9, 1865, the New York Times reported a most surprising piece of news. On May 12-13, the last battle of the Civil War had been fought at the southernmost tip of Texas—resulting in a Confederate victory. Although Palmetto Ranch did nothing to change the war’s outcome, it added the final irony to a conflict replete with ironies, unexpected successes, and lost opportunities. For these reasons, it has become both one of the most forgotten and most mythologized battles of the Civil War.

In this book, Jeffrey Hunt draws on previously unstudied letters and court martial records to offer a full and accurate account of the battle of Palmetto Ranch. As he recreates the events of the fighting that pitted the United States’ 62nd Colored Troops and the 34th Indiana Veteran Volunteer Infantry against Texas cavalry and artillery battalions commanded by Colonel John S. “Rip” Ford, Hunt lays to rest many misconceptions about the battle. In particular, he reveals that the Texans were fully aware of events in the East—and still willing to fight for Southern independence. He also demonstrates that, far from fleeing the battle in a panic as some have asserted, the African American troops played a vital role in preventing the Union defeat from becoming a rout.