Saturday, December 5, 2020

Roaring Twenties Feminism

Social and Cultural Changes Open Doors for American Women

Feb 26, 2009
Michael Streich

: Louise Brooks, 1927 - Library of Congress

The Roaring Twenties dramatically altered female perspectives and attitudes, allowing for a greater sense of independence and openness.

The “Roaring Twenties” brought a new sense of freedom into the lives of a growing, urban American middle class. Expanding consumerism allowed Americans to go beyond the “normalcy” they voted for in 1920 and focus on new technologies that appeared to make life easier in almost every aspect of culture and society. Women, particularly, felt the new freedom, having gained the right to vote in 1920. As Bruce Bliven wrote in the September 9th, 1925 edition of The New Republic, “Women have highly resolved that they are just as good as men…” The 1920s was a time of prosperity amidst a decline in fundamentalism and post-Victorian prudishness.

Women in the Roaring Twenties

The female icon of the years preceding the 1929 Wall Street crash was the flapper, a “thoroughly modern” sophisticated woman regarded as the “perfectly horrible example of wild youth…” by the old purists, according to Bliven. Although most women were not flappers, the seeds of change, glamorized by this new breed of women, had its effect. Women were smoking in public, wearing fewer clothes, and “going steady” without the watchful eyes of a chaperon.

The changes in female attitudes could only have taken place within a society that itself was entering new realms of possibilities brought about in large part through consumerism. John D’Emillio and Estelle Freedman, in their book Intimate Matters, equate growing consumerism with individual fulfillment: “An ethic that encouraged the purchase of consumer products also fostered an acceptance of pleasure, self-gratification, and personal satisfaction, a perspective that easily translated to the providence of sex.”

Increasing high school attendance allowed young women a greater degree of socialization while the mass proliferation of the automobile provided a new level of independence. By 1929, Americans were purchasing 23 million cars. In Bruce Bliven’s “Flapper Jane” account, Jane strolls “across the lawn of her parents’ suburban home, having just put the car away after driving sixty miles in two hours.”

Consumerism, Prosperity, and Leisure Time Impact Feminism in the 1920s

An increase in urban delicatessens and the growth of the canned food industry meant less time in the kitchen preparing meals from scratch. More women than ever were using commercial laundries and the expansion of department stores increased the endless varieties of ready-to-wear clothes. As wages increased, both women and men had more discretionary income while the beginnings of mass consumer credit allowed families to purchase consumer goods on time payments.

Leisure activities grew as early Hollywood films began to replace vaudeville. Hollywood highlighted both the prosperity and the new openness regarding females, as did novels, women’s magazines, and newspapers. Destinations like Coney Island in New York afforded a day of inexpensive fun. New dances brought young adults closer together, literally, in what some called the “syncopated embrace.” Young people were marrying sooner than they had in the preceding decades.

Opposition and the Reality of Female Freedom in the Roaring Twenties

Despite the new openness and attitudes, significant opposition coming from preachers like Billy Sunday and the declining fundamentalist movement, slowed female causes. Local jurisdictions enacted laws regulating the length of women’s skirts. Some communities placed curfews on female teachers. Additionally, higher education was still predominantly limited to males.

1920s Women Still Faced Barriers

Women of the 1920s had “won a victory so nearly complete,” according to Bliven’s, yet Feminism was far from the reality. The post 1929 “Great Depression” would stall the breaking of still existing barriers and although “Rosie the Riveter” introduced mass female employment, such unlimited opportunities ended in 1945. Yet the 1920s reflects a period of significant achievement for women; they would never go back to days of separate spheres.

Sources:

Frederick Lewis Allen, Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920’s (New York: Harper & Row, 1964).

Bruce Bliven, “Flapper Jane,” The New Republic (September 9, 1925).

John D’Emillio and Estelle B. Freedman, Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America (New York: Harper & Row, 1988) p 234ff.

Robert Goldston, The Road Between the Wars: 1918-1941 (New York: Fawcett Crest, 1978).

William E. Leuchtenburg, The Perils of Prosperity 1914-32 (University of Chicago Press, 1958) see chapter 9, “The Revolution in Morals.”

Michael Streich - Former Adjunct Instructor, History & Global Studies

Columbus, the Flat Earth Theory, and Other Myths

When Fiction Invades Truth in American History Studies

Dec 13, 2008
Michael Streich

: Christopher Columbus - Public Domain. No copyright

From Patrick Henry's "Give Me Liberty" speech to Equiano's autobiographical narrative, historians attempt to correct the record by questioning long held assumptions.

How many students coming out of high school and lower grade history and social studies classes will tell you that Christopher Columbus sailed in 1492 to prove that the earth was round? Or that his sailors feared falling off the end of the earth? How many students quote the final lines of Patrick Henry’s immortal speech, “give me liberty, or give me death?” And how many students really think that George Washington chopped down a cherry tree and then confessed because he “could not tell a lie?”

Perpetuating the Fiction in the Archives

In 1991 Jeffrey Burton Russell published Inventing the Flat Earth: Columbus and Modern Historians. Russell’s research destroys the long standing myth that contemporaries of Columbus held to a flat earth theory. How then did this notion creep into history texts? Russell demonstrates how the myth became accepted history following publication of a nineteenth century biography of Columbus by Washington Irving, whose fanciful tale was more romanticism that true history. Irving’s work was subsequently used universally as fact by generations of history teachers.

In his 2004 book Founding Myths: Stories That Hide Our Patriotic Past, Ray Raphael casts doubt on the authenticity of Patrick Henry’s famous “give me liberty…” speech. The text of the speech was first recorded in 1817 in a biography authored by William Wirt. Wirt’s only resource was from an old eye-witness, Judge St. George Tucker, who did not have written notes but provided Patrick Henry’s text from memory. Raphael’s detailing casts significant doubt on the veracity of the speech. Founding Myths also addresses Paul Revere’s ride, Molly Pitcher, and a number of Revolutionary War subjects.

Henry Wiencek addresses the story of Washington and the cherry tree in his book An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America. [1] Wiencek traces the story to Mason Locke Weems, an early biographer. According to Wiencek, young George Washington was responsible for the death of his mother’s favorite horse and argues that Weems altered the details into a more palatable story that still had the moral: I can’t tell a lie.

Many American History texts still include the anecdote that a British band played “The World Turned Upside Down” during the surrender ceremonies ending the Battle of Yorktown. But, as Barbara Tuchman explains in The First Salute: A View of the American Revolution [2], the story hails from an 1828 written account that was not based on historical fact. Tuchman demonstrates that this was probably not the tune played, but whatever the British did play “is historically obscure.”

In 2006 Vincent Carretta, English professor at the University of Maryland at College Park, challenged the authenticity of Olaudah Equiano’s autobiographical account of the Middle Passage, alleging that Equiano may never have been in Africa. While Carretta never set out to discredit the work [3], his painstaking research lit fires in African-American and American Slave studies. Although the proverbial jury is still out, Carretta’s assertions severely questioned the use of sources without verifying all of the underlying facts. Popular stories achieve a sense of universal acceptance simply because no one vetted the original document

The Purpose of Historical Research

Historical research should aim toward a plausible conclusion based on verifiable sources and ironclad facts, even if it means debunking popular stories that fire the imagination. In American History, many of the early “creation myths” find roots in a post-1812 burst of nationalism that attempted to create larger than life heroes, the role models of a unique Democracy. Every civilization has done this. But for the historian, the truth is often hidden behind the fiction.

[1] See pages 32-33.

[2] See pages 288-289.

[3] Jennifer Howard, “Unraveling the Narrative,” Chronicle of Higher Education, Section: Research and Publishing, Vol 52, Issue 3, September 9, 2005, pp. A11ff.

Michael Streich - Former Adjunct Instructor, History & Global Studies

Coxey's Army Marches on Washington, DC in 1894

Dec 20, 2010
Michael Streich

: Gilded Age Robber Barons Controlled Congress - US Senate Photo Image

Jacob Coxey was an American who believed in the Constitution and a Populist who championed the cause of farmers and unemployed workingmen.

Jacob Coxey was the most unlikely man to be branded a revolutionary. In 1894, Coxey, a farmer and small businessman, led an “army,” the “Commonweal of Christ,” to Washington, DC. Part of his message to Congress asserted that, “Up these steps the lobbyists of trusts and corporations have passed unchallenged on their way to committee rooms, access to which we, the representatives of the toiling wealth-producers have been denied.” Coxey’s “Address of Protest,” though reflecting the economic depression of the early 1890s, might well have been written for other similar times in American history.

Coxey’s Army Marches from Ohio to Washington’s Capitol Building

In 1894 the American nation was suffering from massive unemployment. John Hay, the future Secretary of State, estimated that as many as two million Americans were jobless although other estimates were as high as three million. The 1890 federal census counted over 62 million Americans. Many of those unemployed roamed the countryside as tramps and beggars.

When Coxey first proposed his march, observers predicted that his army would be comprised of these same beggars, but that would not be the case. Many of those that joined his cause were farmers and jobless workingmen. Coxey himself was a mild-mannered family man, a devout Christian, and, as historian Page Smith characterized him, the “classic American type.”

The march began on Easter. Although Coxey’s 20,000 never materialized, slightly less than a thousand reached the foot of the Capitol building. They carried banners with slogans like “work not charity” and claimed to be “assembling under the aegis of the Constitution…” But as Coxey began to ascend the Capitol steps, he was arrested by Washington police.

All along the route from Ohio to Washington, Americans took to the streets and cheered the marchers on. They fed them and housed them. The response of thousands of well-wishers was highly significant. Dissatisfaction with government policies was everywhere.

The Constitutional Right to Petition Congress

Coxey was charged with “…violating the United States statutes in unlawfully displaying a banner or device in the Capitol grounds and in breaking shrubs and plants there.” (The New York Times, May 5, 1894) Coxey was supported by western Populists, including Nebraska Senator William V. Allen. According to Allen, the laws under which Coxey and his co-defendants were being charged were unconstitutional.

Allen argued that every American has the constitutional right of assembly and the right to petition Congress. New York Rep. Van Voorhis, who came to watch the proceedings, believed, “It was the most trivial case imaginable.” Coxey was convicted and paid a five dollar fine as well as spending twenty days in jail. Coxey, however, had fathered a new form of political protest: the march

Judge Miller, presiding at the case, made it clear that the Washington statutes broken by the defendants were not a barrier to assembly or petition. Miller opposed the manner in which Coxey and his group elected to serve their petitions. Other observers saw Coxey’s march as an attempt to storm the Capitol itself. But this was not the Paris of 1789 and the marchers were far from being the revolutionary sans culottes.

The Legacy of Jacob Coxey and Political Protest

Coxey marched on Washington again in 1914. Although neither marches achieved desired results, Coxey made unemployment and the plight of the worker front page news. Coxey himself was an experienced politician when not on his Massillon, Ohio farm, having stood for office several times in Ohio on behalf of the People’s Party and the populists.

Coxey and his co-leaders brought to the forefront the “Money Power” that dominated the halls of the Capitol where it seemed only the wealthy plutocrats had influence while everyday working Americans and farmers were further marginalized and pauperized.

In the Gilded Age, it mattered little what party controlled: both were beholden to the “trusts,” the “Captains of industry” who Teddy Roosevelt later dubbed “malefactors of great wealth.” Men like John D. Rockefeller and J.P. Morgan, representing the epitome of capitalism, were also viewed as “robber barons.” This was the influence Coxey marched against.

The Growing Gulf between the Rich and the Poor

Coxey, quoting a U.S. Senator in his Address, predicted that, “…by the close of the present century the middle class will have disappeared as the struggle for existence becomes fierce and relentless.” Such words are commonly heard during periods of economic upheaval, perhaps most notably during the Great Depression.

The request for governmental assistance, however, is always met with charges of socialism and revolution. The same was true in 1894 at a time anarchists and foreigners were blamed for labor unrest and urban lawlessness.

This would be the apocalyptic political battle in the 1894 midterm election and the 1896 presidential election. Republicans won large majorities in both elections, championing law and order. Jacob Coxey, despite his good intentions, contributed to the fear of revolution and lawlessness. Some contemporary writers still label him a socialist. But for this Ohio farmer and Civil War veteran, Congress was aloof to the cries of the unemployed. Coxey’s march demonstrated that “enough is enough.”

Sources:

“Coxey’s Defender A Senator,” The New York Times (May 5, 1894)
“Coxey Dies At 97: Led Army of Idle,” The New York Times (May 19, 1951)
Jacob Coxey, “Address of Protest,” Congressional Record, 53rd Congress, 2nd Session (9 May 1894), 4512
George A. Gipe, “ Rebel in a Wing Collar,” American Heritage, Volume 18, Issue 1 (December 1966)
Page Smith, The Rise of Industrial America: A People’s History of the Post-Reconstruction Era, Volume 6 (Penguin Books, 1990)
Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States (Harper Perennial, 2010) (available as a free on-line source)

Michael Streich -

Former Adjunct Instructor, History & Global Studies

Thursday, December 3, 2020

John Rabe, the Oskar Schindler of China

The Nazi Leader of Nanking who Saved Over 200,000 People

Apr 3, 2009
Michael Streich

A German film recounts the heroic exploits of John Rabe as the Japanese occupied Nanking in China, popularizing a forgotten part of history.

In the annals of twentieth century genocide and atrocities, heroes emerged that put their own lives on the line to save others. Men like Raoul Wallenberg and Oskar Schindler are well known for their courageous attempts in saving Jews. The newly released German film on the war-time activities of John Rabe in China during the infamous “Rape of Nanking” offers yet another portrait of selfless courage, yet this time the hero was the leader of the Nanking Nazi organization.

John Rabe in China

At the time Japanese forces entered Nanking in 1937, Rabe had been in China for thirty years as the chief manager of Siemens. Born in Hamburg in 1882, Rabe had traveled to Africa before settling in China. Revered in China as “the living Buddha of Nanking,” Rabe was also, however, the leader of the Nanking Nazi organization. In many ways, this helped him to eventually save the lives of over 200,000 Chinese civilians that had taken shelter in his “International Safety Zone.”

As a Nazi and a citizen of Japan’s ally, Rabe was respected by the Japanese military and suffered no indignities, unlike those of other western nationalities like the Americans. According to his diary entries, just the flash of his swastika armband was often enough to stop acts of cruelty taking place by small groups of marauding soldiers. Writing in the German news magazine Spiegel, Lars-Olav Beier recounts how Rabe’s German-speaking chauffeur was killed by Japanese soldiers. Bargaining with a Japanese officer, Rabe demanded twenty men, “who had already been sentenced to death…” thereby saving twenty lives.

Rabe’s meticulous diary entries remained unknown until Historian Iris Chang, author of the monumental Rape of Nanking, found them with Rabe’s grandchildren in Germany. These writings recount the chilling days of late 1937 when a forgotten holocaust began in China, and Rabe’s tireless role in trying to save as many civilians as possible.

Rabe Returns to Germany

Returning to Berlin in 1938, John Rabe made the mistake of sending his findings of the atrocities, including a film made by a colleague in China, to key Nazi leaders including Adolf Hitler. Arrested by the Gestapo, he was eventually released and sent by Siemens to work in Afghanistan. As the war ended and Rabe returned home, his Berlin residence was destroyed by allied bombing. Following the defeat of Germany, Rabe was interrogated by the Soviets and the British in conjunction with his role as Nazi leader in Nanking. Eventually de-nazified, Rabe found himself unemployed and destitute.

As his story reached the people of Nanking, a massive effort was undertaken that resulted in financial support and regular packages of much needed food. The Chinese had not forgotten John Rabe who was now in great need himself. Rabe died in 1950.

John Rabe, the Movie

For an international community still outraged by the Holocaust, any movie positively reflecting the Nazis is understandably suspicious, particularly in Germany. As Iris Chang wrote years ago, “…in the immediate postwar years it was simply not politically correct to…boast about his accomplishments, however worthy they might have been.”

This is also the gamble Beier analyzes in his piece, “The Good Nazi?” Beier argues that although “Schindler’s List” was about a German who saved Jews, it is “the sort of subject only American directors have taken on in the past.” He also cites the success of “Valkyrie,” which lionized Claus von Stauffenberg.

John Rabe joins the ranks of men like Raoul Wallenberg, people that find themselves in the midst of great human calamity and put aside all personal matters in order to confront evil. For this reason alone, films like “John Rabe” should continue to be made.

Sources:

Lars-Olav Beier, “The Good Nazi? German Films Delve Into Difficult History,” Spiegel Online, April 3, 2009.

Iris Chang, The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II (Basic Books, 1997) see pages 109-121 and 187-197.

Susanne Nolden, “Ein Mann mit vielen Talenten,” Frau Im Spiegel, No. 14, March 25, 2009, p 54-55.

Michael Streich - Former Adjunct Instructor, History & Global Studies

Lord Curzon at the Twilight of the British Empire

Jul 27, 2011
Michael Streich

Lord Curzon served his nation as Viceroy of India and Foreign Secretary, but the prize of the premiership eluded him despite his successes and alliances.

George Nathaniel, Lord Curzon was born into an age defined by empire and ruled by the men whose social standing represented superb education, the patrician duties of serving the state, and bringing to the disparate peoples of the far-flung empire, in the words of Curzon, “…the greatest instrument for good the world has seen.” This was the British Empire that Curzon loved and cherished. A life-long imperialist, he ruled 300 millions of people in India in the name of his Queen Empress at the age of 39 and presided over the post-World War I new order years later as Foreign Secretary.

George Curzon’s Early Years as Viceroy of India

Throughout his long career in public service, his two marriages, and thousands of personal letters, Curzon worked toward the one prize he would never attain, the office of Prime Minister. It was an ambition he nurtured constantly. In the modern sense, Curzon was a micro-manager, not above decoding secret telegrams sent by men he perceived as enemies.

His appointment as Viceroy of India was a stepping stone toward the premiership but as England’s proconsul in Calcutta, he served his nation admirably, restoring ancient temples as well as the Taj Mahal. Although his reforms were popular, notably the lowering of taxes, Curzon’s harsh disciplinary actions regarding certain army units like the 9th Lancers backfired.

Far worse was his deteriorating relationship with the new Army Commander-in-Chief, Kitchener of Khartoum. Kitchener was one of two men who earned Curzon’s lifelong hatred; the other was Winston Churchill. Ironically, Curzon had requested Kitchener. In the end, Kitchener won the battle and Curzon’s resignation was accepted. His resignation, a bluff, would be repeated several times during his career.

Tory Politics and the World War I War Cabinet

Returning to politics in England was the natural remedy for a man who believed that the nation and the party owed him recognition. At the same time, Curzon busied himself restoring Tattershall and Bodiam castles as well as his leased estate at Hackwood. He got himself appointed chancellor of Oxford in 1907, one of several stepping-stone appointments.

When the war came, Curzon served in the War Cabinet as Acting Foreign Secretary, feuding with everyone including David Lloyd George who appeared to run a separate foreign office from 10 Downing Street, especially during the post-war peace conference and the deliberations dictating the new world order. Curzon missed his final opportunity when King George V elevated Stanley Baldwin to be his Prime Minister. Curzon retired and subsequently died in 1925, knowing that the elusive prize would never be his.

Curzon, however, well appreciated the changes not only in Europe but for the Empire after the Great War. Historian Peter Townsend writes that Curzon, "had long ago apprehended, kings and thrones had perished since Victoria's golden days."

Lord Curzon and the Greco-Turkish War

The post-war invasion of Turkey by Greece was supported by the leaders of the Paris Peace Conference, although France later supplied arms secretly to the Turks. Both Curzon, by now Foreign Secretary, and Churchill opposed British support of Greece, especially after the Greek army landed at Smyrna and slaughtered both Turkish troops and the local population.

The fortunes of Greece changed, however, as Turkey’s great hero Mustapha Kemal, with French support, expelled the Greeks. Few members of the British government recognized the weakness of Greece and the long-term impact upon the region of a resurgent Turkey. Biographers note, for example, that men like Lloyd George were romantically pro-Greek, unable to see beyond the poetry of Byron and the tradition of British paternalism. This is a lesson contemporary world leaders can learn in dealing with Greece and Turkey.

Curzon was not one of these men. When all was said and done, according to one biographer, “…he personally…saved Great Britain from a disastrous war with Turkey.” But there are various versions of what actually happened and the most credible one gives credit to Winston Churchill. Memories of the Turks in the Balkans as well as their fierce repression of Armenians forced the British to act. Diplomacy and ultimatum won over the prospect of another ruinous war.

The Legacy of Lord Curzon in British Imperial History

Curzon was no “jingo” but he believed in the Empire as much as his adversaries did. After losing his first election as a young man, he traveled the world, collecting bric-a-brac and writing long letters to Mary, the American heiress he would marry. Travel and politics prepared him for his first great appointment as viceroy.

Curzon’s passion of Empire may have been best demonstrated by the 1903 Grand Durbar in Delhi in honor of King Edward VII, an event of “pomp and dignity.” What was good for Britain, however, was not necessarily good for the teeming millions. This was a growing liberalism, identified in India with Gandhi and Nehru. Men like Curzon and Churchill would never fully understand or support such movements.

Serving the Empire during the Great War was another triumph, one that should have led to the grand prize. Instead, Curzon became embroiled with his colleagues, in some cases lesser men by his standards. His second wife Grace was often indifferent even during the periods of intense illness and pain Curzon suffered his entire life, stemming from an early back injury.

Despite these setbacks, Curzon left his mark on the twilight of empire, using his years of service in the Middle East to further British goals and preserve the imperial standard. He was 66 when illness finally took him. His memorial service at Westminster Abbey was attended by friend and foe and the press finally wrote positively of a man whose life represented the well-educated patrician class of imperial leadership.

Sources:

Karl E. Meyer and Shareen Blair Brysac, Kingmakers: The Invention Of The Modern Middle East (W. W. Norton & Company, 2008)
Leonard Mosley, The Glorious Fault: The Life of Lord Curzon (Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1960)
Simon Schama, A History of Britain: The Fate Of Empire 1776-2000, Volume III (Hyperion, 2002)
Peter Townsend, The Last Emperor (Simon and Schuster, 1976)

Michael Streich -

Retired History Adjunct Instructor

Dawes Lands in Severalty Act of 1887

Replacing Tribal Lands with Individual Land Allotments

Apr 11, 2009

Although well intentioned, the Dawes Act resulted in massive land losses for Native American tribes and ultimately resulted in widespread poverty and despair.

The Dawes Lands in Severalty Act was approved by the United States Congress on February 8, 1887. Conceived by Massachusetts Senator Henry L. Dawes, known as a Senate reformer who wanted to see justice brought to Native Americans, the Act would abolish traditional tribal land ownership by liquidating the reservations and providing land allotments to Native Americans. The goal was to turn Native Americans into farmers while at the same time extending them U.S. citizenship.

Provisions of the Dawes Act of 1887

Section One of the Dawes Act described the distribution of land:

To each head of a family, one-quarter section (160 acres)
To each single person over eighteen years of age, one-eighth of a section (80 acres)
To each other single person under eighteen years now living, or who may be born prior to the date of the order of the President directing an allotment of the lands embraced in any reservation, one sixteenth of a section (40 acres)

Each land allotment was secured by a “trust” title, held by the U.S. government for 25 years. During that time, the land could not be subject to mortgage or be sold, although leasing was not addressed, and this would prove to be a weakness in the Act. Additionally, the “trust” title conveyed citizenship.

Commenting on the Act in December 18, 1886, The New York Times stated that, “This is rightly regarded as the first step toward making the red man a citizen, with all a citizen’s rights, like the white man and the black.” The notion that citizenship of itself was tied to property ownership suggested, as the Times notes, an adoption of “the habits of civilized life.” The result would be “peace…law and order.” The legislation was frequently called the Indian Emancipation Act.

Results of the Dawes Act of 1887

Despite all of its good intentions, the Act failed to account for the acute cultural differences that worked against turning Native Americans into farmers, even if it took 25 years. It did not foresee unscrupulous government agents eager to benefit from the misfortunes of the Native peoples.

Tribal surplus land was bought by the federal government and then resold to white development interests, the proceeds held in trust to pay for Native American education and development. Congress amended this in 1907 and distributed pro-rata payments to “competent” Native Americans who usually squandered the money.

Some “trust” title holders leased their allotments to the cattle industry, never becoming farmers and ultimately losing the land. Those that died during the trust period lost the land to federal government sales with proceeds going to beneficiaries; the trust titles could not be inherited.

The sale of whiskey also played a negative role in the Dawes Act. With citizenship came the ability to purchase whiskey. In 1906, the Burke Amendment withdrew citizenship in all future allotments, extending the wait for citizenship to 25 years, equal to the period of the trust title.

Appraisal of the 1887 Dawes Act

Under the pre-Dawes Act reservation system, Native Americans owned approximately 137 million acres. After the Dawes Act, 90 million acres were lost. By 1933, of the estimated 325,000 Native Americans in the United States, one half were landless and living in dire poverty.

Even the members of the “Five Civilized Tribes” living in Oklahoma that had been exempt from the Act voluntarily sold their reservations lands in 1906 under federal pressure. The Dawes Act may have inadvertently hastened the loss of Native American lands and rather than providing a formula for the perceived attributes of “civilized” living, made the Native Americans permanent wards of the state. Native American culture would endure despite attempts to eradicate it.

Sources:

The Dawes Lands in Severalty Act, nebraskastudies.org
“The Indian Severalty Bill,” The New York Times, December 18, 1886.
Frederick Merk, History of the Westward Movement (New York: Alfred A, Knopf, 1978)

The copyright of the article Dawes Lands in Severalty Act of 1887 in Native American History is owned by Michael Streich. Permission to republish Dawes Lands in Severalty Act of 1887 in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

Senator Henry L. Dawes

Theodor Herzl Promotes a Jewish Homeland in Palestine

Jan 14, 2011 Michael Streich

Theodor Herzl Founded the Zionist Movement - Wikimedia Commons Image: Public Domain

Theodor Herzl envisioned a Jewish homeland in Palestine when it became apparent that Europe still clung to Antisemitism in the modern world.

Israel became a sovereign nation May 14, 1948. Persecuted and treated as strangers for centuries, Jews returned to the Promised Land to turn barren deserts into fertile, agricultural fields. Theodor Herzl’s solution to the “Jewish question” was fulfilled. According to Herzl’s treatise The Jewish State, the return to an historical homeland was not a Utopian vision, but the obvious solution to “the misery of Jews.” Herzl, writing in the late 19th Century, was not convinced that a modern, industrialized Europe would accept Jews as equals. His 1896 “political solution,” published in Vienna, was a logical and reasoned answer to on-going Jewish persecution.

Treatment of Jews in Late 19th Century Europe

Herzl wrote at a time of renewed persecution and anti-Semitism. Under Tsar Alexander III of Russia, pogroms targeted Jewish communities. In 1894, the trial of Alfred Dreyfus took place in France, focusing on Dreyfus’ Jewish roots. The “Dreyfus Affair” brought to the surface intense French anti-Semitism. In The Jewish State, Herzl reminded his readers that Jews have always been ostracized as people of the ghetto, and treated as strangers in communities they had lived in for many generations.

Herzl may have recalled the expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492. Jewish communities in Spain had existed for centuries, as had the Muslims. But in 1492 King Ferdinand endeavored to turn Spain into a solidly Catholic nation. This was the same king who gave life to the infamous “Spanish Inquisition.” Spanish Jews left Spain aboard ships at the same time Christopher Columbus was leaving Europe to cross the Atlantic.

England Facilitates the Zionist Dream of a Homeland for Jews

Herzl attempted to negotiate with the Ottoman sultan in Turkey as well as Germany’s Kaiser Wilhelm II to secure a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Unsuccessful, he turned to England. Although Herzl died in 1904, the Zionist cause found its greatest support in England. The defeat of the Ottomans in World War One opened the door to Zionist hopes. Herzl’s dream became reality.

On November 2, 1917, Arthur James Lord Balfour wrote Lord Rothschild, stating that, “His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object…” The Versailles peace deliberations placed Palestine under the British as a “mandate” or sphere of influence. The Balfour Declaration, however, was an important step toward the eventual establishment of an independent Jewish state in the Middle East.

Jews Reestablish a Historic Homeland but Encounter Resistance

Louis Lipsky, a leader in the early 20th Century Zionist movement in America, writes that, “Through Herzl, Jews were taught not to fear the consequences of an international movement to demand their national freedom.” Jewish migrations to Palestine increased after World War II and the horrific realities of the Holocaust.

As Herzl noted in his treatise, anti-Semitism was even evident in the United States, a place Jews fled to in the late 19th Century and during the 1930s. Even American religious leaders, like Father Charles Coughlin, reiterated centuries’ old prejudices and stereotypes against Jews. After World War II, American Jews supported the state of Israel and many migrated to the Middle East.

Israel’s fourth Prime Minister, Gold Meir, was elected in 1969. Although born in Kiev, Mrs. Meir migrated to the United States, eventually teaching in the Milwaukee, Wisconsin school district. Like many American Jews, she was a committed Zionist.

By 1948, however, the Jews in Palestine were fighting a battle for independence. The British government had made the homeland possible, but events in the Middle East had changed. Britain opposed an independent Jewish state. Additionally, Arab neighbors rejected an independent Israel. This conflict led to the still on-going battles between Israel and her Arab neighbors.

Herzl and the Birth of Zionism

Theodor Herzl was correct in identifying the causes and effects of anti-Semitism. Many of his examples could be applied to Germany at the time Nazis were consolidating power and defining new “race laws.” Herzl refers to the phrase “Juden Raus,” (Out with the Jews) and the boycotts of Jewish businesses. Beyond these daily realities, however, Herzl focused on an attitude, formed by centuries of prejudice and intolerance.

There was no country so hospitable as to assimilate Jews as equals. The only logical solution was an independent Jewish state. Jews returning to Palestine to build this new state were not only a fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies, but a modern resolution legitimized by historical realities.

Sources:

Theodor Herzl, The Jewish State (Dover Publications, 1988)
Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Neal Kozodoy, editor, The Mideast Peace Process: An Autopsy (Encounter Books, 2002)
Harold Nicolson, Peace Making 1919 (Grosset & Dunlap, 1965)
Geoffrey Wheatcroft, The Controversy of Zion: Jewish Nationalism, the Jewish State, and the Unresolved Jewish Dilemma (Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1996)