Figure 1.--This is the kind of imagery that Ammerican school textbooks use to illustrate turn of the century America to depict capitalism. There is nothing wrong with that, it is an accurate depiction. What is extrodinarily inaccurate is the fact that American text books never compare the situation in America with that in Europe or ask why if the situation was so bad in America, did people immigrate in such large numbers. Nor do American text books compare the situation with non-capitalist non-industrialized countries. Ckick on the image to see the kind of comparative images dishonestly excluded from American textbooks. This photograph shows a small boy employed in the J.S. Farrand Packingf (canning) Company in Baltimore, Marylnd. They are likely to be canning oysters. Source: Louis Wickes Hine. Click on the image to see the kind of contemporary image you do not see in American textbooks. It is a photograph taken in Egypt at about the same time Hine photograophwd the Baltimore boy.

I learned in school that capitalism was exploitive. There was very little about how capitalism had made America the envy of the world and and at the time the best paid workers un the world. Nor is there any mention about how the Arsenal of Democracy that defeated the totalitarian Axis power thus saving Western Civilization. What I saw in my history texts was photographs of exploited children working in factories along with emmigrants living in sqalid conditions and having to make their childen work. No where was the obvious question addressed--If conditions were so bad in America, why did all those immigrants come? The idea being promopted was that capitalism created and perpetuated child labor. We would be interested in reader comments. Did their text book or their teachers suggest an alternative narrarive. That was in the 1950s and this same narative continues to be perpetuated today. And there is routinely no effort to compare conditiona at the time wih conditions in other countries, eithere other industrialized countries or non-industrialized countries. Any basic historical asessment would require that. The fact that history text books ignoire such basic principles of historography is shocking. Facebook/Google manipulation of seaech results and news feeds is nothing new. As a result students are left with the impression that America because of capitalism was a uniquely unfair and repressive country. The very same narative that the American left and now the increaingly socialist Democratic Party is trying to sell today.

Created: 6:12 PM 8/16/2018
Last updated: 6:12 PM 8/16/2018