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1945 to 1960
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by Jeff Bloodworth
Ohio University
Athens, Ohio
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Desegregation of the Armed Forces
This online collection of archival materials from the Harry S Truman Presidential Museum and Library presents a substantial amount of primary documents relating to the desegregation of the armed forces. The site is a useful tool in broadening student's understanding of presidential decision-making and the policy process. Ideally, it is a resource for term papers so that students can use sophisticated primary documents without being overwhelmed.
Divided into four sections, the site features papers from the President, his staff, federal records, and oral histories from key participants. For example, the oral histories consist of approximately forty pages of transcripts from Truman's personal friends and key White House operators.
Teachers should be refrain from setting students loose on the site without parameters. The papers from the White House Central Files and Phillip Nash number up to 5 thousand pages and can easily overwhelm a fledgling researcher. Nonetheless, with proper guidance, this site is an outstanding introduction to primary documents and archival research.
 Desegregation of the Armed Forces
The Alger Hiss Story
No single event epitomized the disputes over domestic anti-communism more than the Alger Hiss case. Hiss belonged to the privileged clique of America's ruling elite. He attended the best schools, worked for Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, and worked in Franklin Roosevelt's State Department. In 1948 Hiss was accused of spying for the Soviet Union and was eventually convicted of perjury. The Hiss case catapulted Congressman Richard Nixon to the national limelight and enabled him to win a U.S. Senate seat. Consequently, the Hiss case divided Americans between those who believed communist moles had penetrated the upper-echelons of the U.S. government and others who held the communist menace was overstated.
The Alger Hiss Research and Publication Project created the web site so the public could access primary documents relating to the Hiss case. The site details Hiss's personal biography, the minutes of the Grand Jury, translated Russian files, HUAC files, a short video summarizing the case, and scores of links to Hiss's personal documents and brief biographies of the major characters linked to the case.
The site contains a timeline of the Hiss case, reams of primary documents, links to video, and scores of valuable related links. One the site's primary weaknesses are that it contains almost too much information and too many interesting links. Thus, teachers need to guide students through the site and provide the classroom with basic knowledge of the case before they use the site.
This site is valuable on many different levels. On the surface, it provides an enormous amount of information pertaining to the case and is visually stimulating as well as entertaining. In addition, this is an excellent opportunity for students to evaluate bias in historical evidence. The site is compiled by pro-Hiss forces and contains a decided prejudice in portraying Hiss's innocence. Consequently, the site is an excellent barometer of student's ability to detect bias in the presentation of sources and evidence. Despite the site's bias it still is an excellent resource for basic facts related to the case and offers a fun opportunity for students to view and evaluate primary sources.
The Alger Hiss Story
Frontiers in Civil Rights: Dorothy E. Davis, et al. versus County School Board of Prince Edward County, Virginia
NARA organized this Web site which highlights the history of the Supreme Court's move to strike down segregation in the seminal Brown case. The site focuses on a less famous case that nonetheless was part and parcel of the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. Dorothy Davis was a 14-year old ninth grader who was the first plaintiff listed and has since been immortalized in the case's title, Dorothy E. Davis, et al. versus County School Board of Prince Edward County.
In April 1951, students at Robert Russa Moton High School went on strike to persuade the local school board to build a better school. The Web site features striking photos comparing the white schools versus the black schools of Prince Edward County. In addition, the site offers full text of the Constitutional and all the amendments beyond the Bill of Rights.
This site is for advanced students due to its sophisticated content. It does offer a link to several teaching activities including a "photo analysis worksheet" which students can use in evaluating the visual differences between the segregated schools. In addition, the site features a "Teaching with Documents Lesson Plan." This lesson plan is a good way to introduce students to primary documents and understanding the Warren Court and the legal reasoning behind civil rights legislation.
Though the Web site lacks bells and whistles, it offers teachers some useful lesson plans and introduces students to primary documents and NARA. It is ideal for a teacher looking for ideas on how to introduce sophisticated legal reasoning and primary documents to a classroom.
Frontiers in Civil Rights
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