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What Students Learn About Cultural History in AP United States History
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by William A. Shelton
Trinity Valley School
Fort Worth, Texas
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| | Social and Cultural History
Recent data collected by the College Board from U.S. history professors teaching survey courses showed a trend toward combining social and cultural history. The AP U.S. History Exam's distribution of topics in the multiple-choice section reflects this trend: 40 percent of the questions on the exam, according to the Course Description, focus on "social change, and cultural and intellectual developments." Additionally, the AP U.S. History Development Committee recently revised the topic outline for the course by recommending 12 themes to be considered by AP teachers. One of those themes is entitled "Culture."
What is meant by "cultural history"? The Development Committee defines "culture" as "diverse individual and collective expressions through literature, art, philosophy, music, theater, and film throughout U.S. history," as well as "popular culture and the dimensions of cultural conflict within American society." With that in mind, I emphasize cultural history in my AP U.S. History course by giving the students a general theme for the entire survey: "Is it possible for people from many different cultures, ethnic groups, races, religions, and language groups to form a nation and live peacefully together?" In considering this question throughout the year, students realize that culture is closely intertwined with political, social, economic, and diplomatic history.
What are some specific strategies for including culture in the AP survey? I break the topic down in the following ways.
Interaction of Cultures
A teacher once told me that he teaches U.S. history "from West to East." That made me realize what I needed to add to my course. The topic outline for AP U.S. History begins with pre-Columbian America. Characteristics of early American Indian tribes show the great diversity that existed on the continent from the beginning. I have students find similarities and differences among the cultures of the Eastern Woodland, Mississippi Valley, Plains, Southwestern, and Western tribes. Next it becomes important to consider the differences among the Europeans who came to North America and how they interacted with the American Indian tribes they encountered.
Other examples of the interaction of cultures evident throughout U.S. history are immigration and racial/ethnic issues.
Generational, Gendered, and Geographic Cultures
Examples of subjects to emphasize include rural/urban conflicts of the 1920s; youth culture in the 1920s, 1950s, and 1960s; the "graying" of America; the antebellum South, North, and West; and women's roles and their search for equality.
"High" Culture
Some past Document-Based Questions (DBQs) on the AP U.S. History Exam have included paintings, political cartoons, and excerpts from American literature and philosophy. Coordinating with the English and fine arts departments to study them can be extremely beneficial to AP U.S. History teachers and students. I read poetry to my students; examples are Langston Hughes to illustrate the Harlem Renaissance and William Cullen Bryant to represent early American romanticism. Excerpts from the writings of Booker T. Washington, W. E. B. Du Bois, and Martin Luther King Jr. (all included in DBQs on past AP Exams) are useful for comparing approaches to civil rights for African Americans.
I give my students a list of quotations from Enlightenment philosophers (Locke, Rousseau, Montesquieu, and so on) and ask them to identify who said them and how they influenced American thought. A print of Asher Durand's Kindred Spirits representing the Hudson River School hangs in my classroom. The 1999 AP European History Exam contained three free-response essay questions asking students to compare paintings and photographs to show how they reflected attitudes of the times. This type of exercise can be useful in the U.S. history survey; one idea is to give students examples from the Hudson River School and the Ashcan School and ask them to discuss how the art reflects the differences of the two time periods.
The collection of American art and photography at the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, Texas, is a great resource for AP U.S. History teachers.
 Amon Carter Museum
Popular Culture
Textbooks include discussions of 1950s television shows and how they reflected attitudes of the times. Samples of music from the 1920s, 1950s, and 1960s are very helpful in teaching the themes of those decades. As hard as it may be for some of us "old-timers" to accept, the television shows and movies we remember from our youth are now all a part of the cultural history of the United States. Discussions of these types of expression are important for illustrating attitudes of the times.
Cultural history enriches the curriculum of AP courses. The fact that it is combined with social history in many college surveys; that it is closely intertwined with political, economic, and even diplomatic history; and that it is emphasized on the AP Exam means that the curriculum of the AP course must devote a significant amount of time to it.
William A. Shelton teaches history at Trinity Valley School in Fort Worth, Texas, and is a member of the AP U.S. History Development Committee. This paper was first delivered as part of a panel on cultural history and the AP U.S. History course at the 2005 National Council for the Social Studies Annual Conference in Kansas City, Missouri.
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