As a teacher, there are some topics my students love using Backstory for, and some they find less engaging. But most important here is the thing that is missing: pop cultural history.

I would suggest: “All Shook Up: Musical Fads and Their Reactions,” which could cover everything from tavern dancing in the 1780s to Shakers in the 1830s and blackface music, the emergence of vaudeville and ethnic theater music, to the rise of jazz in the Harlem Renaissance, Elvis as the first real youth culture music, the role of rock ‘n roll in the counterculture, and the way rap reflected the urban crisis of the 1980s and 1990s.

I would also suggest: “Out To Get Me: Conspiracies and Conspiracy Theories In American History,” where you could cover everything from the fear that Jacobin Jeffersonians would burn good Congregationalist bibles in 1800 to the “Slave Power” of the 1850s, the Antimasons of the 1830s, the John Birch Society, and “real” conspiracies like Cointelpro and the Business Plot.

If we are allowed to vote I vote for these too ideas… they sound really interesting.

I would suggest: “All Shook Up: Musical Fads and Their Reactions,” which could cover everything from tavern dancing in the 1780s to Shakers in the 1830s and blackface music, the emergence of vaudeville and ethnic theater music, to the rise of jazz in the Harlem Renaissance, Elvis as the first real youth culture music, the role of rock ‘n roll in the counterculture, and the way rap reflected the urban crisis of the 1980s and 1990s.

I would also suggest: “Out To Get Me: Conspiracies and Conspiracy Theories In American History,” where you could cover everything from the fear that Jacobin Jeffersonians would burn good Congregationalist bibles in 1800 to the “Slave Power” of the 1850s, the Antimasons of the 1830s, the John Birch Society, and “real” conspiracies like Cointelpro and the Business Plot.

This would follow our attempts at amending the Constitution following the Bill of Rights.

The history of corporations in America–and the attempt to limit them.

Maybe too large of a topic for a single show, but I find my high school students struggling labor.
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I am for this one too, especially since the History channel”s show on the “men who built america” and also since I read this article some time back:

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Corporations/Hx_Corporations_US.html

And what went wrong from the time that buisnesses were only allowed to incorporate if it served a public good to now when any tom dick or harry can incorporate for protection.

People always envision America in the future. What did Americans in the 18th, 19th & 20th centuries think would happen to America in the future. Were any of them correct?

Did the same thing happen in America? When in America’s history could women start businesses of their own? Were there women entrepreneurs in the 18th century who couldn’t start a business without male sponsorship? Could they leave their legacy to female relatives? Who was successful?

Was the cycle that occurred in England repeated here and, if so, when did that situation begin to change? What stimulated the change? Wars? Depressions? Change in societal attitudes?

Who were the female entrepreneurs who kept businesses going when the males were absent or taken away by illness or death? Why did those who thrived do so?

Was there a time when a woman had to go West in order to become an entrepreneur? Who were they? What kinds of businesses did they run?

Are these enough questions to answer?

KH Edwards

An episode on the Grand DérangementI (or the Expulsion of the Acadians) would be greatly appreciated. Being a Cajun myself I’ve looked into it more than once and it seems that the story changes a bit every time I do. I find it fascinating cause it is my (and my son’s) history, it is not a well known event and if it hadn’t happened I wouldn’t be American.

Thank you

I know you prefer topics that aren’t particular to a time period, but I think a show including the Acadian expulsion is a great suggestion. I wonder if this could be folded into a show on ethnic cleansing in US history, and resistance to it.

This could start with pre-Columbian evidence of genocide (e.g. the Gallina findings in New Mexico circa 1275 CE (http://mattbille.blogspot.com/2007/07/genocide-in-pre-columbian-america.html). Move to the Pequot war (or of course one could choose an earlier example); then Bacon’s Rebellion (started initially over the refusal of the Virginia colonial government to more vigorously engage in ethnic cleansing). Examine Andrew Jackson’s genocidal campaigns in the Southeast (including the “Seminole Wars,”) even before the Trail of Tears. Look into the attacks on Mormons driving the sect out of Missouri to the Mountain Meadows massacre perpetrated by Mormon militia (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Meadows_massacre).

There’s also the push-factor of immigrants coming to the US in response to literal or de facto ethnic cleansing, These might include the Irish potato (and export of other foodstuffs to England) famine) the pogroms that drove Eastern European Jews to the US at the turn of the 19th century, the Jews who emigrated to the US after the holocaust, and the Hmong driven out of Vietnam by repression after 1975. But maybe immigrants coming to the US in response to ethnic cleansing is a show in itself.

Then, their could be a segment on the rise of the Ku Klux Klan, and the creation of “Sunrise Towns” (see http://sundown.afro.illinois.edu/sundowntowns.php) and the many so-called “race riots” which are better described as white racist ethnic cleansing pogroms against African-American communities (e.g. the East St. Louis “race riot” of 1917 (http://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals/american_studies/v050/50.3-4.capeci.html). I just found an Independent Lens documentary I haven’t yet seen on this wave of attacks on African-American communities called “Banished: American Ethnic Cleansings” (see http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/banished/)). Eliot Jospin’s book, Buried in the Bitter Waters: The Hidden History of Racial Cleansing in America (see http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=8893124), would be useful here too.

I wonder if financial block-busting (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockbusting) by racist real estate agents in the 1960s could even by examined as a comparison/contrast piece with these previous examples. I’ve heard that where I grew up in Shaker Heights, Ohio, there was an anti-racist coalition that formed, including anti-racist real estate agents, in order to prevent the practice.

Thank you

As an interesting side light, the story of John Hanson. Here in Frederick, Maryland, a seven foot bronze statue of Hanson was installed in front of our County Courthouse. It proclaims Hanson as the first President of the nation’s first government. By extension the real first President of the United States. To under score the point another monument is in the planning stages for his wife Jane, as First Lady.

The claims about John Hanson have echoed for a little over a century. It even attracted the attention of the Daily Show in the early 2000s. In a 2010 history the winning question was; “Who was the first President of United States? The winner answered John Hanson.

This bleeds over into a related topic, Public History. Why do myths like this survive in the face of clear dismissal by respected historians? What is their appeal?