Saturday mornings kids watched cartoons and learned about grammar and math thanks to Schoolhouse Rock educational animation

•Between 1973 and 1985•Grammar and Math •animated cartoon characters and catchy songs• If you’ve ever heard the phrase “conjunction junction what’s your function…” You’ve heard of Schoolhouse Rock

• In 1976, a patriotic fervor had gripped the nation

• bicentennial quarters • red, white and blue bikes

and skateboards• and Schoolhouse Rock

introduced cartoon segments about American history (known as either America Rock, or History Rock) along with science cartoons.

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• These lessons became more ambitious, addressing such topics as Colonial military prowess ("The Shot Heard 'Round the World"), the concept of Manifest Destiny ("Elbow Room"), and women's rights ("Sufferin' Till Suffrage"). Schoolhouse Rock!

“Elbow Room”• One thing you will discover

When you get next to one anotherIs everybody needs some elbow room, elbow room.

• It's nice when you're kinda cozy, butNot when you're tangled noseto nosey, oh,Everybody needs some elbow, needsa little elbow room.

• That's how it was in the early daysof the U.S.A.,The people kept coming to settle thoughThe east was the only place therewas to go.

Louisiana Purchase

• The President was Thomas JeffersonHe made a deal with Napoleon.How'd you like to sell a mile or two, (or three, or a hundred or a thousand?)And so, in 1803 the Louisiana Territory was sold to usWithout a fussAnd gave us lots of elbow room,

Westward Expansion• Oh, elbow room, elbow room,

Got to, got to get us some elbow room.It's the West or bust,In God we trust.There's a new land out there...

• Lewis and Clark volunteered to go,Good-bye, good luck, wear your overcoat!They prepared for good times and for bad (and for bad),

• They hired Sacajawea to be their guide.She led them all across the countryside.Reached the coastAnd found the mostElbow room we've ever had.

“Manifest Destiny”

• The way was opened up for folks with bravery.

•There were plenty of fightsTo win land rights,But the West was meant to be;

• It was our Manifest Destiny!

Going West The trappers, traders, and

the peddlers,

The politicians and the settlers,They got there by any way they could (any way they could).

The Gold Rush trampled down the wilderness,The railroads spread across from East to West,And soon the rest was opened up for - opened up for good.

And now we jet from East to West.Good-bye New York, hello L.A.,But it took those early folks to open up the way.

Now we've got a lot of room to beGrowing from sea to shining sea.Guess that we have got our elbow room (elbow room)But if there should ever come a timeWhen we're crowded up together, I'mSure we'll find some elbow room...up on the moon!

Oh, elbow room, elbow room.Got to, got to get us some elbow room.It's the moon or bust,In God we trust.There's a new land up there!

Small group activity #1

What does “Elbow Room” teach about westward expansion and Manifest Destiny? Be sure to cite specifics from the lyrics and/or images.

IntroIntro• Manifest Destiny -- a phrase used by leaders and

politicians in the 1840s to explain continental expansion by the United States -- revitalized a sense of "mission" or national destiny for Americans

• The people of the United States felt it was their mission to extend the "boundaries of freedom" to others by imparting their idealism and belief in democratic institutions to those who were capable of self-government.

• It excluded those people who were perceived as being incapable of self-government, such as Native American people and those of non-European origin

“A Go-Ahead Nation”A Conversation With Robert W. JohanssenUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• Journalist, John L. O'Sullivan called it "Manifest Destiny." The phrase first appears in print in July of 1845 in the "Democratic Review" in reference to the Texas issue. O'Sullivan was trying to defend the American claim to Texas and he mentioned that the United States had a Manifest Destiny to overspread the continent with its multiplying millions.”

• People over and over were talking about democracy as the best form of government -- that it was adapted to the happiness of mankind and was God's plan for mankind. The kind of republican government that United States had was providentially provided since we were the favored nation of God.”

“The Power of an Idea”by Miguel Ángel González Quiroga

• The assertion of the superiority of the American race and the concomitant denigration of Mexico is another element of Manifest Destiny.

• It was Walt Whitman who stated: "What has miserable, inefficient Mexico--with her superstition, her burlesque upon freedom, her actual tyranny by the few over the many--what has she to do with the great mission of peopling the new world with a noble race? Be it ours, to achieve that mission!

• Manifest Destiny was a graceful way to justify something unjustifiable. It has not escaped our attention that Ulysses S. Grant, one of the most prominent of American military men, and himself a participant in the war, wrote in his memoirs, "I do not think there ever was a more wicked war than that waged by the United States in Mexico. I thought so at the time, when I was a youngster, only I had not moral courage enough to resign.

“Native American Displacement Amid U.S. Expansion”

A Conversation With R. David Edmunds University of Texas at Dallas

• Here is a symbolic portrayal of Manifest Destiny that shows "Columbia," the great American angel or woman, floating over the plains.

• Ahead of her, in the West, is a great darkness populated by wild animals. There are bears and wolves and Indian people, who are fleeing her light. In her wake come farms, villages and homesteads and in the back are cities and railroads. As the figure progresses across the land, the light of civilization dispels the darkness of ignorance and barbarity.

“Native American Displacement Amid U.S. Expansion”

A Conversation With R. David Edmunds University of Texas at Dallas

In this painting, Native American people are portrayed along with the animals and the darkness. They have to be removed before Columbia can bring the prosperity promised to the United States. It's an interesting portrayal and, I think, very symbolic of the thinking of many Americans during the mid-19th century.

An Ideal or a Justification?David M. Pletcher, Indiana University

• Manifest Destiny was a conviction that God intended North America to be under the control of Americans. It's a kind of early projection of Anglo-Saxon supremacy and there's a racist element to it.

“Manifest Destiny” By Sam W. Haynes, University of Texas at Arlington

• Whig party leaders vigorously opposed territorial growth, and even expansionist Democrats argued about how much new land should be acquired, and by what means

• Some, committed to the long-term goal of an American empire, opposed to the use of force to achieve these ends

• Southerners anxious to enlarge the slave empire were among the most ardent champions of the crusade for more territory. New slave states would enhance the South’s political power in Washington and, equally important, serve as an outlet for its growing slave population.

• Thus the champions of Manifest Destiny were at best a motley collection of interest groups, motivated by a number of divergent objectives

Small group activity #2

• Compare and contrast the Schoolhouse Rock version with the historians’ versions (reporting the facts)

• Based on the excerpts from the various historians (your “research”), evaluate and critique the Schoolhouse Rock version of this historical “event” according to Loewen’s criteria.

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"Those of us who study history for a living understand very well that there are many truths. There are many valid points of view about a historical event…I think it's better to think many truths constitute the past, rather than to think of a single truth."

 David J. WeberHistorian