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From “Wops and Dagoes and Hunkies” to “Caucasian”: Changing Racial Discourse in American Classrooms during World War II

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2017

Zoë Burkholder
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Margaret Gillum was distressed. Her sophomore English students in Terre Haute, IN were making “sneering remarks” about “dirty foreigners,” even though she implored them to use language that reflected the principles of “brotherhood” and “true neighborliness.” Pressed into action by the catastrophic world war unfolding around her, Gillum decided to teach her students to be more tolerant of human diversity. Describing her successful lesson to colleagues in a popular teaching journal in 1941, Gillum explained, “There are in my city a number of racial groups gathered into neighborhoods, as one finds them everywhere: Syrians, Italians, French, and a large number of Germans and Jews, as well as three distinct communities of Negroes drifted up from the South.” Hoping to foster empathy for the “racial groups” in her community, Gillum initiated her lesson by asking students to list familiar racial epithets. Her students responded enthusiastically and as Gillum called out the names of different “races” her students shouted back their answers:

      And what do we call Italians—Dagoes!
      And the Germans?—Dutchmen!
      The Irish?—Oh, Pat or Mike!

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History of Education Quarterly , Volume 50 , Issue 3 , August 2010 , pp. 324 - 358
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Copyright © 2010 History of Education Society 

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48 On Boas’ support for teachers unions and academic freedom, see Franz Boas to American Federation of Teachers 31 July 1941, American Federation of Teachers Convention, Franz Boas Papers, Franz Boas Papers, American Philosophical Society (APS), Philadelphia. Credo of Teachers Union of New York, 14 April 1941 in Franz Boas Papers, folder Miscellaneous; Franz Boas, Freedom of Education, testimonial dinner, National Federation Constitutional Liberties, 12 March 1941, p. 1–2, Franz Boas Papers, Professional Papers, APS. Also see Lerman, Louis Winter Soldiers: A Story of a Conspiracy against the Schools (New York: Committee for Defense of Public Education, 1941). Franz Boas wrote the introduction to this pamphlet, which is available in the Tamiment Library/Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives at New York University's Bobst Library, New York, NY. Boas published articles in the New York City Teachers Union journal, see: Boas, Franz “Freedom of Thought,” New York Teacher 6, no. 4 (1941): 21; Boas, Franz “Freedom Defined,” New York Teacher 6, no. 9 (1941): 25. A description of the lesson on race by Franz Boas in the November 1939 issue of Teaching Biologist can be found in Barnet S. Minters, “Biology Can Promote Tolerance,” New York Teacher 5, no. 1 (1939): 22.Google Scholar

49 With funding from the American Jewish Committee, Boas spoke on a radio show on WNYC broadcast over the summer and fall of 1939. See Boas, Franz to Trager, Frank 30 June 1939, p. 1, folder 92, box 5, American Jewish Committee, Executive Office, MWP. A full transcript of the World's Fair panel was published as ACDIF, The Genetic Basis of Democracy can be found in the New York Public Library, New York, NY. The 1939 World's Fair panel was a reproduction of a panel Boas had organized in January of 1939 at the Columbia Men's Faculty Club entitled, “Racial Theories and the Genetic Basis of Democracy.” See “Scientists to Open Drive for Freedom,” New York Times, 24 January 1939, 21.Google Scholar

50 On Franz Boas’ antiracist activism in other spheres of American society, see Pierpont, “The Measure of America”; Liss, “Diasporic Identities”; Hyatt, Franz Boas Social Activist, 148–49; Williams, Rethinking Race; Barkan, The Retreat of Scientific Racism; Stocking, Race, Culture, and Evolution; Selden, Steven Inheriting Shame: The Story of Eugenics and Racism in America (New York: Teachers College Press, 1999), explains how Boas’ theories on race directly challenged the scientific theories of eugenicists, see p. 108 and 110. For an overview of how Boas’ theories fit into larger intellectual histories of race in America, see Gossett, Race, 409–30. For a discussion of how anthropological theories on race were disseminated in popular culture see Baker, From Savage to Negro. For a critical view of Boas, see Harris, Marvin The Rise of Anthropological Theory: A History of Theories of Culture (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1968).Google Scholar

51 Benedict, Ruth and Weltfish, Gene, The Races of Mankind, Public Affairs Pamphlet No. 85 (New York: Public Affairs Committee, 1943). On the public reception of Races, see: Edwards, Violet “Note on the ‘Races of Mankind,'“ in Race: Science and Politics, ed. Benedict, Ruth (New York: Viking Press, 1945), 167–68. American Unity, in particular among educational journals, encouraged teachers to employ The Races of Mankind. Among other articles, see, “Cranbrook Exhibit Shows Up Race Myth,” American Unity 2, no. 6 (1944): 14;, “Races of Mankind Exhibit,” American Unity 3, no. 6 (1945): 16;, “Now in Poster Form,” American Unity 3, no. 8 (1945): 8. Review of film, “Brotherhood of Man,” American Unity 5, no. 3 (1946): 12–13;, “Ammunition,” American Unity 5, no. 5 (1947): 12–13. For more on The Races of Mankind, see Young, Virginia Heyer “Ruth Benedict: Relativist and Universalist,” 25–54 and Niehaus, Juliet “Education and Democracy in the Anthropology of Gene Weltfish,” 87–118, both in Cherneff and Hochwald, Visionary Observers. According to Price, David the FBI targeted both Benedict and Weltfish as potential “subversives” because of The Races of Mankind. Price, David Threatening Anthropology: McCarthyism and the FBFs Surveillance of Activist Anthropologists (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004), 113–35.Google Scholar

52 Bristow, William H. “Intercultural Education: Problems and Solutions,“ High Points 25, no. 8 (1943): 15–27; Norman D. Humphry, “Race Can Work Toward Democracy,” Social Studies 35, no. 6 (1944): 246–48. Also see a series of booklets published for the public school teachers in Boston, available in the Boston Public Library, see “Scrapbook for Teachers” (Boston: Governor's Committee for Racial and Religious Understanding, 1946); “Scrapbook for Teachers” (Boston: Massachusetts Fair Employment Practice Commission, 1948); “Scrapbook for Teachers” (Boston: Massachusetts Fair Employment Practice Commission, 1950). In addition, see Sevier, Brian R. “Somewhere Between Mutuality and Diversity“: The Project in Intergroup Education and Teaching for Tolerance Following World War II” (PhD diss., University of Colorado, Boulder, 2002), 74–90.Google Scholar

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54 4Review of “The Races of Mankind,” American Unity 2, no. 2 (1943): 23.Google Scholar

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