http://www.history.ohio-state.edu/projects/clash/
Reviewed: September, 2003
Mounted: January 12, 2004
By Sara Lawrence
Progressive Era America was a society in transition. A producer economy was giving way to a consumer economy. Large cities began to overshadow small towns. Relaxed, modern values challenged strict, traditional ones. The quick economic, political, and social changes that occurred during the last half of the nineteenth century set the stage for opposing value systems to come to a head during the first few decades of the twentieth century. Clash of Cultures in the 1910s and 1920s, a website of the Ohio State University’s Harvey Goldberg Program for Excellence in Teaching, explores some of the most significant points of conflict during the two decades. Touching on issues of race, ethnicity, class, gender, and local control, the site covers its bases. The site is rich in content and well-supported with primary and secondary sources. Its weaknesses lie in its technical difficulties, and its failure to fully embrace the interactive potential of the web.
After entering from the splash page, users are directed to an introduction page. From there, they can choose to enter one of the four thematic subjects, “Prohibition,” “Immigration Restriction and the Ku Klux Klan,” “The New Woman,” or the “Scopes Trial.” Along with a narrative, each of these options includes pages with related links, further reading, and an index of primary sources used within the corresponding text.
Scope/Content: The “credits” page indicates that Clash is a part of the “outreach mission” of the Harvey Goldberg Program for Excellence in Teaching. Stated in their own words, “[Clash] is a reflection of our continuing effort to bring our scholarship into our teaching and engage the public debate on historical issues.” One way that Clash is especially successful in engaging the public is in the way it encourages readers to draw parallels between historical conflicts and current controversies. For example, the author of the introduction suggests that, “prohibition continues today in the debate over cigarettes and the legalization of marijuana.” Similarly, the discussion on immigration restriction includes examples of how prejudice influences the “culture wars” of today.
The thematic subjects addressed in Clash are presented in such a way that some popular misconceptions are addressed. For example, the “Scopes” section complicates the popular notion that science triumphed over religion during the trial. The authors also point out shifting trends within scholarship over time. The author of the Prohibition section mentions how recent historians are challenging scholarship of the fifties and sixties, which characterized prohibition as a radical experiment that was doomed for failure.
While the chosen thematic subjects are not the only ones available to illustrate the culture clashes of the Progressive Era, the authors effectively support their thesis with the topics they selected. Given that the average approximate length of each section is a short 2,500 words, most of the relevant issues are touched upon but not exhausted. The “New Woman” section, one of the most comprehensive, leads readers quickly through the evolution of a new concept of womanhood but does not obscure important differences in experience between women of different races and classes. Touching on topics such as the Harlem Renaissance, lesbianism, suffrage, and popular entertainment, the author offers readers enough to whet their appetites to learn more about the issues women faced in the Progressive Era.
Authority/Bias: The authors of the site are four Ph.D. candidates in U.S. Diplomatic History or American History and an Associate Professor of American History. A chapter in the Ohio State University’s customized U.S. history reader inspired the website; therefore, the writing is consistent with the standards of academia. There are links to both the Harvey Goldberg Program for Excellence in Teaching and the Ohio State University websites from the “credits” page. While there is no posting date for the site, these links provide snail mail addresses and phone numbers and enable readers to determine that the official contact person for the site is still on staff, as is the Associate Professor author. There are also links to the homepages of two organizations that provided funding for the project. A quibble one could make is that the lack of a posting date makes it difficult to judge the reliability of the email addresses listed for the Ph.D. candidates and others who made creative and technical contributions to the site.
While not the rule, at times Clash under-represents non-dominant groups with regard to their contributions to and their experiences within American culture. The best example is found in the “Immigration” section. The discussion on the various methods used to Americanize immigrants could be nicely balanced with a consideration of the ways immigrants retained elements of their native cultures and introduced them to the United States. To what extent did members of immigrant groups influence popular entertainment during the Progressive Era? How did immigration restriction affect ethnic and racial groups presently in the United States? These questions are not addressed.
While the “Immigration” section briefly mentions racism against Asians, as a whole the site gives little attention to the group. The situation of Native Americans is not addressed in any of the four thematic sections. Perhaps these weaknesses reveal a regional bias. An interesting addition to the site would be a section on the culture clashes that emerged in the West as it shifted from a frontier society to an urban industrial society. Such a framework would provide an opportunity to discuss the 1913 Alien Land Law, which was designed to prevent the Japanese from owning land in California. It also would provide a way to discuss how the Dawes Act conflicted with some Native Americans’ concept of land ownership, and resulted in a steady depletion of reservation land throughout the 1910s and 1920s. Further, it would provide a context to demonstrate how some Americans were beginning to value conservation and preservation of natural areas.
Timeliness/Permanence: As mentioned above, the site does not indicate when it was posted or revised last. All of the links within the site work, but six of the twenty-eight links to outside sites are not current. Luckily, many of these sites provide forwarding information, and visitors are therefore able to find their way to most of the suggested sites. The “Teaching Tips” section is under construction, which gives the impression that the site is a work-in-progress; however, there is no indication of when the section will be complete, or how long it has been since the “construction” began. Nevertheless, it seems likely that Clash will be there in a year.
Value Added Features: This site is suited for those who have a general interest in the subject matter and have the time to go where the authors lead them; it is not ideal for those looking to acquire specific information in a short period of time. There is no search engine or sitemap. Each of the four thematic sections contains a series of pages offering an illustrated narrative. Hypertext within the narratives leads to primary documents, secondary documents, or narrative subtopics. It is impossible to tell what the link is until it is followed. The benefit of this construction is that most of the documents are steeped in context. The downside is that the user has a limited control of his/her experience.
Each of the thematic sections also contains an index of images and documents that are used within the narrative. About half of the documents have brief summaries accompanying them, a helpful addition for those accessing the documents this way. Some extra information would be helpful for some of the documents that lack summaries. For example, in the “Immigration Restriction and the Ku Klux Klan” index, “Immigration Act of 1924” links to a page that contains a few verbatim sentences of the act followed by a chart listing quotas, by country, for the fiscal year 1924-1925. An ellipsis indicates that some text was cut. Summary information could provide a description of the omitted text and an explanation of why it was cut. Furthermore, a summary would provide a place for the link to the 1924 article, which presently is inappropriately situated between one of the verbatim sentences and the chart.
Technical Aspects: Despite the lack of a sitemap, Clash is very easy to navigate in Explorer with the images displayed. A graphic with arrows at the bottom of each narrative page tells users if they are on “page 1 of 4” or “page 4 of 4.” Links to primary documents, secondary documents, and subtopics always open into new windows and are accompanied by hypertext that closes the window. The vast majority of the embedded graphics load without trouble, with the exception of two political cartoons located on the Sacco and Vanzetti page. Both cartoons, however, have alt tags which identify them well enough for users to locate and to access them within the document and images index.
Unfortunately, when the images are disabled, the site is just shy of being fully operational in Explorer. Alt tags describe the missing images, and users are able to navigate using the text-based navigation bar on the bottom instead of the graphics-based navigation bar on the side. The one oversight is the arrow graphic at the bottom of each narrative page. With images disabled, users will find it hard to navigate past the first page of each thematic section because there is nothing indicating the location of the hotspot link to the next page. An additional problem is that a significant portion of Clash, the “Immigration Restriction and the Ku Klux Klan” section, is not operational in Netscape. Embedded graphics do not load and links do not work properly.
Aesthetics/Visual Clarity & Appeal In general this site is pleasing to the eye and effective in its visual layout. All of the five textured background colors, which change according to thematic section, provide an easy backdrop for the text. The text itself is broken up into readable paragraphs, and the embedded images and documents are scattered appropriately. The headings of each section are placed on top of a collage of relevant photographs, adding an additional attractive visual to each page.
Shortfalls within this category are minor and easily remedied. The navigation bar on the left side of the screen contains hypertext in two shades, a bolder shade for pages within the current thematic section, and a lighter one for other pages. The lighter shade may be slightly too light, particularly for links with a reduced font size such as “The Ohio State Department of History,” “Retrieving the American Past,” and “Contact Us.” A little more space between the text and the graph on the introduction page would increase readability as well.
There are also a handful of consistency issues among the pages. Three of the pop-up windows in the “Immigration Restriction” section drop their background color (including the “Immigration Act of 1924,” mentioned above). Additionally, there is inconsistency with regard to the style of the text used to summarize some of the primary source material. Sometimes the text is italicized, while other times it is bolded. Considering its size, these anomalies do not largely detract from the site’s visual clarity and appeal.
Overall Impression of the Site: While Clash lost many points for its technical troubles, the average Explorer user may not even notice these difficulties. Overall, this site is worth a visit. It is attractively presented and interesting to read. The most frustrating thing about it, however, is its organization. There are many important sub-narratives that are tucked away within the hypertext of the main narrative. A highlighted phrase such as, “eugenics,” could lead to more information about the history of the movement, a contemporary essay espousing the movement, or a piece of ephemera related to the movement. Luckily, most of the links are well worth the click. A search engine would be a valuable addition, however. A searching mechanism would give users a quick way to tell if the Prohibition section, for example, discussed the presidential candidacy of Al Smith, without forcing them to hunt around within the six pages of the main narrative.
Interpretation of Materials: Clash is written by trained historians, and users can rest-assured that the information provided is accurate. The reader, Retrieving the American Past, from which the site is inspired, is available for purchase via a link to the publisher’s page. All sorts of primary sources are used and appropriately cited (with the exception of a few pictures). A “Further Reading” link exists for every thematic section, which offers users the ability to explore some secondary literature. One could fault the site, however, for not including bibliographic information for every historian mentioned in the narrative. For example, the Prohibition narrative summarizes the viewpoints of three historians (Mark Edward Lender, James Kirby Martin, Jack C. Blocker) on the motives of prohibitionists in the twenties, but their work is not listed in the “Further Reading” page.
While the authors provide a lot of context and interpretation in the narrative, the wide variety of primary sources allow users to formulate their own opinions. The authors provoke the readers to think critically about the material and to make connections between it and today’s society by providing a few examples of the similarities they perceive. The material is accessible to a non-academic audience, provided the users are at least of a high school level.
Primary Source Documents: Unlike some history sites, the primary source documents on Clash exist principally to support the argument of the narrative. Therefore, while their rationale for inclusion is not explicitly stated, the selection process can be inferred. Documents include photographs, political cartoons, advertisements, contemporary essays, articles, and excerpts from memoirs. Most of the documents are rekeyed, but not searchable. Some, the text used by John Scopes in his classroom, for example, are available as rekeyed text and as scanned textbook pages.
There is no searchable database of materials, but the indexes, which are separated by subject and arranged by document type (photograph or document), work well enough. The only counter-example is found in “The New Woman” index under the “African American New Woman Documents.” The documents listed under this heading do not belong there, but in “Opposition Documents,” where they are repeated.
While the vast majority of the documents have citations (save a few photographs), there is no explanation of how items were described or digitized. There is also no stated evidence that the site has taken into account copyright issues. There is some empirical evidence, however. Some of the images, particularly the political cartoons, are in low resolution. While their overall gist is not lost, some cartoons contain small text that is difficult to read.
Education: While the site as a whole could easily be used to supplement materials used in high school and undergraduate classrooms, Clash does not currently contain set curriculum or interactive learning materials, nor does it showcase student work. It does guide users to this type of resource, as some of the suggested links go to sites that contain information pertinent to teachers. Each of the four thematic sections has a page dedicated to “teaching tips,” but unfortunately each is currently “under construction” with no indication of a timeline of completion.
Promotion of a Community of Interest: Clash has much potential for creating a “community of interest,” but unfortunately it falls short. The authors are right to provoke the audience to ask themselves how these historical issues resonate in the present, but the site gives them nowhere to post their answers. Clash, therefore, misses the opportunity to facilitate what likely would be a lively discussion.
Point Assessment for Clash of Cultures in the 1910s and 1920s
(more information on PHRC's rating system is available)
Basic Criteria
| Scope/Content | 14/15 |
| Authority/Bias | 12/15 |
| Permanence and Timeliness | 7/15 |
| Value Added Features | 8/15 |
| Technical Aspects | 9/15 |
| Aesthetics/Clarity | 13/15 |
| Overall Impression | 9/10 |
Public History Specific Criteria
| Interpretation of Materials | 33/40 |
| Primary Source Documents | 15/20 |
| Education | 6/20 |
| Promotion of a Community of Interest | 4/20 |
Total: 130 points -- 3.5 Earths
Sara Lawrence (slawrx@hotmail.com) is working on a master's thesis on the social history of Portland, Oregon during the Progressive Era, using a local amusement park as the centerpiece.
Back to Presentations of Public History Online: People, Places, Politics, and Social Movements of the Progressive Era
