Project Clio PD
Session 4: Teaching Chronological
Thinking and Multiple Perspectives
December 14, 2011
Putting today in
context….
• Thinking historically
• Text, subtext, and context
• Chronological thinking and causality
• Multiple perspectives
• Develop chronology using sources employed by
historians
• More than temporal order
• Instead it’s a critical determination of how the events
along the line were determined to have a relationship
with one another
• Look for the causes of change in addition to the
consequences of the change
• Examine the relationships between names, dates, and
events to determine why a particular event occurred.
“Why Won’t You Just Tell Us the Answer?” uses the
Railroad Strike of 1877 and the Bonus Army to teach
chronological thinking, causality, and multiple
perspectives.
Using an image from the period under study is an
effective way to begin an investigation into chronology
and causality.
What event is being depicted?
What is the artist’s message
about the event?
Clues:
•1914
•“Class War in Colorado”
•Man is wearing a miner’s cap
•Industry depicted in the
background
•Wounded woman and
children
•The Masses was a pro-union,
pro-socialist journal
•Black, sooty, coal-like drawing
The Colorado coal strike and
the ludlow massacre of 1914
• Read Ludlow Massacre Background from Howard
Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States.”
• Watch clip from PBS documentary “Rockefellers.”
Ludlow who’s who
Louis Tikas
Greek immigrant, union organizer
at the Ludlow camp. Shot and
killed by National Guard.
John D. Rockefeller Jr.
Owner of Colorado Fuel and Iron
(CF&I)
Mother Jones
Organizer for the United Mine
Workers of America (UMWA)
Governor Ammons
Governor of Colorado
John Lawson
United Mine Workers (UMWA)
executive board member, led the
strike at Ludlow
Lamont Bowers
Colorado Fuel and Iron (CF&I) Vice
President
John D. Rockefeller Jr.
John Lawson, Mother Jones, and Horace Hawkins (1914)
Unknown, John Lawson, Louis Tikas, Robert Harlan, 1914
Camp Beshoar–U.M.W.of A. Military Headquarters, Trinidad, Colorado. April
27th, 1914
Ludlow residents, 1914
Strikers tent colony, Ludlow, Colorado 1914
Caption reads “Members of the Colorado National
Guard Entering the Strike District”
Referred to as a “Ludlow Death Special” used
by Baldwin-Felts’ hired strikebreakers
Man examines pit beneath where a tent had stood on its platform (1914)
Ruins of Ludlow tent colony, 1914
Red Cross Members Searching Ruins of Ludlow Tent Colony
Line of funeral march for Ludlow victims, 1914
Louis Tikas funeral procession, Trinidad, Colorado, April 27th
1914
At your tables….
• In your envelope are 14 short primary documents
related to the Ludlow Massacre.
• Place the documents in chronological order.
Remember it’s a critical determination of how the
events along the line are determined to have a
relationship with one another.
• What factors played a role in how you determined
chronology?
• How did you decide where to put Woody Guthrie and
David Mason?
At your tables…..
• Complete the following sentence stems:
• We believe that the National Guard opened
fire at Ludlow because………
• We believe that ___________________
was/were responsible for the decision to
attack the camp at Ludlow
because……………………..
Multiple perspectives
Lesh describes multiple perspectives as “an
approach that examines a historical
event, person, or idea through the lens of
its contemporaries, participants, or
proximate chroniclers.” (95)
Share out
Woody Guthrie
Ludlow Massacre-1944
Ludlow Massacre
Words and Music by Woody Guthrie, 1944
It was early springtime when the strike was on,
They drove us miners out of doors,
Out from the houses that the Company owned,
We moved into tents up at old Ludlow.
I was worried bad about my children,
Soldiers guarding the railroad bridge,
Every once in a while a bullet would fly,
Kick up gravel under my feet.
We were so afraid you would kill our children,
We dug us a cave that was seven foot deep,
Carried our young ones and pregnant women
Down inside the cave to sleep.
That very night your soldiers waited,
Until all us miners were asleep,
You snuck around our little tent town,
Soaked our tents with your kerosene.
You struck a match and in the blaze that started,
You pulled the triggers of your gatling guns,
I made a run for the children but the fire wall stopped me.
Thirteen children died from your guns.
I carried my blanket to a wire fence corner,
Watched the fire till the blaze died down,
I helped some people drag their belongings,
While your bullets killed us all around.
I never will forget the look on the faces
Of the men and women that awful day,
When we stood around to preach their funerals,
And lay the corpses of the dead away.
We told the Colorado Governor to call the President,
Tell him to call off his National Guard,
But the National Guard belonged to the Governor,
So he didn't try so very hard.
Our women from Trinidad they hauled some potatoes,
Up to Walsenburg in a little cart,
They sold their potatoes and brought some guns back,
And they put a gun in every hand.
The state soldiers jumped us in a wire fence corners,
They did not know we had these guns,
And the Red-neck Miners mowed down these troopers,
You should have seen those poor boys run.
We took some cement and walled that cave up,
Where you killed these thirteen children inside,
I said, "God bless the Mine Workers' Union,"
And then I hung my head and cried.
Answer at your tables:
1. To whom is this song addressed? Who is the “you” who
“would kill our children,” and whose “soldiers” were
waiting while the miners slept?
2. Guthrie mentions “wire fence corners” twice. What is he
describing? Why is this important to understanding the
song—or is it?
3. Do Guthrie’s lyrics accurately portray the event? Why or
why not?
4. Guthrie wrote the lyrics 30 years after the event. Why do
you think he was inspired to write them in 1944?
Multiple perspectives
Once an original interpretation is developed, present a
final piece of evidence.
Encourage students to reconsider chronology and how
the new source might challenge their interpretation
Mimicking that historians do not always have immediate
access to all sources.
Read one final
document
Read Julia May Courtney and answer the following questions at
your table:
1. Julia May Courtney predicted that, “every workingman in
Colorado and in America will not forget” the cry, “Remember
Ludlow.” Is this true? If not, why?
2. Do you think the statement, “[F]or the first time in the history of
the labor war in America the people are with the strikers” was
correct? Do you think the people did support them? Why, or why
not? Why would they support these strikers and not others?
3. Do you think there is another side to the Ludlow Massacre, other
than that presented by Courtney and Guthrie? How would that
side justify its actions?
Share out
• Key point: don’t let students dismiss a new artifact
outright because it might contradict the interpretation
they have already established.
• Which artifact was most important in determining
responsibility for the Ludlow Massacre?
Ludlow r.a.f.t.(t)
• ROLE
• AUDIENCE
• FORMAT
• TOPIC
• TIME
AT YOUR TABLES: COMPLETE A R.A.F.T. FOR THE
LUDLOW MASSACRE. Use the large piece of paper. WE
WILL SHARE OUT
Role
Audience
Format
Topic
Time (for advanced
readiness students)
John D. Rockefeller
Ludlow Tent community
survivors
Speech
Ludlow Massacre
May 1914
Louis Tikas (Ludlow
labor leader)
Members of Congress
Newspaper article
Ludlow Massacre
1935
(FDR recently signed the
Wagner Act protecting
the rights of workers)
President Woodrow
Wilson
Leadership of the United
Mine Workers
Political cartoon
Ludlow Massacre
1947
(After recent passage of
the Taft-Hartley Act,
outlawing the closed
shop weakening unions)
Governor Ammons of
Colorado
Coal Mine Owners
Play
Ludlow Massacre
December 14th 2011
Mother Jones
(organizer for the
United Mine Workers)
President of the United
Letter to the editor
States at the White House
Ludlow Massacre
1965
(Caesar Chavez recently
formed the United Farm
Workers)
Strikebreaker for the
Baldwin-Felts
Detective Agency
School children
Song
Ludlow Massacre
1981
(President Reagan
recently broke the Air
Traffic Controller strike)
United States History
Teacher
A news reporter doing a
story
Personal journal entry
Ludlow Massacre
December 14th 2020
Closing Question
From 1854-1856, Kansas was engulfed
essentially by a civil war between pro- and
antislavery forces. From September 1913 to
April 1914, Colorado was similarly engulfed in
violence that the New York Times referred to
at the time as “the war in Colorado.” Standard
history books refer to the violence in Kansas as
“Bleeding Kansas.” Why do standard history
books not apply a similar epithet to the
violence in Colorado?
Aftermath
• UMWA ran out of money and called off the strike on
December 10, 1914
• 400 strikers were arrested and 332 indicted for murder.
• Only one man, John Lawson, was convicted of murder.
Eventually the Colorado Supreme Court overturned the
ruling.
• 22 National Guardsmen received courts-martials although
all but one were found not guilty.
• Only guardsman found guilty was Lt. Linderfelt for his
assault on Louis Tikas, although he only received a slight
reprimand.
Memorial built by UMWA in 1918
Ludlow Massacre Links
http://www.antiwarsongs.org/canzone.php?lang=en&id=6492
http://www.kued.org/productions/fire/photos_stories/massacre.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6kuvBnNNUs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6kuvBnNNUs
http://www.denverposteducation.com/CHNC/Ludlow.pdf
http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/writers/eastman/works/1910s/trinid.htm
http://www.911omissionreport.com/ludlow_massacre.html
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/53/Masses_1914_John_Sloan.jp
g
http://www.cobar.org/Docs/dexcerpts.pdf
http://lamar.colostate.edu/~pr/ivylee.pdf
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/200962-1
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=bcf_1298112061
http://www.woodyguthrie.org/Lyrics/Ludlow_Massacre.htm
http://notmytribe.com/2009/ludlow-massacre-or-unhappy-incident-87338.html
http://ludlowsymposium.wordpress.com/about/
http://www.amazon.com/Ludlow-DAVID-MASON/dp/1597090832
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/entertainment/jan-june10/davidmason_04-01.html
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/rockefellers/tguide/hints.html