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.
.
• 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 another
Is everybody needs some elbow
room, elbow room.
• It's nice when you're kinda cozy,
but
Not when you're tangled nose
to nosey, oh,
Everybody needs some elbow,
needs
a little elbow room.
• That's how it was in the early days
of the U.S.A.,
The people kept coming to settle
though
The east was the only place there
was to go.
Louisiana Purchase
• The President was Thomas Jefferson
He 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 us
Without a fuss
And 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 coast
And found the most
Elbow room we've ever had.
“Manifest Destiny”
• The way was opened
up for folks with
bravery.
•
There were plenty of
fights
To 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 be
Growing from sea to shining sea.
Guess that we have got our elbow
room (elbow room)
But if there should ever come a
time
When we're crowded up together,
I'm
Sure 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.
Intro
• 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 selfgovernment.
• 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. Johanssen
University 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
• 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
• Here is a symbolic
the figure progresses across
portrayal of Manifest
the land, the light of
Destiny that shows
civilization dispels the
"Columbia," the great
darkness of ignorance and
American angel or woman,
barbarity.
floating over the plains.
“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.
.
"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. Weber
Historian