From Ho-Hum History Lesson to Engaging Investigation

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The following excerpt comes from “Why Won't You Just Tell Us the Answer?” Teaching Historical Thinking in Grades 7-12, by Bruce Lesh (Stenhouse Publishers, 2011). The book retails for $22 and is available on the Stenhouse Web site.

Using the Bonus Army lesson, this excerpt walks you through how to meld content and historical thinking by creating a historical investigation. Read another excerpt from this book: Teaching Continuity and Change: History of the Pledge of Allegiance.

When first researching the Bonus Army in preparation for developing a historical investigation, I was surprised to find that there was much more to the story than presented by the sentence and picture that appear in most textbooks. (Editor's Note: The “Bonus Army” was the popular name of a group of more than 40,000 marchers— including World War I veterans, their families, and affiliated groups—who gathered in Washington, D.C., in 1932. Many veterans had been unemployed since the beginning of the Great Depression, and although the World War Adjusted Compensation Act of 1924 had awarded them bonuses in the form of certificates, they could not redeem them until 1945. The marchers demanded immediate cash-payment redemption of these certificates.)

Within this event lay the inevitable debate among historians about causality. In this case it was not a debate over the causes of the marchers’ discontent. Instead, it was the question of why the marchers were forcibly removed from Washington, D.C., and the degree to which those actions were the result of a disobedient military general or a legitimate fear about the influence of Communism on the protesting veterans.

The Web being my friend, and unfortunately sometimes my enemy, I quickly found a treasure trove of sources that provided insight into the historical debate about the removal of the marchers. One great source is The History Project, with materials used by University of California at Davis professor Roland Marchand, a college professor whose approach to teaching the past was in some ways consistent with the one I was attempting to foster in my own classroom. Marchand’s resources are clustered around a historical question. One of the questions he posed was about the ill-fated efforts of Walter Waters’s veterans. Marchand’s resources were complemented by those on the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library Web site as well as a variety of other online repositories.

Roads I Should Not Have Taken

Because this was one of the first lessons I designed to meld content and historical thinking, it has undergone numerous revisions. My first mistake was to focus on the wrong question. My first two years teaching the lesson I asked the students to determine what had happened to the Bonus Marchers and why. The answer to the first part was so easy that it blunted the depth of student investigation of the second part. In addition, what happened really was not in dispute—they were forcibly removed by a combination of the Metropolitan Police and the United States military. After rethinking the results of the investigation, I focused the question on why the Bonus Army was removed. This provided a narrower focus for students to investigate—always key to a high-quality experience for students—and required them to ask critical questions of the sources.

The second major adjustment I made to this investigation is the number and type of sources I use. As the volume of digitized sources increases, the Web has become a gold mine of materials for teachers. A simple search for “Bonus Army Primary Sources” can reveal several hours’ worth of letters, telegrams, newspaper and magazine articles, political cartoons, and numerous other historical sources. Unfortunately, when designing a historical investigation, not every source is created equal. Some sources, though interesting and informative, distract rather than assist students’ investigation of a historical question. In addition, too many sources can overwhelm students as they sift through the evidence, consider each source and how it may affect the information provided, and begin to develop and apply the evidence to the historical problem at hand. Over the years I have found that limiting investigations to about eight sources helps students focus and reduces my tendency to include all the sources I find interesting. Limiting the number, although artificial to the manner in which historians approach the investigation of a historical problem, nonetheless presents students and teachers with a more manageable task.

Setting the Tone with Music

The current version of the lesson starts with students listening to the song “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” Music is an amazing tool to use in the classroom, with the caveat that it is not all like the rock-and-roll, pop, and rap music that students are accustomed to hearing. The earliest phases of a history course using music as a source will be dominated by drinking songs, martial songs, and folk music. Danceable they are not, but they are an interesting diversion and an important window into American popular and political culture. Music can form the basis of an investigation. For example, I examine the Ludlow Massacre through Woody Guthrie’s “Ludlow Massacre” or the Detroit race riots of 1967 via “Black Day in July” by Gordon Lightfoot. Aside from forming the central focus of an investigation, songs can also be used as evidence brought to bear on a historical question. In the instance of the Bonus Army, “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” provides a perspective both on the deepening economic depression of the 1930s and the plight of these World War I veterans. It also allows me to segue into a homework reading that sets up the finer points about them.

Enhancing the Lesson with Visual Aids

Projecting a series of images helps debrief students’ homework reading on the Bonus Army. While reviewing students reading, I place particular emphasis on the treatment of the army as it arrived in Washington, the relationship between D.C. Police Chief Pelham Glassford and the marchers, and President Hoover’s position on the Bonus Readjustment Act and the marchers. The images draw students into the event, especially pictures of the U.S. military, armed with guns, tanks, and other accoutrements of war, burning the makeshift homes occupied by the remaining marchers.

Analyzing Source Material

After establishing the basics of the march, I pose the questions that will frame their investigation: Why were the marchers forcibly removed, and who should take responsibility for that decision? To facilitate student examination of the questions, I provide one of eight sources (see below). The variety of historical sources encourages students to confront the challenges presented by memoirs, the effect of time on memory, political bias as expressed through journalism, and ultimately what happens when new information is introduced about an old question.

Bonus Army Sources

1. Telegram from Secretary of War Patrick Hurley
2. Presidential press release one day after the removal of the marchers
3. General Dwight Eisenhower’s memoirs, written thirty-six years after the event
4. Excerpt from General George Van Horn Moseley’s unpublished autobiography, written between 1936 and 1938
5. General Douglas MacArthur’s memoirs, published thirty-two years later
6. Article from the liberal magazine The Nation
7. Article from the liberal magazine Harper’s
8. Speech by Senator Hiram Johnson, a liberal Democrat and supporter of the
   Bonus Bill

When students read and analyze any of these sources, it is important to provide them with a “who’s who” list of the people involved in the Bonus Army situation. Just as one identifies and defines important vocabulary words so that students can comprehend a written passage, students need to be reminded to identify people mentioned in a historical source. Without placing a name into a position and context, writers assume readers already know the individuals and the role they played, an assumption that can be toxic. I always provide a list like the one below when students are reading about a broad issue.

Bonus Army Who’s Who

Group Work

After completing their reading, students are grouped so that each collection of eight includes one student who has read each source. Students are then instructed to share the information provided by their source. Once the sharing has been completed, each group is asked to complete the following sentence stems:

• We believe that the Bonus Army was forcibly removed from Washington because…
• We believe that ______ was/were responsible for the decision to remove the Bonus Marchers because…

In a traditional jigsaw activity, students present their sources and the evidence they provide, and discuss how the subtext and context of each source might affect the evidence. It is crucial during this phase that students apply the information about text and context to their evidence. Frequent reminders, spot-checking groups, and pausing to review the information presented as a full class can help ensure a greater level of compliance among students.

Student sharing during this phase of the lesson tends to emphasize definitive statements from their sources. “Not abiding by the Constitution,” “challenging the government,” “violating civil law,” “removed to maintain peace,” and “disturbing the peace” are the phrases students gravitate toward when sharing reasons their sources provided for why the Bonus Marchers were removed. Sources of blame are also easily identified from the evidence. Students are quick to demonstrate their sources’ identification of D.C. Police Chief Pelham Glassford, General Douglas MacArthur, or President Herbert Hoover as the key instigator of the violence against the Bonus Army.

Once the various pieces of evidence are presented, students discuss the two question stems. The challenge becomes their ability to link the text of a source with context and subtext and then bridge that connection to a reasoned interpretation based on weighing the historical evidence.

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