Undergraduate Fellowship in Digital Humanities (UFDH)

The variation, politicization, and censorship in American K-12 historical education is most evident in textbook treatments of the American Civil War. This research investigates the development of the American Civil War and how it is taught in K-12 American schools, as well as the extent to which its education varies across time period and location. Previous research has demonstrated the average American adult’s perception of the Civil War’s development to be disparate. In this project, I utilize textual analysis of over a dozen textbooks, using Voyant Tools and critical analysis, to provide a clear depiction of each primary source’s bias and interpretation. I carefully review each reference to enslaved people, enslavers, Black people, and white people. Additionally, I analyze the textbook's explanations of the war’s main cause; the war’s timeline/development; why the Confederacy was defeated, and its features (terms, graphics, etc.). The main indicators of bias are “case studies,” referring to each primary source’s description of John Brown, Stephen A. Douglas, William Lloyd Garrison, and the caning of Charles Sumner. Finally, all states with available data are mapped with ArcGIS, showing one recommended textbook per state. Textbooks from 1956 to 2024 are compared, categorized by age, location, level, and edition. My findings suggest that the most used term is "popular sovereignty," and the most frequently cited cause is enslavement. Moreover, older and newer textbooks both use opinionated language when describing controversy. This project increases awareness of the variation and suitability of textbooks, significant to our modern division and lack of accurate, nationwide standardized education.