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The Great Textbook War : Throughline What is school for? Over a hundred years ago, a man named Harold Rugg published a series of textbooks that encouraged students to confront the thorniest parts of U.S. history: to identify problems, and try and solve them. And it was just as controversial as the fights we're seeing today. In this episode: a media mogul, a textbook author, and a battle over what students should – or shouldn't – learn in school.

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The Great Textbook War

The Great Textbook War

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A class of American schoolchildren recite the oath of allegiance before the American flag in September 1956.
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Keystone Features/Getty Images
A class of American schoolchildren recite the oath of allegiance before the American flag in September 1956.
Keystone Features/Getty Images

What is school for? Over a hundred years ago, a man named Harold Rugg published a series of textbooks that encouraged students to confront the thorniest parts of U.S. history: to identify problems, and try and solve them. And it was just as controversial as the fights we're seeing today. In this episode: a media mogul, a textbook author, and a battle over what students should – or shouldn't – learn in school.

Guests:

Charles Dorn, the Barry N. Wish Professor of Social Studies at Bowdoin College and co-author of Patriotic Education in a Global Age.

Adam Laats, professor of education at Binghamton University and author of The Other School Reformers.

To access bonus episodes and listen to Throughline sponsor-free, subscribe to Throughline+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/throughline.

Clarification March 25, 2024

Adam Laats says in this episode that "there's a very famous group burning textbooks in 1940. It's the Nazis." While it is true that in 1940 the Nazis were well known for burning books, most, if not all, of the book burning by the Nazis took place in 1933.