Content Objective
The goal of this unit will be to empower my 11th grade students to develop their voice through reading poetry by those that came before them. Through the stories of struggle, failure, and success, I hope to inspire my students to recognize their voice as a powerful tool for change. The students will read a variety of poems by marginalized groups and, through deep analysis of their works, be able to make connections between the Progressive Era and their own contemporary world. Upon completion of this unit, students will have a strong understanding of the problems that existed during the Progressive Era, and see how those problems continue to exist in present day. Students will also understand that there was no single Progressive movement, but rather a collection of stories and voices from many different groups that led to this movement.
Students will be able to gain an appreciation for poetry and understand that poetry reflects the social consciousness of a nation. They will be able to identify the central idea, tone, and purpose of a given poem. Students will investigate the goals and struggles of minority groups in America, namely African-Americans, women, and immigrants and make a connection by comparing and contrasting the works of the Progressive Era poets to that of contemporary artists. By the end of the unit, students will be able to express themselves by creating and reciting their own original poetry.
There are many striking parallels between our age and the Progressive Era. In both periods we have witnessed the rise of modern technologies that have changed the way we travel, communicate, produce, and do our everyday activities like cooking and washing. The Industrial Revolution ushered in a period of technological advancement that transformed the political, economical, and geographical structure of America. Technologies brought machines, factories, cities, and new modes of transportation but, with that, there also came the rise of big corporations and political machines which helped increase the government’s abuse of power. Similarly today, improvements in digital technology have brought devices like mobile devices and the rise of tech industries, the World Wide Web, and even exploration into deep space. In addition to the rise of the Internet, we see the rise of tech industries like Google and Facebook, which have [contributed to the] rise of the knowledge economy. Like today, the gap between the middle class and the wealthy was widening during that period. Also, like that period, monopolistic corporations are currently accumulating vast wealth. At the same time, like the Progressive Era, we see a rising educated middle class, which has become dissatisfied with the government and is demanding sweeping changes. In response to the industrial revolution, the 1890s to the 1920s was a period of widespread social and political reforms known as the Progressive Era. The Progressives were successful in reforming local and federal government, education, and major industries. The rise of labor unions helped establish safer working conditions. Activists like Horace Mann advocated for the need for primary education, which led to the construction of more public schools. Other reformers fought to eliminate the power of political machines, which were a product of the Industrial Revolution, during which authoritarian bosses influenced local elections through bribes. Although the Progressives championed the improvement of the lives of many ordinary citizens, however, not all Americans were included in this group. African-Americans, women, immigrants and the urban poor did not share in the success of the time. Many leading Progressives held contradictory views. Theodore Roosevelt, for example, is a bit of a contradiction, as he had a reputation for being a Progressive president and pursued a Progressive agenda, yet when it came to helping advance the agendas of African-Americans, he was hesitant. His promotion of art cannot be understated, but in that too there is a contradiction. Roosevelt believed literature played an important role in the progress of American culture and took active steps to promote poetry and poets when he could, yet he never promoted colored poets.[2] Labor Union leader Samuel Gompers saw African-Americans, immigrants, and women as competition for jobs and barred their admission into labor unions. As a result, black communities, as well as other minority groups, had to fight for a share of the federal and state budgets and develop their own reform projects such as artistic endeavors. Marginalized groups speaking out against the status quo have had a long-lasting impact by approaching these problems in a creative way.
To supplement their understanding of this Era, students will also look at selected readings from Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself, originally written during the industrial revolution. Song of Myself illustrates the tensions that existed during Whitman’s time and exposes the hypocrisies of American democracy and supposed equality, seeking to shape public opinion.[3] Langston Hughes wrote in 1946 that Whitman’s poem promoted racial equality because it appealed to all genders, races, creeds, and socio-economic groups.[4] Through Whitman’s poem, students will gain an understanding that even during a time of progress for whites, a fight for civil rights raged on for disenfranchised groups. It was Whitman, a white man, who recognized this inequality in his society and exposed it through his poem, which went on to influence President Theodore Roosevelt.
This unit will look at the struggles of these disenfranchised groups through selected works of Progressive Era poets. Through these works, students will gain an understanding of the struggle the marginalized faced and learn that, despite the existence of systematic oppression and discrimination, many found a way to express their disillusionment with and protest the status quo, and still be hopeful of making a meaningful change.
My major tool for teaching comes from the district issued textbook. And textbooks are typically “white-washed”--depicting history from the white perspective. They tend to leave out the voices of people of color. This is unfortunate for students of color because it minimizes their roles in history. This is where I would bring in poetry to supplement the history of any Era. Before I came to Yale, I must confess, poetry scared me. There is so much imagery, so many metaphors, allegories, rules, and structures that I don’t get. Even after delving deeper into poetry, I have to admit, it still scares me, but I have a much more profound respect for it.
As a history major, I am aware of how instrumental poetry has been in the storytelling of our nation. Poetry is an important medium for many disenfranchised groups, especially African-Americans. Poetry is an ancient art form--one that preceded lit[e]racy. Poetry was often sung by slaves as a way to retain their history, pass the time while working in the field, and to relay secret messages of hope and escape. As students read the poems of the Progressive Era, I want them to be able to place the context of the poem in its historical time. As a counterpoint, unbeknownst to them, students will also be given lyrics from a contemporary song to compare and contrast with the Progressive poems. Students will have to analyze how a contemporary lyric fits into the context of the Progressive Era and vice versa.
To my students, history is something that happened in the past, and should stay in the past. They see no relevance or value in learning about history. It is merely a course needed to graduate. So when I tell the students we are going to analyze some poetry from the past, I am anticipating the sounds of groans, sighs, heads banging on their desk, and maybe the occasional “this isn’t English class!” These same students who will claim to hate poetry are avid music listeners. What many of them don’t realize is that most [vocal] music is simply poetry with a tune. I believe that understanding this connection between music and poetry will increase student engagement and interest, while making history more fun and memorable for them. This unit will tap into students’ love of music not only to make poetry accessible, but also to teach them about the Progressive Era through poetry.
The main component of this unit will have students analyze an excerpt from a poem from the Progressive Era juxtaposed with an excerpt of some lyrics from contemporary artists. As my students typically enter my class at a fourth or fifth grade reading level, I need to keep the length of the [excerpt] short and manageable so as not to overwhelm them. I will be pulling out only three to six lines from each piece, but may use the full text of the poem and lyrics based on individual class needs and skills. During this activity, students will not be given the title, author, or any historical context of the written words. This will allow students to focus on the written words only. Because I temporarily conceal the names of the authors of the two pieces, students will not be able to apply their own preconceptions, especially in the case of Kendrick Lamar. They will analyze the two pieces to compare and contrast what each is telling us about the historical context of its time as well as drive home the points that what happens in the past is relevant to today, and contemporary events are effects of the past. The introduction of poetry will be presented in three groups: African-Americans, Women, and the Urban Poor/Immigrants.
Part I: Poems about African-Americans
During the Progressive Era, progress for many African Americans was elusive at best. White Progressives generally overlooked the African American community. While new schools and houses were being built for some, African Americans were not even able to live in the same neighborhoods as the whites because of their skin color. Post-Reconstruction Era Jim Crow laws particularly affected ways of life, especially in the South. The 1896 Supreme Court ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson legalized segregation in all public spaces. African Americans were excluded from voting through various means such as grandfather clauses, literacy tests, and poll taxes. In addition to this institutionalized discrimination, African Americans had to deal with violent acts such as lynching. With racial tensions swelling in the South, many moved to the North to seek better economic opportunities. But making this move brought a new set of difficulties. Many Northern whites perceived their arrival as a threat to job security and worked to bar African-Americans from joining labor unions. Because of this, African-American workers were not protected from abusive labor practices. In response to the rise of intense racism and discrimination, African American reformers emerged to fight for equal rights. Many African Americans took to various means of protest, publishing articles to increase awareness of the horrific acts of lynching and to gain political momentum to pass an anti-lynching law. One of the mediums used to express their disillusionment and anger, and to expose the wrongdoings against African Americans, was poetry.
I decided to use an excerpt of a piece by Paul Laurence Dunbar, who was among the first African-American poets to gain international fame during the Progressive Era. Paul Laurence Dunbar’s “The Haunted Oak” was written and published in 1900 and was inspired by the lynching that occurred against blacks during a time of high racial tension. Depending on the course and the skill level of students, the entirety of the poem can be used. But for the purpose of this unit, I will introduce the first four lines of “The Haunted Oak”:
I feel the rope against my bark
And the weight of him in my grain,
I feel in the throe of my final woe
The touch of my own last pain
The poem tells the story of a young boy in Alabama who was falsely accused of rape and the bloodthirsty mob which drags him out of jail to hang him from an oak tree. The poem is told from the point of view of the oak tree that feels the suffering of the man being victimized. It is a poem of protest and outrage that cries out against the unjust practice of lynching.
Students will be given another excerpt of a “poem” to analyze in conjunction with the Dunbar poem. This time, students will be given the lyrics of Kendrick Lamar’s “The Blacker the Berry.” However, they will not experience these lyrics in the usual context of a song set to instrumentation. The lyrics will not be set in sequential order, but rather, certain lines will be pulled from different parts. For these reasons, students will likely assume it’s “another poem.”
And man a say they put me in chain, cah we black
How you no see the whip, left scars pon’ me back
All them say we doomed from the start, cah’ we black.
My students listen to music by Kendrick Lamar, but I wonder how many truly realize the meaning behind the lyrics. They know there is anger behind the lyrics, and find that appealing. When Kendrick Lamar wrote “The Blacker the Berry” in 2015, he was grieving over the death of Trayvon Martin, and he is internalizing the negative effects of stereotyping blacks. (Using the entirety of the song is not recommended for this lesson, as the lyrics contain explicit language.) In an interview shortly after the release of “The Blacker the Berry,” Kendrick Lamar stated, “There are issues that if you come from that environment it’s inevitable to speak on…I am Trayvon Martin, you know?”[5] There are a lot of similarities between Lamar’s “Blacker the Berry” and Dunbar’s “Haunted Oak”. Both pieces respond to the unjustified murder of a young boy—in Dunbar’s case, a young black boy accused of rape, and in Lamar’s case, the death of a young black boy accused of robbing a store, and looking suspicious.
Part II: Poems about Women
Women had been actively fighting for suffrage for over fifty years before the passage of the nineteenth amendment. Since the early 19th century, women had led grass-root efforts advocating for social reforms such as Prohibition, an early abolition movement, women’s suffrage, child-labor laws, and public health reforms. It wasn’t until they proved their economic worth in support of World War I that the government finally granted women the right to vote, with the passage of the nineteenth amendment. The Seneca Falls Convention of 1848 produced the Declaration of Sentiment, which advocated for the inclusion of women, urging custodians of the Declaration of Independence to change the famous line to “All men and women are created equal.” It is sadly ironic that women were among the first to initiate reform movements in America, yet they were among the last to see their efforts bear fruit. Women were excluded from the public sphere, such as participating in politics, taking control of their own finances, or receiving education equal to that of the men. Women’s confinement to fashion, etiquette, and arranging social events indicated the restrictive nature of the female world. Because of their exclusion from the public sphere, they used literature to protest for their rights. Through fiction and poetry, they began to become more vocal and challenge the patriarchal society in America.
In this category, we will examine the work of Alice Dunbar Nelson, who was one of a few prominent African-American female poets, and also a journalist and political activist of the Progressive Era. “I Sit and Sew” was written to protest the submissive role that women were forced into. The act of sewing is considered a domestic task reserved for women. It also symbolizes the delicate and fragile nature of women, who modestly remain on the outskirts of society. In the midst of World War I, Alice Dunbar Nelson was expressing her desire to join the men and take up arms for her country, but alas, society had dictated that she must metaphorically sit and sew and wait for the men.
I sit and sew—a useless task it seems,
My hands grown tired, my head weighed down with dreams—
The panoply of war, the martial tread of men,
Grim-faced, stern-eyed, gazing beyond the ken
Of lesser souls, whose eyes have not seen Death
Nor learned to hold their lives but as a breath—
But—I must sit and sew.
In comparison, Lily Allen wrote the song “The Fear” in 2009, criticizing the materialistic behavior of women. She was inspired to write this music when she saw a little girl about eight or nine years old wearing a crop top and hot pants. She is criticizing the females who buy into this unrealistic expectation that they need to own and conform to the latest fashion.[6] This music isn’t simply about materialism, but the pressure to conform to society’s expectation of women. Like Alice Dunbar Nelson, Lily Allen is trying to protest stereotypical images of women.
I am a weapon of massive consumption
And it’s not my fault it’s how I’m programmed to function
I don’t know what’s right and what’s real anymore
I don’t know how I’m meant to feel anymore
Both artists are frustrated with the patriarchal society they live in. Alice Dunbar Nelson is frustrated with the strict societal role that confines women to domestic tasks. Lily Allen is frustrated with labels being placed on women as merely consumers of fads. Both point to the typecasting of women’s roles in society. Over a hundred years separate today from the Progressive Era. Much has been accomplished since the Women’s Suffrage Movement of the early 20th century, yet women still only earn 83% of what men earn.[7]6 There is still a disproportionate number of males in high-level corporate and political positions, compared to females. The objectification of women continues in the media. And in certain parts of the world, women still live in a very patriarchal society where they have no legal rights. But through the works of Alice Dunbar and Lily Allen, women are making headway in acknowledging gender equality issues.
Part III: Urban Poor
The American Industrial Revolution created an appealing pull factor for many immigrants from Europe, Asia, and Latin America. From 1850 to 1930, the foreign-born population of the United States increased from 2.2 million to 14.2 million.[8] As a result of this large-scale immigration, nativist sentiment arose among native-born Americans who feared competition for factory jobs, as well as the watering down of cultural values. In the Eastern United States, Nativists were primarily fearful of Eastern European immigrants who were Catholics, and might reject the American ideal of republicanism since their loyalty would be to the Pope. Meanwhile, in the Western United States, Nativists feared mostly Asian immigrants, who became competition for jobs in the railroad and agricultural industries. As part of the Progressive reform, Nativists successfully passed laws prohibiting immigration, primarily from Asia. The Chinese Exclusion Act and the Gentlemen’s Agreement helped to curtail immigration from Asia. In a Progressive time when Labor Unions were successful in fighting for better wages, reasonable hours, and safer working conditions, many immigrant groups were barred from joining these unions. The immigrant population remained one of the poorest groups in America as they lacked access to social and political agencies, and, like African-Americans, were barred from joining Labor Unions and their children prevented from attending public schools with the whites. Because of their dire economic circumstances, immigrant children worked alongside their parents instead of attending school, which was a continuation of conditions in the Industrial Revolution. Because of these factors, the immigrant population was defined as the urban poor. For this unit, finding poems that truly illustrated the voice of the poor and the immigrants was extremely difficult because most working poor were illiterate. While the African-American community was able to organize and had the resources to get their works published, immigrant communities were not unified. Edwin Markham is the closest to representing the voice of the working class because he himself was a farmer who was affected by the Industrial Revolution. At the time, he was called “the first real poet of Labor.” Markham’s “The Man with the Hoe,” published in 1899, glorifies the contribution of the farmers, the backbone of America. He is protesting the changing nature of labor in rural and urban areas as a result of the technological revolution and the abusive working conditions of the industrial Era.
Bowed by the weight of centuries he leans
Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground,
The emptiness of ages in his face,
And on his back the burden of the world.
The painting by French artist Jean-Francois Millet, also titled The Man with the Hoe (1862), inspired Markham’s poem. It is a protest poem against the abusive working conditions and labor struggle of the Era. “The Man with a Hoe” was written in response to the various labor movements of the 19th and early 20th century, most notably the coal and railroad strikes of the 1860s-1890s, the Haymarket massacre of 1886, and the Steelworkers strike in the 1890s.[9] He wanted the poem to be “a poem of hope. A cry for justice.” In an unconventional comparison, Dolly Parton’s 1980’s single “9 to 5” became somewhat of an anthem for office workers in America. Even though the song was a feminist song aimed at bringing about equality of women in the workplace, it is also applicable to the working poor who work every day hoping to move up in the world, but are constantly kept down by the bosses. During the late 20th and early 21st century, the income gap between the wealthy and the middle class has only widened further. Income hasn’t grown at the same rate as living conditions. Just as in the late 19th century, many professions struggle to make ends meet.
Barely getting’ by, it’s all takin’ and no givin’
Want to move ahead but the boss won’t seem to let me
They let you dream just to watch ‘em shatter
You’re just a step on the boss-man’s ladder
Poverty affects particularly people of color and other minority groups. That was true during the Progressive Era, and it is true in today. During the Progressive Era, the plight of the urban poor and immigrants often went unnoticed and as a result got left out in the agendas of the Progressives. There were a few community-wide efforts to help, such as establishing Hull Houses to help acclimate Immigrants to America and providing resources, yet such efforts failed to end poverty. Labor Unions were more successful in bargaining for skilled laborers. With the large influx of immigration, unskilled laborers were at risk of being replaced if they were part of a union.
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