Tennessee WordSmith: A Liberal Dose, August 31 2023 "What Is History, and Why Does It Matter?"

A Liberal Dose, August 31, 2023

“What Is History and Why Does It Matter?”

Troy D. Smith

I’m going to share with you part of what I tell students on the first day of my basic U.S. history class -which is a “gen ed” course, one of those that everyone has to take (usually in their freshman and sophomore year). I don’t say this to upper division classes that are full of history majors or minors. Here goes:

I realize most of you are here because you have to be. Some of you may be interested in history, but most of you, probably, are not. Maybe that’s because of previous history teachers, who gave you a long list of dates to memorize. It may surprise you to know that I don’t care if you remember exact dates (as long as you’re in the right decade)… dates, you can look up online. I want you to understand. To get the big picture. To know, not just what happened and roughly when, but why, and what the consequences were. That’s much harder to find online -you may go through many pages of a google search before you find someone who actually knows what they’re talking about.

I realize that almost none of you are history majors -but I’m going to make a bold assertion. I believe that -no matter what your major, or what your future career winds up being -you’re going to look back on this as one of the most important classes you took in college. And I’ll tell you why.

No matter who you are -no matter where you fall on the political spectrum -at some point (if it hasn’t happened already) you’re going to look around you and say, “This stinks. I wish I could do something to change it.” And you can. History -especially American history -has almost never consisted of one very talented, very important individual deciding to change something and then making it so. American history has worked from the ground up. It has been groups of people -groups of informed, dedicated people -working together toward a common goal and achieving it. Sometimes it took decades, or even longer. Think about it: abolition, women’s rights, desegregation, the labor movement, LGBTQ rights… heck, even the Revolution that formed this country. It was never just one person. You can play a role, and an important one.

But first…

You have to understand where we are and how we got here. That is the first step. You can’t change anything until you know what needs changing and why. You can’t build a bridge to the future unless you have one side firmly planted in the past.

Now I’m going to tell you what the study of history actually is. It is not just looking at the past. Archaeology, anthropology, economics… a lot of fields deal with the past. History is, specifically, looking at the documents of the past. Those can be newspapers, diaries, letters, government reports, speeches, cartoons… the list goes on. I know a guy whose dissertation looked at all the ship’s manifests coming in and out of Charleston harbor in the 1700s -seeing what was bought and sold told him about the economy and the culture. Another person did a study of joke books -seeing what was considered funny and how that changed over time can tell us about the beliefs and mores of the people. Some of my work involves looking at old comic books or movies.

The important thing is… seeing what people thought at the time. Not what other people have told you about what people thought or did. Go to the primary sources. Go to the documents. You will often find that what you thought you knew is not the complete picture, or sometimes not even an accurate picture.

It is not wrong to see for yourself. It is not wrong to question. It is not wrong to want to make things better.

And this is where we start.

--Troy D. Smith, a White County native, is a novelist and a history professor at Tennessee Tech. His words do not necessarily represent TTU.