Should We Make History Polite and Palatable?

Whitewashing history is a very dangerous game to play...

by Heather Blanton

Is it right to tell a story from the past but filter it through the sanitized, politically-correct lens of the twenty-first century? What do we lose if we follow that process? If we bury the sins and mistakes of the past, aren't we in danger of repeating them?

 Recently, I was doing some research and a friend gave me a couple of books on South Dakota history. They are all in the series Daughters of Dakota, edited by Sally Roesch Wagner. Each volume is a fascinating look at the life of lady pioneers--the gals who crossed the plains, stared Lakota Sioux right in the eye, lost husbands and children, survived fires and floods. You get the picture. The true Ladies in Defiance. But best of all, these books tell the stories in the women's own words. Each volume is a compilation of letters, diaries, and transcribed stories. First-hand accounts of pioneer life that give an amazing glimpse of life in South Dakota from the 1870s to the early 1900's.

There are several books in the collection. In Book 1, the editor goes to great pains to express that each story contains the actual words of the pioneer woman. Following the suggestion that "the English or grammar used is to be the writer's own for history is wanted [unvarnished] and not perfect manuscripts," editing was kept to a minimum. In fact, Wagner says, "The words have not been changed." 

South Dakota and her pioneers are all there in their ugliness—violence, racism, bigotry—and their beauty—generosity, kindness, self-sacrifice.

However, by book 6, Wagner has had a complete change of heart. She has decided she knows life in the nineteenth century better than the ones who actually lived then. "Today," she writes, "we know the disrespect and contempt contained in the word, 'squaw'; had these pioneer women known what we know, they would undoubtedly not have used the word."

Well, the poor, little, ignorant pioneers. If only they'd had someone like a college professor to enlighten them on diversity and social justice.  

To paint over this 19th-century mindset and not offend our modern one, Wagner continues, "In respect to them and their Native American friends, I have changed that word whenever it has appeared in the manuscript, along with the words, 'papoose' and 'buck.'"  

I don't know about you, but the woman's audacity almost leaves me speechless. But, wait. There's more. "'Colored' and 'Negro' are no longer considered correct usage; African American has replaced them in the women's stories." 

Don't get me wrong. I am certainly not defending the use of racial slurs. However, a hundred, a hundred-and-fifty years ago these words were common descriptors, sometimes used with malice, sometimes not. In my humble opinion, whitewashing history is a very dangerous game to play. If you don't present the past in its completeness, you get a skewed image that buries sins and hides mistakes. And that's not history at all. That's fiction.  

Do you agree with me or should we be making all history politically correct, polite, and palatable?   

Prosthetics Have Come a Long Way Since the Civil War...Thank God.

by Heather Blanton

In my new book, To Love and to Honor, available exclusively through the It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas collection, I wrote about a hero who is an amputee. And I will tell you, the research on 19th-century prosthetics was hard to look at. On the bright side, we've come a long way, baby.

Though doctors have tried for centuries to design prosthetics for amputees that were natural and mobile, the industry truly took flight because of the Civil War. During the conflict between the states, an estimated 70,000 men lost appendages.

Most people aren’t aware that the Minnie ball was invented in the 1840’s and elevated to deadly perfection a few years before the Civil War. The bullet, made of soft lead, expanded upon impact, creating wildly jagged, deep, slow-healing wounds never before seen by physicians. Hence, amputation became the treatment of choice because bleeding-out and infection were the other options. The war created arguably an army of amputees.

This looks more like a device of torture than a prosthetic, but I modeled the one my hero wears on this one.

Again, it looks more like torture than true function.

“Recognizing the alarming number of amputations resulting from combat, the U.S. government unveiled the "Great Civil War Benefaction," a commitment to provide prosthetics to all disabled veterans.” (THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERS)

Of course, with the in-flow of money, entrepreneurs jumped on the prosthetic band wagon and started designing limbs en masse. Desperate for some semblance of normalcy, every veteran longed for a device that was comfortable and functional. Sadly, though, most prosthetics fell far short of their shimmering promises. The new designs were often no better than strapped-on peg legs. 

But from tragedy, God can certainly bring about good as well. Confederate soldier James Hanger lost a leg to a cannon ball and suffered from bad prosthetic after bad prosthetic. Disgusted, he went to work designing a leg that would work for him. He not only created an artificial limb that he found to be comfortable, rather natural looking, and quite functional, he built a successful prosthetics company. Hanger, Inc. is still in business today and employs nearly 5,000 employees!

Mr. Hanger himself.

Once a limb is gone, that’s it. Science still doesn’t have the capability to regrow fingers and toes, much less arms and legs. We do stand, however, on the edge of amazing progress. From ergonomically designed prosthetics capable of supporting athletic feats to bionic technology, science is moving forward. Perhaps it won’t be long until we can make someone better than he was. Better, stronger, faster, either with prosthetics or eventually with the real thing.