Graduate Program

English

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Semester of Degree Completion

2006

Thesis Director

Michael Loudon

Thesis Committee Member

Ann Boswell

Thesis Committee Member

Timothy Shonk

Abstract

The malleability of history is an intellectual condition that should be acknowledged and understood fully to formulate and to comprehend our knowledge of the past. As history is a very human interpretation of past events, and language is a human invention, it is useful to analyze the language used to design our underst anding of these events. This thesis focuses on the rhetoric used by secondary U.S. history textbooks in their presentation of Thomas Jefferson in order to initiate a larger iscussion about how the use of specific rhetorical assumptions and strategies significantly influences our comprehension of the past.

James Berlin's monograph Writing Instruction in American Colleges, 1000-1985 provides the basis for this rhetorical evaluation. Berlin investigates three rhetor ics influenced by three competing epistemologies: the objective, which considers a neutral reality that exists beyond the observer: the subjective, which suggests that reality is created by the observer's personal interpretation of environmental stimulus; an the transactional, which declares that reality is created through the intermingling of environmental stimuli with the speaker/writer, the audience/reader and the lang tage used between them.

I argue that a transactional rhetoric is superior to the other two languag systems because a transactional rhetoric implies the need for audience involvement in the meaning-making process. Because history, as a written record of past events, is so intimately connected with language, and because language is a human construc used between speaker and audience to establish meaning, it is necessary to expect a potential audience to share in the development of their own historical comprehension. A transactional rhetoric encourages this understanding better than objective or sut jective rhetorics, which both negate the importance of the audience.

This thesis uses an analysis of ten secondary U.S. history textbooks, wri ten between 1960 and 2000, to comment on the appropriateness of the transactiona rhetoric. Thomas Jefferson provides the thematic anchor for this discussion because eacl of the ten textbooks comment on a series of events pertaining to Jefferson's influence on the historical narrative: his authorship of the Declaration of Independence, his rival y with Alexander Hamilton and John Adams. his purchase of France's claim to the Lo tisiana Territory, and his enactment of the Embargo of 1807. A final chapter explores crucial elements of the Jefferson narrative that some textbooks either omit or gloss ove; namely, Jefferson's racial slave-owning status.

The thesis ends with a summary examination of what the research has uncovered, the implications for student readers, and further justification for the use of a transactional approach to the writing and reading of history.

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