The Great Textbook War, 1974, Kanawha County, West Virginia

Photo courtesy West Virginia Humanities

This is an older blog post but given the current abundance of book banning in the United States, I thought there was a need to bring back this article about a great radio production from American RadioWorks about The Great Textbook War of 1974 in Kanawha County, West Virginia.

West Virginia Demographic Information

For some context about West Virginia in 1974, the racial makeup of the state was 95.6% white. In comparing that to current statistics, West Virginia has about the same population as it did in 1974 and the racial makeup of the state is 93.5%, according to the United State Census Bureau. In other words, West Virginia remains one of the whitest states in the USA. (For context, my home state of Maryland is about 58.5% white.)

Civil Rights Movement Encouraged a Different Point of View

There was a huge explosion in the promotion of multiculturalism in education during the Civil Rights Movement in America, which many still consider a work in progress. In 1974, the country was at war in Vietnam and Richard Nixon resigned as President of the United States over the Watergate scandal. Public school textbooks that had previously only taught the history from the point of view of white colonists were encouraged to present the history of multiple ethnicities and cultures. I think it is also worth mentioning that in 1972, President Richard Nixon visited China and opened up diplomatic relations, another step in expanding multiculturalism in the US.

Kanawha County in West Virginia houses the state capital of Charleston but also encompasses farmlands and hollows that are quite rural. This clash of cultures and shift in thinking led to the Great Textbook War of Kanawha County, West Virginia in 1974.

For more context, as a young white girl growing up in Baltimore City, the African American population was about 46% in 1970. And yet, my first textbooks featured two white children Dick and Jane who were growing up in the suburbs with a nuclear family. Many places in the United States were re-writing history books to include the presence and accomplishments of African Americans and women.

Conservative Values in West Virginia

In part, the divide between the Kanawha County Board of Education was cultural. A conservative Kanawha County Board of Education member Alice Moore had campaigned to become elected to the school board by protesting sex education being taught in schools. At first, her disagreement was over allowing students to use colloquialisms in school rather than formally accepted standards of the King’s English. Later these parents’ concerns spread to the content of the textbooks including disagreeing about the writings of people like Eldridge Cleaver and Malcolm X included in the curriculum. 

So in part, the divide in Kanawha County that led to violence and discord was racial. While urban Charleston may have had a small percentage of blacks and minorities, rural Charleston had almost none. Many rural West Virginians resented the idea of outsiders coming in and telling them what they had to teach their children. 

Photo courtesy WV Encyclopedia/Charleston Newspapers

Fundamental Christian Values in WV

The other part of the cultural divide between rural and urban was religious. In urban Charleston, most of the citizens went to traditional denominations of Christian churches such as Episcopal, Methodist, and Catholic. Rural Kanawha County residents tended to belong to nondenominational churches and more conservative Christian denominations such as Baptist. An example in a proposed textbook included an Aesop fable that compares itself to a Bible story. Some took this as an implication that the Bible was merely a myth or fairy tale undermining the traditional Christian values of rural Kanawha County, West Virginia.

The disagreement and protest became so bitter over the textbooks that a school strike was begun. Estimates are between 20-50 percent of the Kanawha County school children stayed home as part of the school strike. Even coal miners went on strike to show solidarity with the textbook protest. While some protested the textbook, students at George Washington High School walked out of school protesting the censorship of the books. 

KKK Supports Textbook Banning

Even the Ku Klux Klan showed up to support those protesting the textbooks adding further fuel to the fire that this was a race-based protest. Cars were set on fire and fifteen sticks of dynamite were detonated near a Board of Education office just after a meeting let out. At one point in the Textbook Wars, a fistfight breaks out at a Board of Education meeting. Midway Elementary School at Campbell’s Creek was dynamited one night in protest of the textbooks.  

So who won the Great Textbook War? The fallout from the textbook wars was perhaps mixed. Textbook protesters claimed victory as many of the books were never used in the county. Textbook supporters claimed victory that the books were in some of the schools even though some teachers were afraid to use the books.

The award-winning radio show concludes with a quote by teacher and textbook selection committee member Nell Wood who says,

“I think it is necessary for us to grow up and recognize that it’s a big, wide, wonderful, scary, ugly, beautiful world. There’s everything in it and we have to learn to look at it and not fall apart.” 

These are great words to remember as we plod forward to the current culture wars that are apparent in the United States of America.

Listen to The Great Textbook War by Trey Kay, Deborah George, and Stan Bumgardner on American RadioWorks at the American Public Media. 

http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/textbooks/

• 52 minutes

• 2010 Peabody Award Recipient

You can read more about this chapter in American history in the online West Virginia Encyclopedia here where they very politely refer to it as the Kanawha County Textbook Controversy.

Tory or Patriot? Who Was Uriah Gandy?

Perhaps one of the most unusual places in Randolph County, West Virginia is the Sinks of Gandy. Located on private property, this partially underwater cave is a favorite spot for hikers and cavers. The Sinks are named for Uriah Gandy or Gandee, an early settler of the Dry Fork region whose origins are a bit muddied by the passage of time and the decay of memory. So, who was Uriah Gandy? Read on…

Historians Remember Gandy

Gandy is listed in Hu Maxwell’s “History of Randolph County” (1898) as a former Sherriff of Randolph County who served from 1793-1796. Another source, Don Teter’s “Goin’ Up Gandy” (1977) says, “One of the early leaders of the Tory bands may have been Uriah Gandy, who settled in about 1781 near the junction of the Dry Fork with the creek which now bears his name. Apparently he abandoned his loyalty to royalty; when Randolph County was organized in 1787 he was appointed a justice of the peace, and in 1793 he became sheriff.” Working in Harman, West Virginia, there are historic signs posted that say this region was originally settled by Tories, those who supported England during the Revolutionary War. So, who was Uriah Gandy and was he a Tory?

Gandy Genealogy

According to an article in Wonderful West Virginia Magazine in December 1992, written by Lee R. Gandee, “Samuel Gandy and Uriah Gandy, Sr. were brothers, sons of George Gaither, Gendee, or Gandy, who came to Philadelphia in 1732 with his father, Hans Jacob, from Germany. He settled near Philadelphia. Samuel and Uriah joined the Patriot Army, but Samuel deserted at Valley Forge and returned home to his widowed mother and his family. He was arrested and about to be hanged as a deserter.” Allegedly, a pastor Henry Melchior Muhlenberg (1711-1787) wrote to General George Washington asking for clemency for Samuel Gandy, and indeed there is such a person who worked as an esteemed Lutheran minister outside Philadelphia in Trappe, Pennsylvania.

Revolutionary War Soldier?

Also according to Lee R. Gandee, “Uriah did serve in the Revolutionary War from May 1, 1776 until January 20, 1777, and again enlisted around April 12, 1777 and served until December 1777. I have found no records to indicate where he was living after December 1777 until 1784, when he was living in Rockingham County, Virginia. By then, he had probably married Susanna ___, and Uriah Jr. must have been born there September 2, 1782.”

Incomplete Revolutionary War Records

I can find no record of Samuel nor Uriah Gandy in the United States Revolutionary War Rolls (1775-1783). That does not mean that Uriah Gandy was not indeed an enlisted man in the Revolutionary War. In a book written by Henry Melchior Muhlenberg Richards entitled “The Pennsylvania-German in the Revolutionary War (1775-1783)”, v. 17, he writes, “…we are confronted with very incomplete and exceedingly meager company and regimental records as regards most of the Pennsylvania Continentals. The writer, after no little research, no slight advantages, and no ignorance, at least, of the subject, has been unable to find anywhere such data as would enable him to furnish the full account of the Pennsylvania-Germans, who formed the component parts of the several Pennsylvania Continental regiments, which he would like to give here.” My translation: Even for intelligent researchers, the records of the Revolutionary War are woefully incomplete. It seems unusual and highly unlikely that Uriah Gandy’s enlistment dates would be so specific if they were not real, and sadly I cannot find a source for Lee Gandee’s article.

Revolutionary War Pension

In digging further into the life and military service of Uriah Gandy I found his Revolutionary War pension application that was filed on November 18, 1833 in Jackson County, Virginia. So, at the alleged age of 80 and six months, Gandy applied for a pension for his service in the Revolutionary War. Gandy names the Generals under whom he served (Washington, Greene, Weedon, LaFayette, Wayne, Proctor, and Marshall) and says that his war service took him to Pennsylvania, Maryland, and New Jersey. He also claims, “I fought at Princeton & Trenton & Brandywine & Germantown. I do not recollect the No. of any Regt. Whatever & these are the General Circumstances of my Service.” Apparently, Uriah Gandee is unable to read or write and he makes a ‘G’ mark to swear his statement. There are others who vouch for the statement made by Uriah including John M. Kown and Phillips Hall, both of Jackson County, Virginia. Then, the local Justice of the Peace, George Stone, vouches for Kown, Hall, and Gandy. Then, the county clerk of Jackson County, Benjamin Wright, signs to vouch for the signature of Stone on March 17, 1834. [Side note: John M. Kown as also known as John McKown.]

After all this signing and swearing, a man named Elias Parsons, also of Jackson County, adds to the pension application, “…on the night of 25th Dec. Gandy staid at his home on his way to Ohio. That Gandy was talking about his Application for a Pension and in answer to an enquiry made by Parsons as to how long he had served as a soldier in the War of Revolution Gandy replied, “Something like Six months.” Parsons further stated that not one man who knew Gandy believed he ever served one hour as a soldier in the war of the Revolution. He is too young.”

Pension or no Pension? Reports of Uriah Gandy

Another statement reads, “Danl. G. Monell [Morrell?], Clerk of Jackson Supreme Court states on same day that Gandy applied to him to write to the Secretary of War about his pending claim for a Pension and that he did in compliance with Gandy’s request write- at the time questioning Gandy detail his services to him. From that statement he did not think him entitled. He claimed to have been engaged against the Indians for some Seven or eight months. On reference to Gandy declaration it will be seen that he locates his service in Pennsylvania & New Jersey…this declaration was made in the county before a magistrate. He is a harty man. Can walk 40 miles a day, as I am told. There can be no doubt of this claim being fraudulent. Gandy has made a new declaration from Ohio. So I am informed.” This statement is signed by a W. G. Singleton on Jany 2, 1834. [Please note that all misspellings reflect those on the document.]

Pension Denied

There is also a statement from J. J. Arnold who says, “He is very old and lives with his son since his application for a pension.” However, any and all supporting statements regarding Uriah Gandy are ultimately rejected by the US government who believes Gandy to be too young to have served. But with so many people vouching for Gandy, why was his Revolutionary War pension request denied? There was an interesting note at the bottom of the transcription added by Will Graves that says that Uriah Gandy’s “claim fits in with the meticulous research of C. Leon Harris as noted on the Revolutionary War pension application of David W. Sleeth” who was similarly rejected by attorney W. G. Singleton. In examining the lengthy claim document made by David W. Sleeth there are some unsavory details that come to light about attorney W. G. Singleton and an entity known as the “Lewis Speculating Gentry.” There were unscrupulous people and lawyers who traveled the country and enlisted older citizens to apply for and receive Revolutionary War pensions in exchange for a percentage. W. G. Singleton dubbed them the Lewis Speculating Gentry as they were headquartered in Lewis County, and they were also known as “Jonathan Wamsley’s Boys”. Think about it. In a world where there were no Social Security numbers, no electronic databases, not even photo ID, it might be easy (or difficult) to prove or disprove a pensioner applicant’s service. Enterprising lawyers need only gather a few people, fill out some paperwork and receive a percentage of a “war veteran’s” pension until their death.

Overzealous Lawyer

So, in Singleton’s favor, he did a great job of researching and finding fraud but he may have become a little too zealous with his initial success. Quoting from the research of C. Leon Harris, “Several of the pensioners’ attorneys alleged that Singleton acted “from corrupt motives” and “from no consideration but the fees the Govt. paid him” - $20 per rejected pension according to Congressman Zedekiah Kidwell.” In short, many complained about Singleton, but few had the money or resources to challenge his decision. Uriah Gandy may have had his pension rejected due to his proximity to the Lewis County Speculating Gentry. My conclusion in examining the life of Uriah Gandy is that he was not a Tory. I believe Gandy to be an honest many who was denied his Revolutionary War pension on unfounded reasons. So, when Don Teter mentions that Gandy went from “royal to loyal”, I believe Gandy was a loyal patriot and American who was left short-shrift in his golden years by an overzealous United States lawyer.

Do you love West Virginia history too? Stop by the Pioneer Memorial Public Library in Harman, West Virginia, and we would be happy to help you research history and genealogy.

Note: A special thank you to West Virginia historian David Armstrong for showing me where to find Uriah Gandy's Revolutionary War pension application online. This article is lovingly dedicated to all those denied justice at the hands of those who are supposed to mete it out.

West Virginia: A History by John Alexander Williams

OK, back to some history of West Virginia today.

I am almost finished reading a most excellent book "West Virginia: A History" by John Alexander Williams. This history book is well written and fascinating for a number of reasons.

Williams discusses the colonial nature of West Virginia that has abided since its earliest days as the western frontier of old Virginia. Colonialism is the idea of land, property, and businesses being owned by absentee landlords who take the money out of state. Many in old Virginia grabbed up as much western Virginia land as they could. Even George Washington claimed the best bottom land for himself.

Williams makes much mention of the idea that West Virginia was predicted to be one of the wealthiest states in the colonies because of its rich natural resources and natural beauty. But in reality, this was not to be. West Virginia remains one of the poorest states in the US.

"That such a country so full of the varied treasures of the forest and the mine...should lack inhabitants, or the hum of industry, or the show of wealth is an absurdity in the present and an impossibility in the future." This quote from J. H. Diss Debar shows how wrong he and many others were about the Mountain State.

The challenge of West Virginia geography has made road building here very expensive. The Department of Highways estimates that it takes $1 million dollars per mile of road to create new highways here. The great ridges of the Allegheny Mountains have always served as a natural barrier to business and wealth in WV.

Then there is the idea of the company store. In coal mining and log camp days, workers were indentured servants who had no choice but to spend their pay scrip at the company store. Prices were outrageously inflated and the workers had to pay rent on shacks and shanties owned by the company.

There are suggestions in this book that West Virginia continues to be impoverished by generations of West Virginians waiting for an employer to give them better wages and benefits. Entrepreneurialism is lacking here, and perhaps in the country overall. Instead of relying on a company or wealthy out-of-state patron, West Virginia needs to build its own capital and wealth at home.

West Virginia has also been victimized by wealthy companies that use our labor and export the wealth back to their own home states. During and after prohibition, entrepreneurial moonshiners were shut down by the government. Even today one of the complaints of the wind turbine industry is that our natural resources are being used to create electricity that is being exported to other states.

Reading this book, for me, was very enlightening. As a flatlander and transplant from Maryland, our culture and history is much different from that of West Virginia. "West Virginia: A History" is a must-read for anyone who wants to have a better understanding of where WV came from and where it might go in the future. I also have to say that the writing of Williams is fabulously rich and woven with wonderfully long paragraphs of elucidation. I found myself re-reading whole sentences that I thought were well-crafted and insightful. Consider this wonderful piece about the late, great Senator Byrd:

"Byrd's critics, especially those in the metropolitan Washington area, denounce him as a 'prince of pork' and note the frequency with which his name is chiseled onto the buildings that his largesse makes possible. But it is just as reasonable --given West Virginia's long history of exploitation by non-resident energy corporations and its failure to gain much from the federal defense and aerospace budgets of the Cold War years--to regard Byrd's efforts as reparations, not pork barrel."

Source: Williams, "West Virginia: A History." First published in 1976 by W. W. Norton, this is now reprinted by West Virginia University Press in Morgantown, WV.

The History of Harman?

West Virginians have a proud and rich history, and I can prove it. My home state of Maryland has maybe a couple of songs that reference the state or Baltimore. The state song, "Maryland, My Maryland", is an out-of-date, pro-Confederate ditty sung to the tune of what we now know as "Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree." The bottom line is that Maryland just doesn't have a lot of songs or poems that sing the praises of the Old Line State.

But West Virginia has many songs singing the praises of the Mountain State. "West Virginia" by Hazel Dickens, "Country Roads" made popular by John Denver, "West Virginia" by They Might Be Giants, and "West Virginia Man" by David Allen Coe. There are many more songs about WV and just this abundance of musical tribute is artistic proof of West Virginia's self-pride in history and heritage. And please do not invoke the debate about the true subject matter of Country Roads. We know that the geographical references are more indicative of old Virginia rather than West Virginia, BUT, the name of West Virginia is mentioned in this song and it is indeed for some almost heaven.

So I was surprised that Harman, West Virginia doesn't have a written history, even a small summary of its history, anywhere that I can find online or in the Pioneer Memorial Public Library. In researching the history of Harman, West Virginia, here is what I have found:

"Asa Harman born October 31, 1834; was educated in the common schools; became a farmer, and also was one of the most prominent German Baptist ministers in his state. He resided on a farm in what is now known as the town of Harman, Randolph County. W. Va., the town being named in his honor. He was one of the most prominent men in his section of the state, but met with financial reverses in the later years of his life, greatly interfering with the education of some of his children whom he had attended the university of his state. Died 1902. He married (1) Elizabeth Cooper and (2) Barbara Cooper, sisters."

This is from "Harman-Harmon: Genealogy and Biography" by John William Harman of Parsons, West Virginia, 1928:

In talking to local Harman descendants, the town of Harman was never a timber boom town like many small towns in West Virginia, though they did have a train depot where the post office stands today. Harman was never a coal mining town either. Harman was founded by a farmer and minister as a farming town and the agricultural trade kept the trains of the Dry Fork Railroad full and moving. I have to assume that the land in Harman is rich river bottomland that allows for excellent farming.

Do you live in Harman, West Virginia or have kin from here? Please write or email what you know to me. We would love to add it to our growing history of this charming West Virginia town in Randolph County.