Gone with the Wind and the Real Lincoln

It’s amazing how much history we don’t learn from classroom history texts through grade twelve. Adding to the problem, most school history books are dull reading. In my American History class in 11th grade, we either enjoyed or detested an additional reading list of books that probably enlightened us more than text or teacher. Shortly after the movie “Gone with the Wind” premiered in Atlanta and then spread to the rest of the country, that novel appeared on our reading list. I had read the book but had not seen the film, and wrote a report on a book called Red Caps and Lilies. I’m sure I felt writing a report on GWTW was too daunting an assignment for me at the moment. After all, the book was over 1,000 pages.

At last, doomsday arrived and the students in my class who had written a report on the book Gone with the Wind were singled out for a private chat with the teacher in the hall. Later we learned these students faced the question, “How many children did Scarlett have?” If the student answered “one,” she most likely got an F on the report turned in. I say “she,” for most high school boys I’ve taught would not willingly choose such a huge book unless it was science fiction.

And so it was with the history about President Lincoln. The textbook failed us. Let me tell you a tidbit from Bloody Crimes. With several doctors in the room, each seemingly with a special expertise, title, or office, one surgeon removed Lincoln’s brain to retrieve the bullet. But he especially wanted to know how large Lincoln’s brain was. With great surprise, he learned Lincoln’s brain was no larger than an ordinary man’s brain. If such information had been in our history textbook, that book and that class would have held our attention. The same analysis could surely fit many other periods of American history our students are required to read. They make dull reading.

I wouldn’t mind reading Red Caps and Lilies again now, for I’ve totally forgotten what it was about.

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