TEXAS Trashes Textbook

[Chris Brady <cdbrady@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

{keep in mind that Texas is so big and its lump orders so "demanding"
that publishers cannot ignore its censorship or they lose business,
thus Texas rules the nation's textbook supply to a very real extent.}

ABSTRACT:
Textbook Author Miffed At Texas Officials
The Texas Board of Education has refused to approve a textbook that says
50,000 women worked as prostitutes on the frontier during the 19th
century.  Co-author Daniel Czitrom, professor of history at Mount
Holyoke College in Massachusetts, says the decision is a "classic case
of right-wing political correctness."


 ARTICLE:

 Author irked Texas won't use text
 Board of Education cites history book's reference to prostitutes

The Dallas Morning News/Associated Press, 07/08/2002

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dallas/tsw/stories/070802dntextextbooks.7f2b5.html

 BOSTON ? A Mount Holyoke College history professor says "right-wing
political correctness" is behind a decision not to consider using his
textbook in Texas high schools because of the book's references to
prostitution in early western towns.

 The Texas Board of Education said the book was withdrawn from
consideration because the material about prostitution was deemed
inappropriate for high school students, according to a board
spokeswoman.

 Daniel J. Czitrom called the decision a "classic case of right-wing
political correctness."

 "I don't think they like the facts we present," Mr. Czitrom said.

 Mr. Czitrom wrote Out of Many, A History of the American People with
history professors John Mack Faragher of Yale University, Mari Jo Buhle
of Brown University and Susan H. Armitage of Washington State
University.

 The passage in question, included in the section "Cowboys and
Prostitutes," said 50,000 women west of the Mississippi worked as
prostitutes during the second half of the 19th century.

 "In cattle towns, many women worked as prostitutes," the passage
stated. "Like most cowboys, most prostitutes were unmarried and in their
teens and 20s. Often fed up with underpaid jobs in dressmaking or
domestic service, they found few alternatives to prostitution in the
cattle towns."

 Wendy Spiegel, vice president for communications for the book's
publisher, Pearson Education of Upper Saddle River, N.J., said the book
was withdrawn from consideration because the passage in question was
"not appropriate for junior level high school students."

 "We made the decision on our own, but we took into consideration
information we received from Texas board members," she said.

 Mr. Czitrom said critics are upset that the book paints an
unflattering, if accurate, portrait of the West.

 But opponents said the book exaggerates the practice of prostitution.

 Grace Shore, the chairwoman of the state Board of Education, said the
headline "Cowboys and Prostitutes" suggested that all cowboys went to
prostitutes.

 "It said there were 50,000 prostitutes west of the Mississippi, as if
there weren't any anywhere else," Ms. Shore told The Union-News of
Springfield, Mass.

 Ms. Shore said she voiced objections about the section to Pearson
Education, and the publisher later withdrew the book from consideration.



{yes, that is the same Buhle connexion (see below).  In light of recent
ad hominem polemics against Paul Buhle from The New Criterion
conservatives, plus other Redbaiters, perhaps there?s more to this than
metes the eye?
Also, if Texans Bowdlerize sex workers they seek to obscure the whole
exploitative nature of commodification, so forget about any direct
and open discussion of social and economic justice, class war, etc.}

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