See the U.S.A. Through 1960s White American Eyes

I recently got a copy of this kids' coloring book at a used bookstore or garage sale (I can't remember where):



The back cover says it was recommended as a supplementary aid to grade school pupils. It's from the Bonnie Books Child Craft Series, and the copyright is 1960 by James & Jonathan, Inc. 

As the cover says, it depicts:

• PEOPLE from the pages of history
• PLACES important landmarks of our destiny and 
• EVENTS past and present. 

It was published a year after I was born. Material like this was what filled my childhood, in and out of school. It's what were we taught, what we were shown as reality about our country.

First, meet our main characters, Johnnie and Janie:

The setup is that these two are going on an unattended trip around the country, visiting various uncles and aunts who will show them historic places. They'll travel on trains and planes, alone, even though they appear to be about 6 and 8 years old. 

Mom and Dad send them off without a moment's hesitation. As you did back then, I guess. (No one in my family did anything like this.)

Their time riding on trains is the only point when Black people (who are all men) are shown in the coloring book, and they are, of course, all in serving roles:

There were four Black men in various roles on the trains.

The kids take a train from the West to Chicago, and later from Philadelphia to New York. They also fly an awful lot for people in 1960, and flying is shown to be very luxurious:







Here's a list of the historic indoctrination they are subjected to by their relatives:

• Balboa discovered the Pacific Ocean.
• Gold was found in California (nothing about what effect that had on the people who lived there before that).
• The Alamo was defended by heroic [freedom-loving implied] Texans who perished. (Not.)
• The giant oil derricks in Oklahoma... are great.
• Ferdinand de Soto discovered the Mississippi River.
• The founding fathers are to be revered, with several of them getting full-page portraits and pictures of their slave labor camp homes.
• Ponce de Leon discovered Florida.
• Peter Minuet bought Manhattan "from the Indians" for $24 in trinkets and cloth.
• The Boston Tea Party was carried out by Indians, as far as a kid could tell from the image shown, and was about paying taxes on tea. Rather than because the tea on the ship was priced to undercut tea smuggled by colonists.
• Four full pages about the Pilgrims: Plymouth Rock, religious freedom, the Mayflower, how the Pilgrims "tilled the soil," and the establishment of Thanksgiving (with no help from anyone). 
• And of course, Columbus discovered America.

I was taught every one of those things in school. Except we did hear about Squanto helping the Pilgrims.  

Given the simplistic drawing style in this book, a child seeing this illustration would assume these men are supposed to be Native Americans, rather than people pretending to be. The Tea Party is generally a complicated topic to put into a coloring book. 


There isn't a lot of finished coloring in the book, and what there is was clearly done by a fairly young kid. The exception is this page showing Columbus, which was done by an adult or at least a teen or preteen. Columbus, in this person's imagination, was blond and had very light skin. It's not hard to imagine where they would have gotten that idea.

I did appreciate that Johnnie and Janie's New Yorker uncle Bill took them to Coney Island (for a whole day) by subway and bus while wearing a business suit and hat:

If this book were done now, Bill probably would have driven them there in a Cadillac Escalade.