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The Birth of a Nation
Study Guide for the Classroom

1. Summary of the Program
2. Questions for Teachers
3. Additional Information - Historical Background and Biographical Information with web links to reviews, synopses, and further reading

Summary of the Program

The Birth of a Nation, directed by D.W. Griffith in 1915, is one of the most famous, and controversial movies, ever made. At the time, it was viewed as a technical marvel, and it was the first blockbuster. Crowds flocked to see it throughout the United States. Today, however, the film is most remembered for its racist portrayal of the period in American history after the Civil War known as Reconstruction. Students in this program will view scenes from the movie and consider it both as product of its time and a historical movie.

Questions and Considerations for Teachers

Before Watching the Program
1. Give students some background on both the era that the movie was made and the era that it depicts.
2. Ask students about what sorts of things they should consider when they are about to watch a movie that is clearly racist. Ask them if the movie can still be useful despite its biases and lack of historical accuracy.
3. Prepare students to watch a "silent" movie. Remind them that they have to pay close attention to the screens of text.

After Watching the Program
1. Think about some of the most disturbing scenes in the movie. Why were they disturbing?
2. How is the movie most useful - as a film about Reconstruction or as film about how people in the early twentieth century understood Reconstruction?
3. In 1999, the Director's Guild - an influential group of Hollywood directors - decided to get rid of their D.W. Griffith award, an annual award for excellence in film direction which had been given since 1953. The reason was the racism of Griffith, shown in films like The Birth of a Nation. Why do you think it took the Guild so long to do this? Was this the right decision? (For an article about this incident, see http://www.wanonline.com/entertain/entertain8524.html)
4. Scholars have argued that the movie helped increase racial tension and stereotyping in the early 1900s. Do you think that movies (or television shows) have the power to shape attitudes? Have a discussion about films and television today and how they influence social attitudes.
Further Activities
1. Plan a research project on the period after the Civil War known as Reconstruction. Read some of the primary documents from this era (1865-1877) and discuss how the documents challenge the image of the Reconstruction era portrayed in The Birth of a Nation.
2. Watch one or two movies about the Civil War era made in different times such as Gone With the Wind or Glory. Write about how the movies represent the Civil War era but also about how they say something about the period in which they were made.

Additional Information

The Movie: technical aspects - D.W. Griffith is a crucial figure in the history of American cinema. In movies such as Intolerance and Broken Blossoms, and especially in The Birth of a Nation, he introduced a number of new techniques and styles: the long, narrative movie, the close-up, the wide angle shot. He also helped encourage the careers of some of Hollywood's first movie stars, especially the Gish sisters (Lillian Gish plays the main female character in Birth of A Nation) and Mary Pickford. Both the Gishes and Pickford became famous actresses and influential Hollywood figures who produced movies of their own.

For detailed synopses of the plot, see
http://www.filmsite.org/birt.html,
http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Bungalow/1204/bnation.htm

For websites with information on Griffith, see

http://www.geocities.com/ResearchTriangle/Forum/6370/birthofanation.html
http://www.mdle.com/ClassicFilms/BTC/direct5.htm, http://tcm.turner.com/MONTH_SPOTS/99/04/griffith.htm
http://www.und.nodak.edu/instruct/cjacobs/DWGriffith.html

For more information on Griffith and Gish, see

http://www.filmunlimited.co.uk/Century_Of_Films/Story/0,4135,107276,00.html
http://folkgirl.home.mindspring.com/LGish.html
http://www.cmgww.com/stars/gish/index.html

The Era that the Film was About - The Birth of a Nation depicts some of the most tumultuous events in American History. The Civil War saw Americans take arms against each other over issues such as slavery and federal versus state power that had existed since the founding of the United States. The period after the war, known as Reconstruction, was just as tense and controversial. After the South lost the war, both northern and southern whites, and African-Americans, struggled to reconstruct the region and the nation. As Griffith's movie title suggests, the events of these years set the foundation for modern America.

For primary documents on the Civil War and Reconstruction, see

http://www.libraries.rutgers.edu/rul/rr_gateway/research_guides/history/civwar.shtml
http://www.inform.umd.edu/ARHU/Depts/History/Freedman/sampdocs.htm
http://www.multied.com/documents/reconstruction.html
http://www.ukans.edu/carrie/docs/amdocs_index.html
http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/collections/civil-war-women.html
http://sunsite.utk.edu/civil-war/warweb.html

The Era when the Film was Made

- Although Griffith's movie was made about the era between 1861 and 1877, the film reflects the era in which it was made as much as the Civil War and Reconstruction. Many scholars have called the first twenty or so years of the twentieth century the "nadir" (meaning lowest point) of race relations in America. While the economy grew, making the United States the biggest and strongest nation in the world, America was plagued by racial violence and inequality. African-Americans in the South faced segregation (known as Jim Crow), disfranchisement, lynching, and stereotyping. It is interesting in this respect that the principal African-American characters in The Birth of a Nation were actually played by white actors in black make-up or "blackface." But African Americans tried to resist their treatment as second-class citizens, forming organizations like the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) to fight for justice and equality. One of the notable activities of the NAACP was protesting the showing of The Birth of a Nation in movie theaters across America.

For an essay about the movie's racial and historical impact, see

http://www.africana.com/tt_248.htm

For a useful page about the movie with links to Griffith etc and a good discussion of African- American made films created in response to the movie, see

http://www.mdle.com/ClassicFilms/FeaturedVideo/birth.htm

For articles on blackface, see

http://www.tiac.net/users/thaslett/m_diawara/blackface.html
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/railton/huckfinn/minstrl.html

For the history of the NAACP, see

http://www.naacp.org/about/history2.html

Additional Reading
Leon F. Litwack, "The Birth of A Nation," in Mark C. Carnes, ed., Past Imperfect: History According to the Movies (Henry Holt and Co, 1996)
Seymour Stern, "The Birth of a Nation," in Film Culture, 36 (Spring-Summer, 1965)
James W. Loewen, Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong (Touchstone Press, 1996), especially chapter five.

Stills from the film and publicity posters -
http://www.filmsite.org/birt.html,
http://www.uno.edu/~drcom/Griffith/Birth/CW.html

Pictures of D.W. Griffith -
http://www.mdle.com/ClassicFilms/BTC/direct5.htm

Pictures of Lillian Gish -
http://www.cmgww.com/stars/gish/index.html

Continue on to:
The Scarlet Letter
Paisan
The Trial Of John Peter Zenger
Zero de Conduite
Birth Of A Nation