Anthropologist Margaret Mead once argued against the improbability of one person bringing about major changes in society. Rather, she asserted, one person’s dedication and commitment was normally the only way change would come. Few would argue that Mississippi became a vastly different state as the result of the life and work of Medgar Wiley Evers, a pioneer in the state’s Civil Rights Movement.
While students may be somewhat knowledgeable about Mississippi’s rich contributions in the field of blues music and rock and roll, they are probably unaware of the state’s contributions to the field of country music. This lesson will enable them to study the content and form of country music and to explore the connections between the genre and the rural, southern environment of the early 20th century. In doing so, they will become acquainted with the life of a famous practitioner from Mississippi; Jimmie Rodgers.
His dream of a career in art led Mississippian William R. Hollingsworth Jr. from his home in Jackson, Mississippi, to the School of the Art Institute in Chicago in 1930. Upon his return to Jackson after completing his education, Hollingsworth worked as a clerk in a government office while continuing to pursue his artistic endeavors. In 1938, he began painting full-time. It would be the beauty and culture of his home state of Mississippi that inspired his finest work.
Elvis Presley, or better known as simply Elvis, was born in Tupelo, Mississippi on January 8, 1935. Even after his untimely death, this Mississippian still remains a pop icon. He rose from a humble beginning in Mississippi to launch a rock and roll revolution with his charismatic stage presence and distinctive voice.
The first automobile to arrive in Mississippi arrived at Biloxi in 1900. This revolutionary change in transportation will ultimately impact every aspect of daily life. It will create a need for better road infrastructure and changes in local and state laws. The development of highways and interstates will better connect the Mississippi Gulf Coast to the rest of the state and to the nation.
Mississippi Studies Framework: Competencies 1, 3 and 4.
Grades 7 through 12
In 1897 the Mississippi Legislature passed a law empowering a county board of supervisors to elect a county road commissioner to oversee improvement of public roads. But since the legislators did not require the appointment of such a commissioner, the law had little effect. On May 8, 1897, referring to this powerless law, the editor of the Biloxi Herald opined, “A proposed road law or a dog tax has a paralyzing effect on the average legislator, and he always approaches them by a circuitous route which sometimes lands him in close proximity but never clearly up to scratch.”
Mississippian Ellen Sullivan Woodward went to Washington in August 1933 to be the federal director of work relief for women, a job that was considered to be the second most important to which President Franklin Roosevelt appointed a woman. Only Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins ranked higher.
Woodward would work in the nation’s capital for the next 20 years. Economic security for women would remain her focus when she became a member of the Social Security Board in 1938 and beyond, when, after World War II, she directed a division of the Federal Security Agency.
Mississippi, like most of America, responded with unbridled patriotism when the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 thrust the nation into World War II. Thousands of Mississippians entered the armed forces. In every community, citizens on the home front contributed to the war effort. They raised money in war bond campaigns. They collected scrape metal, rubber, and other materials to turn in for recycling.
In the 20th century, Mississippi legislators were twice called upon to act on two constitutional amendments that had major implications for American women. The first for their consideration was the woman suffrage amendment which was ratified in 1920 and became the Nineteenth Amendment.