History Lessons

About the Book

History Lessons traces Dan Lynn Watt’s journey through childhood in New York during the McCarthy era. He marched on May Day with his war hero father and activist mother, chanting “We don’t want another war!” and “Jim Crow must go!” At camp, he sang about world peace, freedom, and workers’ rights. At school, he attempted to hide his family’s politics. He takes you inside family struggles against racism and political repression. Disillusioned with communism by the 1960s, he became a civil rights and antiwar activist.

About the Author

Dan Lynn Watt and poet Molly Lynn Watt, lifelong social activists, are among the founders of Cambridge Cohousing, an intentional urban community of forty-one family units. Since 1998 they have lived collaboratively to reduce their carbon footprint. They coauthored, performed, and produced a CD, George and Ruth: Songs and Letters of the Spanish Civil War, based on his parents’ letters. Dan’s work focused on promoting project-based learning in science, mathematics, and technology. He helped develop and promote the Logo programming language. He and Molly worked with teachers worldwide to support the use of Logo in classrooms. His Learning with Logo (McGraw-Hill 1983) was used by tens of thousands of teachers and students and translated into Spanish, Italian, and Chinese. Teaching With Logo, (Addison Wesley, 1986), coauthored with Molly, continues in use. In summer the Watts lead a ukulele camp in the White Mountains.