I had never before seen the photograph of the so-called “Marlboro Marine.” Taken in 2004, shortly after an intense fray in the firefights that would come to comprise the Second Battle of Fallujah, the close-up shot captured an exhausted American marine smoking a Marlboro cigarette, his face dark and smeared with dirt from the skirmish. The New York Post ran the picture on its front page with the headline: “Smokin’: Marlboro Men Kick Butt in Fallujah.”

And almost instantaneously, the marine became a celebrity.

But what gave the image of a smoking marine such significance?

In History 5A: Early American History, an introductory course taught this fall by Professor of History Bruce Dorsey, we learned to tackle that very question. By examining the meanings behind various historical images, texts, and narratives, we weighed their implications on the American story.

The photograph’s significance, Dorsey explained, lay in the different meanings attached to the Marlboro cigarette. Its icon, “the Marlboro Man,” serves as a representation of the American cowboy, masculinity, and spirit. Conveniently, the smoking marine displayed a real-world manifestation of all these qualities, perfectly epitomizing American masculinity for the nation.

However, in studying the significance of such cultural artifacts, we also explored the complicated contexts from which they were molded and investigated the historical complexities they convey.

To a member of the American public in 2004, the image would have encapsulated rugged American masculinity. But it didn’t always. Originally, Marlboro cigarettes were marketed as a feminine product, explained Dorsey, enticing women with a red cigarette filter that served to conceal lipstick stains.

“But in the 1950s,” he says, “a Chicago adman, Leo Burnett, crafted a new advertising image for that cigarette brand by putting it on the lips of a cowboy, and now it’s so iconic that it can stand in for American masculinity, however complicated, in the midst of war.”

Beyond tracking how cultural meanings shift over time, it is also important to study the conflicting stories of American life that existed when cultural artifacts were created. Indeed, throughout the course, we often found that narratives seeking a simple explanation of American history are caught in the crossfire of contradictions.

For instance, we learned about the physical violence that pitted American-born Protestants against Irish Catholic immigrants in the streets of Philadelphia in the first half of the 19th century. This coincided, however, with westward expansion, which saw, in some cases, the racial common denominator between white Protestants and the Irish unite them on the frontier in mob violence toward Mexicans.

“I really appreciate Professor Dorsey’s integrity when it comes to accurately representing the complexities of American history,” says Kenji Nakakura ’29, of Corrales, N.M. “More often than not, it gets reduced to a common mythology for the ease of teaching.”

The course, Nakakura continues, is “extremely thorough in representing just how hard it is to categorize American history.”

“I think the class is incredibly unique as a study of American history,” adds Simon Mandl-Ciolek ’29, of New York City. “While it covers all the usual topics, we also get to explore a lot of aspects of American history that aren’t usually discussed, like the lynching of Mexicans after the Mexican-American War or William Walker’s invasion of Nicaragua.”

Indeed, through opposing narratives, the course reveals that the American story is neither simple nor straightforward. Along with learning in classrooms, students also have the opportunity to access original primary sources through the archival resources available on campus. History courses at Swarthmore, Dorsey explained, reap the full benefits offered by the extensive historical records of the research archives, the Friends Historical Library, and the Peace Collection.

“There’s material in those collections for studying the history of people and events around the globe,” says Dorsey. “And the archivists who work there are terrific guides for students — as well as professional historians like myself — into these treasures of past knowledge.”

There is, to me, a special quality that the physical connection to artifacts of history offers. The first document I examined for the class was a Quaker anti-slavery book printed by Benjamin Franklin in 1762, a little over a decade before the outbreak of the American Revolution. I also read a letter penned by William Seward between 1838 and 1839. An up-and-coming politician at the time, he would successfully negotiate the purchase of Alaska in 1867, some three decades later. Holding these documents made the experience of reading the texts immersive, and some of my peers seem to agree.

“It’s really interesting to experience history physically,” says Nakakura, “and it’s fascinating to think that the oils from my fingers are now a part of a two-hundred-year-old artifact, no matter how residual.”

“I think it’s a great way to expose us to the first-hand work of historians,” adds Ethan Liang ’26, a history major from Northville, Mich., “which is looking at the original evidence of the time period we’re studying and seeing people’s thoughts, debates, and lived experiences.”

He adds that being able to “see for ourselves” makes the experience more deeply engaging.

But a direct investigation of the texts also gives us a look into what its writers thought, inviting us to think critically about how they viewed the world around them. And it is this skill that Dorsey ultimately hopes students develop.

“I hope students who take this course will become better critical thinkers about past human experiences, with all their existing nuance and complexity,” he says, “so they can engage with their own contemporary world with the same critical analytical skills.”

History 5A complicates familiar stories of America I heard and learned while growing up in the

U.S. — stories of being a city on a hill, a country founded on the pure principles of freedom and equality under God, and a nation that grew and expanded peaceably from humble roots. In this class, those stories weren’t necessarily dismissed. Rather, we were encouraged to examine to what extent they’re true. A dizzying carousel at times, it challenged the comfortable simplification of the story of America. And like my peers, I inevitably found myself appreciating the refraction of the American story into directions new to me — directions that otherwise would have been left unseen.

Read more profiles of life-changing courses from Swarthmore students.