Fighting the Mob, Welcoming Mobs

Michael S. Green

Today thousands of Las Vegans and tourists will line up to go to a museum, thanks to Senator Estes

Frank Costello testifying before the Kefauver Committee, 1951.

Kefauver of Tennessee; a mayor who used to represent mobsters; and federal officials who proved more Las Vegan than Las Vegans.

The National Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement, known as the Mob Museum, opened in Las Vegas on February 14, 2012, on a carefully chosen date: the anniversary of the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. In 1929, in Chicago, Al Capone’s hoodlums executed several members of the gangs led by Scarface’s rival, Bugs Moran. The museum has the wall, complete with bullet holes and bloodstains.

Las Vegas seems like a logical place for this museum, since casino operators associated with the mob built and ran many of the resorts that dotted the Strip from the 1940s into the 1980s. Many continue to think it all began with Bugsy Siegel—or perhaps Warren Beatty—opening the Flamingo in 1946. Although the idea was somebody else’s, Siegel took over the construction and proved to be a lousy businessman, and he died before his dream had become a profit center for his mob-associated investors.

Remembering World War I in the Northeast of England

Randall Stephens

The Response by Sir William
Goscombe John. Unveiled by
the Prince of Wales in 1923.

Ernest Hemingway didn't mince words.  The author of A Farewell to Arms claimed that World War I "was the most colossal, murderous, mismanaged butchery that has ever taken place on earth. Any writer who said otherwise lied. So the writers either wrote propaganda, shut up, or fought."  Seeing the ravages of war up close, he served with distinction as an ambulance driver in Italy.  Gertrude Stein coined the phrase "lost generation," which applied to Hemingway and other wayward souls like T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, and F. Scott Fitzgerald.

What accounts for the gap between Hemingway's tone and the gallant, heroic one of war memorials?  Did region have a role to play in war remembrance?  How do we make sense of the conflict now that the last veterans have passed away?

As we near the 100th anniversary of the start of World War I Don Yerxa has been conducting a series of interviews on the subject in the pages of Historically Speaking.  Watch for other essays, forums, and interviews in the coming months.

Here at Northumbria University my colleague in the History Programme, James McConnel has put together a stellar series of lectures to commemorate the war in the northeast of England.  This region responded in greater numbers, per capita, than any other.  So, the memories of the war take on a special meaning here.  Below is the full list of the lectures and the dates.

American Pickers: An Appreciation

Jonathan Rees

Most of the history professors I know refuse to admit that they ever watch the History Channel, but I’ve become hooked on one show in particular. The concept of American Pickers couldn’t be simpler. The program features Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz as they travel across the country, looking for antiques to stock in their two “Antique Archeology” stores (located in LeClaire, Iowa, and Nashville, Tennessee). Sometimes they get calls from the home office telling them where to go, sometimes they go “free-styling.” That means walking up to

houses with lots of old cars or advertising signs out front and asking if they can look around. When they find something they like, negotiations begin. Often, at the end of the episode, a particularly mysterious item gets appraised to see how much the guys will profit from it if they can sell it at market price.

Obviously, the concept owes something of a debt to Antiques Roadshow, but the reason I like this show much better is the obvious enthusiasm that these guys have for all the objects that they’re selling. The “contestants” on Roadshow generally only want to know about their items to figure out how much money they can make, but Mike and Frank can get incredibly excited over objects for aesthetic reasons alone, whether they end up buying them for their stores or not. Even if you’ll never make any money from what’s stuffed inside your garage, you can’t help but feel the thrill when they discover “rusty gold” of all kinds. I expected to see car parts and motorcycles when I started watching, but I’ve also learned more about toys, bicycles, beer, petroliana (see the clip above if you don’t recognize the term)—even surfing—than I ever thought possible. Mike and Frank learn as they go so that they can spot diamonds in the rough on later journeys, and you can’t help but learn with them.

The Meaning of “When”

Aaron Astor

I was recently asked to join a local committee to plan the centennial celebration of our local school district. The City of Maryville, Tennessee's public system was poised to commemorate its 100th anniversary in 2013 with lots of festivities and a nice, photo-filled book fleshing out the district’s long and storied past. But then the project hit a strange snag.  It came to the attention of the centennial committee chair that 2013 might not actually be the centennial of the Maryville City School system after all.

In somewhat of a panic, the chairwoman sent me an email detailing her extensive search for the “true” date of the school system’s founding. The first schoolhouse appeared in Maryville as early as 1797.  Still, 1913 was important. It was the year Tennessee passed a compulsory education law (southern states were quite late in the game).  It was also the year that Maryville High School first planned its four-year curriculum, though the first class would not graduate until 1919.  However, the state approved a “special school district”, with taxing authority, for the city as early as 1905.  And the first major schools were not built until 1911.  Adding to the confusion is the fact that there had been some semblance of schooling on the site of Maryville High School as early as 1867. Interestingly enough, it was known as the Maryville Freedmen’s Institute, and it served the relatively small ex-slave population of the county. As a final irony, the high school’s nickname is, you guessed it, the Rebels—despite the staunchly pro-Union leanings of Maryville and East Tennessee during the Civil War. The commemorative volume will surely delve into that oft-controversial piece of history.

Crowd Sourcing Public History

Heather Cox Richardson

In 1901, electrical inventor Nicholas Tesla bought 200 acres of potato field on Long Island to establish a wireless telegraphy plant. Backed with J. P. Morgan’s money, Tesla hired Stanford White to design a red brick laboratory building in what is now Shoreham, New York. Tesla’s tenure in the building was short. In 1903, creditors repossessed his equipment and the man from whom Tesla had bought the land for the laboratory sued the inventor for nonpayment of back taxes. For the next eighty years, Wardenclyffe, as the building was named, passed through the hands of a number of different companies.

Now a not-for-profit corporation dedicated to creating a regional science and technology center on eastern Long Island is trying to raise the money to restore Wardenclyffe as a science center.  But money for building new education centers is hard to come by, especially these days. So the organization has turned to crowd sourcing to raise the necessary funds.

The Wardenclyffe fund-raising film raises for me two questions. The first is why the board of directors focused the message of the film on the history of the building, rather than on the purpose of the center. Watching the film leaves a viewer with no sense of why the building is important, aside from its admittedly beautiful structural details. And yet, it seems reasonable to assume that there would be an audience for the idea that a center dedicated to spreading knowledge about science and technology among school children. So why did the directors decide to focus instead on being part of Tesla’s legacy, especially when he was only in the building so briefly?

Are historians right after all, that history matters and people think it’s cool?

The second question involves the role of crowd sourcing in public history. There is no doubt that we are in a new era. It has long been a source of frustration for organizations trying to attract grants—especially federal grants—that the success of applications often seems to depend on the political biases of the scholars the granting institution managed to dragoon onto that year’s advisory board. Crowd sourcing circumvents that problem.

In the process, crowd sourcing forces the people supporting a new project to explain to people—real people, not a blind grant panel—why their project is important enough for individuals to hand over cash to support it. This seems to me to offer a necessary spur to historians to articulate why what we do is important.

There are downsides to crowd sourcing, of course, but it seems to me to be the wave of the future. Historians had better learn how to ride it effectively.

Roundup: Exhibits, Preservation, and a Stuffed Horse

.
Steve Kastenbaum, "History amended by earliest recording of sound," CNN, February 8, 2012

(CNN) -- Thomas Edison came up with a way to play back recorded sound in 1878. But 20 years before the inventor patented the phonograph, French scientist Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville was fiddling around in his laboratory trying to come up with a way to record sound. His invention, the phonautogram, enabled him to create a visual representation of his voice.>>>

Christine Legere, "1912 capsule opens Old Abington tricentennial," Boston Globe, February 9, 2012

ABINGTON - Fifty residents from three towns that composed Abington before their late 19th-century split eagerly awaited the opening of a 100-year-old time capsule Sunday afternoon, but when the sealing wax was broken, the red twine snipped, and the brown wrapper removed, the contents were a little disappointing.

The capsule contained five programs from the weeklong 1912 celebration of “Old Abington’s’’ 200th anniversary and a handful of sepia images of buildings and local landscapes from 100 years ago, most of those familiar from copies already in possession of local historians.>>>

"Historians to uncover and preserve DC history," NECN, February 5, 2012

WASHINGTON (AP) — With its wooden sign in imperfect French advertising "frittes, ales, moules" seven days a week, Granville Moore's on H Street NE looks like any other hip gastropub. But its exposed brick and chalkboard menu of craft beers belie the tavern's rich history. In the 1950s, the Formstone row house housed the office of Granville Moore, one of the city's most respected African American doctors.>>>

Alex Garrison, "Historians help honor horse of a different era," Lawrence Journal World, February 2, 2012

Comanche, the horse that famously survived — reportedly with 20 bullet wounds — the battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876, is 150 years old. But what exactly his equine legacy should be so many years later is still being debated.

A commemorative event in Kansas University’s Dyche Hall on Thursday acknowledged all sides. Historians spoke about how the beloved horse came to KU, how he was heavily restored in 2005 and how the community so fascinated by him should process its interest with reverence for the lives lost at Little Bighorn and other battles.>>>

Horrible Histories

Randall Stephens

Pillaging and plundering. Murder and torture. Soldiers gassed in the trenches. Kings and Queens behaving badly. Those are some of the many things you'll see on the BBC hit TV show Horrible Histories. The program is fittingly hosted by a rat puppet.

Its so popular with kids and parents that it's spawned a play, "colouring" books, and more. I'm hooked after seeing just a little of it with my god daughter here in the UK. (Watch the Four Georges boy-band sketch here.)

And in addition, the play, TV show, and the books all teach some fun lessons about the past. Jonathan Jones writes in the Guardian:

One sketch in the CBBC series concerns communications in ancient Rome. The Romans send messages by writing them on a tablet and sending them along the Roman roads by a network called Tabellari Messenger. That is, a slave takes the verbal message – complete with the requisite smilies – to its recipient. An adult needs to watch this twice to get all the references to BlackBerry Messenger. Of course, some might point to this system's alleged use in this summer's British riots. Perhaps that was all the fault of Horrible Histories.

But I doubt it: kids addicted to this programme would be more likely to be trying to memorise a song that names all the monarchs of England since William the Conqueror (one that should make the Tories happy there!) or collecting the full series of original books from Savage Stone Age to Blitzed Brits. Although it's impossible to achieve that goal because Deary keeps adding to them, endlessly spinning new variants on a winning formula. Only when he runs out of gruesome "R" words will he be done with the Romans – you can already get both Rotten Romans and Ruthless Romans.

I have wondered if the show's premise and popularity comes from Brits' happy pessimism, there comic dark streak. (Think for a moment of Monty Python or one of England's greatest poets, Philip Larkin, who famously said: "Deprivation is for me what daffodils were for Wordsworth.")

I doubt something like Horrible Histories would fly in the US. Too much celebratory and triumphant history dominates the popular view. But I certainly can see some great episodes based on robber barons, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, anti-communism, Henry Ford, slavery, and more!

Class Project Part 2: Moswetuset Hummock

Randall Stephens

About a year and a half ago I worked with students in my Critical Reading in History Class to create a history resource website for the Josiah Quincy House (a beautiful, well-preserved home, built in 1770 and just about a block from our main campus.) The work paid off. I blogged about it here and here. The local paper, the Patriot Ledger, even ran a full-page color story on it, interviewing me and the students. What's even better . . . that story in the paper, and our website, greatly boosted attendance at the historic home the summer after the semester ended.

This fall, with a new crop of students in the same class, we mulled over ideas for a similar project. We considered doing a website resource for a couple sites that no longer exist (the Quincy National Sailors Home and the Quincy Family Mansion, which used to grace our campus.) We also thought about doing a project on another old house in town (the Dorothy Quincy Homestead.)

In the end they chose to do their project on the Moswetuset Hummock, a patch of land/outcropping on a hill north of Wollaston beach. "Moswetuset," writes junior Austin Steelman, who took a lead on the project, means "'shaped like an arrowhead,' was the name of the Moswetuset or Massachusett Native American tribe from which the Commonwealth of Massachuesetts derives its name. The thickly-wooded hill was the summer seat of the tribe’s Sachem Chickatabot because of its view of the surrounding area and proximity to the bay, salt marshes, and the Blue Hills. It was here that Chickatabot met with Myles Standish of the Plymouth Colony in 1621 as the colonists began their early trade with the Indians."

This was quite a different project from the website we created for the Josiah Quincy House. Materials on the Hummock were much more spare. It was more challenging for them to find materials through Google Books, JSTOR, or just on the shelves of our library. Yet the students were certainly up to the challenge. They took photos and videos of the site. They collected maps, prints, and put together an extensive bibliography. Alex Foran, a journalism major, interviewed James Cameron, an emeritus professor of history here who has written extensively on local history and has done some work on the Moswetuset Hummock. A couple of the students made a pilgrimage to the Quincy Historical Society to gather maps and prints and to ask some good questions. While there they discovered a manuscript on the hummock that was written by none other than prof Cameron! With Cameron's blessing that MS is now on the site as a pdf.

Once again, this class effort was well worth it. I'm glad I got over my initial skepticism about group projects. Students seem to learn a great deal about research, hunting down evidence, and how best to present that to the broader public.

Historical Society Conference, 2012

Randall Stephens

December 1, 2011 seems far, far away. But, it will be upon us before we know it. That date marks the deadline for panel and individual paper submissions for the Historical Society's 2012 conference: "Popularizing Historical Knowledge: Practice, Prospects, and Perils," Columbia, SC, Thursday, May 31st - Saturday, June 2nd, 2012. Here's the CFP:

Professional historians in the United States are increasingly being called upon to produce more “popular,” more accessible history. How do and how should academic historians reach popular audiences? How and to what extent is “popular” history written around the world? Does the meaning of and audience for “popular history” vary from place to place? Along with professional historians, states, elites, and a variety of interest groups have long had an interest in sponsoring, supporting, and generating historical knowledge for popular and other audiences. We seek paper and panel proposals that will consider “popular” history in its various guises and locales. How and to what extent is the interest in “popular” history genuinely new? How do and how should historians interact with television and movie production or write op-ed pieces or blogs or serve as expert witnesses? Is there such a thing as a truly “popular” history? Do we need a distinctive “popular” history and are historians properly equipped to write it?

Please submit proposals (brief abstract and brief CV) by December 1, 2011 to Mark Smith and Dean Kinzley, 2012 Program Chairs, at jslucas@bu.edu

I was thinking about the main theme and wondering about some ideas for panels. . . .

"Writing Popular History for the General Public"; "Public History and the Public Historian"; "How Journalists Write History Bestsellers"; "Can Late Antique History Reach a Large Audience?"; "Popular History in the 1950s, Popular History in the 2000s"; "Howard Zinn and David McCullough: A Consideration of the Politics of Popular History"; "The Rise and Fall and Rise of Biographical History"; "Reenactors of the World Unite: What Professional Historians Can Learn from Living History Buffs"; "How Will Writing Popular History Shape Your Career?"; "The State of Popular Digital History"; "How Not to Write Popular History"; "PBS's American Experience and TV History"; "The Career of Ken Burns." The list could go on and on!

4th of July Roundup

.
Jim Cullen, "The Declaration of Independence and the American Dream," HNN, June 29, 2011

"America is a young country," people sometimes say. What they really seem to mean is: "the United States is a young nation." Such a statement makes some sense if one thinks of a political entity that came into existence circa July 4, 1776. It makes less sense when one considers that the Constitution that followed about a dozen years later is the oldest written functioning one in the world. Compared with a traditional nation-state like France or Spain, sure—the United States is a young nation, even if France has had a few republics since then.>>>

"American civil war re-enactment in South Yorkshire - in pictures," Guardian, July 4, 2011

Enthusiasts from all walks of life took part in re-enacting scenes from the American Civil War and in 'living history' events in the grounds of Cusworth Hall, near Doncaster, which are as authentic as possible.>>>

Peter Rothberg, "What Is Patriotism," Nation, July 1, 2011

The first sentence of The Nation's prospectus, dated July 6, 1865, promised "the maintenance and diffusion of true democratic principles in society and government," surely a patriotic sentiment, as was the magazine's name.

Since that time The Nation has attempted to represent and give voice to the best of American values and culture and has steadfastly resisted all efforts through the years to brand dissent as unpatriotic.>>>

Amy Bingham, "Almost a Fourth of Americans Do Not Know When the U.S. Declared Independence," ABC News, July 4, 2011

American Fourth of July traditions are tightly woven into the fabric of U.S. society, but the history of the country’s independence seems to have slipped through the seams.

A Marist poll released Friday shows that only 58 percent of Americans know when the country declared independence. Nearly a fourth of respondents said they were unsure and sixteen percent said a date other than 1776, when the Declaration of Independence was signed.>>>

Brian Handwerk, "Fourth of July: Nine Myths Debunked," National Geographic, July 4, 2011

Many time-honored patriotic tales turn out to be more fiction than fact. On the Fourth of July—today marked by a continent-spanning Google doodle—here's a look at some memorable myths from the birth of the United States.>>>

The National Park Service Takes an Expansive Look at the Civil War

.
Today's timely guest post comes from Todd Arrington, a history Ph.D. candidate at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. His dissertation looks at Civil War-era Republicans.

Todd Arrington

The 150th anniversary of the Civil War began on April 12 with a ceremony at Fort Sumter National Monument in South Carolina. Fort Sumter was, of course, the site of the war’s first military engagement. Today, the National Park Service (NPS) administers Fort Sumter, along with more than 75 other Civil War-related sites. These locations will all be very busy over the next four years as America commemorates the sesquicentennial of its most traumatic event.

When the nation celebrated the Civil War’s 100th anniversary in 1961-65, visitors to NPS sites like Manassas, Shiloh, Antietam, Gettysburg, Vicksburg, and others learned a great deal about Civil War strategy and tactics. Park Rangers regaled them with tales of forced marches, frontal assaults, and unbelievable acts of valor. However, because “Lost Cause” ideology still dominated popular interpretation of the war, visitors did not learn why Northerners and Southerners had taken up arms in the first place. Difficult conversations about race, slavery, emancipation, and civil rights were taking place in academic circles (and increasingly on the evening news), but the National Park Service did not engage the public on these issues at Civil War battlefields and historic sites.

Over the past decade or so, the NPS has drastically changed how it interprets the Civil War. In 1999, Illinois Congressman Jesse Jackson, Jr., initiated a movement to require the Service to “interpret the unique role that slavery played in the cause of the conflict” at all Civil War sites. Not long after, David W. Blight published his brilliant and influential 2001 book Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory (Belknap Press of Harvard University Press). This volume examines how and why the slavery issue was pushed to the background by postwar Northerners and Southerners alike and makes it clear that a narrative of “soldierly valor” that completely ignored slavery’s role in causing the war dominated Civil War history for decades. This at least partially explains why Rangers at NPS sites were so good at interpreting army maneuvers but completely ignored the issues that led to those very maneuvers ever being necessary.

Congressman Jackson’s initiative and Professor Blight’s book caused a fundamental re-thinking of how the NPS presents the Civil War era’s history to visitors. Today, the agency seems determined to avoid the mistakes of 1961-65. Those interested in the military history of the war still find much to excite them at NPS Civil War sites. However, Park Ranger interpretive programs also now deal with the issues that led to war. In other words, today slavery is openly examined, discussed, and debated at NPS sites. Understanding why the nation went to war with itself—and what the war’s stakes truly were—can only increase visitor appreciation of these sites and, ultimately, the sacrifices made upon those fields.

The NPS has just published a new official commemorative handbook for the 150th anniversary. Titled The Civil War Remembered, the book’s contents page makes it clear that this is not your father’s (or grandfather’s) Civil War history. Noted historians have contributed essays on nearly every aspect of the war itself as well as the pre- and post-war periods. James McPherson provides the Introduction; James Oliver Horton writes on “Confronting Slavery and Revealing the ‘Lost Cause.’” Ira Berlin tackles “Race in the Civil War Era,” while Allen C. Guelzo looks at “Emancipation and the Quest for Freedom.” Essays on the experiences of women, civilians, and the Border States appear. The war’s impact of westward expansion, industry, and economy are explained. Eric Foner contributes on “Reconstruction,” Drew Gilpin Faust on “Death and Dying,” and David W. Blight examines “The Civil War in American Memory.” Those still fascinated by the war’s military history will enjoy “The Military Experience” by Carol Reardon.

By publishing such an eclectic set of essays by noted scholars of the Civil War era, the NPS has demonstrated its commitment to a better understanding of the full scope of the era. This has not been done at the expense of interpreting military history; rather, the agency’s willingness to examine not only how the North and South conducted the war but also its causes only adds to a better public understanding of the war and its complicated legacy.

Humor in History

Heather Cox Richardson

In an era when an escaped cobra can tweet from New York’s tourist destinations, and
students have explored the dark genius of Martin Van Buren (embedded below) I guess it was only a matter of time until President Lincoln, Galileo, and Darwin showed up on Facebook.

The good news is that this is circulating widely among our students, that the jokes highlight central themes in history, and that you have to have a decent understanding of these events to understand the jokes.

It also highlights that humor is not a bad way for historians to reach an audience. For a generation, historians have taken their work—and themselves—Very Seriously. Studying history is Work, we seem to be saying.

But there’s plenty of room for play in what we do, as Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., made clear when he described Henry Ford:

He carried a gun, believed in reincarnation, and hated bankers, doctors, Jews, Catholics, fat men, liquor, tobacco, prisons and capital punishment. His impulses were vagrant and confused, and too often he acted on them. In 1916 he had sent the Peace Ship to Europe in order to end the First World War; in 1918, at Woodrow Wilson’s personal request, he was a Democratic candidate for the United States Senate; and in 1920 he began to

publish the Protocols of the Elders of Zion in the Dearborn Independent. He believed always that God was with him: ‘I’m guided,’ he told his friends, pointing to his head. ‘I’m guided.’ (The Crisis of the Old Order, p. 73).

How could you ever forget Henry Ford’s foibles after reading Schlesinger’s tongue-in-cheek description?

Then there’s my favorite paragraph ever in a history book, from George E. Hyde’s A Sioux Chronicle. It’s about Indian Agent Valentine McGillycuddy, just after he took a position at the Pine Ridge Agency in Dakota Territory:

In both speaking and writing, McGillycuddy had a most effective style: terse, biting, and at times highly humorous. When engaged in one of his innumerable feuds, he simply diffused haughtiness, scorn, and ridicule in every direction, assailing his opponents with a vigor and variety of language that generally left them speechless and aghast. Even in his official reports he displayed an originality in phrase and treatment that made his writing stand out in marked contrast with the dull and plodding compositions of the other Sioux agents. In his very first report we find this:

Through carelessness or design, and directly against the orders of the Interior Department, this agency was, in the fall of 1878, located in the southwest corner of Dakota, within 1 ¾ miles of the Nebraska line, so that when I assumed charge here in 1879 we were furnished with the luxuries and accommodations of civilization by having a well supplied whisky ranch in full blast, almost within gunshot of the agency, which forced the agent to add the labor of coroner and undertaker to his other duties by making periodical trips into Nebraska to gather up dead Indians and half-breeds, killed in drunken quarrels.

This single sentence produced an uproar, certain Indian Office officials considered that the first four words aspersed their honor, while wrathful Nebraska frontier editors commented bitterly on this agent’s false statements concerning the activities of the citizenry on the Pine Ridge border. McGillycuddy did not care. He adored a fight (p. 33).

In this one short description, Hyde managed to sum up McGillycuddy, his autocratic style, the fights he would have with, well, everyone, and to give a picture of the troubled life on the reservation.

There’s a reason Abraham Lincoln made his points through funny stories. It is, perhaps, no wonder that his followers have taken to Facebook.

Presenting History to the Broader Public

Morgan Hubbard

One of Heather's posts from December got me thinking about the challenges of presenting history visually. As a public historian I'm interested in narrowing the gulf that exists between professional historians and the broad reading public. Part of this job involves thinking about how we've always presented our arguments about the past—and how we might make those presentations more engaging, more memorable, and better suited to the twenty-first century.

A historian who wants both job security and to teach people about important things might find herself pulled in different directions. Tenure committees want to see specialized monographs best suited to university libraries, books that expand the boundaries of what we know. The emphasis in these works is on mastery of the subject and relevant historiography, exhaustive research, and a style that puts the book's conclusion first. But the general-interest reader is interested in the story, not what other historians have said about it, and tends to want a narrative that is plotted and paced more than a conclusion that is delivered up front. (I understand these are gross stereotypes and that real life is more complicated, but my goal is just to sketch the outlines of the problem.)

There's no simple way to resolve this tension, but it seems to me we can start to address the problem by conceiving of our projects from the outset as both scholarship and storytelling. Easier said than done, I know. One way to start is by capitalizing on the power of the internet to relay information visually. This doesn't mean “dumbing down” the historical analysis we produce and present. But it does mean realizing that some historical processes are best expressed visually and dynamically. Traditional books can't give us that. But the web can.

One of my projects this semester is a statistical analysis of the ways that themes in American science fiction changed between 1945 and 1965. I'm sampling about a thousand science fiction stories from three of the major English-language science fiction magazines (Amazing Stories, Astounding Science-Fiction, and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.) After I read each story, I classify it according to a taxonomy of themes, “tagging” the story with as many themes as it takes to approximate its content and tone. When the data set is complete, I'll display it visually, in a short animation that will condense 20 years of historical change into about a minute.

I could use the results of my statistical analysis to write a report that shows how science fiction changed in the first two decades of the Cold War. But if I do a good job, the animation will accomplish the same task more intuitively, in less time, and with more panache. Die-hard fans might read a written report, sure, but most of the people I know wouldn't want to sit down with twenty-five pages of explication and graphs. But picture this: the story of science fiction's evolution, demonstrated instead of merely described, in colors that draw the eye and with an aesthetic that echoes the vintage science fiction in question.

This project isn't guaranteed to work. But if it does, I think it will be good public history.

Roundup: Historians

Neal Ascherson, "Liquidator," London Review of Books, August 19, 2010.

Seven years after his death, Hugh Trevor-Roper’s reputation is still a cauldron of discord. He would have enjoyed that. Steaming in the mix are the resentments of those he expertly wounded, the awe of colleagues at the breadth and depth of his learning, dismay at his serial failures to complete a full-length work of history, delight in the Gibbonian wit and elegance of his writing and – still a major ingredient – Schadenfreude over his awful humiliation in the matter of the Hitler diaries. >>>

"Cambridge University connects communities with Domesday," news.bbc.co.uk, August 10, 2010.

When William the Conqueror wanted to consolidate his power over his new English subjects he created the Domesday Book.

It was a comprehensive list of who owned all property and livestock.

Now Cambridge University historians have digitised the information in an interactive website.

"It's possible for anyone to do in a few seconds what it has taken scholars weeks to achieve," said Dr Stephen Baxter, a co-director of the project.

PASE Domesday was launched on 10 August 2010 and is the result of collaboration between scholars from Cambridge University and King's College, London.

Tax collection?

The Domesday Book was collated between 1085 and 1086.

Most historians believe it is some sort of tax book for raising revenue.

Dr Baxter, a medieval historian from King's College, London, has a different theory.

He argues its real purpose was to confer revolutionary new powers on King William.

"The inquest generated some pretty useful tax schedules," he explained. "But the book gave him something altogether more powerful." >>>

Daniel Hernandez, "Mayas protest monument to Spanish conquistadors," La Plaza, LA Times blogs, August 11, 2010.

The city of Merida on Mexico's Yucatan peninsula is reviewing a petition to remove a recently built public monument to the city's colonial founder, a figure whom some indigenous Mayas regard as a violent conquistador. The municipal government accepted the petition from a coalition of Mayan organizations to reconsider the monument and statues depicting Francisco de Montejo, known as "El Adelantado," and his son, also named Francisco and known as "El Mozo." The younger Montejo established Merida in 1542, on the site of the former Maya city of T'ho. >>>

"Tony Judt, Historian And Author, Dies At 62," NPR, August 8, 2010.

Much to his presumed irritation, historian Tony Judt, who died on Friday, might be remembered for one word: anachronism.

That's what he called the idea of a Jewish state in Israel in a widely read essay in the New York Review of Books. But Tony Judt was, first and foremost, an intellectual historian.

His book Postwar, about the history of Europe after 1945, became an instant classic. And he made it his mission to try to unpack the nuances of 20th-century history. >>>

Faye Fiore, "Guardians of the nation's attic," Los Angeles Times, August 8, 2010.

When Paul Brachfeld took over as inspector general of the National Archives, guardian of the country's most beloved treasures, he discovered the American people were being stolen blind.

The Wright Brothers 1903 Flying Machine patent application? Gone.

A copy of the Dec. 8, 1941 "Day of Infamy" speech autographed by Franklin D. Roosevelt and tied with a purple ribbon? Gone. >>>

History for the Public, or, Does the Center Hold?

Randall Stephens

NYU professor of history Thomas Bender's engaging on-line essay, "Historians in Public," at the SSRC has been making the rounds. He notes the worries of historians and social scientists, who think "that academic intellect has turned inward, cutting itself off from a role in public life."

Says Bender: "In the 1980s and 1990s instead of talk about and inquiry into “the public,” there was talk of publics, alternative publics, counter-publics, a black public sphere, and more. The list got pretty long, but the public dissolved in this otherwise invaluable historiography of the 1980s and 1990s. There was no United States. History was all parts, no whole. Bookstores organized American history by these identity-driven markets, often with no place for general histories. The challenge not taken up was how to narrate a whole made up of diverse and unequal parts. . . . Historians must bring the state back into relation to society, and along the way they need to rediscover the public. It will be, however, very different from [w]hat the early AHA . . . had in mind. And historians must make themselves a part of that public."

Unlike earlier calls for a unified history, this doesn't sound like a canon shot on the battlefield of the culture war. Though Bender's recommendations do bare some resemblance to those the late Arthur Schlesinger made in his 1991/1998 The Disuniting of America: Reflections on a Multicultural Society. Schlesinger's polemic makes what Bender writes look almost tame, though. And, of course, Schlesinger was writing about the nature and function of American identity.

Here's Schlesinger: "[P]ressed too far, the cult of ethnicity has had bad consequences too. The new ethnic gospel rejects the unifying vision of individuals from all nations melted into a new race. Its underlying philosophy is that America is not a nation of individuals at all but a nation of groups, that ethnicity is the defining experience for Americans, that ethnic ties are permanent and indelible, and that division into ethnic communities establishes the basic structure of American society and the basic meaning of American history." (Disuniting of America, 20-21.)

Follow up on Josiah Quincy House Class Project

Randall Stephens

About a month back I posted here on a fruitful class project I undertook with undergraduates. Since then the local paper, the Patriot Ledger, has done two stories on the resource website we created for the Josiah Quincy House. (As we worked on the JQ House website we tracked down loads of digital sources, included an extensive bibliography, along with photos, maps, illustrations, and a video interview.) Jack Encarnacao, a reporter for the paper, met with me, museums operations manager Leah Walczak, and the students at the Quincy home. A photographer snapped some shots as well. Fun stuff. I post here excerpts from the Ledger articles:

Jack Encarnacao, "Josiah Quincy House Comes to Life on Eastern Nazarene College Class Website," Patriot Ledger, June 3, 2010.

QUINCY — Professor Randall Stephens' class at Eastern Nazarene College studied the Josiah Quincy House in Wollaston, one of the city’s lower-key but significant historic sites. The home was built in 1770 by Revolutionary War colonel Josiah Quincy, son of Col. John Quincy, after whom the city is named.

The fruit of the class’s research – skimmed from Library of Congress archives, journals and maps – is on display at a Web site the students created: enc.edu/history/jq.

Stephens said he was pleasantly surprised at how evocative the house was to students, and the extent to which they were motivated to dig for nuggets of interesting Quincy history. Much of the historical information about the house comes from Eliza Susan Quincy, who in the 1880s kept journals, inventoried the contents of the house and commissioned photographs of its interior. She wrote about how Josiah Quincy had stood on the residence’s roof to monitor troop movements in Boston Harbor early in the American Revolution. >>>

Jack Encarnacao, "Renewed Interest in Josiah Quincy House Prompts More Tours," Patriot Ledger, June 13, 2010.

QUINCY — After a larger than expected turnout for last Saturday’s tour of the Josiah Quincy House, Historic New England is offering several more opportunities for the public to check out the historic home in Wollaston.

More than 100 people showed up for the free tours last week. The house is at 20 Muirhead St. and is usually open to the public only once or twice a year. . . .

Leah Walczak, Historic New England’s museum operations manager, said tours were added because of renewed interest in the site tied to recent publicity of a class project website built by students at Eastern Nazarene College which is also in the Wollaston section of Quincy. >>>

History on the Air

This will come as no news to many, but a relatively new radio show features the talents of three prominent historians.

What a terrific way to get the larger public to think historically. The summary from the website runs:

BackStory is a brand-new public radio program that brings historical perspective to the events happening around us today. On each show, renowned U.S. historians Ed Ayers, Peter Onuf, and Brian Balogh tear a topic from the headlines and plumb its historical depths. Over the course of the hour, they are joined by fellow historians, people in the news, and callers interested in exploring the roots of what’s going on today. Together, they drill down to colonial times and earlier, revealing the connections (and disconnections) between past and present. With its passionate, intelligent, and irreverent approach, BackStory is fun and essential listening no matter who you are.

See also this interesting piece on the History Guys that appeared in the Chronicle, Jeffrey R. Young, Drive-Time History, With a Dry Sense of Humor, 20 July 2009.

National Park Service, the New American Revolution Center, and Bruce Cole

Randall Stephens

Wilfred McClay has alerted us to a new National Park Service initiative under Bruce Cole's leadership (more below). The Historical Society is proud to announce the appointment of Cole to its Board of Governors. Cole, who served as chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities from 2001 to 2008, presently serves as the president and chief executive officer of The American Revolution Center. During his tenure at the NEH, he launched a number of programs to improve the teaching of history and the humanities, including We the People and Picturing America. Cole is distinguished professor emeritus of comparative literature at Indiana University.

The National Park Service has issued the following news release just in time for the fourth!

AMERICAN REVOLUTION CENTER WORKS WITH NATIONAL PARK SERVICE TO RELOCATE TO HISTORIC PHILADELPHIA

PHILADELPHIA – July 1, 2009 – Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar and the American Revolution Center (ARC) today announced that the National Park Service (NPS) has reached a historic agreement to develop a national museum dedicated to the American Revolution. The National Park Service signed a land-exchange agreement with ARC to establish this museum at Independence National Historical Park.

“This is wonderful news for both the National Park Service and the American Revolution Center,” said Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar. “Visitors to our Nation’s birthplace will now be able to enjoy a world-class museum dedicated to the story of the American Revolution within the shadow of Independence Hall.”

The new American Revolution Center will be located at 3rd and Chestnut Streets in downtown Philadelphia, within the 55-acre park. In exchange for the site, the National Park Service will receive a 78-acre parcel of private land owned by the Center within the boundary of Valley Forge National Historical Park.

“The American Revolution Center is a critical project for our Nation, and I am extremely pleased with this latest development,” said H.F. “Gerry” Lenfest, Chairman of the Board of Directors of ARC. "We have expended extraordinary time and resources to locate the Center in Valley Forge, and I believe that our vision there could have been achieved. We now believe that it is in our best interest to begin a new chapter for ARC, and I cannot think of a more appropriate setting than at Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia.”

At Independence National Historical Park, the National Park Service manages several sites associated with the American Revolution, including the Liberty Bell Center, the National Constitution Center and Independence Hall. ARC will work together with these and other institutions around the country and the world to further the understanding of the American Revolution.

The American Revolution Center will be the first national museum to commemorate the entire story of the American Revolution. The museum will display its distinguished collection of objects, artifacts and manuscripts from the American Revolution era and will offer educational programming, lectures, symposia, and interactive learning for teachers, students, and the general public.

“I applaud the mission of The American Revolution Center and fully support the decision to relocate,” said Governor Edward G. Rendell. “I am thrilled that Gerry Lenfest, Dr. Bruce Cole and ARC’s Board have selected Philadelphia, Pennsylvania for the new home of this national museum and I believe it will be a terrific complement to Independence National Historical Park area.”

“The National Park Service has long supported the concept of The American Revolution Center,” said Dan Wenk, acting NPS Director. “What better place than Philadelphia, the ‘cradle of liberty’ for a museum about the American Revolution.”

“This is a promising time for The American Revolution Center,” said Dr. Bruce Cole, ARC’s new president and chief executive officer. “We are committed to the creation of a living memorial to the American Revolution. We look forward to developing a museum to commemorate the legacy of the American Revolution in our Nation’s birthplace.”

Representatives from The American Revolution Center and the National Park Service will work jointly on appraisals, title searches, surveys, and other matters to move the land exchange process forward as quickly as possible.

About The American Revolution Center:

The American Revolution Center (ARC) will establish the first national museum to commemorate the entire story of the American Revolution. The Museum will display its distinguished collection of objects, artifacts and manuscripts from the American Revolution era and will offer programming, lectures, symposia, and interactive learning for teachers, students, and the general public.