Steve Goddard's History Wire

Book Alert / Selling the Race

Selling the Race -- Culture, Community, and Black Chicago, 1940-1955 by Adam Green, Chicago UPress '06, $35, 280 pages, ISBN #0-226-30641-0. Index, source notes, no bibliography, b&w images sprinkled through text.

Fifteen years ago, Nicholas Lemann's book The Promised Land chronicled the "great migration" of African-Americans north from rural Mississippi and environs to urban Chicago. After the tragedy of Southern slavery and the disappointment of Reconstruction, resettlement to a new place carried with it the hope for a better life.

But, as NYU historian Adam Green tells us the Chicago community at large had other concerns: "Could (blacks) master the time-clock of the routinized workday? Could they retain familial coherence? Were they capable of educational achievement? Could they improve their surrounding environment?" In short, could they successfully adapt to a reasonably prosperous urban setting?

As Green describes, Chicago blacks during the era of World War II and its aftermath "did more than survive the twentieth-century city: they initiated and appropriated its core conventions, thereby revising their terms of engagement with American society." Their essential task, as the book's title suggests, was to communicate and market their blackness to a majoritarian white society largely ignorant of the race. How well they would do this would help presage race relations in the second half of the 20th century.

Among the individuals and institutions that stride through Green's narrative are Mahalia Jackson, The Chicago Defender, Gwendolyn Brooks, Lena Horne, Muddy Waters, and the American Negro Exposition.

Book Alert / What Would the Founders Do?

What Would the Founders Do? by Richard Brookhiser. Basic Books '06, 261 pages,  ISBN 100465008194.  Index, bibliography, end notes, and, uniquely, a list of Founderblogs.

                                                     BY REV. GORDON S. BATES

       Richard Brookhiser, spinning off the “What would Jesus Do?” formula of evangelical fame, has produced a readable volume.  His literary experience in producing biographies of Washington, Hamilton and the Adams family as well as his writings for the National Review Magazine informed this latest effort. 

        By posing a series of questions he fielded after numerous speaking engagements, Brookhiser presents a running dialogue with numerous founders on issues such contemporary issues as taxation, capital punishment, welfare and environmental concerns. The method yields a much more personal view of the various founders.  It also permits Brookhiser to highlight the ways in which their 18^th century situations compared to our own. 
        That Alexander Hamilton survived a hurricane as a boy is cited to explain his later policy that governments should move with energy to protect its populations.  Thomas Jefferson had to deal with combative Moslem groups in North Africa, but neither assisted suicide nor stem cell research were visible in colonial times.  Most founders rejected a state religion, and many were only marginally Christian, but almost all expected the nation to be religious in a peaceful way.   They apparently disagreed about the power of the judiciary and were more concerned about what kind of democracy America should develop than about spreading the concept overseas.

        The weakness of the book is that it is more entertaining than educative, more speculative than informative.   More often than not, the topical answers given quote only one or two founders and rarely provide a sustained discussion about whether the founders can provide any real guidance in today’s world.  

        In the end, the founders, with all their brilliance and amazing talents, are distinguished above all by their ordinariness. Their dedication was often undermined by their pride, their common sense pragmatism by their political pettiness, and their farsightedness by their provincialism.   In other words, they were very much like every other successive generation which has to figure out what binds the United States together, what kind of nation we want to be, and how we shall use our power and resources.    

Collector Sues African-American Museum for Damage to Materials

New York Times:

"For more than two decades, Gregory J. Reed, an entertainment lawyer in Detroit, has been collecting materials that document African-American history. His ultimate goal, he says, is to put the materials to work in educational exhibits. But an early foray into lending his collection turned litigious last month when his foundation sued the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit, accusing it of damaging 15 sheets from unpublished portions of Alex Haley’s original manuscript of 'The Autobiography of Malcolm X.'

"The documents, which were on display at the museum for about five years starting in 1997, went from white to brownish-yellow, and have a white stripe from the band holding them down, Mr. Reed said. He wants the museum to reimburse him $168,000 for loss in value to the documents, which were appraised at $285,000 before the loan.

"The museum disputes its responsibility for the damage, said Mark Shreve, a lawyer for the museum. But, he said, if a payment is to be made, the documents should be restored first and then a determination made on whether there is any loss in value. Mr. Reed said: 'The lesson is, you take greater precautions. More people are lending out art, he said, and they “need to know the ins and outs from a business side.'"

Gettysburg, PA: Should It Be A Preserve America Community?

EveningSun.com:

"Gettysburg organizations are looking into applying for grant money a White House preservation program has made them eligible for. First Lady Laura Bush announced earlier this month that Gettysburg had been designated as a Preserve America Community and is eligible for incentives to preserve cultural and natural heritage resources.

"Gettysburg applied for the distinction along with six other Pennsylvania communities, including Hanover, under the Pennsylvania Civil War Trails: Prelude to Gettysburg Initiative. 'Preserve America communities demonstrate that they are committed to preserving America's heritage while ensuring a future filled with opportunities for learning and enjoyment,' Bush said. 'I commend Gettysburg and its leaders for their commitment to preserving an important part of our Nation's historic past for visitors, neighbors, and, most importantly, for children.'

"The program offers matching fund grants of $20,000 to $150,000 on a competitive basis to heritage tourism initiatives, promotion and marketing programs, and interpretive/educational initiatives involving historic resources. Main Street Gettysburg, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping the borough's commercial district, has already said it will pursue funds through the program in the next grant round this spring. Main Street executive director Alice Estrada said many of the group's project's fall under Preserve America guidelines for funding."

Daniel Webster Owed Much to Dartmouth College

ConcordMonitor.com:

"As an orator and advocate for national unity, no one stands higher in American history than that native of little Salisbury, Daniel Webster. Over four decades, 1810-1850, in speeches in the U.S. House and Senate, at celebrations and commemorations and in courtrooms, he was ever opposed to sectional loyalties, which were then widely popular.

"On March 7, 1850, with the battle over the abolition of slavery hot in Congress and around the states, Sen. Webster, who had moved to Massachusetts and represented that state, gave one of his dramatic speeches. 'I wish to speak today not as a Massachusetts man, nor as a northern man, but as an American and a member of the Senate of the United States. . . . I speak today for the preservation of the Union. Hear my cause.'

"In his monumental Webster biography, historian Robert V. Remini called that speech 'a statement that has echoed over the years.' Today, most Americans take unity for granted. But in Webster's time the long struggle over slavery split America into hostile camps. Born in 1782 in a modest Salisbury home, Daniel showed little promise until he began to blossom at Dartmouth. His father, Ebenezer, a small farmer and officer in the Revolution, insisted Daniel go to college. Ebenezer hadn't."

Gerry Ford: F As Inflation Fighter, A As National Healer

St. Paul Pioneer Press:

"'Gerald Ford failed to 'Whip Inflation Now' as his hapless WIN buttons proclaimed, but his presidency did provide a training ground for the ultimate inflation-tamer: Alan Greenspan. In what is considered to be one of the biggest government public relations blunders ever, Ford approved a plan soon after becoming president in August 1974 to have millions of red-and-white buttons printed up with the 'WIN' slogan on them.

"The button appealed to the Republican Ford because it put the emphasis on fighting inflation through voluntary citizen action rather than a big government bureaucracy of price controls. However, the buttons were a flop, endlessly lampooned by critics. Ford gave a series of speeches promoting his idea for voluntary efforts to control inflation such as having more Americans plant vegetable gardens, turn down their thermostats and carpool as a way of cutting down on energy use and helping to restrain prices.

"Ford had the bad luck of serving as president during one of the worst economic decades in American history short of the Great Depression of the 1930s. The country was being hit by successive oil-price shocks that sent inflation soaring and economic growth tumbling. Economists used the word 'stagflation' to describe the twin evils of stagnant job growth and surging inflation.

"During Ford's time in the White House from August 1974 until January 1977, the country was faced with a serious recession, which pushed unemployment up to a high of 8.8 percent in June 1975, and severe inflation with consumer prices rising at the double-digit rate of 12.3 percent in 1974."

Wilson Administration Shows Coverup Is Nothing New

News Leader.com:

"Television cameras readied for a national news event at the Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library on Thursday, as a record number of well-wishers filed through the museum's doors on the president's 150th birthday. An estimated 1,000 visitors strolled through the old Presbyterian manse on Coalter Street and the Dolores Lescure Center next door, about double the numbers seen for Wilson's 149th. Both buildings are opened to the public free for one day each year.

"But it wasn't the visitors that a C-SPAN camera crew was there to capture. The big news was in the attic, where researchers were unveiling a treasure trove of rare documents that chronicle a key — and largely unknown — moment in American history. 'This is a pivotal moment,' said Eric Vettel, the library's executive director, poring over a stack of letters and photos that show Wilson's closest associates attempting to cover up the president's declining health as supporters urged a third term in 1920.

"In one photo, Wilson's walking cane was airbrushed out of the picture. In a personal letter, the president's doctor, Cary Grayson, told Democrats that Wilson would be fit for a third term, even as he wrote his doubts in his personal diary on the same day."

"Please, Please, Please": Recalling James Brown's Beginnings

The New Yorker:

"Forty-seven years ago, at a radio station in Macon, Georgia, five young men stood around a microphone and sang a song. One played guitar, another played piano, but the station's recording equipment picked up the instruments so faintly that the tape they made that day is often recalled as an a-cappella performance.

"The lead singer was shorter than the others. He had to stand on an overturned Coca-Cola crate to get his mouth level with the mike. When the tape started rolling, he cried out the word 'Please' with an immensity of feeling that might, more conventionally, have been reserved for a song's climax. Then he cried out again, 'Please,' and again and again, 'Please, please,' at heartbeat intervals. With each repetition, he invested the monosyllable with a different emotional accent and stress—prayer and pride, impatience and invitation—and although there was ache in his voice, he did not sound like a man pleading so much as commanding what was rightfully his.

"After his fourth 'Please,' the rest of the group filled in softly behind him, crooning, 'Please, please don't go,' until the lead singer's colossal voice surged back over theirs: 'Please, please, please.' That was the name of the song, the same word thrice, and, like all truly original things, this song had a past to which it simultaneously paid tribute and bid adieu.

"Its genesis lay in a rearrangement of the standard 'Baby Please Don't Go,' so that the rhythmic backup line became the lead, and the melodic lead was relegated to the chorus. A simple gimmick; but, as 'Please, Please, Please' progressed, the lead singer's initial passion only intensified, and it became clear that the reversal of foreground and background voices reflected a deliberate emotional attitude that brought a bold new energy and freedom to the spirit of black popular music. Instead of describing feelings in the smooth lyrical surface of a tune you could whistle or at least hum, the singer created the impression of sounds rising untamed from the rawness and obscurity of a soul that refused all masks."

Book Alert / Black Girl White Girl -- A Novel

Black Girl White Girl -- A Novel by Joyce Carol Oates, HarperCollins/Ecco '06, $25.95, 272 pages, ISBN #0-06-112564-4.

In the days during and after the Civil Rights Movement, American black/white relations tended to be a dicey affair, with angry blacks wondering whether they could ever trust a white and whites often finding their efforts at friendship rejected. In her latest novel, the stunningly prolific Joyce Carol Oates takes her readers back to the mid-1970s and the lives of two female college roommates -- one black, one white.

It was a day when many privileged whites felt guilty about their affluence. So when the black Minette came under attack from racist classmates, the white Genna sprang to her defense. Sadly, the abuse ended with Minette's violent death, which sets Genna to reconstructing the runup to her  roommate's demise and to re-examining where she fits into the societal milieu of the times.

Add to the mix Genna's father, a committed civil defense attorney and political radical, who defended Vietnam antiwar terrorists. Her relationship with him leads her to examine her own social obligations in a world where morality was very much in flux.

Book Alert / Irene Nemirovsky -- Her Life and Works

Irene Nemirovsky -- Her Life and Works by Jonathan Weiss, Stanford UPress '07, 200 pages, ISBN #978-0-8047-5481-1. Bibliography, source notes, no index, grouping of b&w images.

The winning of a major literary prize should occasion great rejoicing but not for Irene Nemirovsky, whose posthumous novel Suite Francaise won France's Renaudot Prize in 2004. For she had died at Auschwitz more than six decades earlier. Even with a life so foreshortened, Nemirovsky had managed to pen more than a dozen novels and thirty short stories.

Born in Russia, she emigrated to Paris in 1919, where the fact that she was Jewish didn't prevent her from becoming friends with politicians and writers of the extreme right. She deluded herself into thinking her new friends would protect her when the Nazis came; instead, they abandoned her.

Jonathan Weiss, professor of French language and literature at Colby College, 10 years ago met Nemirovsky's two daughters, who agreed to open to him their mother's correspondence and documents she had passed on to them. This gave him a window into the interpretation of her oeuvre.