History 2009 Abstracts
History Division
The Pig in the Parlor: Uncle Charlie Walker and the First Amendment • John Armstrong, Furman University • The Pig in the Parlor: Uncle Charlie Walker and the First Amendment In the early 1960s, Charlie Walker, a disc jockey at WDKD AM in Kingstree, South Carolina, was embroiled with the FCC over offensive language. Walker was one of the more colorful characters in radio history and he used crude, rustic humor in his broadcasts. After a public hearing that drew national attention, WDKD’s owner was stripped of his broadcast license.
American Landscape: Environmental Journalism and Utah’s First National Park • Matthew Baker, Northern Kentucky University • After gaining statehood in 1896, Utah struggled to overcome perceptions of its unAmericanness – fueled by threats of theocracy and its history of polygamy. The national park movement provided a means for the state to promote its landscape as a contribution to the Union and proof of its worth to America. Environmental journalism associated with designation of Zion National Park (1919) shows how the press used landscape to promote the state’s Americanness, reigniting a booster press.
Across the Globe and Around the World: Two Black Southern Newspapers Cover the Integration of Little Rock’s Central High School • Dianne Bragg, University of Alabama • The Nashville Globe and the Birmingham World were two black southern newspapers in publication during the 1950s. The differences in their respective news coverage of the incidents and events involving public school integration in America, in particular the integration of Little Rock, Arkansas’ Central High School, reflected the varying philosophies of black Southern Americans on how to approach the issues of integration, segregation, equality.
Citizen Blame: How a Massive Campaign to Discredit William Randolph Hearst Set his Legacy • Paul Braun, University of Florida • Neither historians nor journalists have focused on what is arguably a systematic smear-job to discredit Hearst during the 1936 election that pitted Hearst’s handpicked Republican Governor Alfred Landon against Democratic incumbent President Roosevelt. Besides setting his legacy, the anti-Hearst campaign contributed to his financial bankruptcy in 1937. This work engages discussion by examining contemporaneous voices and expands the record concerning one of mass communication’s premier contributors and one of history’s notoriously rich and influential Americans.
Fright beyond measure? The myth of The War of the Worlds radio dramatization • WJoseph Campbell, American University • This paper revisits newspaper coverage of the famous War of the Worlds radio dramatization of October 30, 1938, and presents compelling evidence that the mass panic and hysteria so readily associated with the program did not occur. While many Americans may have been frightened by the program, overwhelming numbers of listeners quite simply were not. They recognized it for what it was—an imaginative, entertaining show on the eve of Halloween.
“Praising my people”: The Negro Star newspaper and the integration of baseball in Kansas, 1930-1935 • Brian Carroll, Berry College • This paper examines newspaper coverage in Wichita during the first half of the 1930s to show how commentators responded – and failed to respond – to increasingly interracial athletic competition as the decade progressed. This paper seeks, therefore, to reveal something of changes underpinning and animating integration in the American heartland in the Depression-era 1930s, or more than a decade before Jackie Robinson and the Brooklyn Dodgers broke major league baseball’s color barrier.
Off our backs’ Controversial Coverage of Pornography: The “pornography war” of 1985 • Mackenzie Cato, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • Off our backs, the longest running radical feminist publication, worked diligently to cover significant issues related to the women’s movement. Labeled the “pornography wars,” heated debates surrounding pornography took place within the pages of off our backs throughout the eighties. These debates dominated coverage and presented two conflicting viewpoints within the feminist movement.
In Sullivan’s Shadow: The Use and Abuse of Libel Law Arising from the Civil Rights Movement, 1960-1989 • Aimee Edmondson, Ohio University • This is a study of libel cases filed by southern public officials relating to African Americans’ escalating fight during the Civil Rights Movement. The focus is on little-known lawsuits filed in the shadow of the famous New York Times. v. Sullivan case in Alabama in 1960, through its adjudication in 1964 and even in its aftermath.
Juggernaut in Kid Gloves: Inez Callaway Robb, 1901-1979 • Carolyn Edy, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • Inez Callaway Robb, in her 50-year career as a reporter, society editor, WWII correspondent, and columnist, wrote more than 10,000 articles, syndicated to about 150 newspapers. This biographical essay uncovers Robb’s life and writings, while considering the apparent contradiction of her work, corresponding from more than 40 countries around the world, while advocating traditional gender roles and opposing equal rights for women.
Women and Children of the Santa Anita Race Track: Japanese Family Internment through the Lens of Photographer Clem Albers and the War Relocation Authority (WRA), 1942 • Arielle Emmett, University of Maryland • Although several of Clem Albers’ Japanese-American internment photographs are widely published, he remains the least studied among the War Relocation Authority (WRA) photographers. Why did this “anonymous” newspaper photojournalist of The San Francisco Chronicle escape the recognition his fellow WRA photographers enjoyed? And how should critics interpret Albers’ disquieting and often sardonic portrayals of Japanese-American adjustment, negotiation, and defiance in the camps?
Publishers, Watchdogs, and Shyster Lawyers: Libel Law Reform and the Late Nineteenth-Century Newspaper Industry • Patrick File, University of Minnesota • This study examines the watchdog concept of journalism in American social life in the late nineteenth century; when the newspaper business was growing and evolving as an industry, and publishers called for reform in state libel laws.
How Local Newspapers Covered The Campaign Of Phoenix’s First Female Mayor, Margaret Hance • Amanda Fruzynski, Arizona State University • When Margaret Hance campaigned successfully to become Mayor of Phoenix in 1976, she was the first woman to win this prominent role. Local newspapers covered the campaign in a time when women’s rights were a hot topic in the country. This project analyzes the media coverage of Hance’s campaign to look at whether local newspaper coverage in the Arizona Republic and Phoenix Gazette was biased and sexist against Hance.
Reporting on the Rise of American Labor and the Problem of Unions in the Newsroom • Philip Glende, University of Wisconsin-Madison • Critics routinely condemned newspapers and their publishers for opposition to organized labor during the 1930s and 1940s. This paper suggests the personal experiences and ideological beliefs of writers and editors complicate the anti-union reputation of the press. This essay discusses rising interest in the labor movement as a news story, explores the range of backgrounds and attitudes of individuals who covered unions, and examines the rise of the American Newspaper Guild and reaction to it.
When the Journalist Becomes the Story: Lippmann, Stone, Liebling, Jewish identity, and the Arab-Israeli Conflict • Julien Gorbach, University of Missouri School of Journalism • Journalists Walter Lippmann, I.F. Stone and A.J. Liebling all confronted their Jewish origins as a result of historic twentieth century events, and each responded in strikingly different ways. This study contrasts their different conceptions of Jewish identity and their normative understandings of their roles as journalists. They are analyzed within the theoretical frameworks of Lippmann’s ideal of objectivity, Bernard Cohen’s journalist as participant, and David Mindich’s accounting of what transpires when the journalist becomes the story.
Honor of a man: Adolph Ochs’ influence on corrections in The New York Times • Kirstie Hettinga, Penn State • This research examines corrections in The New York Times from 1896 to 1935 when Adolph Ochs was publisher. Ochs’ personal life and industry reputation are used to demonstrate his impact on The New York Times. Through an examination of corrections in the publication, correspondence by Ochs and letters by his contemporaries, the author seeks to establish a relationship between Ochs’ personal integrity and adherence to fact and the increase of newspaper corrections under his tenure.
Voicing Opinions in the Face of Change: An Analysis of Norfolk Newspaper Readers’ Feedback During Virginia’s Massive Resistance • Lynette Holman, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • In 1958, Virginia’s political leadership chose to close public schools in three districts rather than follow the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1954 directive in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka Kansas and allow black children to enter schools with white students. The effort resulted in the September 29, 1958 closure of six formerly white secondary schools in Norfolk by Gov. Lindsay Almond and displaced nearly 10,000 students.
CEOs’ Letters to the Editor: Executive Participation in the Public Forum, 1970 – 1995 • Nell Ching Ling Huang, School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • This qualitative study explores chief executive officers’ (CEOs) letters to the editor in The New York Times during a 25-year period. While CEOs today are able to directly address their stakeholders through the Internet, the letters section was a key way to reach the public in the 1970s and even into the 1990s.
Nineteenth Century Ship Captains in Reality and Mythos: The Role of News Stories in Defining Seafaring Heroes • Paulette D. Kilmer, University of Toledo • Between 1850 and 1900, The New York Times ran stirring accounts of heroic and dastardly sea captains. These stories emphasized narrative over facts and contained archetypes embedded within them. This essay analyzes nineteenth century news reports as artifacts that reflect C.G. Jung, Joseph Campbell, and Carol Pearson’s ideas as well as S.I. Hayakawa’s two-valued orientation. It closes with an example, the January 2009 coverage of a pilot’s miraculous ditching of an airbus into the Hudson River, as indication that timeless archetypes conveying American values continue to permeate the news.
When Medicine and Ethics Meet in the Public Sphere: The Role of Journalism in the History of Bioethics • Amy Landa, University of Minnesota • This paper examines the role that journalists have played in several key events in the history of bioethics in the United States. The development of this interdisciplinary field and its impact on American society might have been different if Associated Press reporter Jean Heller had not uncovered the Tuskegee Syphilis Study in 1972 or Jessica Mitford had not published her indictment of medical experiments on prisoners in 1973.
“God Help Our Democracy”: Investigative Reporting in America, 1946-1960 • Gerry Lanosga, Indiana University School of Journalism • Histories of investigative reporting generally hold that it was prominent during only two periods in the twentieth century – the muckraking period and the era surrounding Watergate. This study reveals the practice was also abundant in the post-World War II decades. At the same time, news organizations and industry associations were actively agitating for freedom of information laws. These related findings suggest a need to reconsider the notion of a passive press during the post-war years.
Outstanding American Female Journalists in the 1960s: Organizational Promotion of A Professional Identity • You Li, missouri school of journalism, university of missouri • This study adds to the historical understanding of professionalism in journalism by investigating how a grassroots organization promoted professional qualifications for female journalists in the 1960s. It exemplified what particular traits the National Federation of Press Women valued and upheld by organizing and granting the Woman of Achievement Award from 1960 to 1969. Valued qualifications included commitment to the profession, professional skills, leadership in community services, and a willingness to take challenges.
Beer Belongs: A Historical Analysis of the U.S. Brewers Foundation’s Advertising Campaign to Normalize Beer Consumption in Post-War America • Christina Malik, UNC-Chapel Hill • From 1945 to 1958 the United States Brewers Foundation (USBF) ran an advertising campaign targeted to reach American women with the message that beer is a socially acceptable beverage.
The Japanese “Problem” During World War II and the Central Utah Relocation Center: Reaction and Response in The Salt Lake Tribune • Kimberley Mangun, The University of Utah • This study seeks to fill a gap in the historical record by analyzing editorials and letters published in The Salt Lake Tribune, Utah’s largest newspaper, between December 7, 1941, and September 30, 1942, to discover what readers and editors were writing about the internment of Japanese Americans in the Central Utah Relocation Center, known as Topaz. The dialogue that ensued offers insights into racism, agenda-setting, journalistic responsibility, the use of a public forum, and religion.
“What Flag do you Fight for, Baby: Chicago Defender Editorials on American Involvement in Vietnam • Meagan Manning, SJMC, University of Minnesota • My research highlights editorial positions of The Chicago Defender on American involvement in the Vietnam War during 1968. My analysis is of a historical moment, but this moment is part of an understudied narrative of black consciousness as told through the black press.
The Legacy of Yellow Journalism: An Issue of Class, Education, and Ambition • Thomas Miller, Indiana University • This study analyzes the clash of journalistic paradigms using articles from or around March 1897. Through careful comparison questions begin to emerge about the “high road” versus the “low road” reputations history has attributed to the Journal and the Times respectively. Taking a fresh approach this study considers how the New York Times earned its reputation as the nations leading paper for truth and accuracy in reporting.
Censorship in a Different Name: Press “Supervision” in Wartime Japanese American Camps 1942-1943 • Takeya Mizuno, Toyo University, Tokyo • When the federal government in 1942 forced Japanese Americans to move into “relocation centers,” camp officials allowed internees to publish their own newspapers “freely” under governmental “supervision,” but not “censorship.” In reality, however, the camp press was hardly a “free” press. Press “supervision” took various forms, including pre- and post-publication reviewing, selective staff employment, convocation of “meetings,” supplying information material, and occasionally even direct and coercive editorial interference that officials themselves admitted to be “censorship.”
The Movement to Lower the Voting Age: The Legitimizing Function of the Media • Jason Moldoff, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • This research asks how the struggle to lowering the voting age to 18 in the 1960s was told through the pages of the New York Times. The news and editorial pages of The New York Times provide a vivid illustration of the changes in arguments for and against lowering the voting age, and offer evidence of increased awareness of the importance of media coverage on the legitimization and success of the movement.
The Influence of the American Sunday Supplement in Toronto, Canada, 1886-1895 • Paul Moore, Ryerson University-Toronto; Sandra Gabriele, University of Windsor • Between 1886 and 1895, the Sunday newspaper in U.S. cities became a cauldron for an emerging mass, popular culture—one with global reach. The concurrent development of weekend newspapers in Toronto, Canada, distinguished local innovations against the unspecified, general influence of the “American Sunday paper.” The Sunday World and The Saturday Globe followed and refuted, respectively, the ideal set by the American Sunday paper, but together defined Canadian weekend leisure reading.
Teaching Girls about Sexuality and the Element of Desire Using Post-World War II Sex Education Films from 1947-1960 • Rebecca Ortiz, Syracuse University • Integrated sex education programs in public schools gained popularity in the United States after World War I, and while many conservatives were apprehensive about teaching sex education to youth, the problematic emergence of venereal disease made it painfully clear that sex education was necessary.
Learning from the Trades: Public Relations, Journalism, and News Release Writing, 1945-2008 • Lisa Mullikin Parcell, Wichita State University; Margot Opdycke Lamme, The University of Alabama; Skye Chance Cooley, The University of Alabama • Given the importance that PR and journalism place on media writing and given that many in PR did not receive a formal PR education, this study examines how news release writing has been “taught” in professional publications since 1945, when the rise of journalism’s readability studies and of PR’s postwar professionalism coincided. Findings spotlight a historical intersection of journalism and PR not yet explored and expand the role of writing in communication history.
Redefining the Magazine Reader: The Curtis Publishing Company, Holiday, and Market Research • Richard Popp, Louisiana State University • This study explores the biggest magazine project of the 1940s – the Curtis Publishing Company’s Holiday – and with it the origins of lifestyle and psychographic marketing. By combining market research and reader-response studies with socio-cultural analysis, and by making research integral to managerial planning, Curtis introduced a new conception of media products and audiences.
War, Peace, and Free Radio: The Women’s National Radio Committee’s Efforts to Promote Democracy, 1939-1946 • Jennifer Proffitt, Florida State University • This paper traces the efforts of the Women’s National Radio Committee to promote democracy in a time of war. The organization did so by giving awards to radio programs that best supported democracy and informing women about issues of war and peace, denouncing FCC regulations, proposing news coverage and musical program improvements, supporting the war effort through volunteer work, and encouraging radio to help curtail the problem of juvenile delinquency.
“Up from the Notes: Sporting Life and the Color Line, 1883-1889” • Lori Amber Roessner, University of Georgia • This paper will explore how race was portrayed within Sporting Life, a prominent yet understudied journal, from its inception in 1883 until the unofficial “color line” was drawn in professional baseball in 1889. One question will serve to guide the narrative: how did Sporting Life cover race during the first decade of its existence? Drawing heavily on the scholarship of Barbara Fields, this study will explore how race was constructed within the well-known national publication.
Pressing the Press: William E. Chilton III’s investigation of fellow newspaper owners between 1980 and 1986 • Edgar Simpson, Ohio University • William E. Chilton III was the third generation of his family to serve as publisher/owner of the Charleston Gazette, West Virginia’s largest newspaper. Despite his wealth, Chilton chose to spend his career honing his philosophy of “sustained outrage.” His efforts included two separate investigations into his fellow newspaper owners, which revealed corrupt legal advertising practices, failure to challenge local politicians and businessmen and a widespread focus on profits rather than principles.
Journalist Privilege in 1929: Sen. Arthur Capper and the Start of the Shield Law Movement • Dean Smith, University of North Carolina • John Henry Wigmore, the great legal treatise writer and expert on evidence, was wrong at least once. In 1923, when Maryland still had the nation’s only statutory shield law to protect journalists from compelled disclosure of confidential sources, Wigmore declared it “as detestable in substance as it is crude in form,” and he predicted that it “will probably remain unique.”
A View that’s Fit to Print: NAM Propaganda and the NY Times, 1937-1939 • Burton St. John, Old Dominion University • This study examines the appearance of National Association of Manufacturers’ propaganda, from 1937 to 1939, in articles within the New York Times. NAM’s ability to place such rhetoric in the Times reveals both the presence of integration propaganda and the beginning of a press acclimation to propaganda as news. Such propaganda is now endemic. The press needs to move beyond privileged sources to seek out the wider range of voices that constitute our democratic discourse.
A Legendary Journalist and the Woman Behind the Woman: Janet Flanner and Solita Solano • Rodger Streitmatter, American University • This paper focuses on Janet Flanner, who was Paris correspondent for The New Yorker from 1925 through 1975 and who is credited with originating a new style of foreign correspondence that was enriched by personal details about her subjects. The paper breaks new ground by illuminating the role that Flanner’s same-sex partner Solita Solano played in the journalist’s career, including her evolving writing style.
“Picture within the Frame – Framing American Public Issues: An 1855-2005 New York Times Case Study” • Thomas Terry, Idaho State University • Frederick Siebert postulated in Freedom of the Press in England 1476-1776 that whenever pressure is exerted on a political system, diversity shrinks. A content analysis of The New York Times was conducted and found strong evidence supporting Siebert’s thesis.
Semi-Colonialism and Journalistic Sphere of Influence: American and British Press Competition in Early Twentieth-Century China • Yong Volz, University of Missouri School of Journalism; Chin-Chuan Lee, Department of Media and Communication, City University of Hong Kong • The American and British press competition occurred in semi-colonial China in the early twentieth century, where the U.S., as a rising world power, challenged British monopoly by advocating the “Open Door Policy.” Attacking each other, the newspapers’ nationalistic representations of China were at odds with the emerging professional norms of journalism in their native countries.
The newspaper as mirror: A history of a metaphor • Tim Vos, University of Missouri School of Journalism • This is a cultural history of how the mirror was invoked as a metaphor for newspapers and journalism during parts of the 19th and 20th centuries. This study examines how journalists’ own discourse invoked the mirror as a metaphor and how this discourse related to the broader cultural understanding about the nature of mirrors. Of particular interest is how this discourse interacted with the articulation of objectivity as an occupational norm.
Murder in Mississippi: The unsolved case of Agence French-Press reporter Paul Guihard • Kathleen Wickham, University of Mississippi • Agence French-Press reporter Paul Guihard was the only reporter killed during the civil rights era in the United States. He was murdered on the University of Mississippi campus in 1962 while covering the enrollment of James Meredith. He was shot in the back 30 minutes after arriving in Oxford. His killer was never identified.
Fragmented imperialism: U.S. control over radio in Panama, 1914-1936 • Rita Zajacz, University of Iowa • Radio in Panama (1914-1936) seems to provide a most likely case for a strong form of imperialism, given the relative insignificance of Panama as a military power and America’s strategic interests in the Panama Canal. Yet, the U.S. government was far from unified, the Navy locked horns with United Fruit and policymakers’ expansive understanding of the national interest included such intangibles as American prestige in the region.
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