History 2011 Abstracts
The Conflict over Jim Crow Censorship of Movie Scenes in Greensboro, North Carolina, 1937-38 • Lorraine Ahearn, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • In the Jim Crow South on December 7, 1937, an association of white North and South Carolina movie theater exhibitors met for a silver jubilee convention in Pinehurst, N.C. and made an announcement: They resolved that they would henceforth censor Hollywood movie scenes that violated racial taboos because they showed black performers on an equal footing with whites. The resolution, reported as front-page news in the white-owned Greensboro Daily News, prompted female students from a historically black private campus, Bennett College, to call for a community boycott of white downtown theaters in Greensboro to protest racial stereotypes in movies. This little-known incident may speak to the emerging power of media in the 1930s, particularly in the social construction of race, and may shed light on the history of student activism in a city that was a civil rights flashpoint.
Press Coverage of Indira Gandhi • Adrienne Atterberry • This paper examines how press coverage of Indira Gandhi changed during the 1977 election, as compared to the 1971 and 1980 election cycles. The 1977 election occurred during the Emergency—a time of increased press censorship. Thus, this paper hopes to explore what effect government censorship has on press coverage of Indira Gandhi during an election. Newspaper articles from the Times of India, New York Times, and the Washington Post were selected for analysis. The evidence indicates that press coverage of Indira Gandhi during the 1977 election focused primarily on topics of importance to her political agenda. Meanwhile, coverage of Gandhi during the 1971 and 1980 elections focused on her competence as the leader of India and her significance in foreign relations.
A ‘Pestilent, Factional Quarrel’: Letters Reveal Lincoln’s Obsession with Censorship • Stephen Banning, Bradley University • Contrary to some beliefs, it appears Lincoln did not soften his approach to press suppression during the latter part of the Civil War. This research contrasts two times United State’s President Abraham Lincoln suppressed the American Civil War opposition press. Original letters from Lincoln and those involved in the suppressions are used to shed light on Lincoln’s involvement in tacitly supporting censorship, particularly in the Border States. The findings suggest Lincoln himself allowed press suppression to continue even when it would influence a local election.
Partisan Journalist: William D. Workman and the Rise of the Republican Party in South Carolina • Sid Bedingfield, University of South Carolina • William D. Workman was South Carolina’s best-known journalist when he decided to run for the U.S. Senate in 1962. A segregationist, Workman said he entered the race reluctantly because he feared liberal forces were destroying the nation. He called newspaper work his “life’s calling,” and as both a news reporter and opinion columnist he had claimed allegiance to the norms of modern professional journalism – detachment, independence, and objectivity. But a review of the Workman personal papers tells a different story. Workman had been engaged in partisan political work behind the scenes since early 1960 to help build a conservative Republican Party in the South. Workman’s papers provide a richly detailed example of how press and politics often remained closely entwined in the post-war years, despite the rise of an ethical code that proudly claimed otherwise.
“If I’ve Lost Cronkite …”: Myth and Memory of Walter Cronkite, Lyndon Johnson, and the Vietnam War • Lisa Burns, Quinnipiac University • On February 27, 1968, CBS television broadcast a half-hour news documentary called Report from Vietnam featuring CBS Evening News anchor Walter Cronkite. He ended the program with a clearly labeled editorial where he declared the war “a stalemate.” After watching the special, President Lyndon Johnson reportedly said, “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost Middle America.” The so-called “Cronkite moment” has become part of the collective memory of President Johnson, Walter Cronkite, and the Vietnam War. But in his recent book Getting It Wrong, journalism historian W. Joseph Campbell claims that the “Cronkite moment” is a media-driven myth – a dubious or false story that promotes journalism’s significance. But, if the “Cronkite moment” is just a myth, why does it have such staying power? This essay looks at the “Cronkite moment” from a different angle, that of collective memory. By examining the “Cronkite moment” from a collective memory perspective, a different picture develops that helps to why explain why Cronkite’s Tet editorial has become an important part of the collective memories of Johnson, Cronkite, and the Vietnam War. After reviewing references to the “Cronkite moment” in books by journalists, presidential biographers, and media historians, the analysis focuses on two key types of memory-shaping products: memoirs and museum exhibits related to Johnson and Cronkite. This essay will look at how the “story” is remembered in these various iterations, addressing some of Campbell’s concerns along the way.
From Outsider to Martyr: The Advocate’s Coverage of Harvey Milk from 1977 to 1979 • Robert Byrd, University of South Alabama • Harvey Milk’s short-lived political career in San Francisco is a milestone in the gay movement. Milk made waves among the established gay political hierarchy of San Francisco. One member of that hierarchy happened to own the nation’s most-widely circulated LGBT magazine. This paper explores the evolution of The Advocate’s depiction of Milk from a self-centered political outsider with potential to do serious damage to the gay movement to a martyr whose memory will inspire those that follow to continue to work toward the goals he gave his life to achieve.
Community Journalism in a Secret City: The Oak Ridge Journal, 1943-1948 • Michael Clay Carey, Ohio University • In 1943 the federal government approved publication of the Oak Ridge Journal, a weekly flyer sent to residents at one of three secret towns created to develop the Manhattan Project. This in-depth review of the Journal’s content reveals that early issues focused mainly on government propaganda aimed at workers, but over time the publication grew to look and read more like a traditional community newspaper. Even as it evolved, government censorship was still evident.
“Our TV show”: Legitimacy, Public Relations and J. Edgar Hoover’s “The F.B.I.” on ABC-TV • Matthew Cecil, South Dakota State University • “The F.B.I.,” television series allowed J. Edgar Hoover’s public relations team to reach millions of viewers with stories emphasizing the organization’s legitimacy by focusing on themes demonstrating utility and responsibility. A review of FBI control over the series provides a snapshot of state-of-the-art Bureau public relations and brand management at the end of Hoover’s 48-year tenure.
Made by TV: The American Football League and Broadcast Networks • Thomas Corrigan, Penn State; Melanie Formentin, Penn State • In the 1960s, the American Football League’s (AFL) creation ushered in direct competition for professional football’s incumbent circuit, the National Football League (NFL). Network television’s revenue and promotion proved crucial for the AFL’s stability and ascendancy. This paper examines the AFL’s relationship with network broadcasters. A crucial piece of sports broadcasting legislation, paired with NBC’s role as AFL financier, put upward pressure on player salaries, ultimately hastening the AFL and NFL merger of 1966.
A Pulitzer up North, a Libel Suit down South: Southern Editors’ Civil Rights Writings, 1954-1968 • Aimee Edmondson • This study focuses on libel suits filed against four Pulitzer Prize winners in the South. Just as the New York Times faced the wrath of police commissioner L.B. Sullivan in the most famous of libel cases, here are four southern editors who fought suits against public officials and public figures in the South in the 1950s and 1960s. In any study of reporters’ attempts to cover the civil rights movement and southern efforts to stop them, southern journalists should be included.
“Mexicans, Indians and the Worst Kind of White Men”: Bayard Taylor’s Construction of Mexican Identity • Michael Fuhlhage, Auburn University • This paper analyzes 39 first-person reports New York Tribune correspondent Bayard Taylor wrote in California and Mexico in 1849-50. His letters are packed with observations about Mexican people and relations with the Americans who flooded into the territory. His lectures on ethnicity and race and personal papers are also analyzed. Taylor provided a counterpoint to demonizing portrayals of Mexicans in the press but perpetuated stratification of Californio elites and Mexican farmers and laborers.
They Came to Toil: U.S. News Coverage of Mexicans on the Eve of the Great Depression • Melita M. Garza, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • In the aftermath of the 1929 stock market crash as many as one million Mexican Americans and Mexicans were deported in what has been characterized as a racial exclusion program second only to the Native American removals along the Trail of Tears during the nineteenth century. This study assesses whether Depression era English and Spanish-language newspaper coverage at the incipient stage of this great Mexican diaspora reflected a U.S. economy divided by culture.
“Woman at the Wheel” Column Challenges Detroit’s Notion of the Female Car Buyer, 1965-1982 • Ellen Gerl, Ohio University; Craig Davis, Ohio University • This paper examines the representation of the woman car driver and themes present in the “Woman at the Wheel” column in Woman’s Day from 1965 to 1982. The automotive advice column was created to attract automobile advertising but never did. Textual analysis, interviews, and archival research show that Detroit automakers’ gendered notion of the female car buyer kept them from advertising in women’s periodicals such as Woman’s Day.
Trouble on the Right, Trouble on the Left: The Early History of the American Newspaper Guild • Philip Glende, North Central College • The early years of the American Newspaper Guild were filled with internal conflict as intense as the struggle with employers. Many reporters and editors resisted embracing a trade union model for their organization. For some, journalism was a profession made up of reporters who thrived on individual talent and hard work. For many who opposed the Guild, no issue appears to have been more alienating than leftist leadership in local and national offices.
Sic Juvat Transcendere Liberi: How Newspapers Built the Case for West Virginia Statehood • Matthew Haught, University of South Carolina • Long before their political separation, the people of West Virginia regarded themselves as unique, sharing few ties with the Virginians east of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Benedict Anderson’s concept of imagined communities helps explain the process by which the people of western Virginia united to create a state apart from the east. This paper examines western Virginia newspaper discussions about separation and statehood between 1860-1863 and employs Anderson’s framework as a guide.
“Race Conference Meets In Atlanta”: Public Relations for the NAACP’s First Conference in the South, 1920 • Denise Hill, UNC-Chapel Hill • Since its founding in 1909, the NAACP employed a number of public relations strategies and tactics to communicate its primary objective, which was: “to uplift the Negro men and women of this country by securing for them the complete enjoyment of their rights as citizens, justice in the courts, and equal opportunities in every economic, social, and political endeavor in the United States” More specifically, the NAACP wanted to “”stamp out the evils of race prejudice practiced against the Negro in America in the form of lynching, disfranchisement, Jim-Crowism, unequal industrial and educational opportunities, and other such disabilities.” In 1920, the NAACP decided to hold its first conference in the south. The NAACP believed its first conference in the South, to be held in Atlanta, would be a watershed moment, and its leaders wanted to ensure that it was effectively employing public relations for the conference to further its cause. This study explores how the NAACP used public relations for its eleventh annual conference, and how those public relations activities fit within previously linear models of public relations history.
Insults for Sale: The 1957 Memphis Newspaper Boycott • Thomas J. Hrach, University of Memphis • In the 1950s as African Americans around the country began using their economic clout to affect change in public policy, black citizens of Memphis effectively used a boycott to alter policies at that city’s largest circulation newspaper. The Citizens Improvement Committee, a group of black citizens organized a successful boycott of The Commercial Appeal in 1957. The citizens were seeking changes in the newspaper’s editorial policies including the use of courtesy titles for black women and more coverage of the black community. The 49-day boycott attracted national attention and gained the black community new respect from the white establishment. The boycott set the state for many other successful boycotts in Memphis. The Commercial Appeal had a history of supporting black citizens as evidenced by its receiving the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 1923 for its campaign opposing the Ku Klux Klan. But the newspaper also reflected many of the prejudices of white America as evidenced by its insensitivity to the black citizens of Memphis in the 1950s. The criticisms of the newspaper would continue through the 1960s, and the tensions were heightened in 1968. That was when the newspaper sided with the Memphis mayor in the sanitation strike that brought Martin Luther King to the city. On the 40th anniversary of King’s death, the newspaper examined its role in heightening tensions within the black community that were first brought to light in the 1957 newspaper boycott and then in the 1968 sanitation workers strike.
“The gathering mists of time:” American magazines and revolutionary memory, 1787-1860 • Janice Hume, University of Georgia • This study examines 231 American magazine articles published prior to the Civil War to see how they recalled the American Revolution and how that memory evolved during important nation-building years. Much like other histories published during the era, these articles homogenized the story of America’s origins into a “”cult of consensus,”” featuring heroic narratives told in many different formats. The study adds to our understanding of the relationship between the press and American public memory.
Framing White Hopes: The Press, Social Drama, and the Era of Jack Johnson, 1908-1915 • Phillip Hutchison, University of Kentucky • The social presence of African-American boxing champion Jack Johnson reflects one of the most controversial social and media issues of the early 20th Century. Although many scholars have implicated America’s press in the Johnson controversy, the situation has yet to be examined through the lens of journalism history. To provide some of this missing perspective, this critical-historical analysis illustrates how the white press constructed the entire Johnson situation as an overarching narrative, one that unfolded in real time for nearly seven years. The study employs Victor Turner’s theory of Processual Social Drama to explain how the white press, with little variance, framed the open-ended events involving Jack Johnson in terms of a breach-to-redress narrative trajectory that comprised three palpable dramatic acts. This finding contrasts with most Johnson histories, which portray the Johnson controversy as a two-act narrative. The additional insights not only better inform the relationship between the press and the Johnson situation, it also provides insights into how the press of that era used temporal and affective narrative frames to construct news. This orientation helps better explain how the press shaped the Johnson controversy and how it marginalized divergent views of the situation. Additionally, by better understanding the dramatic structure of press coverage, historians gain both a more complex understanding of attitudes toward Johnson over time and a more nuanced etymology of the now-ubiquitous term “white hope.”
A Path Made of Words: The Journalistic Construction of the Appalachian Trail • James Kates, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater • The Appalachian Trail runs for more than two thousand miles from Maine to Georgia. The trail celebrates nature, but its making was a major achievement in the very human art of recreational politics. Conceived in 1921 and completed in 1937, the trail was, for many, simply a venue for hiking and camping. But journalists in many media — including newspapers, popular magazines, and journals of opinion — also cast multiple meanings on the project. The trail’s purposes would come to encompass regional planning, preservation of rural folkways, and the perpetuation of wilderness areas. This paper examines the work of two influential writers — forester and author Benton MacKaye, and New York newspaperman Raymond Torrey — in defining the trail’s place in American life.
Google Books Ngram Viewer and Text-Mining for Culture: Corpora and Digital Data-Mining’s Place in Journalism History • Robert Krueger, George Mason University • The recently launched Google Books Ngram Viewer has been marketed as a user-friendly and accurate corpus for scholars who want to text-mind publications for cultural trends and patterns. But how can corpora like this be of use to journalism and mass communication historians? This paper includes a case study that tests the thesis of historian Sarah Igo’s The Averaged American in order to illustrate how corpora, text-mining, and digital visualization can benefit the historical field.
New Views of Investigative Reporting in the Twentieth Century • Gerry Lanosga • This paper examines a little-studied period in the history of investigative reporting. An analysis of Pulitzer Prize nominations reveals the exposé as an enduring practice between the Muckrakers and the 1960s, not isolated to a few newspapers or iconoclastic journalists but published in newspapers of every size from nearly every state. This examination provides new context for the development of journalism as a profession and of the complex relationship between journalists and official power.
The Tale of Two Legends and Philanthropy in Rock and Roll • Ji Hoon Lee • This phenomenology coupled with historical overview is the examination of the two key charity projects in rock and roll history—The Concert for Bangladesh (1971) and “We Are the World” (1985)—with an emphasis on George Harrison and Michael Jackson’s humanitarian idealism. The study is also a critical reminisce piece, comparing and contrasting their legacies, influences, and criticism. The study uses the context of the two charity projects as an attempt to analyze how they capitalized on the eras’ social and cultural factors.
Intellectual Heft: A.J. Liebling as an Opponent of Anti-Intellectualism in American Journalism • Kevin Lerner, Rutgers University/Marist College • A.J. Liebling essentially invented the role of the press critic in the 1940s, 50s and 60s, but his impact on the profession of journalism, and on subsequent press critics has barely been studied. This essay assesses Liebling’s 82 Wayward Press columns for The New Yorker through the lens of anti-intellectualism as defined by the historian Richard Hofstadter and sociologist Daniel Rigney, giving Liebling a prime place in the intellectual history of journalism.
Marshall “Major” Taylor and the Summer of 1910: Salt Lake City Newspapers Cover the Bicycle Racer’s Final Season • Kim Mangun, The University of Utah • This qualitative study examines articles, cartoons, and advertisements published in six white newspapers in Salt Lake City to see how Marshall “Major” Taylor and his final season of bicycle racing there were covered. The artifacts were examined using critical discourse analysis and narrative analysis. The study uses the interrelated concepts of myth and hero-crafting to critically analyze coverage of Taylor and his races.
Assessing the Dream: The March on Washington and American Collective Memory • Meagan Manning, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities • Building off the large body of work on collective memory, this research examines the “warehouse” created by the Milwaukee Journal and the Chicago Tribune with respect to the March on Washington of 1963. By presenting a history of the march and assessing media representations of different eras in light of that history, this study aims to isolate potential sites of collective memory formation and trace the ways those memories may have changed over time.
Writer by Trade: Journalistic Identity in the Early Eighteenth Century • William Mari • This paper proposes that journalism’s ethos began developing a century before commonly assumed, with the journalists of eighteenth-century Great Britain. This ethos, and its accompanying proto-professional identity (formed in a process of legitimatization, commercialization, and politicization) was championed by its first practitioners, including James Ralph, an American expatriate and political writer, in his Case of Authors by Profession or Trade -writers were, indeed, among the first professional groups to debate their identity publicly.
What Journalism Textbooks Teach Us About Newsroom Ethos • Raymond McCaffrey, University of Maryland • Journalists avoiding treatment for work-related stress have blamed a newsroom ethos that discourages emotional expression. The ethos that guides organizations is often tied to professional codes, according to institutional theory. This study involved a review of textbooks from 1913-1978 to determine their role in mapping out journalism codes. The analysis revealed that textbooks not only taught principles like impartiality, but also that journalists were to remain emotionally detached, avoid introspection, display courage and take risks.
“A Keg of Dynamite and You’re Sitting On It”: An Analysis of the Ad Council’s Atomic Energy Campaign • Wendy Melillo, American University • Following the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, American scientists ran a public service advertising campaign from 1946 to 1947 through the Ad Council to establish an international authority to control atomic weapons. This historical analysis of why the Ad Council’s atomic energy campaign failed provides important insights about how scientists should conduct communication campaigns when dealing with more contemporary issues like climate change and intelligent design.
Kicking off the hype: Newspaper Coverage of Super Bowl I • Brian Moritz • On Jan. 15, 1967, the Green Bay Packers defeated the Kansas City Chiefs, 35-10, in the first AFL-NFL World Championship game – also known as the first Super Bowl. Super Bowl I was the first meeting between teams from the National Football League and the American Football League, and the popular mythology is that the game was not a big story at the time. This paper studies how newspapers at the time covered the game examines the coverage in eight newspapers from across the country. The study shows that the game received wide-ranging and prominent coverage in newspapers at the time, contrary to the myth. The dominant storyline was the merger between the two leagues and the fact that the teams acted as stand-ins for their respective leagues.
The Precious Ingredient of War: The WPB Used Cooking Fat Advertising Campaign of 1943 • Geah Pressgrove, University of South Carolina • In 1943, the U.S. War Production Board (WPB) initiated an advertising campaign instructing American women to collect their used cooking fat for reuse in the making of gunpowder to “exterminate the slant eyes” and sulfa to “ease the pain of a wounded American.” This study examines the WPB cooking fat recycling propaganda using Benedict Anderson’s concept of “imagined communities.” In Anderson’s conception of nationalism, cultural products expressing patriotic feeling are a means by which a common people—an “imagined community” or nation—create their community and imagine its future. The patriotic appeals in the cooking fat ads encouraged American women to imagine themselves as part of a heroic, just nation defeating evil in the world. Anderson’s metaphor is particularly helpful in understanding the social and political meanings, uses, and effects of war time propaganda, as well as the complex relationships among the U.S. government, industry, media, and citizens in constructing national identity in a time of crisis. In building bridges between propaganda studies and Anderson’s concept of imagined communities, this study not only breaks new scholarly ground but also adopts and revises Anderson’s thesis on nationalism in the context of World War II American propaganda activities.
Partisan Rhetoric and the Rise of the Nullification Party in 1831 South Carolina • Erika Pribanic-Smith, University of Texas at Arlington • Rhetoric in South Carolina’s partisan press had immense ramifications as the state’s voters decided whether to elect politicians who aimed to nullify offensive federal economic policy. The year 1831 encompassed events crucial to determining the state’s political actions. This paper examines six South Carolina newspapers during those twelve months and concludes that Nullification partisans used their presses more effectively than the Unionists over the course of the year, tipping public opinion in their favor.
“The Problem Cuts a Dozen Different Ways”: Marquis W. Childs and Civil Rights, 1950s-60s • Robert Rabe, Marshall University School of Journalism • This paper is an analysis of columnist Mark Childs’ thinking and writing on one of the most significant domestic issues of his day, the postwar civil rights movement. It briefly discusses the emergence of the civil rights issue during the 1940s and 1950s, and focuses more fully on the topic as it became more prominent through the early 1960s and the era of the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The study concludes with a focus on the lingering complex politics of civil rights as they became even more volatile in the latter part of the decade. It argues that Childs contributed a great deal of support for African-American civil rights programs and policies, but that in the end many of his most important objectives remained unfulfilled.
Gathering The “Inside Dope”: The Practice of Sports Journalism, 1900-1930 • Amber Roessner, University of Tennessee • Heeding Hanno Hardt and Bonnie Brennen’s call for studies that provide insight into the historical role of newsworkers, this study explores the practice of herocrafting in early twentieth century sports journalism. Using a historical case study approach, it examines the rapport-building and newsgathering strategies of Grantland Rice, F.C. Lane, and John N. Wheeler. In doing so, it sheds light on the prevalence of ballyhoo and the emergence of detachment in sports journalism.
The Conflict and Balance of History and Drama in 20th Century-Fox’s The Longest Day • Peter Shooner • The film The Longest Day (1962) was largely the product of two men, Cornelius Ryan and Darryl Zanuck. Ryan, who researched and wrote the book that the movie was based on also wrote the screenplay for the film. Zanuck acted as producer/director on the project and saw the film as a chance to resurrect his failing career. The two men had very different ideas of how accurately the film should represent history, and as a result, they feuded during the entire movie-making process, with Zanuck usually winning. The Longest Day blends history and drama in its retelling of D-Day, at times misrepresenting and disregarding historical fact. This paper analyses Ryan’s and Zanuck’s relationship, how it affected the final product and in what ways the film strays from fact for the sake of drama.
The National Association of Manufacturers’ Short Film “Your Town”: Parable, Propaganda, and Big Individualism • Burton St. John, Old Dominion University; Robert Arnett, Old Dominion University • In the aftermath of the Great Depression, the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) faced growing anti-business sentiment. As part of a widespread propaganda campaign to assuage public concerns about industry, in 1940 NAM created and distributed the short film Your Town. The movie, pursuing an integration propaganda strategy, appealed to Americans’ individualistic values by portraying industry as a beneficent fellow traveler who was a Big Individual — a heroic, larger-than-life figure that brought blessings to all. Applying critical insights (Altman, Campbell, Gunning, Propp) concerning the parabolic narrative form, this work finds that, while NAM’s original concept of Big Individualism has faded, modern American commercial films inadvertently carry forward one conceptual aim of NAM’s Your Town: encourage individuals to continue to think of independent action – and not systemic reform – as a foundational worldview for life’s challenges.
Embed vs.Unilateral, 1904: Risks and Rewards in Coverage of the Russo-Japanese War • Michael Sweeney, Ohio University • This study examines the strengths and weaknesses of war reporting from the perspectives of embedded, accredited correspondents and “unilaterals,” who report without military assistance or protection. It uses a variety of primary sources to examine and analyze the work of three reporters from the Russo-Japanese War: Lionel James of The Times of London and New York Times, Stanley Washburn of the Chicago Daily News and Minneapolis Times, and Hector Fuller of the Indianapolis News. All three used boats on the Yellow Sea to gather news, including James, the first to report from a war zone via radio. James chose to report with the approval of the Japanese navy, in return for accepting a Japanese spy and censor aboard his boat. Washburn and Fuller reported independently, with the former gathering news from a dispatch boat and then filing reports from land-based telegraph lines, and the latter sailing into and out of the besieged garrison of Port Arthur to gather the only outsider’s view of conditions in the sealed city. The paper determines that each reporter obtained stories that the others could not, and concludes that both embeds and unilaterals have advantages that recommend the use of both in wartime.
From Clanking Chains to Clashing Arms: A Black Newspaper and its Coverage of the Black Soldier in the Civil War • Thomas Terry, Idaho State University • This paper examines the coverage of the black soldier through the pages of a black newspaper, the Pacific Appeal, published in San Francisco, California during two years of the Civil War. Editor Philip Bell admonished the union for neglecting to make emancipation the principal war aim and embracing black recruits.
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