New Errands Volume 5, Issue 1 December 2017 Welcome to New Errands! 1 The Eastern American Studies Association and the American Studies Program at Penn State Harrisburg are pleased to present the fifth issue of New Errands, an online journal that publishes exemplary American Studies work by undergraduate students. Seeking to develop the next generation of Americanists, New Errands’ mission is both to provide a venue for the publication of important original scholarship by emerging young scholars and to provide a teaching resource for instructors of American Studies looking for exemplary work to use in the classroom. New Errands will be published semi-annually, after the end of each academic semester. The goal of this timetable will be to collect and publish essays produced during the previous term, so that they can be made available as quickly as possible for use in the following term. We encourage both self- submission by undergraduate students and nominated submissions by instructional faculty. They must have an American focus, but can employ a variety of disciplinary methods. Submissions can be emailed as Word documents to: [email protected]. Essays can be of any length, but they must have a research focus. Any visual images should be placed at the end of the manuscript, and tags should be placed in the text to indicate the intended placement of each image. Manuscripts should conform to MLA guidelines. Papers found in this volume were presented at the Undergraduate Roundtable of the Eastern American Studies Association Annual Conference in March of 2017. New Errands Staff: Supervising Editor– Anthony Bak Buccitelli Co-managing Editors– Brittany Clark and Caitlin Black Layout Editor– Denis M. Crawford For further information about the Eastern American Studies Association, including the annual undergraduate roundtable and the EASA undergraduate honors society, please visit: http://harrisburg.psu.edu/eastern-american-studies-association. 2 A Message from the Editors— As is tradition, the essays in the fall edition of New Errands come from the Undergraduate Roundtable at the 2017 Eastern American Studies Association Conference. These essays demonstrate both the range of methodologies and quality of scholarship attainable by exceptional undergraduate students. The essays presented here look at topics including, media and the film Selma; Philadelphia mayor Frank Rizzo and racial segregation; sugar taxes and consumption in the United States; the role of advertisement in forwarding social change; youth culture and masculinity among 1920’s college men; the use of Streamline Moderne design in consumer goods; and reporting on Guatemala in the mid- twentieth century. Several themes tie these essays together. First, many address issues of race and ethnicity, and in particular how race and ethnicity have been understood in American culture. In addition, a number of these essays ponder the role of media and popular culture in shaping aspects of the American experience. Finally, all of these essays take an interdisciplinary approach to their respective topics, highlighting the fruitfulness of an American Studies approach to scholarship. Together, these essays reflect the richness and diversity of American Studies scholarship at all levels and show great potential for the future of American Studies scholarship. It is the goal of New Errands to encourage and promote undergraduate research into issues of American culture and society. The essays included here both meet that goal and offer useful models for others seeking to conduct successful undergraduate research and writing on American Studies topics. We hope you enjoy reading these essays as much as we have. Caitlin Black and Brittany Clark 3 Table of Contents Race, Media, History, and Relevance in Ava DuVernay’s “Selma” Brianna Arney, Rowan University.…………………………...………………...……………….5 We’ll Remember in November: The Defense of Segregation in Frank Rizzo’s Philadelphia Courtney DeFelice, Temple University……………………..…………………………….........13 The United States vs. Big Soda: The Taste of Change Hannah Elliott, La Salle University………….…………………………………………………24 Building the Bridge Between Advertising and Social Change Jackie Salg, Franklin and Marshall College..…….…………………………………………….42 Collegiate Masculinity and the Rise of American Youth Culture During the Roaring Twenties Chloé Nurik, University of Pennsylvania……...…….…………………………………………50 Streamline Moderne Design in Consumer Culture and Transportation Infrastructure: Design for the Twentieth Century William Kowalik, Temple University …………….…………………………………………….69 The Curious Case of Sydney Gruson and the Obsessions Of Guatemala and the United States Brian O’Rourke, Rutgers University-Camden……..……………………………………...…….78 4 Race, Media, History, and fruition with her creation of the film “Selma.” DuVernay brings to life historical accuracies that Relevance in Ava DuVernay’s many Americans are simply unaware of in an artistic and entertaining way that helps to educate its “Selma” audience about race relations in America during the Brianna Arney 1960’s Civil Rights era. Her implementation of media and other forms of popular culture help to Rowan University immerse the audience in the violence experienced by African Americans at this time, while also Race, though a socially constructed idea, has attempting to help white audiences understand the been a major part of American history. From slavery, connection between the past violences and modern to the Civil Rights Movement, to the modern day day violences experience by African Americans. Ava Black Lives Matter movement, the African DuVernay uses her power in media to encourage her American race has been at the center of oppression, audience to confront more complex truths about marginalization, and violence at the hands of white racial violence in the past and pushes them to America. Contrary to this, however, American understand the reality of modern day racial violence. general education does not seem to hone in on these very injustices inflicted upon the African American Ava DuVernay’s “Selma” is a film which community. Often times African American history is depicts a rather brief moment in history, while also taught through a white lens in which unjust laws and unraveling much larger aspects history that led to and violence towards African Americans are perceivably surrounded that specific moment. This “moment” stopped through the law making of white men. This includes events from late in 1963 leading up to the leads the educated to believe that slavery and march on Selma in 1965. A time in which Martin segregation, and the violences that came along with Luther King Jr., the Southern Christian Leadership them, are isolated incidences. Specifically, it leads Conference, and many other peaceful protesters the people to believe that these injustices imposed on faced violent resistance from the white population blacks were fixed with the abolition of slavery and and state troopers in their journey to protest the laws such as the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Rarely barriers which hindered African American franchise. are young Americans taught about lynchings, hate The film begins with King’s acceptance speech for crimes, the violent depths of the KKK, commonly his Nobel Peace Prize in October of 1964 while held cultural beliefs towards African Americans, etc. simultaneously highlighting the devastating moment Without this kind of education, the American people in September1963 in Birmingham, Alabama where a are left blind to how slavery was only the beginning church was bombed and four young girls were killed. of the cultural and racist attitudes towards African After this moment, the audience is introduced to Americans, and how with every passing decade laws Annie Cooper, a black female, attempting to vote. may have changed to better African American social Cooper creates the foundation for “Selma” by status in this country, but those attitudes towards race revealing the main reason for King to orchestrate persist. It is clear, then, that our educations about marches throughout the film. The black female is racial history in this country must go deeper and must denied her voter registration after citing the preamble allow us to draw deeper connections between the past to the United States and being able to address that and today. Media and popular culture are an there were 67 county judges in Alabama, but denied immense part of American culture and, throughout because she could not name them, all the while being history, have helped to shape not only our told she was “stirring a fuss” by trying to register to perceptions of race, but also have drawn the attention vote. It is imperative to recognize that real life of the American people when change is so clearly accounts of these “qualifying questions” were far needed. harder to answer. A study on blacks in higher education informs that Sheriff Jim Clark asked Black, female film director, Ava DuVernay questions like “how many drops of water in a craft fully brings all of the previous points into waterfall?” to other African Americans trying to 5 register to vote (The Journal of Blacks in Higher march on Selma. This becomes known as “Bloody Education, 107). This makes it clear that registrars Sunday” and occurred on Sunday, March 7, 1965. were not interested in African American knowledge The large group of protesters are met by a line of state of the US, rather wished to make it impossible for troopers wearing gas mask gear and holding clubs. them to vote. This is followed by conversations King The protesters are asked to leave, but refuse has with President Lyndon B. Johnson urging the peacefully by standing in their places, Clark tells the president to pass a voting act that will allow more troopers to “advance” to which they brutally attack black citizens political influence and will be the first the protesters with their clubs while riding horses and step in stopping violent acts such as the Birmingham releasing a large cloud of gas. Many of the protesters Church Bombing. Johnson responds with asking were brutally injured, and all of them ran away from King for patience, that voting rights will eventually the bridge for their own safety.