PREVIEW ISSUE: APRIL 2014 The American Historian ORGANIZATION OF AMERICAN HISTORIANS

The Act of History

The Promise and Pitfalls of Historic Portrayals

ALSO INSIDE

Finding Time for Social Media p. 8 The Vexing Challenges of Contingent Historians p. 10 Writing History with Emotion p. 12 Reviews p. 28 Career and family... We’ve got you covered. Organization of American Historians’ member insurance plans and services have been carefully chosen for their valuable benefits at competitive group rates from a variety of reputable, highly-rated carriers.

Professional Home & Auto • Professional Liability • GEICO Automobile Insurance • Private Practice Professional Liability • Homeowners Insurance • Student Educator Professional Liability • Pet Health Insurance Health Life • TIE Health Insurance Exchange • New York Life Group Term • New York Life Group Accidental Death Life Insurance† & Dismemberment Insurance† • New York Life 10 Year Level • Cancer Insurance Plan Group Term Life Insurance† • Medicare Supplement Insurance • Educators Dental Plan

† Underwritten by New York Life Insurance Company, New York, NY 10010 Policy Form GMR. Please note: Not all plans are available in all states.

Trust for Insuring Educators Administered by Forrest T. Jones & Company

(800) 821-7303 • www.ftj.com/OAH Personalized Long Term Care Insurance Evaluation

Featuring top insurance companies and special discounts.

This advertisement is for informational purposes only and is not meant to define, alter, limit or expand any policy in any way. For a descriptive brochure that summarizes features, costs, eligibility, renewability, limitations and exclusions, call Forrest T. Jones & Company. Arkansas producer license #71740, California producer license #0592939.

2 The American Historian | April 2014 #6608 0314

6608 OAH All Coverage Ad.indd 1 2/26/14 3:46 PM 6608 OAH All Coverage Ad.indd 1

Care Insurance Evaluation

Featuring top insurance companies Personalized Long Term

and special discounts. We’ve gotyoucovered.

renewability, limitationsandexclusions, callForrestT. Jones&Company. Arkansas producerlicense#71740,California producerlicense#0592939. Organization ofAmericanHistorians’member insurance plans and services have been carefully chosen for theirvaluablebenefitsatcompetitivegroupratesfromavarietyofreputable,highly-ratedcarriers. This advertisement is for informational purposes only and is not This advertisementisforinformationalpurposesonlyandnot a descriptivebrochurethatsummarizesfeatures,costs,eligibility, meant todefine,alter, limitorexpandanypolicyinway. For Career andfamily... Please note:Notallplansareavailableinstates. Health Professional UnderwrittenbyNew York LifeInsuranceCompany, † Educators Dental Plan • Medicare Supplement Insurance • Cancer Insurance Plan • New York Life Group Accidental Death • TIE Health Insurance Exchange • Student Educator Professional Liability • Private Practice Professional Liability • Professional Liability • New York, NY10010PolicyFormGMR. & Dismemberment Insurance† (800)821-7303•www.ftj.com/OAH Forrest T. Jones&Company Administered by Insuring Educators Trust for Life Home &Auto New York Life 10 Year Level • New York Life Group Term • Pet Health Insurance • Homeowners Insurance • GEICO Automobile Insurance • Group Term Life Insurance† Life Insurance† #6608 0314 2/26/14 3:46 PM

From the President New OAH Magazine Welcome to the better teach and practice thehistorian’s craft. to strive we as encourageus and other each touchwith humor, good muchmore.visit, so a andworth Withintelligenceand historic particular sitesof and suggest are whether they the past, it can review the restoration and interpretation on dialogue in public the engagingfor springboards as can suggest how to use anniversaries of historical events technology,with itteach colleagues our wayslatest the in various areas of specialization, it can inform us about keep us current on historiographical trends and debates stage. What do we need that a magazine can offer? Itcan require a place where our needs and concerns are center engaged in the teaching and practice of American history wherethe explored.being Americanis past us Those of venue every in historians American for magazine new Historian devices we will welcome wedevices will with anticipation. mailboxes,computers,our ourmobile in our arrival or whose magazine a to sprightly,of the style offered readablein us be will it and us of all for something have policy. wise foundationof the are that lessons offers power, mustpast to spokenthe be truth and highest are stakes the When sectors. privateand public the society’sin ourdecision-makers to speak future.who the forthose there are finally And risk in the construction the of present great and the planning at neglected is history American that but all, at past not is past the thatpublic, them remindhoping to and computer, television,broaderthe outto reachwe smartphonewhere screens on walls—in and academy’s museums, the parks, outside history American teach others still And nuance. and complexity past’s the capturing is challenge our where universities and colleges four-year at or colleges community at teach to other times journeys and places in their country’s first history. their Others on students young our take to hoping classrooms, K–12 in teach us of Many work? our do we do Where others. to past American the of with the challenges and rewards bringing of the lessons aid,to designed inform,engaged us of andentertainall Colleagues: Dear n rn ad online and print In of issue preview the to Welcome te raiain f mrcn Historians’ American of Organization the , a ke u in us keep can Historian American The The American Historian American The The American will The Historian The American The is Alan M.Kraut cup of coffee, and engage with this informative and informative entertaining The issue of this American Historian. ¡ with engage and coffee, a of pour chair,cup this comfortable a with up pull charged So, trust. those sacred all to dedicated new magazine this launch to proud is Historians American of citizens.” Organization active The be to going actually are people if society democratic a in important is that information in order to make an argument. I think all of questions and answering them, of writing, of mobilizing Fonersaid. evaluating evidence, posing of skills “The of people the skills that come teach along with studying history,” to try “We teaching. history of importance the on commented president, OAH former a Foner, Eric Columbia University’s Pulitzer Prize–winning historian media contingent historians. social by faced challenges for distressing the time and blogging, and of budgeting the history, of of historians, including the use of emotion in the writing columnsthat address issues relevant toour community moreproblematic aspects. includes issuealso The three their analyze also public,but general the students,and dramatic portrayals of historical figures offer historians, media. The essays discussthe immensepossibilities that including public history historical sites, the classroom, important and in mass how figures areportrayed on to audiences in a variety of venues, feature multi-essay a and intellectuals. historians public as and researchers, writers, teachers, as work our to matter that issues the address also will to American history’s audiences. exhibits, websites, or social media that make it accessible lessoninplans, cast howknowledgebe can new syllabi, books is changing the American historical narrative and and articles scholarlylatest the in knowledge new how AmericanHistorian research,state-of-the-art from derived knowledge Journal of American History n rcn itriw ulse in published interview recent a In This preview issue of regarded highly the While expect? you can What The AmericanHistorian |April2014 1 will offer perspective on its readers will The American Historian will continue to deliver new The American Historian The Atlantic, The includes The

AmericAn rebels return to life ... in ian ruskin’s acclaimed plays From Wharf Rats to Lords of the Docks: The Life and Times of Harry Bridges “Harry Bridges is one of the most important labor leaders of the 20th century, and Ian Ruskin, in his one-man show, has captured him — his persona, his ideas — brilliantly.” — Howard Zinn, Historian

To Begin the World Over Again: The Life of Thomas Paine “Ian Ruskin’s performance had a profound impact on Ian Ruskin as Harry Bridges Ian Ruskin as Thomas Paine our students… It is our utmost pleasure to give the Available for performances highest praise and to recommend this play without reservation.” at your university. — Julie Davis, Professor, History and [email protected] • [email protected] Women’s Studies, Cerritos College

The AmericAn hisToriAn Join Wiley to is on TwiTTer! commemorate the centennial of World War I

Nominate your graduate students’ work for our War and Peace Essay Contest

Winning students receive the opportunity to collaborate with The Historian on a special Veterans’ Day collection, along with book prizes Please follow us and visit our page and free access to our military history content for regular updates. on Wiley Online Library For more information, visit

www.WarStudies2014.com www.oah.org https://twitter.com/TheAmHistorian AmericAn rebels return to life CONTENTS ... in ian ruskin’s acclaimed plays From Wharf Rats to Lords of the Docks: The Life and Times of Harry Bridges “Harry Bridges is one of the most important labor leaders of the 20th century, and Ian Ruskin, in his The American Historian one-man show, has captured him — his persona, his Preview Issue: April 2014 ideas — brilliantly.” — Howard Zinn, Historian

To Begin the World Over Again: Departments The Life of Thomas Paine “Ian Ruskin’s performance had a profound impact on From the President...... 1 Ian Ruskin as Harry Bridges Ian Ruskin as Thomas Paine our students… It is our utmost pleasure to give the contributors...... 4 highest praise and to recommend this play without Available for performances ante...... 6 reservation.” at your university. — Julie Davis, Professor, History and Reviews...... 28 [email protected] • [email protected] Women’s Studies, Cerritos College End Note...... 32 23 Columns Features 14 4:4 Time The Act of History: The New Social History: A Conversation with Finding the Time for Social Media and Blogging Ian Ruskin and Gary B. Nash Heather Cox Richardson...... 8 the profession 18 The Vexing Challenges of Contingent Historians From the Page to the Stage: Performing History Donald W. Rogers...... 10 in the Classroom Jeff Lantos Ready for Publication Writing History with Emotion 23 Andrew J. Huebner...... 12 [Re]Living Slavery: Ask a Slave and the Pitfalls of Portraying Slavery for the Public Joanne Pope Melish

The American Historian | April 2014 3 The American Historian Contributors Acting Editor William Gillis Consulting Editor Stephen D. Andrews Editorial Intern Rachel Beltzhoover Design and Layout Ashlee Welz Smith Andrew J. Huebner is an associate professor of history at the University of Alabama. He is the author of The Warrior Image: Soldiers in American Culture from the Second World Contact The American Historian at [email protected] War to the Vietnam Era (2008) and is currently working on a study of American families and public culture during World War I entitled “Love and Death in the Great War.” Advertising Sales Representative John Donica Michael J. Kramer teaches history, American studies, civic engagement, and digital The Donica Group humanities at Northwestern University. He is the author of The Republic of Rock: Music [email protected] and Citizenship in the Sixties Counterculture (2013) and writes about culture, the arts, (812) 323-1727 politics, and history for a variety of publications. He is the co-director of the Northwestern University Digital Humanities Laboratory. Organization of American Historians Executive Board Alan M. Kraut is president of the OAH and University Professor of History at Alan M. Kraut, American University, President American University. He specializes in immigration and ethnic history and the history of Patricia Limerick, University of Colorado, Boulder, President-Elect medicine in the United States, and he is the prize-winning author or editor of nine books Jon Butler, Yale University, Vice President and many scholarly articles. He is a Non-resident Fellow of the Migration Policy Institute, Jay S. Goodgold, independent investor, Treasurer a Fellow of the Society of American Historians, and an OAH Distinguished Lecturer. Katherine M. Finley, OAH Executive Director Edward T. Linenthal, Editor, Journal of American History Jeff Lantos is a teacher at Marquez Elementary School in Pacific Palisades, California. Alice Kessler-Harris, Columbia University, Past President He has taught in Los Angeles public schools for twenty-six years. His “Performing History” Albert M. Camarillo, Stanford University, Past President program has been studied by psychology researchers at the University of California, Los David W. Blight, Yale University Angeles. Elizabeth Clark-Lewis, Howard University Lori D. Ginzberg, Pennsylvania State University Amy J. Kinsel, Shoreline Community College Steven Lubar is a professor in the departments of American studies and history Peter Kolchin, University of Delaware at Brown University and the director of the John Nicholas Brown Center for Public Michele Mitchell, New York University Humanities and Cultural Heritage. He came to Brown after twenty years at the Smithsonian’s Jennifer L. Morgan, New York University National Museum of American History, where he was chair of the division of the history Andrea J. Sachs, St. Paul Academy and Summit School of technology. Alan Taylor, University of California at Davis

Joanne Pope Melish is an associate professor of history at the University of Kentucky. Executive Board Nonvoting Members She is the author of Disowning Slavery: Gradual Emancipation and “Race” in New England, William H. Chafe, Duke University Paul S. Sperry, Sperry, Mitchell & Co., Inc. 1780–1860 (1998) and several essays on race and slavery in the early republic and slavery be connected! Join today in public history. Currently she is working on a book-length project tentatively entitled “A OAH Staff Laboring Class: Race, Place, and Association in the Post-revolutionary North.” She is an Katherine Finley, OAH Executive Director OAH Distinguished Lecturer. Jonathan Apgar, Accounting and Financial Support Specialist Karen Barker, Accounting Assistant Gary B. Nash is Distinguished Research Professor (emeritus) at the University of James Black, Database and Systems Manager California, Los Angeles, and a former OAH president. He is a renowned historian of Nic Champagne, Media and Web Specialist Benefits of an oaH Membership colonial and revolutionary America. His many books include The Unknown American Nancy Croker, Director of Operations Susan Daut, Administrative Assistant/Development Associate Revolution: The Unruly Birth of Democracy and the Struggle to Create America (2005) and  Journal of American History—the leading scholarly publication in the field Terry Govan, Graphic Design Specialist of U.S. history. The Urban Crucible: Social Change, Political Consciousness, and the Origins of the American Kara Hamm, Committee Coordinator Revolution (1979), which was a Pulitzer Prize finalist. Sally Hanchett, Meetings and Membership Assistant  Elisabeth Marsh, Director of Membership and Program Explore how the OAH can help you with your discounted Registration for the oaH annual Meeting. Heather Cox Richardson is a professor of history at Boston College and an Development research, teaching, and career development. The OAH Distinguished Lecturer. She is the author of several books, including Wounded Knee: Teresa Ransdell, Sponsorship, Exhibit, and Advertising  Recent Scholarship online—a database of the most current history-related citations. Party Politics and the Road to an American Massacre (2010) and To Make Men Free: A Coordinator OAH is the largest membership organization  ® History of the Republican Party (2014). She writes for a wide range of media and tweets at Michael Regoli, Marketing and Communications Specialist, devoted exclusively to the study, teaching, and t he oaH Career CoaCH —a new electronic resource for the American history @HC_Richardson. Media Inquiries profession, providing job listings for seekers and timely career advice. Hajni Selby, Director of Meetings presentation of American history and promotes the Donald W. Rogers has been chair of the OAH Committee on Part-Time, Adjunct, Aidan Smith, Public History Manager  OAH Outlook—the organization’s award-winning quarterly newsletter. Annette Windhorn, Coordinator, OAH Distinguished Lectureship equitable treatment of all practictioners of history. and Contingent Employment since 2009. He has authored Making Capitalism Safe: Work Program Safety and Health Regulation in America, 1880–1940 (2009), taught American history at  d iscounts—25% off all Oxford University Press publications, 10–50% off stays Central Connecticut State University and other institutions as an adjunct instructor since OAH Mission Statement at participating Historic Hotels of America®, up to 94% off Oxford University Press 1992, and was a finalist in CCSU’s Excellence in Teaching Competition last year. The OAH promotes excellence in the scholarship, teaching, online database subscriptions, 50% off JSTOR’s JPASS subscriptions, and 40% off the Chronicle of Higher Education for new subscribers. Ian Ruskin is an actor and writer. He wrote the one-man play From Wharf Rats to Lords and presentation of American history, and encourages wide discussion of historical questions and the equitable treatment of the Docks, about the labor leader Harry Bridges, and he has performed it more than two of all practitioners of history.  Access to the online archive of all 27 volumes of the OAH Magazine of History. hundred times. He will perform From Wharf Rats to Lords of the Docks in April and May for the English Houses of Parliament and the Scottish Parliament. Ruskin will perform Organization of American Historians his new play, To Begin the World Over Again: The Life of Thomas Paine, at the 2014 OAH 112 N. Bryan Avenue Annual Meeting. Bloomington, Indiana 47408-4141 (812) 855-7311

Organization of American Historians www.oah.org 4 The American Historian | April 2014 The American Historian NEW FROM STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS Acting Editor William Gillis Consulting Editor Stephen D. Andrews Editorial Intern Rachel Beltzhoover Design and Layout Ashlee Welz Smith Contact The American Historian at [email protected] Advertising Sales Representative John Donica The Donica Group [email protected] (812) 323-1727 Organization of American Historians Executive Board Alan M. Kraut, American University, President CONNECTED CARLETON WATKINS Patricia Limerick, University of Colorado, Boulder, President-Elect How Trains, Genes, Pineapples, Piano Keys, and a The Stanford Albums Jon Butler, Yale University, Vice President Few Disasters Transformed Americans at the Dawn “This is the nature that dwarfs and obliterates us.” Jay S. Goodgold, independent investor, Treasurer of the Twentieth Century —Richard White, Katherine M. Finley, OAH Executive Director STEVEN CASSEDY author of Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Edward T. Linenthal, Editor, Journal of American History “A sprightly survey of social and technological Making of Modern America Alice Kessler-Harris, Columbia University, Past President transformation set in an era that makes our current high- $40.00 cloth Albert M. Camarillo, Stanford University, Past President tech age seem relatively dull.” —The Boston Globe David W. Blight, Yale University $35.00 cloth Elizabeth Clark-Lewis, Howard University Lori D. Ginzberg, Pennsylvania State University Most Stanford titles are available Amy J. Kinsel, Shoreline Community College STANFORD as e-books: Peter Kolchin, University of Delaware UNIVERSITY PRESS www.sup.org/ebooks Michele Mitchell, New York University 800.621.2736 www.sup.org Jennifer L. Morgan, New York University Andrea J. Sachs, St. Paul Academy and Summit School Alan Taylor, University of California at Davis Executive Board Nonvoting Members William H. Chafe, Duke University Paul S. Sperry, Sperry, Mitchell & Co., Inc. be connected! Join today OAH Staff Katherine Finley, OAH Executive Director Jonathan Apgar, Accounting and Financial Support Specialist Karen Barker, Accounting Assistant James Black, Database and Systems Manager Nic Champagne, Media and Web Specialist Benefits of an oaH Membership Nancy Croker, Director of Operations Susan Daut, Administrative Assistant/Development Associate  Journal of American History—the leading scholarly publication in the field Terry Govan, Graphic Design Specialist of U.S. history. Kara Hamm, Committee Coordinator Sally Hanchett, Meetings and Membership Assistant  Elisabeth Marsh, Director of Membership and Program Explore how the OAH can help you with your discounted Registration for the oaH annual Meeting. Development research, teaching, and career development. The Teresa Ransdell, Sponsorship, Exhibit, and Advertising  Recent Scholarship online—a database of the most current history-related citations. Coordinator OAH is the largest membership organization ® Michael Regoli, Marketing and Communications Specialist, devoted exclusively to the study, teaching, and  t he oaH Career CoaCH —a new electronic resource for the American history Media Inquiries profession, providing job listings for seekers and timely career advice. Hajni Selby, Director of Meetings presentation of American history and promotes the Aidan Smith, Public History Manager  OAH Outlook—the organization’s award-winning quarterly newsletter. Annette Windhorn, Coordinator, OAH Distinguished Lectureship equitable treatment of all practictioners of history. Program  d iscounts—25% off all Oxford University Press publications, 10–50% off stays OAH Mission Statement at participating Historic Hotels of America®, up to 94% off Oxford University Press The OAH promotes excellence in the scholarship, teaching, online database subscriptions, 50% off JSTOR’s JPASS subscriptions, and 40% off and presentation of American history, and encourages wide the Chronicle of Higher Education for new subscribers. discussion of historical questions and the equitable treatment of all practitioners of history.  Access to the online archive of all 27 volumes of the OAH Magazine of History. Organization of American Historians 112 N. Bryan Avenue Bloomington, Indiana 47408-4141 (812) 855-7311

Organization of American Historians www.oah.org Great speakers, Beatle Invasion Bad, Says Bill

“The Beatles are not merely awful; I would fascinatinG topics ANTE consider it sacrilegious to say anything less than that they are godawful. They are so unbelievably horrible, so appallingly unmusical, so The OAH welcomes the following dogmatically What American history book insensitive to individuals to the roster of the Q:should every American read? the magic of art, that they qualify E-mail your responses to [email protected]. We’ll print the best responses as the crowned OAH Distinguished Lectureship in the next issue, and we’ll post a new question. heads of anti- music.” Program in 2014-2015. wilder harmon —William F. Buckley, Brinkley Illustration courtesy of Library of Congress writing in his syndicated column, September 1964. Lunar Manners Gabriela F. Arredondo Cindy Hahamovitch Kim Phillips-Fein Douglas Baynton Alexandra Harmon Michael A. Rembis “The idea is, you leave our stuff Katherine Benton-Cohen Jane H. Hunter Marc Simon Rodriguez alone, we’ll leave your stuff alone.” Charlene M. Boyer Lewis Anne F. Hyde Adam Rome —Henry Hertzfeld of the George Washington Douglas Brinkley Louis Hyman Scott A. Sandage University Space Policy Institute, describing his proposal that countries work together to set rules to Alfred L. Brophy David Igler Tom Scheinfeldt protect their lunar landing sites. Members of Congress William D. Carrigan David H. Jackson Jr. Susan Schulten schulten have proposed a “moon bill” that would designate the Photo by Tony da Franca (http://www.flickr. Patricia Cline Cohen Margaret Jacobs Peter Seixas Apollo landing sites as national parks, but the measure would com/photos/11657411@N00/27707579/) likely violate a United Nations Outer Space Treaty and be interpreted by Jon Thomas Coleman Martha S. Jones Daniel J. Sharfstein other nations as an aggressive action, Hertzfeld said. Photo courtesy of Library of Congress Jefferson Cowie Peter Karsten Rachel St. John Gregory Downs Jennifer Keene Lorrin Thomas James Downs Ari Kelman Daniel Usner Carolyn Eastman Wendy Kline Marsha Weisiger Ann Fabian Barbara Krauthamer W. Richard West Jr. “By integrating history with the performing QUOTES FROM THIS ISSUE John Fea Lon Kurashige Laura Wexler seixas arts, I have found a way to inject joy into the Mark Fiege Daisy Martin Craig Steven Wilder learning process.” Thomas A. Foster Alexis McCrossen Heather Williams Kevin Gaines Andy Mink Kariann Akemi Yokota “When reenactors personify marginalized historical figures, the politics of Mario T. García Charlene Mires race, class, and gender in the present intrude in complicated ways.” Adam Goodheart Natalia Molina Andrew R. Graybill Leonard N. Moore “Social media and blogs are simply new tools to make it easier to do what historians have always done.” Adam Green Michael S. Neiberg Amy S. Greenberg Julia Ott krauthamer ® “By far, the search for secure, adequately paid academic jobs is the central Allen C. Guelzo Katherine Ott Distinguished challenge faced by contingent historians.” Steven W. Hackel Paula Petrik Lectureship Program S since 1981S “History can come alive when it is performed brilliantly. Or it can fall flat on its face.” For more information or to schedule a lecture, visit http://www.oah.org/lectures/lecturers/new 6 The American Historian | April 2014 kurashiGe Great speakers, Beatle Invasion Bad, Says Bill

“The Beatles are not merely awful; I would fascinatinG topics consider it sacrilegious to say anything less than that they are godawful. They are so unbelievably horrible, so appallingly unmusical, so The OAH welcomes the following dogmatically insensitive to individuals to the roster of the the magic of art, that they qualify as the crowned OAH Distinguished Lectureship heads of anti- music.” Program in 2014-2015. wilder harmon —William F. Buckley, Brinkley writing in his syndicated column, September 1964. Gabriela F. Arredondo Cindy Hahamovitch Kim Phillips-Fein Douglas Baynton Alexandra Harmon Michael A. Rembis Katherine Benton-Cohen Jane H. Hunter Marc Simon Rodriguez Charlene M. Boyer Lewis Anne F. Hyde Adam Rome Douglas Brinkley Louis Hyman Scott A. Sandage Alfred L. Brophy David Igler Tom Scheinfeldt

William D. Carrigan David H. Jackson Jr. Susan Schulten schulten Patricia Cline Cohen Margaret Jacobs Peter Seixas Jon Thomas Coleman Martha S. Jones Daniel J. Sharfstein Photo courtesy of Library of Congress Jefferson Cowie Peter Karsten Rachel St. John Gregory Downs Jennifer Keene Lorrin Thomas James Downs Ari Kelman Daniel Usner Carolyn Eastman Wendy Kline Marsha Weisiger Ann Fabian Barbara Krauthamer W. Richard West Jr. “By integrating history with the performing John Fea Lon Kurashige Laura Wexler seixas arts, I have found a way to inject joy into the Mark Fiege Daisy Martin Craig Steven Wilder learning process.” Thomas A. Foster Alexis McCrossen Heather Williams Kevin Gaines Andy Mink Kariann Akemi Yokota Mario T. García Charlene Mires Adam Goodheart Natalia Molina Andrew R. Graybill Leonard N. Moore Adam Green Michael S. Neiberg

Amy S. Greenberg Julia Ott krauthamer ® Allen C. Guelzo Katherine Ott Distinguished Steven W. Hackel Paula Petrik Lectureship Program S since 1981S “History can come alive when it is performed brilliantly. Or it can fall flat on its face.” For more information or to schedule a lecture, visit http://www.oah.org/lectures/lecturers/new kurashiGe Heather Cox Richardson

ime The New Social History: T Finding the Time for Social Media and Blogging

4:4 Illustration by Andreas Eldh (www.flickr.com/photos/eldh/5858249526)

Historians are increasingly recognizing and monographs add to the foundation the importance of online media in their of human knowledge, and whose teaching professional lives, but how on earth can inspires students. Their work may not reach anyone incorporate blogging, tweeting, beyond the academy, but it will continue to and Facebook into workdays that are shape the way we view the world. That sort already stretched tight? Participating in of scholarship has always been crucial, and social media can seem like just one more it will continue to be. annoying demand to be avoided as long as But engaging with a wider online possible. community offers scholars a chance to That sense of frustration comes from discuss their field with people from a a misunderstanding of the purpose of wide variety of backgrounds interested an online presence. Many historians, in the same thing. It allows participants sometimes pushed by their editors to to get feedback on new material, and it start splashing in online pools, make introduces to them new ideas that might the mistake of seeing social media and otherwise bypass the halls of academic blogging primarily as new advertising departments. It also lets historians inject tools. Suddenly, in addition to being their interpretations and arguments scholars, they are supposed to turn into into places and spaces they might never publicists, a new job requiring time and otherwise go. energy that they would much rather devote The easiest way to engage in a public to their scholarship and teaching. They conversation is with Twitter, which takes think they have no time for it, and they’re the least time of any social media and right. So long as we conceive of creating an fits most naturally into an academic day. online presence as an add-on to what we Twitter has rhythms, with different users are already doing, it’s impossible. frequenting it at distinct times, and long In fact, conceived a different way, social quiet periods, generally at night. You can media and blogs are simply new tools check it at the times your crowd is active, or to make it easier to do what historians once in the morning and once at night, or have always done. The whole point of when you have more time to engage with an historical scholarship is to participate in interesting conversation for several hours a larger discussion about the way societies during the day. Most people use Twitter on function: what creates change, what their smartphones, but you can also simply doesn’t. Twitter, Facebook, blogging, open- check it on a computer whenever you need access digital projects, and other Internet- a break from working: much easier on based media are not add-ons to traditional older eyes (and older fingers) than viewing professional demands. They simply enable and typing with a smartphone. scholars to engage more effectively in that On Twitter you can field questions about conversation. archives, readings, and teaching, while What does that mean, practically? First, following links can show you the most it’s important to remember that there interesting articles the day has to offer is nothing that says every historian has on a given topic. An hour every morning to jump onto the Internet to participate spent on Twitter, with glances throughout in society’s debate about what creates the rest of the day, will yield far more ideas change. There will always be ample room from a far wider range of sources than a day for those scholars whose careful articles spent reading on your own in traditional Illustration by mkhmarketing (www.flickr.com/photos/mkhmarketing/8468788107) 8 The American Historian | April 2014 media. You are essentially crowdsourcing global virtual common room.” Blogging, six hundred words, you should generally knowledge filtered according to your own then, essentially expands the advantages figure that writing a blog post will take no interests. of Twitter beyond 140 characters into more than two hours. Posts can also be At the same time, Twitter lets you share nuanced conversations. written and scheduled in advance. your latest ideas. While self-advertising Recently, historians have begun to blur should never be more than about a third the line between blogging and books. of what you tweet, you will frequently To make the entire historical enterprise engage in discussions with smart people An hour every morning transparent, from the ideas to the research interested in the same things you are, to the crafting to the polishing of a book, which allows you to put forward your spent on Twitter . . . will they are posting their evolving work Illustration by Andreas Eldh voice in a public conversation. You can online. This method allows historians (www.flickr.com/photos/eldh/5858249526) even set up Twitter chats with colleagues yield far more ideas from a to get feedback at an early stage of the in which you toss around ideas to start far wider range of sources research and writing process—and it new discussions. In addition to engaging also makes the production of historical with other people, you can—and should— than a day spent reading scholarship more transparent and less use Twitter to point followers toward blog mysterious. It is still too early to tell posts, open-access articles, and books that on your own in traditional whether or not those experiments will pay contribute to the conversation, including, off, but it is significant that historians have of course, your own. media. launched them on Twitter and Facebook. It’s not just Twitter. Any online media Not all that long ago, tenured professors platform that puts you in conversations were gatekeepers whose ideas dominated with other people interested in history historical debates. Today, that elite, gated has the potential to broaden your ideas But blogging also offers a medium for world has shrunk dramatically while the and your reach. Facebook, LinkedIn, historians to hone their skills. Bloggers Internet has opened the study of history to Google+, and LibraryThing can all develop a voice as they write for a virtual all comers. That openness offers enormous provide places for historians to exchange community in which they must find and opportunities for cross-pollination ideas. Their great beauty is that these hold on to an audience solely with their between the academy and nonacademic media do not have to be used in real time, ideas and writing style, rather than with historians. Indeed, it’s hard to imagine the way Twitter does. Conversations can their professional credentials. Blogging how rising scholars can operate without take place over days, with a variety of can provide immediate feedback, often developing an Internet presence. people chiming in at whatever times are surprising feedback, about what topics At the same time, though, the free-for- convenient for them. There, too, the key and styles readers find interesting. This all nature of the Internet increases, rather concept is sharing ideas, not advertising. has the odd effect of pushing scholars in than decreases, the value of traditional Blogging takes significantly more time unexpected but productive directions— academic voices there. Those voices are from a historian’s day job than social such as when a throwaway paragraph imperative to ask questions, demand media, but it offers payoffs that make sparks an unexpected debate or a standards of evidence, and promote it worthwhile. A December 2013 study seemingly forgettable post goes viral. narrative writing skills. While not every of academic blogging by The Guardian Like any kind of writing, blogging established scholar must adjust to an revealed that most bloggers are not, in becomes a habit. A post can take as little online world, unless more make that fact, reaching out to a nonacademic as a few minutes—if you’re giving your effort, the modern historical profession audience. Historians who blog are trying opinion on a specific issue—or as much will take shape without input from past out new ideas, making connections, as an entire day if you are writing a deeply masters. and critiquing the academy in what The researched piece on a historical event. That would be ironic, indeed. ¡ Guardian researchers called a “giant, Since a post should never be more than

Illustration by mkhmarketing (www.flickr.com/photos/mkhmarketing/8468788107) The American Historian | April 2014 9 Donald W. Rogers The Vexing Challenges of Contingent Historians p ro f ession As we all know, part-time adjunct to historical expertise—cultivating and instructors and full-time temporary propagating accurate, up-to-date historical the the professors are a growing presence in knowledge through effective teaching, and modern college and university teaching, sometimes through research. Contingent representing around three-quarters of all historians thus remain very much part of faculty nationwide, including historians. the professional community occupied by On the very day that The American traditional tenure-track faculty. Yet the Historian invited me to write this essay, I vast restructuring of the modern academic received a reminder of what being part of labor force has compromised their ability this burgeoning cadre of faculty means. A to serve traditional goals, not to mention public college where I have happily taught live normal professional lives. American history part-time for more than For those who make a career of it, the a decade informed me that my spring baseline challenge for contingent history classes had been cancelled due to declining faculty is maintaining employment and a student enrollments. That event eliminated living income. Nowadays, many full-time my job there for the coming semester, professors are hired on one- or two-year revoked my state health insurance funding, temporary contracts, while an increasing and reduced my employment to just one number of part-time instructors are other part-time university position (which engaged at meager wages in semester-to- I feel mighty fortunate to keep). Like semester, course-by-course arrangements. other adjunct instructors, I got no help Both practices satisfy the financial strategy from my publication record, seniority and of modern educational institutions to experience, teaching commendations, or employ a flexible, low-cost faculty labor service to schools and the profession. My force. Recruitment of such contingent predicament epitomizes the challenges faculty has, of course, risen dramatically faced by the contingent portion of the in the last forty years along with a limited history profession today, and by the increase in tenure-track positions, causing profession itself. a preponderance of contingent instructors Historians assume temporary full-time to replace the former predominance of or part-time teaching jobs such as mine tenured professors. One happy result is for many reasons: as an avocation outside that opportunities have expanded for part- of other careers, a way to accommodate time historians, more of whom can now family responsibilities, a method to sustain enter the profession with M.A. degrees as teaching after retirement, a stepping well as Ph.D.’s. Yet low compensation and stone to tenure-track employment, or job instability have accompanied growth, increasingly, as a career in the absence especially for adjunct professors. As the of full-time jobs. Whatever the reason, Coalition on the Academic Workforce contingent historians affirm the traditional (CAW) study “A Portrait of Part-Time values of the tenure-track core of the Faculty Members” (2012) shows, most history profession—the love of teaching, part-timers earn personal incomes of less a dedication to critical thinking, and a than $35,000 yearly and a majority survive devotion to the intellectual growth and by living in households wherein spouses, occupational advancement of students. parents, or partners provide additional Most importantly, they stand committed revenue. The 2014 report “The Just-in-Time

10 The American Historian | April 2014 Photo by Timothy Krause (www.flickr.com/photos/33498942@ N04/8736645778) under a Creative Commons 2.0 License (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/)

during the past four decades. As I found they serve. The disconnection and lack out, contingent historians are at the loose of material support underlay contingent end of these gyrations, experiencing faculty’s complaint that they do not receive booms and busts in job opportunities “respect.” Their challenge is to overcome due to changing student enrollments, up- contingent employment conditions and and-down economic cycles, vacillating receive better support for the work they institutional politics, and varying rates of do—to get job security, adequate pay, tenured professors’ retirement. orientation in the departments that hire By far, then, the search for secure, them, sufficient administrative support, adequately paid academic jobs is the inclusion in governance, and opportunities Professor” published by the Democratic central challenge faced by contingent for professional development. Staff of the House Committee on historians. It is a matter of equity. It is A bigger challenge for contingent Education and the Workforce adds that also a matter of professionalism, because historians is prospering and advancing contingent instructors frequently do not the instability of contingent employment professionally. According to Townsend, enjoy the middle-class standard of living distracts historians from practicing their a significant portion of historians with that their education and experience would expertise. Long teaching hours, travel to new Ph.D.’s secure full-time tenure-track normally afford them. Consequently, news multiple institutions, low income, and jobs after some adjunct service during stories proliferate about how adjunct perpetual job searching all detract from the first five years following receipt of instructors cobble together multiple jobs, professional requisites such as buying their degrees, but very few Ph.D. recipi- go without health insurance, worry that new books, attending conferences, and ents in adjunct jobs get full-time tenured schools will cut hours to avoid Affordable especially devoting time to reading, employment thereafter. One possible Care Act coverage, and in worst-case preparing up-to-date classes, and working reason is that contingent part-time jobs scenarios, resort to food stamps. with students. offer minimal support for scholarly work A related challenge for contingent that would qualify adjuncts for advance- historians is upholding rigorous ment into full-time ranks. Indeed, frag- professional teaching standards under mentary evidence confirms that adjunct With critics comparing the terms of contingent employment. instructors experience little upward Work conditions vary from school to mobility, and that a large proportion of adjunct employment to school, and among research institutions, contingent historians are now trapped dead-end fast-food jobs, four-year universities, and community in a permanent adjunct caste. The CAW colleges. Yet, across the board, to use the and House Committee on Education a final challenge for the labor parlance of the House Committee and the Workforce reports, as well as a on Education and the Workforce report, 2013 report commissioned by the OAH, historical community is to adjuncts suffer the same “piece rate” all verify that most adjunct professors create opportunities for system—that is, a fixed, low per-course have long tenures in part-time slots. stipend that fails to take account of work A clear majority have more than five the growth, occupational time needed to prepare for classes, build years of experience. Nearly one-third websites, grade assignments, and tutor have ten years. With critics comparing ad- advancement, and financial students in large survey sections. Even junct employment to dead-end fast-food improvement of contingent so, most adjunct instructors apparently jobs, a final challenge for the historical enjoy freedom to teach history as they community is to create opportunities for history professors. see fit, but spotty provisions for office the growth, occupational advancement, space, clerical help, textbook choice, and financial improvement of contingent advanced course assignments, a voice in history professors. departmental decisions, and the freedom The recent media storm about adjunct from arbitrary nonrenewal notoriously and contingent faculty has focused The problem is not just low wages. undermine their efforts. Moreover, as deservedly on their employment Contingent faculty members’ short-term Adrianna Kezar’s and Ceclie Sam’s 2010 difficulties, but members of the OAH jobs leave them constantly vulnerable to article “Understanding the New Majority historical community might contemplate nonrenewal due to fluctuating academic of Non-tenure-track Faculty in Higher how their challenges implicate the market forces. A 2011 article by historian Education” suggests, informal and spur- profession at large. Not only is the well- Robert B. Townsend shows that “wild of-the moment hiring leaves adjuncts being of contingent historians at stake, gyrations” in academic employment and contingent professors isolated and but so also is the success of history have occurred within long-term growth undersocialized in the programs that education. ¡

The American Historian | April 2014 11 Andrew J. Huebner Writing History with tion Emotion

As historians we write about the By talking to women who most dramatic and poignant human worked in the same neighborhood experiences, yet too often we drain those as Marie, police discovered that subjects of emotion. Our admirable quest she had eaten her last meal—two dy For Pu b li ca For R e a dy for detachment, our devotion to provable glasses of white wine and a assertions, our reliance on often dry sandwich—alone and depressed archival sources, perhaps even our desire at the café Sans Souci on the rue to be taken seriously in the academy—all Pigalle (pp. 147–48). inhibit more evocative writing. But this need not be so. We can maintain our The passage demonstrates one of dedication to scholarly rigor and yet still Roberts’s arguments—that social write with feeling. I’m not talking about networks governed the lives of French the important and still-developing field of prostitutes—while also profoundly emotions history, which seeks to explain evoking the woman’s isolation. Often and historicize human sentiment. Rather, our historical training leads us to eschew I’m suggesting that all of us, no matter such claims. How can historians really the subject of our interpretive interest, know what was in people’s hearts? We can pay more attention to the emotions of make those claims the way we make other our historical characters as well as the claims, by accumulating familiarity with emotions of our readers—that we cultivate our subjects, reading their words, quoting sympathy and even empathy as a way of them, and making reasoned judgments truly excavating the character of the past about what they felt. and conveying it to our audiences. I’ll first Of course, sometimes the sources don’t suggest how to do this, and then turn to contain explicit emotional cues. In those why. cases we can work to cultivate a novelist One way to bring more feeling to our or filmmaker’s eye for poignant detail. A work is to pay attention to the emotional single sentence in Walter Johnson’s Soul cues of our subjects. These cues don’t by Soul: Life inside the Antebellum Slave have to be central to our analytical Market (1999) captures the indignity and purposes, as they often are for historians sorrow of American slavery, with neither of emotions, but they can add color and direct evidence of emotion nor resort to mood. We should say it when historical fraught language. Details are what do it: actors were forlorn, ecstatic, confused, or angry, provided we have the evidence to Twelve-year-old Monday was show it. In her book What Soldiers Do: whipped by his mistress because Sex and the American GI in World War his lupus made his nose run on II France (2013), Mary Louise Roberts the dinner napkins (p. 21). writes of a murdered prostitute:

12 The American Historian | April 2014 Charcoal drawing by Wladyslaw T. Benda. Image courtesy of Library of Congress.

We feel something about the scene Courtroom dramas, the reunion of to the ways emotions change across time because we can picture it—a boy with prisoners of war and their families, civil and space. Even those scholars who an illness, a finely set table, a whipping, rights victories—all offer opportunities do broad, quantitative studies of the terrible pettiness and cruelty. The scene to invite suspense, relief, joy, titillation, aggregate value the experiences of the and the feeling help Johnson re-create and surprise. individual. Encouraging empathy and the character of everyday life in the Why do all this? Partly it’s an aesthetic sympathy underscores the uniqueness antebellum South. Novelists call this matter—our books are more readable, of people even as we understand them “showing” rather than “telling.” There’s memorable, and lively when we as members of groups. no need to say the abuse of innocents highlight our actors’ emotions and stir We do need to be cautious, of course. is tragic if the narrative detail shows it those of our readers. In a competitive In building empathy we risk making more vividly. market it can help sell books. But more ourselves falsely similar to people in Gloominess need not dominate our deeply, it’s our job. Evoking feeling does the past. “They do not think the way we emotional repertoire; our sources not have to distract us from our primary do,” Robert Darnton wrote of historical typically offer opportunities to elicit goal as historians—to vividly convey the actors in The Great Cat Massacre and positive feeling as well. We should character of human life in the past—and Other Episodes in French Cultural History assign humor a larger role in our work, in fact helps achieve it. (1984, p. 4). They don’t necessarily feel whether it means pointing out an ironic the way we do either. Yet excavating and detail, quoting a funny line, or just evoking emotion helps us comprehend writing with more wit. David Greenberg and assess those differences, showing us combines these approaches in a passage Evoking feeling does where we’re similar and where we’re not. from Nixon’s Shadow: The History of an Mourning the mass murder of cats can Image (2003): not have to distract us help us understand eighteenth-century from our primary goal as Parisians, even if—or more precisely, because—they weren’t sad about it. The thick curls of black hair, Evoking emotion thus fulfills the the bushy eyebrows, and the five- historians—to vividly mandate of historical research and the o’clock shadow enveloped Nixon convey the character of humanities more broadly: to understand in an aura of gloom. He scowled people. and frowned, prematurely creasing human life in the past — In short, the best reason to write with his forehead and cheeks. Few emotion is that it’s good history. We profiles of him failed to note his and in fact helps achieve it. often tout the conceptual richness of our “ski-jump” nose, which poked out, discipline, its ability to deliver the fullest Pinocchio-like. His eyes, beady possible picture of human civilization and dark, darted as he spoke, Our readers’ main ambition is probably and culture. We consider virtually any adding to the air of suspicion; to learn, not to feel. But to make them source fair game, and borrow liberally “shifty-eyed,” Truman called him. feel is to help them learn. All the pieces from other disciplinary approaches. The heavy jowls, which grew more of writing cited above carry water for Bringing forth the emotional component pronounced as he aged, made him their authors’ interpretive arguments. of the past only gets us closer to that full seem, Kempton wrote, as though In fact, many of our professed aims are picture the study of history promises. “a great wad of unmelting butter served by seeking out emotion in our Avoiding doing so, in my view, risks a [was] stuffed next to his lower research and eliciting it in our readers. worse violation—sucking the life out of jawbone.” Liberals just didn’t like We constantly argue for contingency in our subjects in the name of detachment. the looks of him (pp. 38–39). history, insisting that things didn’t have Let’s unleash the emotion of history for to happen the way they did. Cultivating our readers, and awaken theirs along the Here Greenberg uses wry humor not feelings of suspense can help us do way. ¡ just for amusement’s sake, but to help that. We value “accuracy” in our work, him develop the main theme of that usually regarding facts and figures. A chapter in his book—liberal hatred of fuller, more emotional rendering of the Richard Nixon. Many other subjects lend past is likewise more faithful to history themselves naturally to positive feeling. as it was lived—provided we’re sensitive

The American Historian | April 2014 13 Photo courtesy of Ian Ruskin

h s a N . B y ar f G sy o Photo courte The Act of History: A Conversation with Ian Ruskin and Gary B. Nash P h ot o co ur tes ome twenty-five history teachers gathered at a University of California, Los Angeles y of Ian Ruskin Ssummer teaching seminar on the American Revolution waited expectantly for a visitor from the eighteenth century who had traveled in time to tell of his experiences on both sides of the Atlantic in the era of democratic revolutions. Thomas Paine, in greatcoat, buckled shoes, rimless glasses, and a slightly disheveled wig, took his place at a table upon which stood a decanter of brandy, a pen and inkwell, several books, a sheaf of papers. For the next seventy minutes Paine, played by Ian Ruskin, spoke of his spotted background, his dreams of a better life and a better world, his struggle to reach America to begin his life anew, his unlikely role as the key pamphleteer of the American Revolution, his reformist ideas to align the new American nation with its stirring founding principles, and his post-revolution years in England, France (which included a spell in prison), and finally back to America. UCLA emeritus professor Gary B. Nash, the seminar leader who had invited Ruskin to perform his play To Begin the World Over Again: The Life of Thomas Paine, remembers that the teachers learned more about Paine from Ian’s performance than they would have from any lecturer. The American Historian spoke with Nash, a renowned scholar of early American history and a former OAH president, and Ruskin, an actor trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London who has since appeared on television and the stage, about the challenges and promises of dramatic portrayals of historical figures on stage, in the classroom, and at public history sites.

14 The American Historian | April 2014 Ian, what led you to write To Begin was better left in other hands. Nonetheless, With my one-person plays I am in a direct TAH the World Over Again: The Life of I saw teachers with dramatic flair contrive relationship with an audience that, in a Thomas Paine? first-person presentations for their sense, becomes the other character. Also, classroom projects at Department of once I walk on, there is nowhere to hide While on an East Coast trip Education Teaching American History and no time to go offstage and take a IR performing my first play, From summer and weekend seminars. One breath. It is more like jumping off a cliff Wharf Rats to Lords of the Docks, teacher played an enslaved African on a and hoping that you can first learn to fly about the radical labor leader Harry Virginia plantation; another portrayed one and then have the stamina to get to ground Bridges (which I performed at the OAH of George Washington’s generals. I think safely. I find it exciting if not addicting! Annual Meeting in 2009), three separate these kinds of dramatic portrayals serve people suggested that I consider writing students well, engaging them with the Ian, are there problems with the and performing a play about Thomas sense of seeing the clock turned back for a TAH ways Paine has been portrayed in Paine. As soon as I began reading about century or more. With plenty of research popular and political culture? Paine I knew that he would be my next and a gift for acting, history can come alive subject. He was a man with remarkable when it is performed brilliantly. Or it can When I was doing research for similarities, both personally and fall flat on its face. What’s needed is a great IR To Begin the World Over Again, I philosophically, to Bridges. I then received script and great acting. discovered so much outrageous a City of Los Angeles Fellowship to write misinformation about Paine that defines the play. Ian, what are the challenges in many Americans’ understanding of his I gathered a number of scholars who TAH writing a historical play and role in American history. To take one had written about Paine to act as an portraying a historical figure? example, Bob Basso, a former Honolulu, advisory board, including Harvey J. Kaye, Hawaii, news anchor and now a corporate a University of Wisconsin–Green Bay I find two basic challenges motivational speaker, began uploading professor of history and author of Thomas IR in writing this kind of play. videos to YouTube in 2007 in which he Paine and the Promise of America (2005); First, history is always open portrays Paine delivering speeches that h s Jack Fruchtman Jr., a Towson University to interpretation and there is even espouse Tea Party principles and accuse a N . political science professor, constitutional disagreement about specific facts, President Barack Obama of betraying the B y ar law scholar, and the author of three books down to details such as the publication nation’s founding principles. One of his f G sy o on Paine, including The Political Philosophy dates or even the authorship of a book, YouTube videos has received more than Photo courte of Thomas Paine (2009); and Edward Gray, pamphlet, or essay. I believe than any 11 million views. In my opinion, Basso a Florida State University history professor historical writing must, and should, be delivers the antithesis of Paine’s actual and specialist in early American history. I written from a particular viewpoint, political philosophies. To take another The Act of History: also asked Gary, a scholar of the American and that this applies most especially to a example, David McCullough’s HBO A Conversation with Ian Ruskin and Gary B. Nash Revolution and author of The Unknown dramatic piece. The second challenge is miniseries John Adams (2008), which one American Revolution: The Unruly Birth to find a character whose life had high might assume would be a more accurate of Democracy and the Struggle to Create and low points, victories and defeats, and portrayal of the American Revolution, had America (2005), to be a part of this process personal challenges and demons that one moment and one line, in an eight- and he agreed. These scholars reviewed can make for exciting drama. A dramatic hour program, for Thomas Paine. Yet he drafts of my script and noted any factual presentation must firstly be entertaining and Adams were passionate combatants inaccuracies and, equally important, for the audience, whether it is a fictional who helped to define each other’s political questionable interpretations of events or historical piece. An audience must care and Paine’s part in them. They helped about the figure or figures being portrayed me to understand the dynamics of those because of who they are as human revolutionary times, uncover the many beings, not because of their particular layers of Paine’s character, and measure achievements and impact on history. “I believe that my his impact on the events around him. This has been my aim with both of my presentations can inspire Their guidance also left me free to trust one-man plays. individual audience my interpretation of the man himself and If the play is well written and write without any outside obligations. succeeds in portraying a compelling members, teachers and human character, then specific students included, to stand Gary, what has been your challenges to portraying a historical up for themselves and see TAH experience with dramatic figure melt away. Any character portrayals of historical figures? must have some relevance to our the possibilities of building lives today, whether it is Joan of Arc, better lives.” Teaching courses on the American George S. Patton, or Forrest Gump. GN Revolutionary era at UCLA, and There is a particular challenge, however, on the road as a guest lecturer, I to performing one-person plays. Actors had dabbled with dramatic presentations— are taught to perform with other actors mostly playing Daniel Shays. But acting and, hopefully, to react to other characters.

The American Historian | April 2014 15 philosophies. It makes me wonder why colonial Virginia capital. struggling to realize their own value and such omissions happen, and why some The case of presenting Benjamin contributions to this world.” I believe that figures from history thrive while others Franklin in Philadelphia is similar. An my presentations can inspire individual starve. excellent actor has been interpreting audience members, teachers and students Franklin for nearly four decades. Many included, to stand up for themselves and Gary, what are the drawbacks thousands will testify to how they have see the possibilities of building better lives. TAH of historical reenactments as a come away with a deepened reverence teaching tool? for Franklin’s intelligence, humor, In general, historical portrayals political savvy, and voracious scientific GN today, insofar as they treat the An hour with a historical reenactor appetite. Franklin becomes the essential founding era of the nation, GN is usually entertaining and American, and this cannot help but please mostly glorify the Founding Fathers, enlightening but the performance, the tourist-industry leaders in the City turn them into men of marble, and however beguiling, is often misaligned of Brotherly Love. What visitors (and perpetuate founding myths that ignore with modern scholarship. Much depends teachers) will not come away with is an the tumultuous birth of democracy (a on the venue and sponsorship of the understanding of Franklin’s involvement in concept that was roundly attacked by event. Millions of Americans and the African slave trade and the ownership some members of our pantheon such as overseas visitors who have seen the of slaves, his callousness toward his wife, John Adams and Alexander Hamilton) Thomas Jefferson interpreter at Colonial his sponsorship of the conversion of and the radical reform agenda launched Williamsburg will enjoy the portrayal of Pennsylvania to a royal colony, and other by lesser leaders of the time such as an ever-brilliant Jefferson and a sunny uncomfortable aspects of his career. Thomas Paine. Ian is very aware of this; portrayal of a son of the Enlightenment. in his presentation he shows us Paine, But Colonial Williamsburg is a tourist What, then, is the appropriate role warts and all. Beholden to nobody and not attraction that does not want to disappoint. TAH for historical plays and portrayals limited to a revolutionary-era venue, Ian So however enthralled they might be by in the teaching of U.S. history? can construct his portrayal from original the Jefferson reenactor, K–12 teachers sources and scholarly analysis of Paine. who flock to Colonial Williamsburg for I hope that my plays present This uncouples him from what David summer seminars (and who pay a hefty IR compelling figures from history Lowenthal, in his book Possessed by the tuition fee to do so) will learn little about that are as human as they are Past: The Heritage Crusade and the Spoils Jefferson’s belief in the innate inferiority “giants of history.” I strive to do more of History (1996), called the “heritage of Africans; little about Jefferson’s retreat than simply educate a group of students crusade”—the “chief focus of patriotism from earlier efforts to find a way to end about a particular time, but to show and a prime lure of tourism.” With no need slavery, which he recognized as an evil and that these often revered figures were for “domesticating the past,” Ian is at liberty corrupting labor system that undermined human beings, with the same challenges, to address inconvenient truths (pp. ix, xi). the principles on which the possibilities, and frailties that we all share. Revolution was fought; little After a performance of To Begin Can a theatrical presentation to on Jefferson’s treatment the World Over Again at IR a group of students, whether at a of his own mixed- Cerritos College, a highly regarded university such race children; California community as Harvard or a community college such and nothing college, Julie Davis, a as Cerritos College, actually educate and on Jefferson’s “With plenty of research Cerritos professor inspire students through the telling of a squandered and a gift for acting, history of history and story? Is there a value in an actor/writer, opportunity can come alive when it is women’s studies, guided by one or more scholars, attempting to free his wrote to me to say to present a slice of complex history in several performed brilliantly. Or that the play not a one-hour presentation? Perhaps the hundred it can fall flat on its face. only highlighted answer to these questions lies in the extent slaves spread What’s needed is a great Paine’s “life, work, to which history can be brought alive not over three historical context just through an understanding of facts, but plantations, script and great acting.” and significant through an understanding of the human when he impact on Western beings who, with all their human frailties, withdrew as thought” but also did and in their own turbulent times, made the executor and so “in such an engaging, history happen. ¡ beneficiary of Tadeusz empathic way that it vividly Kosciuszko’s American estate impresses upon the viewer the that the Pole had left to his bosom belief in the triumphant possibility of the friend. These inconvenient truths don’t great impact of one person’s imprint on make for pleasant Colonial Williamsburg the historical record.” She added that the visits, though Colonial Williamsburg, to be experience was especially valuable for sure, has done much in recent years to cut the community college student audience, through the romanticized picture of the who, she wrote, “are all in their own right

16 The American Historian | April 2014 OUTSIDE THE GATES OF EDEN URBAN APPETITES The Dream of America from Hiroshima to Now Food and Culture in Nineteenth-Century New York PETER BACON HALES CINDY R. LOBEL

“This is an utterly original, unprecedented work of cultural history and “New York’s roots as the world’s greatest culinary center commentary, a tour de force, based on an exhaustive array of sources, are fi rmly cemented in Cindy Lobel’s wonderful survey of explicatingCloth $40.00 American experience from World War II to the present. the dazzling dining options of the nineteenth century. Her There are simply no books on this period with this scope.”—Jeffrey L. descriptions of markets, dining rooms, restaurants, and Meikle, University of Texas at Austin kitchensHistorical tellStudies us not of Urban only whatAmerica people ate but where they RUM MANIACS dinedCloth $35.00 and how the city’s rich ethnic diversity infl uenced it all.” Alcoholic Insanity in the Early American Republic —Lisa Keller, Purchase College, State University of New York MATTHEW WARNER OSBORN Now in Paperback IN HOCK Pawning in America from Independence through the “In its detailed but wide-ranging attention to institutions, practices, Great Depression theories, and aspirations shaping medical education, Rum Maniacs WENDY A. WOLOSON offersCloth $45.00 a sophisticated case study of the interplay of learned and popular cultures by which pathological drinking came to be imagined by nineteenth-centuryFRONTIER SEAPORT Americans.”—Thomas Augst, New York University Detroit’s Transformation into an Atlantic Entrepôt “Woloson frees the business from its nineteenth-century CATHERINE CANGANY anti-Semitic entanglements and points to the highly symbiotic relationship among pawnshops, the industrial city, and wage-dependentPaper $22.50 workers in a cash-poor society. Well written and accessible to a wide and diverse audience. Highly recommended”—Choice “In this thoroughly researched and well written study, Catherine Cangany shows how the people of late-eighteenth-century Detroit participated fully in a vibrant Atlantic economy. Indeed, sheAmerican demonstrates Beginnings, persuasively 1500–1900 that traditional notions of a simple lifeCloth on $45.00 the frontier do not hold for this settlement.” —T. H. Breen, author of Marketplace of Revolution The University of Chicago Press www.press.uchicago.edu From the Page to the Stage: Performing History in the Classroom by Jeff Lantos Photo courtesy of Jeff Lantos

t happened in the jury room in topic and make it compelling. And named Sherman Edwards in the late ILos Angeles Superior Court. it irked me when I wasn’t able to do 1960s, and together they created That’s where I had my epiphany. that. Especially painful had been 1776, a musical based on the This was in the summer of 1996. In some late spring lessons on the Second Continental Congress and, those days, when you received a jury Constitutional Convention. I just in particular, on the spirited debate summons, you had to report every couldn’t find a way to excite my fifth that preceded the Declaration of day for a week. On the Monday, I graders at Marquez Elementary Independence. As a piano player, was not called to a courtroom, so School in Pacific Palisades, a lyricist, and (in a former life) a I had eight hours to while away. California, about proportional scriptwriter, I thought, “Why not try Sometime before lunch, my thoughts representation, balance of power, to write a sequel to 1776: A show turned to the upcoming school and state sovereignty. set in that same Philadelphia State year. In particular I began to think Then it hit me: the Constitutional House eleven years later?” about my teaching of history. Having Convention had great characters, By the end of that first day in court, majored in American history at eloquent speeches, lots of conflict, I had roughed out lyrics for two Brown University; having studied and a happy ending. Wasn’t it crying songs: “Gotta Compromise,” sung by with prize-winning American out for some sort of dramatic Ben Franklin, and “The Rhode Island historians John L. Thomas, Gordon presentation? Why not take it from Song,” sung by petulant Rhode S. Wood, and James T. Patterson; the page to the stage? Islanders who insisted that their and being passionate about all I knew that the dramatist Peter state boycott the Convention. Into things historical, I liked to think Stone teamed up with a former these lyrics I tried to cram as much that I could take just about any high school history teacher (and historical content and as many high- eighteenth- or nineteenth-century former Brill Building tunesmith) level vocabulary words as I could:

18 The American Historian | April 2014 “ By integrating history with the performing arts, I have found a way to inject joy into the learning process.

The rest of that summer I pays off, though, and by the end he’s We’re Rhode Island, and we’ve spent researching, writing, and helping her finish her chores and” come this far. collaborating with my piano teacher, the two of them are canoeing on the We like things the way they are. Bill Augustine, who wrote a toe- Delaware River. Sure we may be small but we’re tapping score that ran the musical In September, I was able to not inconsequential, gamut from waltz to rap. convince my skeptical school when the count is eight to four our Using James Madison’s “Notes of principal that my theatrical vote is essential, Debates in the Federal Convention approach to teaching history was we’ll say, “no” to plans that make of 1787” and a number of secondary academically sound, and she agreed us much less influential, sources, I completed a fifty-seven- to give me (and my students) ninety we’re Rhode Island, and we like page script by Labor Day, and I titled minutes of rehearsal time per week. the way we are. the play Miracle in Philadelphia. (Convincing this first principal was To lighten the tone, to break up the critical; once the program was up Franklin sang: long debating sessions, to conform and running, parents, teachers, and If the little states can wheel a to musical theater convention, students were so enthusiastic that little, and most importantly, to give my succeeding principals were reluctant and the bigger states can deal a students a way into the story, I to tamper with the program.) little, created a romantic subplot. The boy, At a local dance studio, I found a then together we can heal a little, I decided, would be a teenage tough game choreographer, and presto— that’s what it’s all about, doing time in the Philadelphia jail, a the Performing History program gotta compromise. building adjacent to the State House. was born. According to the historian Catherine In the months leading up to Back at the courthouse the Drinker Bowen, four inmates were opening night, cast members following day, while sitting on a recruited to carry the sedan chair honed their oral language skills by foam cushion so thin I could feel the of the eighty-one-year-old Ben reciting actual statements spoken ribs of the chair, I wrote: Franklin. The elder statesman was at the Constitutional Convention suffering from “gout and stone,” and such as, “It comes down to this. It was a miracle was unable to walk the few blocks How does a government control in Philadelphia, from his home to the State House the people without limiting too it was a miracle, (although some historians have much the freedom of the people?” it’s true, challenged this account). The girl Or, “How can Virginia with seven fifty-five men who sat right here, would be a local lass hired by George hundred thousand citizens have knew what they had to do. Washington to fill the State House the same number of representatives teacups and empty the spittoons. as Delaware which has fifty-nine On Wednesday I was called to be She would also serve as the narrator. thousand citizens?” Or, “The on a jury. Luckily the case lasted When boy meets girl, he’s smitten, problem is this country is so large only four days. but she’s dubious. His persistence that we lack common interests. . . .

The American Historian | April 2014 19 The interests of the southern and northern states are as different as the interests of Russia and Turkey.” By “I have no doubt that teaching history having students pose those questions and declare those sentiments I was through musical performance can able to give them a much better work for all kinds of students. sense of what was at stake and what was worth fighting for. Soon they began to inhabit their characters and argue passionately their different points of view. Louisiana . . . Louisiana . . . Mother Nature set the stage Water and Power, written” in 2000, The success of Miracle in Philadelphia inspired me to cowrite with rivers, fish, and carnivores completed my curriculum-specific a new play about the Louisiana and flocks of birds so thick they trilogy. This show dramatizes Purchase and the Lewis and Clark hid the sky. the conflict between owners expedition. Again, we had great And herds of bison far as the eye and workers in the cotton mills characters (not just the leading could see. of Lowell, Massachusetts. It is a men, but also Napoleon Bonaparte, It was an animal, mineral, veggie historical story in which teenage Thomas Jefferson, Dr. Benjamin potpourri. girls and young women play the Rush, Toussaint Charbonneau, An animal, mineral, veggie most dynamic roles: and Sacagawea); conflict (with the potpourri. Teton Sioux and Blackfeet Indians); Then came man to this expanse, Sisters are you with me when I a love triangle (undocumented, Indians first, then guys from say that but possible) featuring Clark, France, cuttin’ down our wages is wrong. Charbonneau, and Sacagawea; and came the French and Indian war, Then on top of that they raise our a happy ending (if you discount soon most Frenchmen were no workload Lewis’s probable suicide in 1809). more, and just assume that we’ll all go Hello Louisiana, which premiered then came Spain knockin’ on the along. in 1998, begins with the following door. Yeah, we’ll burn out, chant in which students recount the They lived a while unless we turn out ten-thousand-year history of the in the Spanish style and demand a better deal. territory: then came Napoleon to settle the In the world of capital and labor score. you either eat or you’re the meal.

By integrating history with the performing arts, I have not only found a way to inject joy into the learning process—I have also created a form of content delivery that allows students to absorb information more quickly and retain it longer. In 2002 a team of University of California, Los Angeles psychology professors tested the historical knowledge of 440 sixth graders at our local middle school. The experimental group comprised students who had participated in the Performing History program as fifth graders at Marquez Elementary; the control group comprised students

Photo by Scott Buschman

20 The American Historian | April 2014 Photo by Scott Buschman who had attended other elementary schools with no Performing History program. In a 2004 article in the journal Theory and Research in Social Education, the UCLA researchers wrote that the study suggested “that a dramatic art-based curriculum can improve students’ achievement in the field of history” and also can improve students’ enjoyment of history instruction. What’s more, the study suggested that the program had significant effects on students’ knowledge of history beyond the year they spent in the Performing History program. “Such findings,” the researchers wrote, “speak to the lasting effect of this type of dramatic history instruction.” In addition, recent scientific research suggests that music is a powerful learning tool. only students in the school’s gifted at home. Often these were the very Henry L. Roediger III, a psychology program participated, but after kids who would tune out during professor and researcher at the watching and feeling the excitement classroom lessons. Now, many of Washington University in St. Louis generated by the initial performance, them tell me that history is their Memory Lab, told the Wall Street the principal and the other fifth- favorite subject and that they can’t Journal in December 2013 that grade teachers urged me to make wait for the morning sing-a-longs or while humans are able to store the program more inclusive. In year the weekly rehearsals. information in their brains fairly two, and in the sixteen years since, One day, about five years ago, a easily, “pulling out data efficiently” every fifth grader at my school has theater producer who had heard is another matter. Music can help performed history. Most years that about our program walked into the humans retrieve such data. Music, means four classes, four different school auditorium. He would later Roediger wrote, “provides a rhythm, casts, and four performances. Many include us in his Festival of New a rhyme and often, alliteration. All of them, having seen the shows as American Musicals, but this was his that structure is the key to unlocking third and fourth graders or having first glimpse. Sixty students were information stored in the brain— heard older siblings singing the doing a leg-flapping dance move with music acting as a cue.” songs, already know the lyrics, the called “slapping leather” and belting Thus far, my performing history dance moves, and what roles they out the lyrics to a big production program has been exported to only want to try out for. And if and when number: a handful of other schools. Can it be the class gets a bit rowdy, nothing scaled nationally? It would seem to restores order like the words, “Okay, Hello Louisiana, you were quite require some sort of post-graduate time for auditions,” or “Get out your a deal. learning academy where a cadre of scripts.” We all itch to see the secrets you piano-playing history teachers could Over the years lead roles have been reveal. be trained. played by kids who struggle with I have no doubt that teaching autism, attention-deficit disorder, “What did you think?” I asked the history through musical or fetal alcohol syndrome; kids who producer afterward. performance can work for all kinds struggle with their multiplication “I felt the magic,” he said. of students. In the first year of tables and subject-verb agreement; I knew what he meant. I feel it the Performing History program, and kids who do not speak English every day. ¡

The American Historian | April 2014 21 Early American Places is a collaborative series focused on the early history of North America. It is supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

To learn more about the Early American Places series, stop by booth 227 at the annual meeting in Atlanta. Browse a complete selection of EAP titles, pick up the latest EAP catalog, and learn how to submit your project for publication in the series.

Senator Benton and the People Slavery Before Race Everyday Life in the Early Master Race Democracy on the Early Europeans, Africans, and Indians English Caribbean American Frontiers at Long Island’s Sylvester Manor Irish, Africans, and the Ken S. Mueller Plantation, 1651–1884 Construction of Difference Paper, $29.95 | 9780875807003 Katherine Howlett Hayes Cloth, $45.00 | 9780875804798 Jenny Shaw Cloth, $30.00 | 9780814785775 Paper, $24.95 | 9780820346625 Cloth, $74.95 | 9780820345055

Parading Patriotism Colonization and An Empire of Small Places Independence Day Celebrations in Its Discontents Mapping the Southeastern the Urban Midwest, 1826–1876 Emancipation, Emigration, and Anglo-Indian Trade, 1732–1795 Adam Criblez Antislavery in Antebellum Pennsylvania Robert Paulett Paper, $28.95 | 9780875806921 Paper, $24.95 | 9780820343471 Beverly C. Tomek Cloth, $69.95 | 9780820343464 Paper, $24.00 | 9780814764534 Cloth, $65.00 | 9780814783481

www.earlyamericanplaces.org Early American Places is a collaborative series focused on the early history of North America. It is supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

To learn more about the Early American Places series, stop by booth 227 at the annual meeting in Atlanta. Browse a complete selection of EAP titles, pick up the latest EAP catalog, and learn how to submit your project for publication in the series.

Photo by Johnny Shryock

Senator Benton and the People Slavery Before Race Everyday Life in the Early Master Race Democracy on the Early Europeans, Africans, and Indians English Caribbean American Frontiers at Long Island’s Sylvester Manor Irish, Africans, and the [Re]Living Slavery: Ken S. Mueller Plantation, 1651–1884 Construction of Difference Paper, $29.95 | 9780875807003 Katherine Howlett Hayes Cloth, $45.00 | 9780875804798 Jenny Shaw and the Pitfalls of Portraying Slavery Cloth, $30.00 | 9780814785775 Paper, $24.95 | 9780820346625 Ask a Slave Cloth, $74.95 | 9780820345055 for the Public By Joanne Pope Melish

Good day to you, lords and ladies. in the year 1795 and answers questions from “I’m Lizzie Mae, personal housemaid to male and female visitors of all ages and races. President and Lady Washington, and I’m Dressed in mob cap and apron, Lizzie Mae here to answer all your questions about is filmed in close-up, seated at a tea table the Washingtons’ home and plantation.” So in front of portraits of George and Martha begins the first episode of a popular Web Washington; occasionally she is joined on series entitled Ask a Slave (askaslave.com), camera by other characters, notably her created by and starring Azie Mira Dungey, an son Jimmy and Tobias Lear, Washington’s African American actress who once worked personal secretary. Questioners in present- at Mount Vernon portraying Caroline day dress are filmed at various other locations Parading Patriotism Colonization and An Empire of Small Places Branham, Martha Washington’s enslaved but appear to address their queries to Lizzie Independence Day Celebrations in Mapping the Southeastern Its Discontents personal maid. There, many of the questions Mae directly (or occasionally as unseen the Urban Midwest, 1826–1876 Emancipation, Emigration, and Anglo-Indian Trade, 1732–1795 Adam Criblez Antislavery in Antebellum Pennsylvania Robert Paulett posed by visitors about Caroline Branham’s “callers”). Each episode is introduced by text Paper, $28.95 | 9780875806921 Paper, $24.95 | 9780820343471 life as a slave struck Dungey as so outrageous assuring the viewer that all the questions Beverly C. Tomek Cloth, $69.95 | 9780820343464 Paper, $24.00 | 9780814764534 that she was moved to re-create them in Ask and answers are based on “real interactions,” Cloth, $65.00 | 9780814783481 a Slave, which debuted in September 2013. In followed by an animated cartoon image of two seasons of six episodes plus a “Christmas Lizzie Mae sweeping; the dust fills the screen, Special,” the fictional Lizzie Mae welcomes and then the cartoon Lizzie Mae appears viewers to the Washingtons’ Mansion House again to wink at the viewer. www.earlyamericanplaces.org The American Historian | April 2014 23 “Ask a Slave seeks to highlight what Dungey sees as two mutually reinforcing issues—the failure of the public to value African American history, and the failure of more conventional institutions to educate the public about it.”

Azie Dungey, the creator and star of Ask a Slave Photo by Johnny Shryock

Ask a Slave calls itself a “comedy educational. To Chakrabarti’s that black freedom must entail, web series,” and the wink seems to suggestion that some people in the words of a self-proclaimed confirm its comedic intent; but in might feel “there shouldn’t be any abolitionist who joins Lizzie Mae a September 2013 interview with comedy brought to this horrific in that episode, “safe passage Meghna Chakrabarti on NPR’s part of American history that for all the Negroes back to their Here and Now, Dungey insisted had to do with slavery,” Dungey home in Africa—that is where that her motivation was more responded that, for her, “humor you people want to go, right?” complicated. Chakrabarti mused, is a way to break down people’s In another episode, Lizzie “maybe we’re justified in laughing defenses, and I think that if you Mae is joined by Red Jacket, at the ignorance in some of these do it right and you catch people the revolutionary-era Seneca questions that you get at Mount on a moment when their defenses orator and chief, who skewers Vernon. But on the other hand, in are down, through the humor, you romanticized notions about the defense of those tourists, at least can squeeze in some kernel of so-called First Thanksgiving, the they’re coming there, right, for meaning.” “vanishing Indian,” and George historical experience.” Dungey So what historical meaning is Washington’s warm relations agreed. “This isn’t really about Dungey trying to squeeze in? with native peoples. And every the people and the questions,” One way to think about Ask a episode illuminates important she said. “It’s about a system that Slave is as a kind of training aspects of the experience of allows these questions to [persist]. film for would-be visitors to enslavement: the severity of . . . Everybody is so proud of what actual historic sites, in which the restrictions and burdens it it means to be an American, but viewers are asked to examine imposed, especially on women, . . . people don’t take the time to their own assumptions before and the self-awareness, fortitude, understand . . . what’s considered plunging ahead with thoughtless resilience, and spirited resistance a lesser valuable history, which is questions. Beyond that, does of enslaved people. While Ask African-American history.” this series educate viewers more a Slave does tacitly validate the With Ask a Slave, then, Dungey broadly about American, and notion of slavery as exclusively seeks to highlight what she sees African American, history? In southern (a misconception that I, as two mutually reinforcing many ways it does. The second as a historian of northern slavery, issues—the failure of the public episode, for example, explodes wish she had debunked), on the to value African American the notion that all early national whole she does a good job with history, and the failure of more antislavery advocates were the history. conventional institutions to passionate believers in racial Ask a Slave lampoons the educate the public about it. She equality; it exposes the fact that questions asked by visitors to clearly intends the series to be many of them were convinced historic sites, not the answers

24 The American Historian | April 2014 they receive. How good a job, The recent enthusiasm for especially fascinating historical then, are actual living history sites reenactment is an outgrowth of figure or participate in a thrilling such as Mount Vernon doing at what Vanessa Agnew, an associate event. This longing to be present interpreting American history? In professor of Germanic Languages in the past is more than a desire her interview with Chakrabarti, and Literatures at the University for historical understanding; it is Dungey called preparing for the of Michigan, calls the “affective a yearning to experience what the role she played as a character turn” in history, with its emphasis past was like. But many people interpreter at Mount Vernon on “personal experience, social also come to the past hoping, “some of the hardest work I’ve relations and everyday life.” Living often unconsciously, that their ever done because I had to know history sites seem to offer, as encounter will somehow yield the history. [It] took about two Agnew wrote in 2007, “the kind insight into the present, and in months of studying. And then of sympathetic identification with this way reenactment encourages it never really stopped.” Most the past that R. G. Collingwood a kind of collapse of temporality living history sites do try very . . . called the precondition for that is at odds with its very hard to prepare their reenactors historical understanding.”1 One intention. thoroughly for the roles they will of the greatest attractions of When reenactors personify portray. But in a short period reenactment is that it offers the marginalized historical figures, of time it is difficult to acquire opportunity to give voice to the politics of race, class, and a broad enough knowledge of formerly marginalized groups, gender in the present intrude the economic, political, and and in recent years more and in complicated ways that may social world of the characters more living history sites have obscure rather than illuminate associated with a particular site moved to incorporate slaves and the past in the encounter. While to offer fully informed answers to servants into their rosters of most of us claim tirelessly that all the wide range of questions that interpreted characters. Historical questions are good questions no visitors, some of them historians role-playing has also found matter how ignorant they seem, (or at least buffs) themselves, favor in the classroom, part this presentist resonance turns may ask. The difficulty is of educators’ recent embrace a simple lack of knowledge into especially great for those who will of experiential learning as a an expression of insensitivity. In interpret enslaved or otherwise particularly powerful teaching some of the questions asked of marginalized figures. Learning strategy. Dungey at Mount Vernon and this history involves unlearning The general public is drawn lampooned in Ask a Slave, white many “facts” naturalizing the to “living history” for different questioners are clearly taking subordination of slaves, poor reasons. At one time or another, the opportunity to air their beefs people, and women that were most people have found with present-day blacks, or they staples of history education until themselves wishing they could at least are attempting to gain quite recently. Then, too, there travel back in time to talk to some insight into a current situation is far less information available about most enslaved people than about their elite owners; this forces reenactors to portray specific slaves in generic terms, making them categories instead of individuals (as slavery itself did). All of this raises many questions about the value and limits of historical reenactment, especially with respect to illuminating the lives of historically marginalized groups.

Visitors explore a replica slave cabin at Mount Vernon

Photo by Stacey Huggins (www.flickr.com/photos/staceyhuggins/2566958925/)

The American Historian | April 2014 25 NatioNal History teacHer of that they find exasperating or portray slaves. Their exchanges as submissive, seems to break baffling: “Why don’t you just go to with the public do not take down customary inhibitions tHe year award Massachusetts?” seems to encode place in some neutral space and authorize the offensive sort an impatience with current of historical inquiry, but in a of familiarity illustrated by the disadvantage: “Why don’t you vexed present-day cultural and male questioner’s avid interest Nominate a Teacher to Win just change your situation? Get political arena. That vexed arena in the branding of Lizzie Mae’s off your duff and get a job?” And extends into the classroom, body. In fact, slave reenactors’ Dungey/Lizzie Mae clearly hears where historical role-playing is seemingly unrestricted and $10,000 modern beefs in these questions. supported by myriad online and unprotected availability to www.gilderlehrman.org/nhtoy In the “About Azie” link on the print-based collaborative and questioners, and their obligation Ask a Slave website, Dungey interactive resources. Scenarios to stay in character—in other explains how portraying an involving slavery are popular words, their vulnerability—is eighteenth-century slave during precisely because they do offer probably the most uncomfortably Barack Obama’s first term as an opportunity to encourage realistic, and troubling, aspect president, when there was “racial students to connect oppression of performing enslavement. tension all around,” made her “feel in the past with social injustice Something similar can happen like I was in some sort of twisted in the history classroom when time warp. . . . Talking to 100s of students portraying elite figures people a day about what it was “The sense of dislocation take the opportunity to bully like to be black in 18th Century students portraying slaves and America. And then returning to that Dungey uses as other subordinated characters. the 21st Century and reflecting The fact remains that many on what had and had not fodder for comedy visitors to living history sites changed.” suggests the special find the opportunity to engage in Dungey frankly exploits this conversation with “actual slaves” “time warp” for comedic effect challenges facing one of the most emotionally in Ask a Slave. While Lizzie Mae character interpreters powerful and meaningful sometimes expresses puzzled encounters with history they will Jill Szymanski ignorance at questions that who are asked to ever have; and many students say presume knowledge of events portray slaves.” the same thing about classroom 2013 National History Teacher of the Year outside her time and place, she scenarios involving slavery. If Azie Wilmington, Delaware also deliberately creates double Dungey is at all representative, the entendres that reach into the story is quite different for slave present for their meaning. For today; but even with the most reenactors themselves. So—do example, in response to a man’s random matching of students the advantages of giving voice suggestive request that she show with roles to avoid racial to enslaved figures in the past Students, parents, teachers, and principals–help us find the best him where on her body she has stereotyping, many teachers will outweigh its perils? On balance, history teacher in your state and the country! been branded, she pretends to attest to uncomfortable moments the answer is probably a cautious examine her hands. “I think it’s when students in the roles of “yes”—with the following caveat: right there,” she exclaims, raising slaves have had to contend with Reenacting slavery is a delicate Now seeking Grade K–6 social studies/history teacher nominations for 2015. her middle finger triumphantly: questions or opinions that inject business, laced with potential “See that? Got it?” One is present-day concerns in hurtful missteps, the consequences of One teacher from each state will be named the state winner, awarded $1,000, and automatically entered tempted to conclude that this is ways. which fall most heavily upon into the National History Teacher of the Year selection process. The National History Teacher of the Year really Dungey’s overall message, Engaging slave reenactors also the reenactor—and the greatest reflective of a longing to exorcise seems to lead some questioners difficulties will come from failing receives $10,000 and is flown to New York City, along with two students, for an awards ceremony in the what she calls the “somewhat to develop Collingwood’s to reckon with the present, not teacher’s honor. Visit www.gilderlehrman.org/nhtoy to learn more and nominate a teacher. infuriating encounters” she “sympathetic identification” the past. ¡ suffered at Mount Vernon. with the subordination of The sense of dislocation that slaves rather than with their 1 Vanessa Agnew, “History’s Affective National History Teacher of the Year is co-sponsored by: Dungey uses as fodder for perspectives and experiences. Turn: Historical Reenactment and comedy suggests the special For some, an encounter with Its Work in the Present,” Rethinking challenges facing character people of color, especially History, 11 (Sept. 2007), 300, 302. interpreters who are asked to women, in roles officially defined

26 The American Historian | April 2014 NatioNal History teacHer of tHe year award Nominate a Teacher to Win $10,000 www.gilderlehrman.org/nhtoy

Jill Szymanski 2013 National History Teacher of the Year Wilmington, Delaware

Students, parents, teachers, and principals–help us find the best history teacher in your state and the country!

Now seeking Grade K–6 social studies/history teacher nominations for 2015.

One teacher from each state will be named the state winner, awarded $1,000, and automatically entered into the National History Teacher of the Year selection process. The National History Teacher of the Year receives $10,000 and is flown to New York City, along with two students, for an awards ceremony in the teacher’s honor. Visit www.gilderlehrman.org/nhtoy to learn more and nominate a teacher.

National History Teacher of the Year is co-sponsored by: KANSAS Reviews

p r i n t An Insider’s History by Steven Lubar

The Smithsonian finally gets its of other museums, or connection to the Washington insider-tells-all memoir, extensive museum studies literature. complete with memorandums in Still, there is some valuable history and the author’s files but not the official analysis here, and a rare inside view that archives, off-the record conversations will be instructive for history museum Small-Town Dreams The Search for Domestic Cold War Kids remembered thirty years later, and, studies students and curators. Stories of Midwestern Boys Who Bliss Politics and Childhood in Postwar of course, some snarky (but discreet) Post argues that that there have been Shaped America Marriage and Family Counseling in America, 1945–1960 score settling. Current and former three styles of history exhibitions at the 20th-Century America Smithsonian employees will im- Smithsonian: collections-driven, neo- John E. Miller Marilyn Irvin Holt mediately check the index. (Disclosure: traditional displays of objects; story- 544 pages, 42 photos, 2 maps, Cloth $29.95 Ian Dowbiggin 224 pages, 24 photos, Cloth $34.95, I’m one of those former employees, and driven narratives; and postmodern, 262 pages, 15 photos, Cloth $29.95 Ebook $34.95 a former colleague of the author, and immersive exhibitions. He documents Who owns america’s past: Hoover’s FBI and the I’m in the index.) that all three types have coexisted for The Smithsonian and the Fourth Estate Resilient America The Nature of Childhood But the book’s not really an exposé. It’s almost a century, and credits designers, An Environmental History of more a history, and a narrowly focused even more than curators, for the The Campaign to Control the Press Electing Nixon in 1968, Channeling problem of History and the Bureau’s Image Dissent, and Dividing Government Growing Up in America since 1865 one. The title is misleading. Post is exhibitions that worked well. interested in the history of technology, The relationship of academic work Matthew Cecil Michael Nelson Pamela Riney-Kehrberg and so he focuses on activities in the to museum work is a recurring theme. Robert C. Post 369 pages, 27 photos, Cloth $34.95, 360 pages, 20 photos, Cloth $34.95 288 pages, 30 photos, Cloth $34.95, Ebook $34.95 curatorial offices of the fifth floor of the Post notes the Smithsonian’s desperate Johns Hopkins University Press Ebook $34.95 National Museum of American History, eagerness to be like a university, to 2014 The Crusade for Equality in and, to a lesser extent, the National hire Ivy League Ph.D.’s and faculty Hoover’s Secret War Fat Blame Air and Space Museum. He considers consultants, and to push curators to the Workplace against Axis Spies The Griggs v. Duke Power Story How the War on Obesity Victimizes only exhibits, not collections or public write academic books. This rarely ended Women and Children programs. And it’s not really about “the well. Related to this is another theme: FBI Counterespionage during Robert K. Belton World War II April Michelle Herndon problem of history” in a general way. Post curators’ resistance to change, or, for 428 pages, Cloth $39.95, Ebook $39.95 is interested in museum management, that matter, to work on anything other the easy story of decline from the good Raymond J. Batvinis 232 pages, 8 photos, Cloth $29.95 historical exhibitions, and the relation than their own pet projects. Museum old days that he occasionally veers 352 pages, 24 photos, Cloth $34.95 of museum work and academic work. administrators can find many how-not- toward. Indeed, this book documents Understanding Clarence NEW IN PAPERBACK Post, retired curator at the American to’s here. a remarkable consistency. The Thomas History museum (and former editor Post covers recent Smithsonian Smithsonian has always negotiated with Harlem’s Rattlers and the The Jurisprudence of Constitutional of Technology and Culture), has a good controversies—the Enola Gay exhibit the rich and powerful who wanted their Great War Restoration The Making of Yosemite memory, good archival instincts, and fiasco, increasing reliance on private stories told. Exhibitions were always a The Undaunted 369th Regiment Ralph A. Rossum James Mason Hutchings and the combination of “authentic” collections and the African American Quest for an engaging writing style. He’s written donors, Secretary Larry Small’s expense 304 pages, Cloth $34.95, Ebook $34.95 Origin of America’s Most Popular an insider’s history that lets an outsider accounts—and while he does not add and “postmodern” construction. Equality National Park listen in on staff meetings, read memos, much information, he does provide Museum directors have always fought Jeffrey T. Sammons and Jen A. Huntley with curators. Curators have always Judging the Boy Scouts and get a sense of the ways that the a useful historical perspective. Post John H. Morrow, Jr. 246 pages, 17 photos, Paper $19.95 Smithsonian made decisions. He was notes the rise of the “stakeholder” been focused on their own work. But of America part of that world, knows the people in museum discussions, and muses the Smithsonian has also kept its eye on 528 pages, 40 photos, 3 maps, Cloth $34.95, Ebook $34.95 Gay Rights, Freedom of he writes about, and does a good job about the difference between, say, the its mission, “the increase and diffusion Association, and the Dale Case Beyond Rosie the Riveter of knowledge”—while spending lots of of explaining how things worked, demands of the Air Force Association Richard J. Ellis Women of World War II in American especially in the years when he was to control the story of the Enola Gay time fighting over just how best to do Guide to the Richmond- Popular Graphic Art Landmark Law Cases and American Society actively engaged at the museum. But and the concerns of Native American that. Petersburg Campaign Donna B. Knaff he doesn’t bring much perspective or groups about their representation in The Smithsonian, for better and 296 pages, Cloth $34.95, Paper $17.95, Charles R. Bowery, Jr. and 224 pages, 30 photos, Paper $19.95 much interest in the bigger issues of Smithsonian museums. He doesn’t worse, doesn’t change easily. Who Owns Ebook $17.95 museum work more generally. There’s have much patience for newfangled the Past? documents the value of the Ethan S. Rafuse some discussion of ownership of ideas about community involvement or Smithsonian’s distinctive culture—and 536 pages, 36 illustrations, 47 maps, the past, and the “problem” of public shared authority. also the way it has kept the institution Cloth $39.95, Paper $19.95 historical work, but almost no mention Post is too good a historian to write from being all that it might be. ¡ University Press of Kansas Phone (785) 864-4155 • Fax (785) 864-4586 • www.kansaspress.ku.edu

28 The American Historian | April 2014 KANSAS

Small-Town Dreams The Search for Domestic Cold War Kids Stories of Midwestern Boys Who Bliss Politics and Childhood in Postwar Shaped America Marriage and Family Counseling in America, 1945–1960 John E. Miller 20th-Century America Marilyn Irvin Holt 544 pages, 42 photos, 2 maps, Cloth $29.95 Ian Dowbiggin 224 pages, 24 photos, Cloth $34.95, 262 pages, 15 photos, Cloth $29.95 Ebook $34.95 Hoover’s FBI and the Fourth Estate Resilient America The Nature of Childhood The Campaign to Control the Press Electing Nixon in 1968, Channeling An Environmental History of and the Bureau’s Image Dissent, and Dividing Government Growing Up in America since 1865 Matthew Cecil Michael Nelson Pamela Riney-Kehrberg 369 pages, 27 photos, Cloth $34.95, 360 pages, 20 photos, Cloth $34.95 288 pages, 30 photos, Cloth $34.95, Ebook $34.95 Ebook $34.95 The Crusade for Equality in Hoover’s Secret War the Workplace Fat Blame against Axis Spies The Griggs v. Duke Power Story How the War on Obesity Victimizes Women and Children FBI Counterespionage during Robert K. Belton World War II April Michelle Herndon 428 pages, Cloth $39.95, Ebook $39.95 Raymond J. Batvinis 232 pages, 8 photos, Cloth $29.95 352 pages, 24 photos, Cloth $34.95 Understanding Clarence Thomas NEW IN PAPERBACK Harlem’s Rattlers and the The Jurisprudence of Constitutional Great War Restoration The Making of Yosemite The Undaunted 369th Regiment Ralph A. Rossum James Mason Hutchings and the and the African American Quest for 304 pages, Cloth $34.95, Ebook $34.95 Origin of America’s Most Popular Equality National Park Jeffrey T. Sammons and Judging the Boy Scouts Jen A. Huntley John H. Morrow, Jr. 246 pages, 17 photos, Paper $19.95 528 pages, 40 photos, 3 maps, Cloth $34.95, of America Ebook $34.95 Gay Rights, Freedom of Association, and the Dale Case Beyond Rosie the Riveter Richard J. Ellis Women of World War II in American Guide to the Richmond- Popular Graphic Art Petersburg Campaign Landmark Law Cases and American Society 296 pages, Cloth $34.95, Paper $17.95, Donna B. Knaff Charles R. Bowery, Jr. and Ebook $17.95 224 pages, 30 photos, Paper $19.95 Ethan S. Rafuse 536 pages, 36 illustrations, 47 maps, Cloth $39.95, Paper $19.95 University Press of Kansas Phone (785) 864-4155 • Fax (785) 864-4586 • www.kansaspress.ku.edu “Feldstein brilliantly demonstrates the ways these women, their “[A] fascinating peek images and performance into a life that is strategies animated often misunderstood transformative struggles and rarely subject to for social change.” this type of scrutiny” -New York Times -Library Journal

“Varon treats A fascinating look at Appomattox as a major America’s develop- event in American ment of weapons and history, worth the men who invented extensive analysis, but them from WWI to the also as a very engaging present day. human story.” -James E. Sefton, Civil War Book Review American History from

www.oup.com/us

Vol. 1: 9780199740154 9780199837601 9780195386943 Vol. 2: 9780199739912 Vol. 1: 9780199924745 9780199998302 Vol. 2: 9780199924752 The official journal of the OAH

ahr.oxfordjournals.org dh.oxfordjournals.org jsh.oxfordjournals.org ohr.oxfordjournals.org jah.oxfordjournals.org “Feldstein brilliantly demonstrates the ways these women, their “[A] fascinating peek images and performance into a life that is Reviews strategies animated often misunderstood transformative struggles and rarely subject to for social change.” this type of scrutiny” p r i n t -New York Times -Library Journal Just an Invitation “Varon treats A fascinating look at Appomattox as a major by Michael J. Kramer America’s develop- event in American ment of weapons and history, worth the men who invented extensive analysis, but them from WWI to the also as a very engaging present day. human story.” In Ready for a Brand New Beat, tradition of African American cultural -James E. Sefton, Civil Mark Kurlansky, author of more than expression. We also learn that the song War Book Review a dozen books of popular history, sets was simply intended for, and most of out to demonstrate how one song, the the time received as, nothing but a 1964 single “Dancing in the Street” by catchy call for fun and togetherness. American History from Martha and the Vandellas, became what Kurlansky implies that “Dancing in Ready for a Brand New Beat: President Barack Obama called (along the Street” was ultimately denuded of How “Dancing in the Street” with Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On,” any political meaning whatsoever. H. www.oup.com/us 1971), “the soundtrack of the civil rights Rap Brown used it to pump up crowds became the anthem for a era” in 2011. The book’s breezy, quick- for his fiery speeches in the 1960s, changing america moving narrative contains many colorful but so too, eventually, did the Disney anecdotes, suggestive quotations, and Corporation employ the song as a gag Mark Kurlansky illustrative facts as it toggles between the in its animated cartoons. In 2012, even Riverhead Books production of “Dancing in the Street” conservative Republican candidate Mitt 2013 at Motown Records’s “Hitsville, U.S.A.” Romney played the song at campaign studio in Detroit, the political context rallies. This was a party song that, it of the 1960s, and the song’s strange turned out, could not belong to any one afterlife in its circulations through the party line. culture industries. Kurlansky’s book is chock full of Vol. 1: 9780199740154 9780199837601 9780195386943 What the book lacks, however, unlike ironies such as these, but the problem Vol. 2: 9780199739912 the tune whose history it so lovingly with Ready for a Brand New Beat is that Vol. 1: 9780199924745 9780199998302 Vol. 2: 9780199924752 depicts, is a satisfying hook. Kurlansky it lacks a strong interpretation of them. The official journal of the OAH describes how “Dancing in the Street” That challenging explanatory task still became an anthem, but his survey’s awaits a historian who might take up many details are like scattered riffs, the song’s tantalizing “invitation across never consolidating into one compelling the nation.” ¡ argument as to why the song has resonated so powerfully. We learn that “Dancing in the Street” was ambiguously, but never definitively, linked to calls for urban insurrection during the 1960s, that it was increasingly heard at many black power rallies and other radical political gatherings, and that it can be understood as a revolutionary tract ahr.oxfordjournals.org dh.oxfordjournals.org jsh.oxfordjournals.org ohr.oxfordjournals.org when heard through the “masking” jah.oxfordjournals.org The American Historian | April 2014 31 DO NOT PRINT [publication: OAH The American HIstorian (Apr 2014)— placement: one full page — ad size: 7.5 x 9.5] DO NOT PRINT

what’s possible | highschool.bfwpub.com END NOTE Get to know us. We know history.

READY FOR THE REDESIGN

highschool.bfwpub.com/usredesign highschool.bfwpub.com/strayer2e highschool.bfwpub.com/freedom

America’s History Ways of the World Freedom on My Mind For the AP® Course A Global History with A History of African Americans Eighth Edition Sources AP® Edition with Documents James A. Henretta, University of Maryland; Second Edition Deborah Gray White, Rutgers University; Rebecca Edwards, Vassar College; Robert O. Self, Robert W. Strayer, The College at Mia Bay, Rutgers University; Waldo E. Brown University Brockport: State University of New York Martin Jr., University of California, Berkeley Consider this text in an e-book version, Consider this text in an e-book version, Also available as an e-book now integrated with Learning Curve now integrated with Learning Curve

This new edition was created specifically Like the AP course it supports, Ways of This innovative new African American to make your transition to the redesigned the World focuses on significant historical history textbook created by three AP U.S. history course as successful as trends, themes, and developments in world leading scholars features a fresh possible. The nine-part structure matches history. Author Robert W. Strayer provides a narrative—focused on the diversity the chronology of the new course, while thoughtful and insightful synthesis that helps of black experience, on culture, and the expanded primary source documents students see the big picture. Each chapter on the impact of African Americans program and unique end-of-chapter then culminates with collections of primary on the nation as a whole—within a pedagogy help students think in the sources (written and visual) organized around unique format that integrates two ways required by the new AP U.S. exam. a particular theme, issue, or question, thus collections of written documents and This edition’s AP-specific resources (AP allowing students to consider the evidence the a visual source essay in every chapter. Annotated Teacher’s Edition, ExamView way historians do. The second edition includes test bank, Instructor Resource CD, materials and supplements written specifically Contact us at Strive for a 5 Guide, and primary source for the AP course, including an Annotated [email protected]. FUNNY TO SOME. Esther Bubley captured images of World War II homefront life as a photographer for document readers) were all developed by Teacher’s Edition, a Strive for a 5 study the Office of War Information. In 1943 she took this photograph of passengers traveling on a Greyhound bus AP experts to support your teaching of and prep guide, and the recently released AP® is a trademark registered by the College bound for St. Louis from Pittsburgh, who passed the time by telling “moron” jokes. Not all the passengers LearningCurve adaptive quizzing engine. Board, which was not involved in the production the redesigned course. of, and does not endorse, this product. appear amused.

PHOTO BY ESTHER BUBLEY. COURTESY OF LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. LearningCurve LearningCurve’s game-like adaptive quizzing focuses students on the topics where they need the most help. Learn more at bedfordstmartins.com/learningcurve. 32 The American Historian | April 2014 DO NOT PRINT [publication: OAH The American HIstorian (Apr 2014)— placement: one full page — ad size: 7.5 x 9.5] DO NOT PRINT

what’s possible | highschool.bfwpub.com

Get to know us. We know history.

READY FOR THE REDESIGN

highschool.bfwpub.com/usredesign highschool.bfwpub.com/strayer2e highschool.bfwpub.com/freedom

America’s History Ways of the World Freedom on My Mind For the AP® Course A Global History with A History of African Americans Eighth Edition Sources AP® Edition with Documents James A. Henretta, University of Maryland; Second Edition Deborah Gray White, Rutgers University; Rebecca Edwards, Vassar College; Robert O. Self, Robert W. Strayer, The College at Mia Bay, Rutgers University; Waldo E. Brown University Brockport: State University of New York Martin Jr., University of California, Berkeley Consider this text in an e-book version, Consider this text in an e-book version, Also available as an e-book now integrated with Learning Curve now integrated with Learning Curve

This new edition was created specifically Like the AP course it supports, Ways of This innovative new African American to make your transition to the redesigned the World focuses on significant historical history textbook created by three AP U.S. history course as successful as trends, themes, and developments in world leading scholars features a fresh possible. The nine-part structure matches history. Author Robert W. Strayer provides a narrative—focused on the diversity the chronology of the new course, while thoughtful and insightful synthesis that helps of black experience, on culture, and the expanded primary source documents students see the big picture. Each chapter on the impact of African Americans program and unique end-of-chapter then culminates with collections of primary on the nation as a whole—within a pedagogy help students think in the sources (written and visual) organized around unique format that integrates two ways required by the new AP U.S. exam. a particular theme, issue, or question, thus collections of written documents and This edition’s AP-specific resources (AP allowing students to consider the evidence the a visual source essay in every chapter. Annotated Teacher’s Edition, ExamView way historians do. The second edition includes test bank, Instructor Resource CD, materials and supplements written specifically Contact us at Strive for a 5 Guide, and primary source for the AP course, including an Annotated [email protected]. document readers) were all developed by Teacher’s Edition, a Strive for a 5 study AP experts to support your teaching of and prep guide, and the recently released AP® is a trademark registered by the College LearningCurve adaptive quizzing engine. Board, which was not involved in the production the redesigned course. of, and does not endorse, this product.

LearningCurve LearningCurve’s game-like adaptive quizzing focuses students on the topics where they need the most help. Learn more at bedfordstmartins.com/learningcurve. FREEDOM’S CHILDREN GEOGRAPHIES OF LIBERATION The 1938 Labor Rebellion and the Birth of The Making of an Afro-Arab Modern Jamaica Political Imaginary Colin A. Palmer Alex Lubin “Despite the richness and complexity of the “Traces the complex ways in which the story, Palmer manages to tell it in a beautiful, histories of African Americans, Palestinians, engaging, and flowing narrative style from and Jews can be seen relationally through beginning to end. It is an outstanding shared experiences of exile and exclusion. achievement, a heroic labor of love, and a An important, timely, scrupulously researched fitting monument to the struggles of the and well-written book.” Jamaican people.” —Malini Johar Schueller, author of U.S. —Winston James, Orientalisms and Locating Race University of California, Irvine 256 pages $29.95 paper 432 pages $39.95 paper ISLAND QUEENS AND PAGEANTS, PARLORS, MISSION WIVES AND PRETTY WOMEN How Gender and Empire Remade Hawai‘i’s Race and Beauty in the Pacific World Twentieth-Century South Jennifer Thigpen Blain Roberts “An interesting, carefully researched, and “We’ve needed Blain Roberts’s book for a very well-written book that revisits an area of long time, and she abundantly delivers the U.S. history that is currently the focus goods—on southern beauty and on women’s of considerable scholarly analysis.” beauty generally. Looking on both sides of the —Patricia Grimshaw, University of Melbourne color line, Roberts sees the moral resonances 184 pages $37.50 of beauty, whose work was about power as well as appearance. THE RED ATLANTIC A great book for oh so many reasons!” American Indigenes and the Making of —Nell Irvin Painter, author of the Modern World, 1000-1927 The History of White People Jace Weaver 384 pages $39.95 “An original, learned, and comparative historical narrative of transatlantic cultures LEARNING FROM THE WOUNDED and nations . . . will surely inspire and The Civil War and the Rise of American influence future students, research, Medical Science and writing on the subject.” Shauna Devine —Gerald Vizenor, “An important contribution to the history of University of California, Berkeley medicine in the United States. Devine argues 352 pages $29.95 convincingly that the war gave American phy- sicians enormous opportunities to do work on SEEING RACE IN native ground that only small numbers of MODERN AMERICA them had previously been able to observe in Matthew Pratt Guterl European centers.” “Essential reading for understanding how —Michael Bliss, author of Americans have historically viewed race William Osler: A Life in Medicine and how that history manifests itself today.” 392 pages $39.95 —W. Ralph Eubanks, author of The House at the End of the Road: JIM CROW WISDOM The Story of Three Generations of an Memory and Identity in Black America Interracial Family in the American South since 1940 264 pages $34.95 Jonathan Scott Holloway “An evocative, beautifully written exploration of knowledge production, memory, and Most UNC Press books are self-creation in African American life also available as E-Books. . . . compelling.” —Imani Perry, Princeton University UNC Press books are now available through 304 pages $39.95 Books @ JSTOR and Project Muse.

Sign up for monthly new book announcements, special offers and more. Visit www.uncpress.unc.edu.

Shop our 2014 American History Catalog Save 40% on ALL UNC Press books Visit www.uncpress.unc.edu. Shipping is FREE on orders over $75! the university of north carolina press at bookstores or 800-848-6224 • www.uncpress.unc.edu • uncpressblog.com