American Journalism Historians Association

AMERICAN *- JOURNALISM

n R lOS'3

WINTER 1990

Published by the American Journalism Historians Association

AMERICAN

JOURNALISM WINTER 1 990

DEPARTMENTS ARTICLES .4. RESEARCH NOTES • Richard Harding Davis and the Boer War The British and Boers Rehearse for World War I Truth Versus Good While Davis Watches. Description John C. Bromley 12

Great Walls • The Place of Biography in the History Covering Cold Fusion of News Women *55* What Role Should Biographical Research Play in Writing the History of Women Journalists? BOOK REVIEWS Catherine C. Mitchell 23 Oliver Wendell Holmes • Bibliography And Their Children Scholarship on Women Working After Them in Journalism Mary Heaton Vorse Articles and Books on Women Journalists, Categorized by Gerda Lerner's Stages Writing Red of Feminist History. Catherine C. Mitchell 33 The Good Times • Historiographical Essay The Battle to Control Women in Journalism: Contributors Broadcast News to Male Experience or Voices The Ambivalent Image of Feminine Expression? Historians of Women Journalists Seek to Move From Whistle Stop Beyond the "Great Women" Approach. to Sound Bite Maurine H. Beasley 39

Violence and Terror in the Mass Media

. . . and more EDITOR EDITORIAL PURPOSE. Anyone who wishes to re- John Pauly American Journalism publishes view books for American Tulsa articles, research notes, book Journalism, or to propose a ASSOCIATE EDITORS reviews, and correspondence book for review, should con- Pamela A. Brown dealing with the history of tact Professor Nancy Roberts, Rider College journalism. Such contribu- Book Review Editor, American Gary Whitby tions may focus on social, Journalism, School of Journal- Central Missouri State economic, intellectual, politi- ism and Mass Commimica- BOOK REVIEW EDITOR cal, or legal issues. American tion. University of Miimesota, Nancy Roberts Journalism also welcomes ar- Minneapolis, Minnesota Minnesota ticles that treat the history of 55455. DESIGN communication in general; the American Journalism is pro- Sharon M.W. Bass history of broadcasting, ad- duced on a Macintosh com- Kansas vertising, and public relations; puter, using Microsoft Word ADVERTISING the history of media outside and Pagemaker software. Au- Alf Pratte the United States; and theo- thors of manuscripts accepted Brigham Young retical issues in the literatvire for publication are encovir- ASSISTANT EDITOR or methods of media history. aged, but not required, to Barbara Buckley submit their work on a EXDS- Tulsa SUBMISSIONS. All articles, based or Macintosh disk. FORMER EDITORS research notes, and cofre- Wm. David Sloan spondence should be sent to ADVERTISING. Information Alabama Professor John Pauly, Editor, on advertising rates and Gary Whitby American Journalism, Faculty placements is available from Central Missouri State of Communication, Univer- Professor Alf Pratte, Adver- sity of Tulsa, 600 S. College tising Manager, American AMERICAN JOURNALISM Avenue, Tulsa, Oklahoma Journalism, Department of HISTORIANS 74104. Authors should send Commimications, Brigham ASSOCIATION four copies of manuscripts Young University, Provo, submitted for publication as Utah 84602. PRESIDENT articles. American Journalism Maurine Beasley follows the style require- SUBSCRIPTIONS. American Maryland ments of The Chicago Manual Journalism (ISSN 0882-1127) VICE-PRESIDENT of Style. The maximum length is published quarterly by the Leomard Teel for most manuscripts is American Journalism Histori- Georgia State twenty-five pages, not includ- ans Association, at the Uni- SECRETARY ing notes and tables. versity of Tulsa. Subscriptions Donald Avery All submissions are blind to American Journalism cost Southern Mississippi refereed by three readers, and $15 a year, $10 for students, BOARD OF DIRECTORS the review process typically and include a one-year mem- Perry Ashley takes about three months. bership in AJHA. Subscrip- South Carolina Manuscripts will be returned tions mailed outside the Roy Atwood only if the author has includ- United States cost $20 for sur- Idaho ed a self-addressed stamped face mail, $25 for air mail. For Elaine Berland envelope. further information, please Webster Research notes are typically contact the Editor. Lester Carson three- to six-page manu- Florida scripts, written without for- COPYRIGHT. © American Edward Caudill mal documentation. Such Journalism Historians Asso- Tennessee notes, which are not blind ciation, 1989. Articles in Barbara Qoud refereed, may include reports American Journalism may be Nevada-Las Vegas of research in progress, dis- photocopied for fair use in Carol Sue Humphrey cussions of methodology, an- teaching, research, criticism, Oklahoma Baptist notations on new archival and news reporting, in accor- Alf Pratte sources, commentaries on is- dance with Sections 107 and Brigham Young sues in journalism history, or 108 of the U.S. Copyright Nancy Roberts suggestions for future re- Law. For all other purposes, Minnesota search. Authors who wish to users must obtain permission contribute research notes are from the Editor. invited to query the editor. —

REFEREES. Thanks to the following editorial board members, who have recently FROM THE EDITOR read manuscripts for American Journalism. CONVERSATION IS the real public work of scholar- James Allen ship. In our talk we call forth that society of tolerance Alabama and mutual respect in which we hope to dwell. With Warren Barnard friends at conventions, with students in the cafeteria, Indiana State with our own thoughts in the midnight hour Pat Bradley through such work we enact the self-reflective lives Temple we hope to lead. John Bromley Sometimes don't stop Northern Colorado we long enough to speak, James Brown however. We measure out our lives in books and Alabama articles and count out conversation as a wasteful, un- Michael Buchholz disciplined, frivolous, dissipating pleasure. We spend Indiana State our words in private, imagining readers we will Linda Cobb-Reiley never meet, anxiously anticipating the flattery we Denver take to be our due. Patrick Daley But in our best moments we give ourselves over to New Hampshire one another without regret. The new Research Notes Harold Davis (ret.) section in American Journalism aims to continue just Georgia State such conversations. Like talk, John DeMott our these notes will Memphis State range over many topics—our work in progress, our Ralph Engelman collective state of mind, our methods and resources, Long Island our doubts and hopes. In such essays writers and Jean Folkerts readers alike may hear themselves speak, and dis- Mount Vernon cover the ties that bind them. Warren Francke With this new volume American Journalism wel- Nebraska-Omaha comes a new group of editors. Nancy Roberts, of the Donald Godfrey University of Minnesota, takes over as book review Arizona State editor, and Pamela Brown, of Rider College, as one of Samuel P. Kennedy HI the Syracuse associate editors. Gary Whitby, out of gentle- Larry Lorenz manly duty and a sense of pity for the new editor, has New Orleans agreed to serve one more year as associate editor. Richard Nelson - J.P. Kansas State John Nerone Illinois Marvin Olasky Texas Darwin Payne Southern Methodist Steven Phipps IndianalPurdue at Ft. Wayne Sam Riley Virginia Polytechnic Michael Robertson Lafayette College Norman Sims Massachusetts RESEARCH NOTES

TRUTH VERSUS circumstances, it must al- tions from literal truth, al- GOOD DESCRIPTION ways do so. though it can be said that What are the concepts of they contribute to a more truth and good description comprehensive sense of CAN TRUTH BE a liabil- all about as ideals of obser- truth. What this ambiguity ity of good journalism? vation, and what is their about truth manifests is a Doesn't a standard of connection? Philosopher paradox: literal truth is "good description" actu- Amartya Sen suggests that violated for a general ally prevail, for which as absolute standards they truth. A kind of fiction be- truth is not always a neces- converge as reality seen comes necessary for a cer- sary condition? And isn't and described in a straight- tain kind of generalized this standard ethically ac- forward manner. But Sen fact. ceptable? goes on to explain that in Contemplating this con- These are questions this practice the ideals diverge. dition of description is a essay addresses. The dis- Truth remains the absolute little like trying to imagine cussion revolves around philosophical standard of a conversation between journalism and philosophy, perfection, but good de- certain characters found in but I hope to make the dis- scription becomes relative Gulliver's Travels. At the cussion relevant to history. to human situations. Good Grand Academy of Lagado, Historians, like journalists, description is a standard it was believed that words have always chosen to be of what is possible and could be abolished and re- less truthful than it is pos- feasible under the multiple placed with objects carried sible to be. conditions of observation about in pockets and Bring up the problem of and reporting. Sen distin- bundles and held up to truth with a journalist, and guishes between ideal communicate. In contrast the talk is likely to turn good description (the best to this literal objectivity, sanctimonious. The issue depiction of something) inhabitants of Laputa drew of truth typically is domi- and good description (the upon mathematics and nated by questions of best depiction of some- music to converse, com- truthtelling—the avoid- thing to give, making the municating with rhombs ance of deception—rather best of a situation in prac- and ellipses, notes and than difficulties in report- tice). It is the latter crite- tones. The nature of good ing observations. Deliber- rion that prevails in de- description lies somewhere ate, deceptive falsification scriptive activity, from the in between. in journailism is recognized sciences to journalism. Sen's second instance of universally as a violation Sen raises the pertinent good but false description of truth in both an ethical question directly: How can is more involved. "De- and descriptive sense. But a false description be good? scriptions may have objec- it can be argued that truth Writing primarily in terms tives the pursuit of which as a judgment of factual of economics, he describes can be helped by depar- "correctness" is neither a two basic instances. The tures from truth—even in sufficient nor a necessary first involves departures the broad sense," he writes condition of all good de- from literal truth, such as in Choice, Welfare and Meas- scriptive statements. approximations, meta- urement (1982). Although "Good" description as a phors, and simplifications. descriptive statements can portrait of reality can vio- These are fundamental be distinguished from late truth as a standard. In contingencies of under- other categories of declara- journalism, it often does standing—of thinking it- tive expressions, such as so. Indeed, under some self—and all are devia- predictive and prescriptive pronouncements, descrip- by a fish, or may the story- in the social sciences as tion can be motivated by teller substitute the more hypothetical constructs, concerns such as prediction impressive notion of a ideal types, or simply as and prescription. whale. For some audiences, descriptive shorthand. In Sen relates how this oc- the meaning of the story is journalism, they may be curs in economics. Utility not distorted but enhanced. found as composites and theory, for example, as- For others the story is made less formal attempts at sumes a highly rationalis- inaccurate, even as fan- representational descrip- tic model of human behav- tasy. Credibility is moved tion, summarizing and ior in order to describe the in either direction by the drawing attention to im- marketplace in terms of substitution. The story- portant characteristics or self-interest. This model teller must fathom the prevalent details. Sen distorts human nature, but depth of the listener's com- writes for his own field: offers a useftil depiction prehension and weigh the 'There is no reason why for predictive economics. listener's own criteria of descriptive statements in In prescriptive economics, meaning before making a economics have to aspire the concern with social decision about good de- after mechanical accuracy problem-solving demands scription. The effort is even when it conflicts with that other conditions be made by every kind of comprehension and ab- met. Economists have to storyteller, including the sorption." Deception, of define poverty in terms of journalist, who wishes to course, raises an ethical is- socially held values and communicate essential sue. But deception is not political goals, while at the meaning. necessary if intent and same time avoiding labels Likewise, the imperative method of portrayal are thought demeaning for de- of journalism to be current part of the description. scribing people. Calling and timely even though it This should be the case for America's poor "disadvan- may result in reporting everything representa- taged," for example, incor- some false observations tional, such as polling re- porates a prescriptive ide- may be attributed to a par- sults used by the press to ology of opportunity. ticular ideal of efficient represent public opinion, a Gandhi attempted to raise communication. Timeli- common form of stylized the prospects of India's ness practiced too exten- fact. Sen rightfully reminds "tmtouchables" by calling sively and exclusively may us to be cautious in the them "Harijan," or "chil- lead journalists to needless practice of stylized de- dren of God." Many such distortion through haste. scription. It should never descriptions are artificial, But the news story can still be confused with achiev- but they are not meaning- offer good description ing the best description of less in characterizing the within its own time-bound anything—only, perhaps, world, even if they rely on limitations, much as a the best to be offered un- a flexible notion of truth. good haiku or sonnet can der some limiting circum- Sen criticizes economic express a poetic vision of stances. description for being too reality despite its self-im- Another complexity of limited in its motivating posed space limitations. truth is that often it is not interests. One such moti- A similar argument on simply real, but realizable. vation that looms large in the motivation to commu- A good journalist with in- journalism is the need to nicate can be made about tegrity can explore the communicate effectively. what Sen calls "stylized probable or the possible Philosopher M.A. Slote facts," summary state- reality of a situation with uses the biblical story of ments that project general storytelling that asks read- Jonah to illustrate the observations which do not ers to imagine the implica- problem. He raises the exactly fit the specifics of tion of a profusion of ob- question whether a story- individual cases, or pre- servations. Sharon and teller is bound to report cisely account for all cases. James Murphy argue that that Jonah was swallowed Such summaries abound this inventiveness is not an — —

AJ/Winter 1990

ethical shortcoming, but a gathered and expressed less to shuffle along. At "rediscovery of moral reflects an impulse to some point not even a journalism" in the highest bring events into a forum press deeply self-conscious sense. so that they may be pub- of what truth can mean This essay has argued licly accounted for. The will be able to call us back that truth does not actually press traditionally has for a more meaningful sec- prevail as the priority of a sought to make itself—and ond look. news story, but is incorpo- us—^bear the responsibility rated as an element—still of being witnesses rather . . . Douglas Birkhead extremely important—of a than merely onlookers. University of Utah more practical standard of In this activity, journal- good description. A num- ists have been intricately ber of contingencies can involved in the social proc- affect the literal truthful- ess of turning unweighted, GREAT WALLS: BARRIERS ness of reporting observa- empirical conditions into TO DOING RESEARCH IN tions some inherent in "facts" of injustice, crises — THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC the human condition and of power, and problems of OF CHINA perhaps in the paradoxical authority. This engage- nature of truth itself. But ment accounts for much of some conditions are met the self-righteous zeal of I SPENT THE 1988-89 aca- willingly to achieve objec- journalism, as Thomas demic year on sabbatical tives not considered subor- Leonard suggests in The as a foreign expert in the dinate to complete truth- Power of the Press (1986), Chinese Department of fulness. Good description and explains why truth as Liaoning University, Shen- can be a legitimate stan- an ideal evokes both rever- yang, People's Republic of dard without undue ethical ence and misunderstand- China. In addition to problems, in journalism as ing. Journalism's pro- teaching classes in theories in other fields. Indeed, it is fessed commitment to of Western journalism and difficult to imagine jour- "disinterested realism," in Western literature, I was nalists conscientiously re- Lippmann's characteriza- expected to serve as a con- porting the social world tion, is sincere, but also sultant to faculty and stu- communicating in it at the only tactical. It reflects one dents, an editor for faculty same time and dealing view of the culture's con- publications in translation, with the ways it describes temporary sense of what and a representative (read itself—without being more kind of convincing evi- showpiece) of the depart- modest about their expec- dence is required of the ment at formal functions, tations of mirroring truth. press for a good descrip- and to do research on There is a lesson here tion of things, for a good some aspect of the media about writing history as argument on which to take in China. well. But I want to close a stand and act. I experienced many with another kind of his- The prescriptive motiva- interesting situations in torical application. In terms tion I have described is teaching, consulting, edit- of motivation, it would situational. It may well be ing, and being a show- appear that journalism in in decline as a contingency piece, but those are other this country has been rich- shaping how "truth" is de- stories. The ones I'd like to ly influenced by a tradition scribed by the press, just share here are those en- of prescriptive mission. as the nature of credibility countered in conducting The world depicted by and critical evidence are my research on how the journalism is not just the culturally determined. In- United States is portrayed realm of spectacle where stead we may be allowing in Chinese newspapers. "pure" news might be the press to gather us more Now, to fully appreciate equated with description and more as spectators, the situation, you have to by disinterested onlookers. passively curious but eas- remember all the times News—^howit is identified. ily made impatient, rest- you have, in the course of —

Research Notes

conducting research, com- which to purchase new ments when it came time plained about your Ubrary. materials, and they have to gather data for a content If you are lucky (or tal- had little more than a dec- analysis of China Daily. ented) enough to work at ade to restock hundreds of The Foreign Languages one of those citadels of thousands of books that Department had an Eng- higher education that put were destroyed during the lish reading room with their libraries so high on Cultural Revolution. Moti- back copies of China Daily, their list of priorities that vation aside, however, the so I got permission to use you never have a com- result makes it very diffi- their copies for my re- plaint, then some, but not cult to carry on research. search. I was analyzing all, of the effect of what Think about it—if you every eighth issue from follows will be lost on you. were charged with protect- 1988, so anytime I had a

I love my university, and ing books, what would be couple of hours free, I would not consider leav- the single best way for you went there and collected data more issues. ing it, but frankly, it's not to do that. Of course—you from one of those aforemen- wouldn't lend them out. If All went well for a couple tioned citadels, and our li- it only took you a few sec- of months. Then one day, brary leaves something to onds to figure that out, finding I had some free be desired. In fact (and I you can bet Chinese li- time, I went to the reading admit it freely) there have brarians have, as well. So, room, spoke to the woman been times when even I what has become an ex- responsible for their mate- (epitome of patience that pectation for Chinese rial, and walked straight to

I am) have complained scholars, was a complete the place where the 1988 that some desperate need surprise to me when I be- issues of China Daily were is unmet. Never again. gan my research. stored. They were gone. You see, in the United Not for long, however; Me: (with a note of ur- States, librarians are I'm a smart lad, and all it gency) The China Dailys taught that their main ob- took was the following for 1988 are missing! jective is to help people scenario (heightened for Wu: (infuriatingly calm) find information. Not all of effect, but essentially the Yes. them do that as well as we same) for me to under- Me: (with greater urgency) might like, but at least stand. The names have Where are they? they are operating from been changed to protect all Wu: (calmer; if possible) that basic mindset. Not so concerned. We sold them. in China. Me: I'd like to borrow the Me: (use your imagina- In China, librarians book How the United States tion) Sold them?! many of whom were pro- Is Portrayed in the Wu: (calm) Yes. The sec- moted to their positions Newspapers of the People's retary to the president of directly from peasanthood Republic of China. the university needed during the Cultural Revo- Yu: I'm sorry, we don't them for insulation in the lution (do not pass school; have that book. ceiling of his home. do not study librarian- Me: But I can see it on Me: (disbelief) But you ship)—have been told by the shelf behind you. knew I needed them for those who placed them in Yu: (turns; looks; turns the research I was doing! their positions (positions back) No, I'm sorry, that's Wu: (calm) Yes. eminently more desirable not it. Me: (here I take some than peasanthood, inci- Me: But I can see the title credit for [relatively] dentally) that their pri- on it. graceful acceptance of mary objective is to protect Yu: (no turn this time) No, overwhelming cultural the holdings of the library. I'm sorry, that's not it. We odds) Oh . . .well . . . thank You cannot really blame don't have that book. you. the Chinese for this atti- Having learned my lesson My restraint was re- tude. They have very little (smart lad, remember), I warded and catastrophe foreign exchange with made alternative arrange- averted when I found the — —

AJ/Winter 1990

issues I needed in another "vice president of journal- though it were the first department. ism" from the United time she had seen such a

Because I don't read Chi- States, 2) I was working thing. This time the "no"/ nese, and four of the pa- with the "high-level ad- "yes" mutation didn't take pers I was studying were ministration" of her uni- quite as long. in that language, two of versity on a joint research Given the problems so my Chinese colleagues project, and 3) the papers far recounted, it seems al- gathered the necessary in question (which we most petty to mention that data from those papers. could literally see through some of the things we They decided to try the li- the door on a shelf in the count on in doing research brary first, and we were room behind her) were vi- "back home" aren't as pleasantly surprised when tal to the success of the readily available in China they were allowed access project. She said "no." —like electricity, for ex- to the necessary issues. My assistant spent the ample. Rather than con- One day one of my re- next ten minutes making duct statistical analysis search assistants came to small talk about her chil- when it fit most conven- my office with some good dren, and the "no" became iently into my schedule, and some bad news. The "maybe." After ten min- I got used to the idea that I good news was that he utes of talk about my chil- dropped other work and had finished gathering dren (I knew despite my did it when I had electric- data from his two papers lack of fluency, because at ity to run my computer. for the first half of 1988. one point he called on me Because the electricity The bad news was that the to exhibit their pictures (when it came at all) came librarians had taken those [she was appropriately im- in "chunks," with large papers for the last half of pressed]), the "maybe" be- surges and slumps, I had the year off the "open" came "probably." After ten to take with me two ex- shelves and would not al- more minutes of talk (my pensive and very heavy low him access to them. I assistant never admitted it, transformers to ensure that asked what we could do but I think it was about his my computer would not about it, and he said that soon-to-be family), the be fried, and that I would if I came with him, and "probably" became "yes." not lose data in the middle presented my official card The librarian brought the of an operation. to the librarian, she might papers out, and the "top- Another taken-for- relent. level, joint research project" granted facility that I It was during the next continued. quickly learned to do hour that I learned that I came to understand this without was photocopy- "no" in China (given the strange, time-consuming ing. There were very few right conditions) doesn't process, but I never really copiers available on cam- exactly mean "no." It went got the hang of it: one pus, and time on those had like this: We found the more piece of evidence to be reserved far in ad- proper librarian (not an that I really am a child of vance. What the Chinese easy task, given the fact Western parents, and not often did instead was silk that there are hundreds, adopted from the Orient. screen. I saw a worker one each with immutable All went well for two day who was in the proc- power over his or her own days; then my other assis- ess of making 150 copies of minute area of responsibil- tant came to my office to a twenty-five-page docu- ity), and presented her tell me that he had some ment; he was screening with my "official" card good news and some bad them one page at a time my business card, in Eng- news. Same story; same li- put in a blank sheet of pa- lish on one side, and Chi- brarian; other two papers. per, close the frame, run nese on the other. She Astonishingly, ransoming the roller back and forth to scrutinized it, and my as- these papers required the coat it with ink, roll it on sistant informed her that same process. She looked the screen to squeeze ink 1)1 was a very important at my "official" card as through onto the paper. a

Research Notes

open the frame, take out journalist friends, and col- rial as falling into four the paper—over, and over, lect information to chal- broad categories (although and over. Think about that lenge my students on how the actual "series" that we the next time you have they might study the cold will use in the final archive trouble getting the expo- fusion debate. will vary slightly). The sure just right on the pho- But the mass media per- categories, more fully de- tocopy machine. spective on cold fusion scribed in Table 1, are as At any rate, we are an was not the only one. Two follows: published mate- adaptable species. It was sociologist colleagues of rial, electronic communi- my intent, after statisti- mine, Thomas F. Gieryn cation, "manuscript" ma- cally treating my data and (Indiana University) and terial, and interviews. This composing a list of ques- William Dougan (UCLA) range of material clearly tions based on the find- were downloading elec- poses problems in terms of ings, to put those ques- tronic bulletin board mes- how to arrange it, how to tions to the editors of the sages about cold fusion create finding aids, and ul-

papers studied. I had from a nationwide com- timately how to use it. made appointments with puter network. From their As historians, we are them for the first week in viewpoint, cold fusion was trained to take records as June, but they were unable a wonderful case study we find them. If our sub- to keep those appoint- in how scientists commu- ject filed paper chronologi- ments. By that time, be- nicate among themselves cally, so be it. If he or she cause of their support of (as opposed to "with the kept a scrapbook, we glean

the "democracy move- public"). what we can from it. If a ment," they were either We soon realized that nonindexed newspaper's dead, imprisoned, or fired. our combined resources coverage interests us, we Moral: Most of our re- might be unique. The Na- scan thousands of pages of search problems, taken in tional Science Foundation fading print on yellowing perspective, probably agreed, and early in the paper to find our data. In- aren't as critical as we summer provided us with deed, a fundamental archi- might at first think. a small grant ($7,500 direct val tenet is to leave an ar- costs) to create a Cold Fu- chive as its creator organ-

. . . Roy E. Blackwood sion Archive. In this ar- ized it. (For an introduc-

Bemidji State University ticle, I will describe the ar- tion to issues and tech- chive and suggest some is- niques in archiving, see

sues that it raises for jour- the various manuals and nalism and communica- publications distributed COVERING COLD FUSION: tion historians. by the Society of Ameri- CORNELL UNIVERSITY'S The Cornell Cold Fusion can Archivists. One publi- COLD FUSION ARCHIVE Archive consists of mate- cation particularly useful rial that we have collected for this project has been WHEN THE MEDIA cir- from the published litera- Joan K. Haas et al.. Ap- cus called cold fusion ture, in telephone and per- praising the Records of Mod- started in the spring of sonal interviews, and in em Science And Technology: 1989, 1 was teaching a trips to various laborato- A Guide [1985].) course on how to study ries, newspapers, and But in the case of cold fu- "popular science." Once a other media outlets. In ad- sion, we are actively creat-

science journalist, I am dition, various participants ing the archive; it would now a historian of Ameri- in cold fusion, including not exist without our inter- can science, with a particu- scientists, administrators, vention. What, then, is its lar interest in the public public information people, proper arrangement? understanding of science. journalists, and others, For example: One key

Thus it was natural that I have sent us material from form of scientific commu- began to collect cold fu- their own files. nication is the preprint— sion clips, call my science We think about the mate- scientific paper that is cir- 10 AJ /Winter 1990

culated in mimeo or pho- Table 1 tocopy form to hundreds Cornell's Cold Fusion Archive Materials in of scientists well before the actual publication comes "Published" material' out. Should we file a pre- radio, television) A. Mass media (print, print under the name of publications B. Traditional scientific the author, documenting (abstracts, preprints, journal articles) his or her ideas? Or should Electronic communication we file it with other pieces bulletin boards^ A. USENET of paper from our particu- B. Electronic maiP lar sources, so that histori- C. Traditional journalism* ans can tell to what ideas III. "Manuscript" material those other scientists had A. Letters access (thus documenting B. Laboratory notebooks^ the reception of informa- C. Seminar notes' tion, one of the more diffi- D. Overheads^ cult stages of communica- /video of seminars, hearings, E. Audio tion to study historically)? and press conferences* Or: Should we file our F. Material culture' mass media clips chrono- Interviews'" IV logically? By publication? Researchers A. What about the clipping B. Research administrators collections put together by Information Officers C. Journalists /Public organizations such as the American Chemical Soci- ' We are defining "published" in modem terms, in the sense ety and Texas A&M Uni- that radio and television count. We are being a bit old-fash- versity? These collections ioned, in that electronic (computer) publication does not count. Items in this category are in their "traditional" forms: printed sometimes overlap the on paper, or recorded on audio or video tape. clips we've gotten from

^ This was (and, as I write, still is) the main site of electronic other sources. Should we scientific fonims on cold fusion. try to avoid duplication or ' electronic bulletin boards, which are intended for Unlike should we accept it, again public reading, electronic mail is analogous to traditional cor- on the principle of keeping respondence between individuals. individual parts of our col- * In a few cases, we have electronic copies of mass media ar- lection as near as possible ticles, which various people downloaded from electronic da- to state in which they tabases. the ' This is the true "raw" data of science; though much of it is originally existed? vmintelligible to anyone outside the particular lab where it was And, most troubling: created, it provides the original historical material against What to do v^th our 12-15 which all else in science must be tested. megabytes of electronic * This includes both notes that people took at seminars and communication, currently for seminar talks they were giving. notes that people prepared held in a box of floppy ' Many scientists don't prepare texts for their talks, but do pre- disks. Archivists tell horror pare copies of overhead transparencies, which they pass out stories of computerized for seminar attendees to write notes on. records rendered unusable ' Unlike the tapes of radio and television shows, this material for is "raw" data for the journalism historian—unprocessed ma- because the technology terial that was later used by journalists. reading them has become ' Included in this category are t-shirts, hats, and do-it-yourself obsolete and unavailable. kits. But to print out the text '° These are taped interviews, ranging from fifteen minutes to would create thousands of using sets of three hours, conducted by me and my colleagues pages of complex data, at questions that delve deeply into issues of science communica- the same time losing the tion. At this time, we do not have plans (or, more important, ability to manipulate the funds) for creating transcripts of these interviews. records electronically. The —— —

Research Notes 11

records are of a new kind none of this is true, who's others—to call the Cold in the history of communi- going to care about the Fusion Archive a resource cation. What are we to do history of it?" for journalism historians? with them? Certainly historians of I don't think so. If we Some of these questions journalism, of communica- take seriously the idea that we have answered, with tion, of science, and of scientists and journalists the advice of several sea- popular culture will find "construct" reality by their soned archivists. For ex- much to interest them. choice of topics to research ample, we will organize Pulled together in one and write about, then it's the clips chronologically. place will be a host of crucial for us to document Using a straightforward interrelated records: ar- that process as it's happen- database management ticles, interviews with the ing, before it gets "re-con- program, however, we authors of those af*ticles, structed." Though the re- will also be able to include commentary from the sub- search that one can con- in the finding aid indexes jects of those articles, plus duct now from the archive organized by publication, the background material may be only a form of ana- author, and even broad on which the articles were lytical journalism, future topic areas. based. In several cases we historians of science—and Some types of publica- have videotapes, audio- journalism—will have actions will get their own tapes, or transcripts of the cess to the kinds of ephem- files. Because of the impor- press conferences from eral materials most histori- tance of scientific papers which coverage emerged. ans can only dream about. and preprints, we will pull The electronic archive I invite your inquiries. them from the chronologi- will provide opportunities (The National Science cal files and give them for scholars interested in Foundation has supported their own folder. Again, this new form of commu- our work under grant SES we will use database pro- nication; since many com- 8914940. Many of the ideas grams to create lists show- puter messages consist of in this paper came from ing users the provenance transcripts, summaries, or Thomas F. Gieryn and of each document. critiques of mass media ar- William Dougan. Among One media type that will ticles, some researchers the archivists from whom get its own folder, but no may wish to examine the we have received valuable associated pointer file, is reception of media stories advice are: Elaine Engst the cartoon (nearly sev- and the interaction among [Cornell University], Joan enty-five of them now, and different media. Warnow [American Insti- still climbing). It's just a Even the cartoons will tute of Physics], James J. little too far-fetched to provide a resource. What Bohning [Beckman Center think that some historian themes emerge from the for History of Chemistry], is going to want to know cartoons about the role of Colleen Mason [Smith- who among our sources science in society? About sonian Institution], Henry saw which cartoon! the image of scientists in Lowood [Stanford Univer- As I write this in mid- the mass media? About sity], and William Aspray November 1989, however, competition among scien- [IEEE Center for History of we still haven't solved the tists? Are there similarities Electrical Engineering]. electronic communication between themes in the car- Wolfgang Baur is doing a conundrum. toons and those on the yeoman's job physically All of these issues of ar- other elements of material arranging the archive.) chival organization are culture in the archives? excuse the expression To many scientists—and . . . Bruce V. Lewenstein merely of academic inter- quite a few journalists Cornell University est if one does not consider cold fusion is still very the cold fusion saga wor- much a live issue. Does thy of study. As one of my that mean that I'm fooling sources said to me, "If myself—and deceiving RICHARD HARDING DAVIS AND THE BOER WAR A Famous Reporter Sees Chivalry Die in South Africa

John C. Bromley

THE BEST OF RICHARD HARDING DAVIS's writing has, as Thomas Beer suggested it would, a "second use" as history.^ Often by the degree to which his emotions, powerful and easily stirred, were engaged, Davis created memorable portraits of people and events. If the major flaw of his writing was his persistent manufacture of chivalric romance, its great strength was his mastery of detail. Both are present in abundance in his accounts of the Boer War. Davis covered the war only from February 1900 to the following June, the period in which the brief Boer ascendency was ended. What Davis knew of the war's causes he had learned from the conversations and very modest research that had gone into his brief, pro-British account of the Jameson Raid, the booklet he called Dr. Jameson's Raiders vs. the fohannesbergReform- ers } Once in South Airica for the Boer Vvl ai ,\vo-weveT ,Dav\s was repelled by the British army and its leaders, and he came extrava- gantly to admire the same Boers whom he had denounced as backward and tyrannical in 1897. He became little more than a Boer propagandist, his sympathy roused by the specter of Boer defeat. By the end of his stay his reporting had become secon- John C. Bromley teaches media law dary to the fury with which he argued the Boer case against the and journalism British. history at the Uni- The origins of his Boer War partisanship, as well as his versity of Northern Colorado. His re- colorful recording of the scenes through which he passed, are the search interests subjects of this study. include the jour- first nalism of major The part of Davis's South African adventure had been a American wnters completely conventional assignment to the headquarters and of the period staff of General Sir Redvers Buller, recently superseded but not 1890-1914, and the relationships yet relieved by Lord Roberts and his Chief of Staff Lord between their fic- 1. Thomas Beer, "Richard Harding Davis," Liberty 1 (1924): 21. tion and their jour- 2. Richard Harding Davis, Dr. Jameson's Raiders vs. the Johannesburg Reformers nalism. (New York: Russell, 1897). Kitchener.^ Duller was assigned to lift the Boer siege of Ladys- mith. Davis joined Bailer's column after a string of defeats, but he was there to see Buller rescue Sir George White's besieged, weakened garrison in Ladysmith on 27 February 1900.* Davis had wanted to be with Roberts and Kitchener rather than with Buller, he wrote his mother on 18 February, but this "They had been would have involved the displacement of the Daily Mail's An- forced in on themselves, these Brit> glophile Julian Ralph.^ So he was stuck with Redvers Buller, and ish officers [at

Buller with him. At first all went pleasantly: "Buller . . . seemed Ladysmith] The defenders had not very pleased to have me. . . . the Censor seems to think I am a sort only to keep con- in cotton."* But, of Matthew Arnold and should be wrapped he trol of the town. wrote home moodily, "this is not my war."^ Davis may have They had to fight a war of attrition, contributed to Buller's irritation by returning salutes meant for supported by little the general as he rode with Buller and his staff.* polo, cricket or Davis appreciated the great difficulty of relieving Ladysmith. champagne, against their own the rugged area Buller's to cross in order Surveying army had emotions." to reach the garrison, Davis wrote that the hills were "an - Thomas Pakenham, eruption . . . linked . . . together without order or sequence. ... In The Boer War. a ride of half a mile, every hill completely loses its original aspect and character. They hide each other, or disguise each other."' Of the Tugela River, the other natural barrier shielding Ladysmith, Davis wrote that it "darts through [the hills] as though striving to escape, it doubles on its tracks. . . . when one says he has crossed the Tugela, he means he has crossed it once at a drift, once at the wrecked railroad bridge and once over a pontoon."^° Above this chaos in nature perched the troubled Buller himself. There was about Buller no romance, no chivalry, none of the heady inspiration Theodore Roosevelt had offered in Cuba." "Up on a high hill, sealed among the rocks, is Buller and his staff Commanding generals to-day, under the new conditions this war has developed, do not charge up hills waving flashing swords."^^ In South Africa, Davis noted, the "commanding general watches the development of his attack, and directs it by heliograph and ragged bits of bunting."^^

3. Thomas Pakenham, The Boer War (New York: Random House, 1979), 251. 4. Fairfax Downey, Richard Harding Davis: His Day (New York: Scribner's, 1933) 179; Pakenham, 379-80. 5. Davis to his mother, 18 February 1900, Adventures and Letters of Richard Harding Davis, ed. Charles Belmont Davis (New York: Scribner's, 1918), 265. 6. Davis to his mother, 18 February 1900, 266. 7. Davis to his mother, 18 February 1900, 267. 8. Downey, 179. 9. Davis, "With Buller's Colvimn," Scribner's 27 (1900): 671. Davis's accounts of the Boer War were published first in the London Daily MaH and the New York Her- ald. At the same time Davis was preparing a series of Scribner's articles, also published in 1900; the Scribner's articles then became the basis for With Both Armies (New York: Scribner's, 1 900). Reference is made here to the earlier source 10. Davis, "With Bviller's Column," 671. 11. Davis and Theodore Roosevelt did not, however, like each other before the war began. See Downey, 150. 12. Davis, "With Buller's Column," 673. 13. Davis, "With Buller's Column," 673. 14 AJ/Winter 1990

Davis had seen Buller defeated at Railway Hill, just four days before, on 23 February 1900. Davis described that battle, pro- phetic of so many in the 1914 war, as "one of those frontal attacks which, in this war, against the new weapons, has added so much to the lists of killed and wounded and to the prestige of the men, while it has, in an inverse ratio, hurt the prestige of the men by whom the attack was ordered."^* BuUer's attack, made at night, had cost the British 600 men. Davis watched the successful British attack four days later develop on the distant hills, and listened to the weight of the superior British artillery coming to bear: "It seemed inconceivable that anything human could live under such a bombard- ment."^^ He noted "the mechanical, regular rattle of the quick- firing Maxims, which sounded like the clicking of many mow- ing-machines on a hot summer's day."^* At the last moment of the attack, as the Boer trenches on top of the last hill were taken, came the incident he later described to the Herald as causing his most acute censorship difficulties: "The last of the three hills was mounted by the West Yorks, who were mistaken by their own artillery for Boers, and fired upon both by Boers and by their own shrapnel and lyddite."^^ Whatever his problems with BuUer's censors, Davis's story of the British firing on their own men got out, and appeared on 6 March 1900 in the New York Herald. The difficulties of the force relieving Ladysmith were, as Davis recognized, largely geographical. Referring to the natural defensive barrier of hills that kept Buller out of the city, Davis

"The garrison argued that Ladysmith "should have been sacrificed to the were disconcerted enemy" in order to release its 13,000 troops as well as the 25,000- to find that the man relief force for service elsewhere.^* Here Davis's strategy Boers refused to conform In their unconsciously echoed BuUer's, who had suggested to London in gunnery, as in so December 1899 that, because his force was not strong enough to nfiany military mat- relieve British let ters, to any recog- White, the "ought to Ladysmith go."'' Davis, nizable rules." however, incorrectly assumed that White had been ordered to - Pakenham, hold Ladysmith against his will.^° Perhaps Davis did not ask The Boer War. Buller about the causes for the Ladysmith siege, or the general did not permit the question, but in any case Davis never knew that Buller had opposed White's original retreat into Ladysmith,

or that the siege, and the events leading to it, reflected so poorly on his hero White. When Buller finally relieved Ladysmith, Davis was much moved by the conditions he found there. The Boers had permit-

14. Davis, "V^ith Buller's Column," 674. 15. Davis, "With Buller's Column," 674. 16. Davis, "With Buller's Column," 674. 17. Davis, "With Buller's Column," 676. 18. Davis, "The Relief of Ladysmith," Scribner's 28 (1900): 39. 19. Pakenham, 249. Buller's suggestion was explored after his Spion Kip defeat and then dropped by the War Office; there were too many men in the town. See Pakenham, 321. 20. Davis, "The Relief of Ladysmith," 40. Bromley 15

ted a neutral camp, a settlement area for women, children, the sick, the wounded, and non-combatants, outside of Ladysmith. The Boer artillery, particularly "Long Tom," the heavy gun that terrorized the inhabitants of Ladysmith, made smoke from the muzzle as each shell was fired, so that "sentinels were constantly on watch to look for the smoke and to give the alarm." But the of confinement, Davis found, was not Long Tom worst hardship "Even on Christ- but the "lack of food and exercise, bad water and life under- mas Day, Long ground [that] soon bred fever" among the inhabitants of Ladys- Tom gave a dis- play of mixed feel- mith. Victims of fever, Davis wrote, "outnumbered those of ings. He fired nu- Long Tom nearly ten to one."^^ merous shells, one of which, In discussing the hardships of the siege and the difficulties of when dug up un- relieving it, Davis found the central lesson of the fight for exploded, proved Ladysmith to be its demonstration of the new prinnacy of de- to contain a Christmas pud- fense. "Bloch, the authority on modern war, believes that with ding wrapped in a the new weapons [heavy guns, magazine rifles] a force en- Union Jack, and a note: The compli- trenched on the defensive is to the attacking force as eight men ments of the sea- to one."^ As Davis had reported, Buller had had to learn to attack son.'" on the flank, rather than straight ahead, to pry the Boers out of - Pakenham, The Boer War. the path to Ladysmith. And to Davis the extended sufferings of the Ladysmith garrison were, like the fact of the siege itself, all Buller's fault. Buller, Davis wrote, has been "too slow."^^ The general reinforced the positions he did manage to take in "so leisurely [a manner] that he allowed the Boers ample time to fortify and enfilade him from another [position]."^* After BuUer's defeat at the Battle of Colenso—a battle Davis did not see—on 6 January 1900, Davis felt Buller had become "sensitive of losing more men, and in order to save life [he] attacked with forces so insufficient in numbers that many men were sacrificed for that reason."^ As evidence Davis cited the battles at Railway and Hart's Hills on 23 February 1900 and the victory at Pieters Hill four days later: BuUer's continuous battles demonstrated one thing very clearly, which is that a fortified position may be shelled for half a day with the best gunners without the enemy being driven so far from it that he cannot return to meet a charge of infantry. The time which

elapses between . . . when the artillery ceases firing in order to allow the infantry to mount the crest was always sufficiently long to allow the Boers to reoc- cupy the trenches.^^ This was to be one of the central lessons of the 1914 war before the advent of the tank. Buller learned it in a matter of weeks, and

21. Davis, "The Relief of Ladysmith," 41-2. 22. Davis, 'The Relief of Ladysmith," 41. 23. Davis, 'The Relief of Ladysmith," 47. 24. Davis, 'The Relief of Ladysmith," 47. 25. Davis, "The Relief of Ladysmith," 47-48. 26. Davis, "The Relief of Ladysmith," 48. 16 AJ/Winter 1990

Davis understood it. Buller's eclipse later perhaps prevented his hard-won lesson from achieving the impact on military thought that it deserved. Davis thought that Buller's entrance into Ladysmith on 4 March 1900 was "one of the most splendidly moving spectacles I have ever witnessed." The scene inspired some of Davis's finest descriptive writing of the Boer War: Lancers, foot soldiers, gunners, irregular horse, coloni- als, blue jackets and Indians, blistered, tanned, caked with mud, covered with blood stains and ragged as sweeps passed for three full hours before General

White . . . the emaciated, yellow-faced garrison, whose loose khaki told of weeks of starvation, cheered them

in return . . . General Buller's arrival was hailed tu- multuously.^'' The spectacle continued to enchant him several days later: Some of the "Tommies," in spite of their fatigue, danced

past General White . . . it was a wonderful scene . . . the relieving column, covered with rags and mud, robust and tanned like coast guards, while the men in the lines through which they passed were yellow with fever and cadaverous, some of them scarcely able to stand.^* So great was his own emotional reaction that, he wrote his

mother, "Winston Churchill and I stood in front of General White and cried for an hour."^' The sufferings apparent among the besieged at Ladysmith also continued to exercise Davis's great powers of colorful description, as when he met a boy officer in stainless khaki and beautifully turned out, polished and burnished and varnished, but

with . . . yellow skin and sharpened cheek bones and protruding teeth, a skeleton on horse-back, [who] rode slowly toward us down the hill.^° Whatever the theatrical glories of the relief of Ladysmith Davis was bored, angry at the British, frustrated. "This is a beastly dull war," Davis wrote his mother just after Ladysmith was relieved: The whole thing is so "class" and full of "form" and

tradition. . . . [The British army] is the most wonderful

organization I ever imagined but it is like a beautiful lo- comotive without an engineer. The Boers outplay them

in intelligence every day. . . . You would not believe the mistakes they make, the awful way in which they

sacrifice the lives of officers and men. ... I hate all the

27. Richard Harding Davis, "Ladysmith's Splendid Welcome to Buller/' New York Herald, 6 March 1900. 28. Richard Harding Davis, "Hearty Cheers for Deliverers," New York Herald, 8 March 1900. 29. Davis to his mother, 3 March 1900, Adventures and Letters, 272. 30. Davis, "The Relief of Ladysmith," 53. Bromley 17

people about me and this dirty town and I wish I was back.31 In this mood he had visited Lady Randolph Churchill, with whom he had discussed an article on the hardships of war correspondents: "As it is now the Government forces him [the correspondent] upon the Generals against their will and so they "[The hospitals get back by taking it out on him."^^ Even earlier he had written at Ladysmith] home that "war as these [British] people do it bores one to handled a total of 10,688 cases—out destruction. are terrible dull souls. They cannot give an They of 13,500 soldiers order intelligently. The real test of a soldier is the way he gives —during the four an order ."^^ This was, indeed, not his war. months between November and the the So, wretched with the British, Davis decided to go to end of February; Boers. His way to the Boers was pased by the British High 551 people died of Commissioner for South Africa, the Governor of the Cape Col- disease in that period." ony Sir Alfred Milner.^^ Davis and his wife, who travelled with - Pakenham, him, were greeted, he wrote his mother, with "simple earnest The Boer War. courtesy," like that in the welcoming remarks of the first of the Boer commanders he met. Christian, DeWet.^^ Under fire for the first time, Cecil Davis earned her husband's ungrudging admi- ."^^ ration: "she refused to be impressed with the danger Once with the Boers, Davis became virtually a pro-Boer propagandist. He had earlier, for instance, estimated the British preponderance of force as ranging from a ratio of "two to one up to four to one."^^ Once among the Boers, he convinced himself that the odds against them had somehow lengthened. "I am convinced," he argued in Scribner's, "that throughout the war one man to ten has been the average proportion of Boer to Briton, and that frequently the British have been repulsed [sic] when their force outnumbered that of the Boers twenty to one."^^ This new arithmetic was not the result of new estimates of actual forces counted in new battles, for he had seen none. Rather he was gripfjed by a new passion. In Pretoria Davis had met the Boer president of the Transvaal, Paul Kruger, and Davis's objectivity, never strong, had fallen victim to Kruger's powerful personality. Earlier, in Cuba, he had fallen in the same way under Theodore Roosevelt's influence.

"Paul Kruger," Davis wrote, was "possibly . . . the man of the greatest interest in the world today, a man [who] will probably rank as a statesman with Lincoln, Bismark and Gladstone," yet

31. Davis to his mother, 4 March 1900, Adventures and Letters, 273. 32. Davis to Lady Randolph Churchill, 15 March 1900, Adventures and Letters, 277. 33. Davis, "The Relief of Ladysmith," 40. 34. Davis, "What 'Peace on Earth, Good Will to Men' Really Means," New York Herald, 8 ]uly 1900. 35. Davis to his mother, 18 May 1900, Adventures and Letters, 286. 36. Davis to his mother, 18 May 1900, 287. 37. Davis, "The Relief of Ladysmith," 47. 38. Davis, 'Tretoria in War Time," Scribner's 28 (1900): 175. 18 AJ /Winter 1990

who lives "as simply as a village lawyer."^' Kruger reminded Davis of Grover Cleveland. Both leaders, he noted, had "a strangely similar energy in speaking," the same impressiveness of their build and size which seems fit-

ting with a big mind and strong will. . . . resolution, enormous will-power, and a supreme courage of conviction are the qualities in both which [after] you have .*° left them are still upper-most in your memory Kruger was to Davis a patriarch, an Old Testament prophet. To "At seventy-three the news that gold had been discovered in South Africa years [Kmger] was a na- before, at a time of strained credit when gold meant solvency, tional nwnunient Davis has Kruger reply: "'Gold! is? in his own lifetime, Do you know what gold For a heroic survival every ounce of that gold you will pay with a tear of blood. Go to from the Great your farm and read the Book. It will tell you what gold is.'"*^ Trek." - Pakenham, To Davis Kruger was the central image of the Boer resistance. The Boer War. His rich, exotic portrait of Kruger is one he never surpassed: His eyes held no expression, but were like those in a jade idol. His whole face, chiefly, I think, because of the eyes, was like a heavy waxen mask. In speaking, his lips moved and most violently, but every other feature of his face remained absolutely set. In his ears he wore little gold rings, and his eyes, which were red and seared with some disease, were protected from the light by great gold-rimmed spectacles of dark glass with wire screens.*^ Davis first saw Kruger when he was speaking to a group of Irish- Americans who, hating the British, had come to aid the Boers; Kruger "instructed them, much as a father talking to a group of school-boys." Kruger's lesson for these volunteers was that "the cause for which they had come to fight was one upon which the

Lord had looked with favor; and . . . even though they died in this war they must feel that they were acting as His servants and had died in His service."" This very Biblical imagery at length became Davis's own. Davis increasingly saw the Boer War as a combat between gallant Boer knights and the brutal, more modem power of the British Empire. It was at this p>oint that he described the British Army in the powerful, contemptuous images that came so easily to him, as "like the children of Israel in number, like Tam-

many Hall in organization and discipline."^ "As I see it," he wrote at the end of his last installment for Scribner's, "it [the Boer War] has been a Holy War, this war of the burgher crusader, and

39. Davis, "Pretoria in War Time," 1 76. The comparison to other national leaders was edited out of his Boer War book. See With Both Armies, 140. 40. Davis, "Pretoria in War Time," 179. 41. Davis, "The Boer in the Field," New York Herald, 8 July 1900. 42. Davis, "Pretoria in War Time," 178. 43. Davis, 'Tretoria in War Time," 177. 44. Davis, "The Boer in the Field," New York Herald, 8 July 1900. Bromley 19

[the Boer's] motives are as fine as any that ever called a 'nrdnute man' from his farm or sent a knight of the Cross to die for it in Palestine."*^ He had, in the same article, contrasted the regular soldier with the Boer irregular, much to the disadvantage of the regular: I knew as the train carried us away from the sight of them that no soldier in pipe-clay, gauntlets, and gold lace would ever again mean to me what these burghers meant, these long-bearded, strong-eyed Boers with their drooping cavalier hats, their bristling bands of cartridges, their upright seat in the saddle and the rifle rising above them like the lance of the crusader.*^ At first, when with the British, he had seen the Boer only as an enemy, and from far away. Close up, the Boers and their cause stirred him, calling forth his descriptive powers. With Kruger, Davis quickly became little more than an errand • • • • • boy. Under Kniger's influence Davis's modest impartiality was "The volk must trust in them- sacrificed to his sense of Kruger' s, and the Boer, n\ission. Davis's selves, and trust in shifting allegiances for instance, in his story were apparent, the Lord. That re- about the British prisoners held in Pretoria. In what his biogra- nfialned Kruger's pher Fairfax Downey called "the most unluckly despatch Davis simple text. The calamities that had ever wrote," Davis found the conduct of English officers held by befallen them, the the Boers to be reprehensible, beyond excuse.*^Even their status death of their friends, were a as prisoners angered Davis; when the prisoners were rude to his sign of God's will; Boer escort, he wrote angrily that he His people needed had thought the English officer would remain an offi- to be tried and pu- rified by suffering." cer under any circumstances. When one has refused to - Pakenham, fight further with a rifle, it is not becoming to continue The Boer War. to fight with the tongue, nor to insult the man from

whom you have begged for mercy. . . . You cannot ask a man to spare your life, which is what surrendering really means, and then treat him as you would the gutter-snipe who runs to open the door of your han- som.**

The prisoners had, it appeared, behaved in "a most unsports- manlike, ungentlemanly" manner. Kept originally in a former schoolhouse, they destroyed the books, "drew offensive caricatures of the Boers over the walls," and were "rude and 'cheeky.'" And they did worse; they sinned against chivalry, shouting at women and girls as they passed: Personally, I cannot see why being a prisoner would

make me think I might speak to women 1 did not know; but some of the English officers apparently thought

their new condition carried that privilege with it. I do not believe that every one of them misbehaved in this

45. Davis, 'The Last Days of Pretoria," Scribner's 28 (1900): 417. 46. Davis, 'The Last Days of Pretoria," 417. 47. Downey, 184. 48. Davis, "Pretoria in War Time," 181. 20 AJ/Winter 1990

fashion, but it was true of so many that their miscon- duct brought discredit on all. Some people say that the girls walked by for the express purpose of being spoken to; and a few undoubtedly did, and one of them was even arrested, after the escape of a well-known war correspondent [Churchill], on suspicion of having assisted him. But, on the other hand, any number of older women, both Boer and English, have told me that they found it quite impossible to pass the school-house [the jail building] on account of the insulting remarks the officers on the veranda threw to one another concerning them, or made directly to them. At last the officers grew so offensive that a large number of ladies signed a petition and sent it to the government com- plaining that the presence of the Englishmen in the heart of town was a public nuisance.*' For this the English officers were taken to the new camp where Davis saw them. The prisoner's compound was small, their central building "hot by day and cold by night and badly ventilated." But the English prisoners deserved their priva-

"It was estimated tions, Davis felt, for "it is to be considered that, had the officers that there were been decently civil to the Boers, which need not have been over 7,000 deaths among the 87,365 difficult for gentlemen—I have never met an uncivil Boer—they Boers No one might have been treated with even greater leniency ."^° knows how many the Boer cause grew in grandeur to Davis, so did the British Boers—men, As women and chil- cause decline. Virtually a conduit for Boer views, Davis indi- dren—died in the cated to his mother, as he left Africa, that he was glad to be on his concentration I camps. Official es- way home "as can do just as much for the Boers at home now timates vary be- as there [in Africa] where the British censor would have shut me tween and 18,000 off." In the same letter Davis insisted that 28,000." - Pakenham, when I consider the magnitude of the misrepresenta- The Boer War. tion about the burghers I feel appalled at the idea of

going up against it. One is really afraid to tell all the truth about the Boer because no one will believe you personally I know no class of men I admire as much [as the Boers] or who to-day preserve the best and oldest ideas of charity, fairness and good will to men.^^ He saw the two armies, for the last time before he left South Africa, on each side of the Sand River. In a final story for the Herald, he summed up what he had seen: On the one bank of the Sand [the English-held bank] was the professional soldier, who does whatever he is ordered to do. His orders this time were to kill a sufficiently large number of human beings to cause those few who might survive to throw up their hands

49. Davis, "Pretoria in War Time," 180. 50. Davis, "Pretoria in War Time," 182. 51. Davis to his mother, 8 June 1900, Adventures and Letters, 289. Bromley 21

and surrender their homes, their country and their birthright. On the other bank [the Boer-held bank] were a thousand self-governing, self-respecting farmers fighting for the land they have redeemed from the lion and the savage, for the tov^ns and cities they have reared in a beautiful wilderness."

The Boer War was, he had come to feel, the result of Great • • • • • Britain's having "made up its mind to rob a free and intelligent "The War Office reckoned that of the roof the land beneath them." For this people over them and 400,346 horses, ignoble work "Buller was well chosen . . . the dull butcher, the mules and don- fat witted Falstaff."^^ Lord Roberts, whom Davis admired, was keys were 'ex- pended' in the sent to finish BuUer's work, but the evil circumstances of the war war." - perverted even Roberts into "a janissary of the Jews. . . the po- Pakenham, The Boer War. liceman for Cecil Rhodes," his new infamy obscuring his brilliant early record .^^ Richard Harding Davis was by no means a tolerant man. Students of his life and writing as acute as Scott Osborn and Robert Phillips have noted that it is the "biased and tempera- mental qualities of Davis's work [that] have helped to obscure his genius."^^ While the verdict of his colleague Fredrick Palmer ignores changes of real substance in Davis's coverage of World War I before his death in 1916, Palmer summed up the idealism of Richard Harding Davis with real perception, commending his "distinctive high standards": "his chivalry embraced an ideal which had much influence on the youth of his time. Filth of all kinds was abhorrent to him."^^ Richard Harding Davis was a moralist, and his distinctions about South Africa were simple principles, felt rather than "Twenty-two thou- reasoned. The Boers seemed to him like the American revolu- sand [British and tionaries of 1776, and his affection for Kruger was no less real colonial soldiers] than his anti-Semitism or his distaste for Buller and his general- found a grave In South Africa: ship. the British censorship, later He was offended by and he 5,774 were killed explained his pro-Boer bias as a reaction to it. "[The British] cut by enemy action (or accident) and my dispatches and twisted facts so much that I decided to leave," shovelled into the he told reporters on his return. "When there was a Boer victory veld, often where I was not allowed to send the story as it was. When the British they fell; 16,168 died of wounds or became confused and fired on their men I was told I must not were killed by the send that."57 action of disease He had become venomous about Great Britain and her mili- (or the inaction of army doctors)." tary leaders, though he insisted that his intention was only to - Pakenham, reform: "A friend of England, which I certainly claim to be," he The Boer War. wrote, "would beg her to call upon her sense of humor to get

52. "The Boer and the Briton," New York Herald, 22 July 1900. 53. Richard Harding Davis, "Kruger's Last Day in Pretoria," New York Herald, 5 August 1900. This passage was deleted from With Both Armies. 54. Davis, "Kruger's Last Day in Pretoria," New York Herald, 5 August 1900.

55. Scott Osbom and Robert Phillips, Jr., Richard Harding Dams (Boston: Twayne, 1978), 88. 56. Palmer, Scribner's 80 (1926): 477. 57. Davis, "Boers Not Ready To Give Up Fight," New YorkHerald, 5 August 1900. 22 AJ/Winter 1990

back her sense of proportion."^* But he had lost his reportorial balance badly, finishing the war with a defiant, but demonstra- • • • • • bly untrue, dockside statement to fellow reporters in New York "In money and that "the Boers have an almost unconquerable army."^' He had, lives, no British war since 1815 while in South Africa, permitted his reportorial instincts to be had been so prodi- overwhelmed by what increasingly he regarded as an urgent gal. That tea-time' need to promote the Boer cause. Before the relief of Ladysmith, war ... had cost the BrKlsh tax while still with the British, he had written some of the best war payer more than reports of his career: his rendering of the rough country around £200 million." - Pakenham, Ladysmith reflects, as do his descriptions of the relief of the siege The Boer War. and the celebrations of its end, the range of reportorial abilities for which his contemporaries admired him. But after Ladysmith his skill deserted him, and even the usual excellence of his technical writing was lost in a series of waspish essays on the faults of the British character. Davis was no intellectual, and he lacked the slightest objectivity or the faintest interest in being objective once his emotions were aroused. His analysis of the Boer War after the relief of Ladysmith was no more than an elaborate record of his prejudices, all strong and many foolish. It is, finally, on the strengths of his reporting before Ladysmith, the brilliance of his descriptions, that Davis's Boer War coverage must be estimated.

58. Davis, "The Boer and the Briton," New York Herald, 22 July 1900. 59. Davis, "Boers Not Ready To Give Up Fight," New YorkHerald, 5 August 1900. THE PLACE OF BIOGRAPHY IN THE HISTORY OF NEWS WOMEN The Careers of Women Journalists Remain an Important Topic for Historical Research

Catherine C. Mitchell

SCHOLARS WANTING TO WRITE biographies of women journalists face a dilemma. Biography has become a debatable technique just as a new subdiscipline of journalism history, that of women working in journalism, has emerged. Can biography be a useful approach? Just how extensive is the use of biography in histories of women in journalism? Some of the answers to these questions can be found in the work of women's historian Gerda Lemer.^ This article describes Lerner's four stages in the conceptualization of women's history and uses those stages to categorize the historical research on women working in journalism. Then it argues that more of a particular kind of biography, what Lerner would call contribution history, is needed in the history of women working in journalism.

DISAPPEARANCE OF THE GREAT MAN Startt and Sloan have attributed the "virtual disappearance of the 'great man' explanation of communication history" to the influence of the "Cultural School" of journalism history.^ Accord- Catherine C. ing to Sloan, the Cultural School originated in the early 1900s but Mitchell is an as- took on a new influence with Carey's 1974 call for a cultural sociate professor of mass communi- perspective.^ The editors of Journalism History have called cation at the Uni- Carey's piece a "key source" for any discussion of "methods and versity of North interpretive approaches" to journalism history.* According to Carolina at Ashe- ville. Some of the material in this ar- 1. Gerda Lerner, The Majority Finds Its Past (New York: Oxford University Press, ticle appeared in 1979). her 1987 disserta- 2. James D. Startt and William David Sloan, Historical Methods in Mass Commu- tion at the Univer- nication (Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1989), 36. sity of Tennessee 3. See Startt and Sloan, 35-39; William David Sloan, 'Introduction," in American and in a paper pre- Journalism History: An Annotated Bibliography (New York: Greenwood Press, sented at the 1989 1989), 7-8; and Sloan, "Historians and the American Press, 1900-1945: Working meeting of the Profession or Big Business?" American Journalism 3 (1986): 154-66. Southeastern Women's Studies 4. James W. Carey, "Tutting the World at Peril': A Conversation with James W. Association. Carey," Journalism History 12 (1985): 38-53. 24 AJ /Winter 1990

Carey, journalism historians have tended to describe "the slow, steady expansion of freedom and knowledge from the political press to the commercial press, the setbacks into sensationalism and yellow journalism, the forward thrust into "Men have defined muckraking and their experience as social responsibility."^ Carey says the problem with this stance history and have is not so much that it is wrong as that historians have exhausted left women out. the vein. Carey argues that journalism history has been too . . . women are urged to fit into narrowly defined, not adequately based in a "sense of historical the empty spaces, time" and not connected to other historical research.* Others assuming tfieir tra< ditional marginal, have agreed. For instance, Stevens and Garcia note that most 'subgroup' journalism history has treated "individuals (producers) as shapers status." of American media." They argue that cultural forces have as - Gerda Lerner, had The Majority much to do with shaping media as have individuals.^ Finds Its Past. In response journalism historians have turned away from biography and are asking other questions. For instance, Nord has asked how newspapers function as a part of society as a whole.® Caudill has discussed the relationship between contemporary intellectual thought and the content of newspapers.' Others have objected to this deemphasis on Great Man journalism history. Washburn argues. It's time for mass communication historians to overcome a fear of the Great Man Theory and get on with telling history as it really occurred—in other words, with the human element in it.^° In summary, then, journalism historians today are asking research questions about the media's relationship to society. At the same time a new subdiscipline of journalism history has arisen, the study of women working in journalism. Scholars working in this subdiscipline face a dilemma. If they want to write biographies, they must justify their work at a time when journalism history as a whole tends to reject this approach. These conflicting ideas about biography are not unique to journalism history. American historians in general, influenced by the French Annales School, have turned away from Great Man History.^^ Yet in the field of women's history as a whole scholars at first

5. James W. Carey, "The Problem of Journalism History," Journalism History 1 (1974): 3-5, 27. 6. Carey, "The Problem of Journalism History," 30. 7. John Stevens and Hazel Dicken Garcia, Communication History (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage, 1980), 24. 8. David Paul Nord, "The Authority of Truth: Religion and the John Peter Zenger Case," Journalism Quarterly 62 (1985): 227-35. 9. Ed Caudill, "A Content Analysis of Press Views of Darwin's Theories of Evolution, 1860-1925," Journalism Quarterly 64 (1987): 782-86, 946. 10. Patrick S. Washburn, "Books—^Not Articles—Advocated," Clio Among the Media 19 (April 1987), 4. 11. See, for instance, Michael Kammen, "Tlie Historian's Vocation and the State of the Discipline in the United States," and Peter M. Steams, 'Toward a Wider Vision: Trends in Social History," in The Past Before Us, ed. Michael Kammen (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1980), 19-46, 205-30. Mitchell 25

concentrated on writing biographies.^^ Gerda Lerner (whom Kraus and Joyce have called "the most important practitioner of women's history today") has addressed this conundrum.^^

FOUR STAGES IN HISTORICAL SCHOLARSHIP Lerner argues that there are four stages in the evolution of historical scholarship. Historians in any new subdiscipline, she says, first write "compensatory history." According to Lerner, in women's history scholars first tell the stories of "women worthies." She says historians ask, "Who are the women missing from history? Who are the women of achievement and what did they achieve?"^* Journalism historians writing at this stage are compensating for the absence of women from history books. They seek out the women who worked in newspapering and write descriptive biographies. Marion Marzolf's Up from the Footnote is an example of compensatory history, an attempt to bring women into the mainstream of journalism history.^^ "Contribution history," Lerner' s second stage, focuses on "women's contribution to, their status in, and their oppression Some other books by male-defined society."^* Contribution history is valuable, she by Gerda Lerner: says, because it develops "more complex and sophisticated The Woman in American History questions." However, its limitation is that historians continue to (1971) operate in a traditional conceptual framework. "When all is said Blacic Women in and done, what we have mostly done in writing contribution White Amerka: A Documentary His- history is to describe what in the men past told women to do and fo/y(1972) what men in the past thought women should be."^^ Journalism The Female Expe- historians writing at this stage look at how news women's work rience: An Ameri- can Documentary contributed larger to political or social movements. These schol- (1977) ars take a more analytical approach, but they are writing biogra- Teaching Women's phies asking the same questions which historians have also History (^9B^) A Death of One's asked about the contributions of news men. Own (1985) The third stage in the evolution of a conceptual framework for The Creation of Patriarchy (^966). women's history Lerner calls the "transitional" stage. At this stage historians ask about the actual experience of women in the past. This is obviously different from a description of the condition of women written from the perspective of male sources, and leads one to the use of women's letters, diaries, autobiographies, and oral history sources.^*

12. Catharine R. Stimpson, Women's Studies in the United States O^ew York: Ford Foundation, 1986), 14. 13. Michael Kratis and Davis D. Joyce, The Writing of American History (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1985), 380. 14. Lerner, 145. 15. Marion Marzolf, Up from the Footnote: A History of Women Journalists (New York: Hastings, 1977). 16. Lerner, 146. 17. Lerner, 149. 18. Urner, 153. 26 AJ /Winter 1990

The transitional stage, says Lemer, leads to the creation of new categories by which historians could organize their material: "sexuality, reproduction, the link between child-bearing and child-rearing; role indoctrination; sexual values and n\yths; female consciousness."^' Journalism historians writing at this stage ask questions like how a news woman's experience has been different from that of news men. Henry in advocating the use of methodologies besides biography, such as content analysis, takes a position which would push the study of women working in journalism into the transitional stage.^" She has argued that the study of the "relationship between personal circumstances and work accomplishments" of both men and women journalists could enrich journalism history .^^ Lerner predicts that the final stage in the evolution of women's "A major focus of history as a field will be a synthesis of women's and men's women's history has been on histories into a history of all people. Noting that women form the women's-rights majority of the human jX)pulation, she points out the absurdity struggles, espe- of discussing women's history as a subgroup.^ From Lerner's cially the winning of suffrage perspective the field of journalism history would change in this This, again, is an final phase. The transitional phase of examining the unique important aspect of women's his- experience of news women will produce new historical ques- tory, but it cannot tions which can then also be asked of news men's experience. and should not be Both Henry and Covert have predicted this synthesis for its central con- cem." journalism history. "The introduction of [the] woman's - Lemer, perspective . . . may provide a re-evaluation of journalism his- The Majority tory as traditionally composed," says Covert.^ The process of Finds its Past. asking new questions about women "may well require challenging and revising previously accepted precepts of journalism history that are not applicable to women," says Henry .^*

SURVEY OF HISTORIES OF NEWS WOMEN At what conceptual stage is the history of women working in

journalism? To find out, I used Lerner's four stages of history to categorize the seventy-seven articles and books indexed under "Women" in Sloan's American Journalism History: An Annotated Bibliography ^ and an additional sixteen articles published between 1970 and 1986 in Journalism History and Journalism Quar- terly. Included in the categories were all articles that addressed

19. Lemer, 158. 20. Susan Henry, "Colonial Woman Printer as a Prototype: Toward a Model for the Study of Minorities," Journalism History 3 (1976): 20-24. 21. Susan Henry, "Private Lives: An Added Dimension for Understanding Journalism History/' Journalism History 6 (1979): 98-102. 22. Lerner, 159. 23. Catherine L. Covert, "Journalism History and Women's Experience: A Prob- lem in Conceptual Change," Journalism History 8 (1981): 2-60. 24. Susan Henry, "Journalism History and Women's History"(Paper presented at the annual convention of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, San Antonio, Texas, August 1987). 25. William David Sloan, American Journalism History: An Annotated Bibliography (New York: Greenwood Press, 1989). Mitchell 27

women working in journalism as opposed to women as the subject of articles in newspapers. Included were articles about suffrage newspapers published by women and articles about women working in journalism education. Excluded were bibliographies, articles on historiography, and scholarship on newspaper content about women, including newspaper content about the woman's suffrage movement. "Brenda Starr in I found fifteen books, fifty-nine articles, and three disserta- the comic strips, tions on the history of women working in journalism. Ten Rosalind Russell scholars have published more than once in the area: Maurine in the nrwvies and Maiv Tyler Moore Beasley, one nine articles; Sherilyn Cox Bennion, seven book and on TV may be the articles; Susan Henry, one book chapter, five articles, and her public's image of dissertation; Marion Marzolf, one book and two articles; Lynn the woman reporter. But the real articles; articles; Masel-Walters, three Anne Mather, three Zena thing ... has been Beth McGlashan, two articles and her dissertation; Ellen M. infinitely more interesting than the Oldham, two articles; and Kathleen Endres, two articles. stereotype." The occasional piece on women working in journalism ap- - Marion Marzolf, peared before 1970, but the field came into its own in the early Up From the Footnote. seventies vdth the largest number of books and articles (twelve) appearing in 1975. As Figure 1 shows, compensatory descriptions of women worthies dominate the scholarship on women working in journalism with a total of twelve books, thirty-three articles, and one dissertation.^^ As might be exjjected for this first conceptual phase, the bulk of these forty-six works were published in the 1970s, when the first concentrated work in the field was being done. However, scholars have not abandoned compensatory history. The most recent work in this category was published in 1986.2^ Another three books and twenty-three articles were contribution history. Rather than just describing the women and their work, these pieces looked at issues like the journalists' contribution to wider social movements, their roles in the newsroom, or their handling of ethical issues.^* Six of these appeared in the watershed year of 1975. However, as Figure 2 shows, contribution articles became more frequent in the late seventies and early eighties. Four articles and one dissertation, the earliest in 1983, were written from the perspective of Lerner's transitional phase in the

26. For instance: Ira L. Baker, "Elizabeth Timothy: America's First Woman Editor," Journalism Quarterly 54 (1977): 280-85; Norma Schneider, "Qementina Rind: Editor, Daughter, Mother, Wife," Journalism History 1 (1974): 137-40; and Maurine Beasley, "Lorena A. Hickok: Woman Joumcilist," Journalism History 7 (1980): 92-95, 113. 27. Linda Steiner and Susanne Grey, "Genevieve Forbes Herrick: A Front Page Reporter 'Pleased to Write About Women,'" Journalism History 12 (1985): 8-16. 28. For example, Zena Beth McGlashan, "Women Witness the Russian Revolu- tion: Analyzing Ways of Seeing," Journalism History 12 (1985): 54-61; Maurine H. Beasley, "A 'Front Page Girl' Covers the Lindbergh Kidnapping: An Ethical Dilemma," American Journalism 1 (1983): 63-74; Sherilyn Cox Bennion, "Fre- mont Older: Advocate for Women," Journalism History 3 (1976-77): 124-27. 28 AJ /Winter 1990

Figure 1 Number of Articles and Books of Compensatory History, 1970-86

6-r

5--

4-.

3--

1 -

0-- "™" ' 1 ! 1^ I' I 1^ I 1 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86

Figure 2 Number of Articles and Books of Contribution History, 1970-86

6-r

1 -

0-- 1- H 1 H h H y 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86

Articles

Books Mitchell 29

conceptualization of history. For example, Maurine Beasley compared men's and women's experiences as eariy journalism students.^^ Susan Henry examined the work role of one colonial printer to see if she was different from or similar to other men and women printers on issues such as formal job training and personal mobility.^° And Linda Steiner examined how the process of women working together on nineteenth century suffrage newspapers helped create consensus about movement goals.^^

THE USEFULNESS OF BIOGRAPHY It is clear that scholarship on women working in journalism has concentrated at the compensatory stage, as Figure 3 suggests. That being the case, should descriptive biographies of women journalists be rejected as an outmoded approach, and should scholars instead proceed to ask broader, more sociological questions about news women? Henry, as early as 1 976, began calling for an advance to what Lemer would call the transitional stage.^^ Clearly, enough scholarship on women working in journalism has been amassed for some historians to proceed to transitional work. "The new stories of at least one hundred women journalists have been told," says Henry .^^ But one can argue the necessity for more biographical work, particularly at the stage of contribution history. The study of women working in journalism only came under concentrated study in the mid-1970s, and (comparatively speaking) the body of work is still not extensive. Sloan's bibliography contains 2,657 entries, of which only seventy-seven (or 3 percent) are indexed under women. As Hixson points out, subdisciplines "write their first histories in terms of great men."^* A goodly amount of work has appeared about the individual women who have worked in journalism, but by no means have all of the stories of women journalists been aired. For example, looking at only eleven western states plus Alaska and Hawaii, Bennion compiled a list of more than 2(X) nineteenth- century women editors.^^ There must be even more women not

29. Maurine Beasley, "Women in Journalism Education: The Formative Period, 1908-1930," Journalism History 13 (1986): 10-18. 30. Susan Henry, "Exception to the Female Model: Colonial Printer Mary Crouch," Journalism Quarterly 62 (1985): 725-33, 749. 31. Linda Steiner, "Finding Community in Nineteenth Century Suffrage Periodicals," American Journalism 1 (1983): 1-15. 32. Henry, "Colonial Woman Printer," 20-24. 33. Susan Henry, "Changing Media History Through Women's History," in Women in Mass Communication, ed. Pamela J. Creedon (Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage, 1989). 34. Richard F. Hixson, "The Challenge of Regionalism," in Mass Media and the National Experience, ed. Ronald T. Farrar and John D. Stevens (New York: Harper, 1971), 87. 35. Sherilyn Cox Bennion, "A Working List of Women Editors of the Nineteenth Century West," Journalism History 7 (1980): 60-65. 30 AJ /Winter 1990

Figure 3 Proportions of Compensatory, Contribution, and Transitional History, 1970-86

M Compensatory History (46 works) 59.7% S Contribution History (26 works) 33.8% H Transitional History (5 works) 6.5% Mitchell 31

yet found who worked in the nineteenth century on newspapers in the thirty-seven other states. Scott reports her experience doing research on the southern progressive nnovement: As I searched the record for Southern progressives I kept stumbling over women: well-dressed, well-spoken southern ladies taking a strong hand in social and political issues. At first I was puzzled since none of the people who had written on this subject (luminaries such as C. Vann Woodward and Arthur Link) had prepared me to find women there at all. But women were there, and they made a difference.^^ In American journalism, too, women may well have been there everywhere and they may have made a difference. Bio- graphical research, particularly at the stage of contribution history, must continue because scholars have not yet established the extent of women's contribution in the history of American journalism. In addition, biography is crucial to the beginning of an historical subdiscipline because the biographers do much of the documentary spade work, preparing the soil for historians who come "In 1958 all the later planting more sophisticated questions. The biographers historians of often discover the primary sources that other historians use. women in the Mary Beard in the 1930s used the slogan "No documents, no United States could have met in history" to point out the need to collect archival material on [a] tiny hotel room, women.^^ Smith notes that biographies of women in media can which was all any one of the three provide the factual detail necessary to write "a larger sociocul- could afford at his- tural interpretation."^^ torical meetings. Revisionist biographies can also provide new information, Twenty years later conferences on new perspectives. Scholars in American literature have pro- women's history duced a plethora of work on Margaret Fuller, an important attracted 2,000 woman in journalism and one of the most renowned women of people and over- ran whole college the nineteenth century. But there is still room for the journalism campuses." historian to study Fuller because her biographers have treated - Anne Firor Scott, Making the tnvisi- her as a worthy influenced the evolution of literary woman who bleWomanVisil)te. criticism through her articles in the New York Tribune?^ Because they are not concerned with newspaper history, references to

36. Anne Firor Scott, Making the Invisible Woman Visible (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1984), xix. 37. Stimpson, 7. 38. Mary Ann Yodelis Smith, "Research Retrospective: Feminism and the Media/' Communication Research 9 (1982): 152. 39. Margaret Vanderharr Allen, The Achievement of Margaret Fuller (University Park: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1979); Katharine Anthony, Margaret Fuller (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Harve, 1920); Margaret Bell, Margaret Fuller (1930; reprint, Freeport, N.Y.: Books for Free Libraries Press, 1971); Faith Chipperfield, In Quest of Love: The Life and Death of Margaret Fuller (New York: Coward-McCann, 1957); Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Margaret Fuller Ossoli (1884; reprint. New York: Haskell House, 1968); Mason Wade, Margaret Fuller: Vfhetstone of Genius (New York: Viking, 1940). 32 AJ/Winter 1990

Fuller's place within the organization of the New York Tribune are rare.*"

THE NEED FOR BIOGRAPHY Compensatory biographies dominate the scholarship on women working in journalism, but this does not mean scholars should now reject biography as outmoded. There is a clear need for more contribution biography, a need to establish a clear picture of the contribution of women to journalism history. In addition biographers, writing at both the compensatory and contribution stages, provide important information for scholars who wish to work at the transitional stage. First, biographers find the primary sources necessary for all historical research. Second, they can make important corrections in previous biographical scholarship. Historiographers arguing for broader perspectives are correct in saying that the goal of scholars studying women working in journalism should be to enhance journalism history with the new perspectives provided by research into women's topics. However, it is important to remember that the area of women working in journalism is still very young. Compensatory and contribution scholars working in this very young subdiscipline have laid the groundwork for some historians to begin entering the transitional phase; but even more biographical work will provide an even broader foundation in which to ground transitional scholarship.

40. Catherine C. Mitchell, "Horace Greeley's Star:^Margaret Fuller's New York TribxmeJournalism, 1844-1846," (Ph.D. diss.. University of Tennessee, Knoxvllle, 1987). Bibliography SCHOLARSHIP ON WOMEN WORKING IN JOURNALISM Categorized by Gerda Lerner's Stages of History

Catherine C. Mitchell

COMPENSATORY HISTORY Alpem, Sara. Freda Kirchwey: A Woman of the Nation. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987.

Adamson, June. "Nellie Kenyon and the Scopes 'Monkey Trial.'" Journalism History 2 (1975): 88-89.

Baker, Ira L. "Elizabeth Timothy: America's First Woman Editor." Journalism Quarterly 54 (1977): 280-85.

Beasley, Maurine. "The Curious Career of Anne Royall." Journal- ism History 3 (1976-77): 98-102.

. "Lorena A. Hickok: Woman Journalist." Journalism His- tory? {\9S0): 92-95, U^.

-. "Mary Clemmer Ames: A Victorian Woman Journalist.' Hayes Historical Journal (Spring 1978): 57-63.

'Pens and Petticoats: Early Woman Washington Correspondents." Journalism History 1 (1974-75): 112-15, 136.

,ed. The White House Conferences of Eleanor Roosevelt. New York: Gariand, 1983.

Beasley, Maurine, and Paula Belgrade. "Eleanor Roosevelt: First Lady as Radio Pioneer." Journalism History 11 (1984): 42-48.

Beasley, Maurine, and Sheila Silver. Women in Media: A Docu- mentary Sourcebook. Washington: Women's Institute for Free- dom of the Press, 1977. —

34 AJ/Winter 1990

Belford, Barbara. Brilliant Bylines: A Biographical Anthology of Notable Newspaper Women in America. New York: Columbia University Press, 1986.

Bennion, Sherilyn Cox. "A Working List of Women Editors of the Nineteenth Century West." Journalism History 7 (1980): 60-65.

Bradshaw, James Stanford. "Mrs. Rayne's School ofJournalism." Journalism Quarterly 60 (1983): 513-17, 579.

Bridges, Lamar W. "Eliza Jane Nicholson of the Picayune." Journalism History 2 (1975-76): 110-15.

Brigham, Clarence S. Journals and Journeymen: Contributions to the History of the Early American Newspapers. Philadelphia: Uni- versity of Pennsylvania Press, 1950.

Brown, Charles B. "A Woman's Odyssey: The War Correspon- dence of Anna Benjamin." Journalism Quarterly 46 (1969): 522-30.

Chapin, Howard M. "Anne Franklin, Printer." American Collec- tor 2 (1926): 461ff.

Chudacoff, Nancy Fisher. "Woman in the News 1762-1770 Sarah Updike Goddard." Rhode Island History 32-33 (1973): 98-105.

Collins, Jean E. She Was There: Stories ofPioneering Women Journal-

ists. New York: J. Messner, 1980.

Daniels, Elizabeth Adams. '7essie White Mario: Nineteenth Century Foreign Correspondent." Journalism History 2 (1975): 54-56.

Drewry, John E., ed. More Post Biographies of Famous Journalists. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1947.

Eberhard, Wallace B. "Sarah Porter Hillhouse: Setting the Rec- ord Straight." Journalism History 1 (1974-75): 133-36.

Endres, Kathleen. "Jane Grey Swisshelm: Nineteenth Century Joumalistand Feminist" JournalismHistory2 (1975-76): 128-31.

Henry, Susan. "Ann Franklin: Rhode Island's Woman Printer." In Colonial Newsletters and Newspapers: Eighteenth-Century Jour- nalism, edited by Donovan H. Bond and W. ReynoldsMcLeod. Morgantown, W.Va.: School of Journalism, West Virginia University, 1977. :

Mitchell 35

. "Reporting Deeply and at First Hand: 'Helen Campbell in the Nineteenth Century Slums." /OM rnfl/zsm His fory 11 (1 984 ) 18-25.

. "Sarah Goddard, Gentlewoman Printer." Journalism Quarterly 57 (1980): 23-30.

Henry, Susan Jane. "Notes Toward the Liberation of Journalism History: A Study of Five Women Printers in Colonial Amer- ica." Ph.D. diss., Syracuse University, 1976.

Hooper, Leonard. "Woman Printers in America's Colonial Times." Journalism Educator 29 (1974): 24-27.

Hull, Gloria T. "Alice Dunbar-Nelson: Delaware Writer and Woman of Affairs." Delaware History 17 (1976): 87-103.

Jackson, George. Uncommon Scold: The Story of Anne Royall Boston: Bruce Humphries, 1937.

Jones, Douglas C. 'Teresa Dean: Lady Correspondent Among the Sioux Indians." Journalism Quarterly 49 (1972): 656-62.

Kenney, Anne R. "'She Got to Berlin': Virginia Irwin, St. Louis Post-Dispatch War Correspondent." Missouri Historical Review 79 (1985): 456-79.

Marzolf, Marion. Up from the Footnote: A History of Women Jour- nalists. New York: Hastings House, 1977.

May, Antoinette. Witness to War: A Biography of Marguerite Higgins. New York: Beaufort, 1983.

Oldham, Ellen M. "Early Women Printers of America." Boston Public Library Quarterly 10 (1958): 6-26; 78-92; 141-53.

Ringwalt, Jessie E. "Early Female Printers in America." Printer's Circular 7 (1872): 284-85.

Ross, Ishbel. Ladies of the Press. New York: Harper, 1936.

Rush, Ramona R. "Patterson, Grindstead and Hostetter: Pioneer Journalism Educators." Journalism History 1 (1974): 129-32.

Schilpp, Madelon Golden, and Sharon M. Murphy. Great Women of the Press. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1983. 36 AJ/Winter 1990

Schneider, Norma. "Clementina Rmd: 'Editor, Daughter, Mother, Wife/" Journalism History 1 (1974-75): 137-40.

Smith, Harold Ladd. "TheBeauteousJennieJune: Pioneer Woman Journalist." Journalism Quarterly 40 (1963): 169-74.

Steiner, Linda, and Susanne Grey. "Genevieve Forbes Herrick: A Front Page Reporter 'Pleased to Write About Women.'" Jour- nalism History 12 (1985): 8-16.

Tinling, Marion. "Hermione Day and the Hesperian." California History 59 (1980-81): 282-89.

White, Karl T. "Frontier Journalist Stakes Early Claim." Matrix 65 (1980): 24-27.

Wiseman, Diane. "The Underwood Beat." Westways 72 (1980): 28-32.

CONTRIBUTION HISTORY Beasley, Maurine. "Lorena A. Hickok: Journalistic Influence on Eleanor Roosevelt." Journalism Quarterly 75 (1985): 281-86.

Beasley, Maurine H. "A 'Front Page Girl' Covers the Lindbergh Kidnapping: AnEthical Dilemma. Amencan/owrna/ism 1(1983): 63-74.

Bennion, Sherilyn Cox. "Early Western Publications Expose Women's Suffrage Cries." Matrix 64 (1979): 6-9.

-. "Fremont Older: Advocate for Women." Journalism History 3 (1976-77): 124-27.

'The New Northwest and Woman's Exponent: Early Voices for Suffrage." Journalism Quarterly 54 (1977): 286-92.

-. "The Pioneer: The First Voice of Women's Suffrage in the West." Pacific Historian 25 (1981): 15-21.

'The Woman's Exponent: Forty-two Years of Speaking for Women." Utah Historical Quarterly 44 (1976): 222-39.

'Woman Suffrage Papers of the West, 1869-1914. American Journalism 3 (1986): 125-41.

Demeter, Richard L. Printer, Presses and Composing Sticks: Women Printers of the Colonial Period. New York: Exposition Press, 1979. Mitchell 37

Endres, Kathleen L. "The Symbiotic Relationship of Eleanor Roosevelt and the Press: The Pre-War Years." Midwest Com- munications Research Journal 2 (1979): 57-65.

Henry, Susan. "Margaret Draper: Colonial Printer Who Chal- lenged the Patriots," Journalism History 1 (1974-75): 145.

Hudak, Leona M. Early American Women Printers and Publishers: 1639-1820. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1978.

McGlashan, Zena Beth. "Club l^adies' and Working 'Girls': Rheta Childe Door and the New York Evening Post." Journalism History 8 {1981): 7-13.

'The Evolving Status of Newspaperwomen." Ph.D. diss.. University of Iowa, 1978.

-. "Women Witness the Russian Revolution: Analyzing Ways of Seeing." Journalism History 12 (1985): 54-61.

Marzolf, Marion. 'The Woman Journalist: Colonial Printer to City Desk, Part II." Journalism History 2 (1975): 24-27.

'The Woman Journalist: Colonial Printer to City Desk." Journalism History 1 (1974-75): 100-107.

Masel-Walters, Lynne. "A Burning Cloud by Day: The History and Content of the 'Woman's Journal.'" Journalism History 3 (1977): 103-10.

'For the Poor Mute Mothers: Margaret Sanger and the Woman Rebel." Journalism History 11 (1975): 2-10.

'Their Rights and Nothing More: A History of The Revo- lution, 1868-1870." Journalism Quarterly 53 (1976): 242-51.

Mather, Anne. "A History of Feminist Periodicals, Part I." Jour- nalism History 1 (1974): 82-85.

'A History of Feminist Periodicals, Part II." Journalism History 1 (1974-75): 108-11.

'A History of Feminist Periodicals, Part III." Journalism History 2 (1975): 19-23, 31.

Roberts, Nancy L. "Journalism for Justice: Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker." Journalism History 10 (1983): 2-9. 38 AJ/Winter 1990

Ruegamer, Lana. The Paradise of Exceptional Women: Chicago Women Reformers, 1863-1893. Ann Arbor, Mich.: University Microfilms, 1985.

Stearns, Bertha-Monica. "Reform Periodicals and Female Re- formers 1830-1860." American Historical Review 37 (1932): 678-99.

TRANSITIONAL HISTORY Beasley, Maurine. "Women in Journalism Education: The For- mative Period, 1908-1930." /oMrnfl/fsmHisfon/13 (1986): 10-18.

Henry, Susan. "Exception to the Female Model: Colonial Printer Mary Crouch." Journalism Quarterly 62 (1985): 725-33, 749.

. "'Dear Companion, Ever-Ready Co-Worker': AWoman's Role in a Media Dynasty." Journalism Quarterly 64 (1987): 301-12.

Steiner, Linda. "Finding Community in Nineteenth Century Suffrage Periodicals." American Journalism 1 (1983): 1-15.

'The Woman's Suffrage Press, 1850-1900: A Cultural Analysis." Ph.D. Diss., University of Illinois, 1979. Historiographical Essay WOMEN IN JOURNALISM: CONTRIBUTORS TO MALE EXPERIENCE OR VOICES OF FEMININE EXPRESSION? How Historians Have Told the Stories of Women Journalists

Maurine H. Beasley

WOMEN HAVE PARTICIPATED in American journalism since its beginnings but their involvement has been interpreted am- biguously. On one hand they have been seen as contributors to male experiences; on the other as creators who have used journalism to give voice to feminine aspirations. So far there has been no extensive examination or resolution of those conflicting interpretations, in large part because the history of women in journalism received little attention for years. Happily, however, this is no longer true. In the last two decades scholars have added to the field of journalism history by focusing attention on women's roles. Susan Henry, former editor of Journalism History, pointed out that the first ten-year index (1974-83) of her journal contained twenty-six separate entries under the category "woman," the third largest topic category listed.^ She noted that the infusion of new work related to the history of women has been reflected in the history of a dominant journalism textbook. The Press and America, by Edwin and Michael Emery. While the heading "women in journalism" in the Emerys' index led to only five Maurine H. Beasley pages in the third edition of the book in 1972, it referred to a total is professor of of 103 pages in the sixth edition of the work in 1988.^ journalism at the The broad question of the historiography of women in jour- University of Mary- land-College Parle. nalism has not been addressed. Henry contended that this new She is the author scholarship generally fell within the accepted boundaries of of Eleanor conventional male-oriented journalism history, although she Roosevelt and the /Med« (1987), and pointed out that no full-fledged critique of works about journal- has written, ed- ism history existed.^ ited, or co-au- thored five other 1. Svisan Henry, "Changing Media History Through Women's History," in boolcs. She is cur- Women inMass Communication: Challenging Gender Values, ed. Pamela E. Creedon rent president of the American (Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage, 1989), 35. Journalism Histo- 2. Henry, 36. rians Association. 3. Henry, 39-40. 40 AJ /Winter 1990

This article reviews material, both old and new, on the history of women in journalism to see where it fits, if at all, within the general framework of journalism historiography set forth by William David Sloan, former editor of American Journalism. His work was selected because he has done more than any other scholar to provide an historiographical structure for the field. According to Sloan, most works on journalism history can be placed within seven schools: (1) Nationalist, which viewed the press as a primary factor in America's political destiny during the early nineteenth century; (2) Romantic, which stressed the Women printers role of great editors and became popular in the second half of the mentioned by Isaiah Thomas: nineteenth century; (3) Developmental, which emphasized the Jane Aitken evolution of professional standards in the late nineteenth and Cornelia Bradford Elizabeth Bushnell much of the twentieth century; (4) Progressive, which flowered Mary Crouch in the pre-World War II period and saw the press as a tool for Anne Draper liberal social change; (5) Consensus, which emerged after World Maria Edes Anne Franklin War II and found journalism a reflection of shared values in Mary Goddard American society; (6) Cultural, which stemmed from the work Sarah Goddard of Robert E. Park, a University of Chicago sociologist, who Ann Green f>er- Ann Greenleaf ceived journalism as the product of interaction with the environ- Elizabeth Holt ment; and (7) Libertarian, which upheld the value of freedom of Clementina Rind Anne Timothy the press and became a theme of numerous journalism histori- Elizabeth Timothy ans.* Lucy Trumbull Sloan acknowledged that some journalism history had been Catherine Zenger. written from other perspectives, such as the Marxist and the neoconservative, but he contended that these schools represented only a fraction of the entire body of historical work and did not necessitate study .^ He did not mention a feminist philosophy. Yet, as will be seen, significant scholarship on the history of women in journalism has been influenced, at least to some extent, by this approach. Nevertheless, most of the history of women in journalism has not questioned conventional perspectives even though it has departed from the type of history written about males. Like women's history in general, the history of women in journalism was not deemed worthy of study for years. Sloan's historiographical framework provided the introduction to his annotated bibliography of some 2,600 scholarly works on journalism history. The index showed it contained only about eighty entries under the heading "women" plus forty-four others referring to women that were listed under different headings. Other references were listed in an unannotated twelve-page bibliography compiled by Marion Marzolf, Ramona R. Rush, and Darlene Stern in the early 1970s.^ Citing biographies and references to

4. William David Sloan, "Introduction," American Journalism History: An Anno- tated Bibliography (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1989), 2-8. 5. Sloan, 8. 6. Marion Marzolf, Ramona R. Rush, and Darlene Stem, "The Literature of Women in Journalism History," Journalism History 1 (1974-75): 117-28. Beasley 41

women in general collections, it also provided material on the image of women, sex discrimination, and archival resources. Marzolf subsequently added a five-page supplement/ It is readily apparent that relatively little material documents the history of women in journalism. Even today only two comprehensive histories of women in journalism can be found: Ishbel Ross's Ladies of the Press (1936) and Marzolf's Up From the Footnote (1977).* Unfortunately neither book was documented. In this article most of the works reviewed are those cited in the Sloan and Marzolf, Rush, and Stem bibliographies, supplemented by mention of works in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The early works provided a benchmark with which to measure the profusion of recent scholarship. In fact, the nineteenth century set the parameters of debates on the role of women in journalism history that continue today. Have women in journalism chiefly contributed to the male experience or have they provided an intrinsic dimension uniquely their own? The definitive answer is yet to come.

NINETEENTH CENTURY The first historian of American journalism was Isaiah Thomas, whose The History of Printing in America in 1810 briefly men- "A gentleman who role of Sloan placed Thomas's work as the tioned the women. was acquainted cornerstone of the nationalist perspective.^ In chronicling con- with Anne Franklin tributions of newspapers to the new American nation, Thomas and her family, informed me that he noted that it was common for widows, "especially of printers, had often seen her innkeepers and traders, to take up and carry on the husband's daughters at work in the printing trade, and not uncommon for them to set up businesses of their house, and that own."^° Subsequent writers pointed out that women were in- they were sensible volved in producing at least a dozen newspapers before the ana amiable women." Revolution.^^ All were wives or daughters (or in the case of Sarah - Isaiah Thomas, and Mary Katherine Goddard, a mother and sister respectively) The History of male printer-publishers.^^ of Printing in America. Thomas praised women printers for being industrious and able to carry on family businesses until their sons were old enough to take over. He described Anne Franklin, widow of

7. Marion Marzolf, "The Literature of Women in Journalism History: A Supplement," Journalism History 3 (1976-77): 116-20. 8. See Ishbel Ross, Ladies of the Press: The Story of Women in Journalism by an Insider OSfew York: Harper's, 1 936), and Marion Marzolf, Up From the Footnote: A History of Women Journalists (New York: Hastings House, 1977). 9. Sloan, 2. 10. Isaiah Thomas, The History of Printing in America, 2 vols. (Worcester, Mass.:

Isaiah Thomas Jr., 1810), l:xx. 11. A list can be found in Edith May Marken, "Women in American Journalism Before 1900" (M.A. thesis. University of Missouri-Columbia, 1932), 12. See also Elisabeth Dexter, Colonial Women of Affairs (New? York: Houghton Mifflin, 1924), 166-79. 12. See Susan Henry, "Sarah Goddard, Gentlewoman Printer," Journalism Quar- terly 57 (1980): 23-30. 42 AJ/Winter 1990

James, as being aided in publishing the Newport Mercury by her • • • • • two daughters, who "were correct and quick compositors at "The lady-editors who by 1828 were case."" Of Cornelia Bradford, who ran the American Weekly Mer- beginnlna to take cury in Philadelphia after the death of her husband, he wrote ap- charge of periodi- provingly: "The Mercury was well printed on a good type dur- cals . . . were intent rather upon ing the whole time she had management of it."^* Thomas's work disarming criti- set a tone for much of the journalism history to follow. He cism anaproving pictured women as dutiful supporters of males and limited that nothing need be feared from participants in the vital national work of journalism. their harmless Jessie E. Ringwalf s 1872 article on "Early Female Printers in conservatisnrL" - Bertha-Monica America" continued in this vein.^^ The article presented a factual Steams, "Reform account of eleven women printers. It ended by commenting that Periodicals and the list easily could be lengthened with names of widows com- Female Reformers." pelled to assume printing businesses without trying to achieve excellence in the trade.^^ By contrast, a feminist point of view emerged in the late nineteenth century, not surprisingly tied to the campaign for suffrage. A chapter on "Women in Newspapers" in the 1889 edition of the History of Woman Suffrage drew on the achievements of colonial women journalists as a backdrop for the accomplishments of nineteenth-century women.^'' The work of eighteen women journalists before 1800 was cited. Next came the names of thirty-four women, many of them editors of women's magazines and reform publications, who were credited with significant roles in the journalism of the first six decades of the nineteenth century. Anna W. Spencer, for example, was acclaimed for starting the Pioneer and Woman's Advocate in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1852, "the earliest paper established in the United States for the advocacy of Woman's Rights."^* Some thirty suffrage newspapers in the United States and abroad were mentioned. The chapter also gave the names of thirteen women who edited or contributed to "fashion papers" and general newspapers and magazines. It contended, 'The political columns of many papers are prepared by women, men often receiving the credit."^' Similarly women's achievements were celebrated in a chapter on the history of women journalists in Woman's Work in America^ The chapter traced the rise of women as correspon-

13. Thomas, 1:195. 14. Thomas, 1:244. 15. Jessie E. Ringwalt, "Early Female Printers in America," Printer's Circular 7 (1872): 284-85. 16. Ringwalt, 285.

17. "Women in Newspapers," in History of Woman Suffrage , ed. Elisabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage, 6 vols. (Rochester, N.Y.: Charles Mann, 1889), 1:43-49. 18. Stanton et al., 1:46. 19. Stanton etal, 1:49. 20. Susan E. Dickinson, "Woman in Journalism," in Woman's Work in America, ed. Annie Meyer (New York: Holt and Co., 1891), 128-38. Beasley 43

dents and reporters on metropolitan newspapers and as editors of various publications, noted the founding of women's press associations, and referred to the presence of "Anglo-African sisters" in the journalistic field. In endeavoring to draw women into the occupation, it argued optimistically that journalism was a "fair field" for women, offering them pay comparable to that given men.^^ This type of historical writing, which promoted women's emergence into journalism, differed greatly from works by and about men, who remained in firm control of the occupation. Sloan's analysis of the Romantic school of journalism history writing in the late nineteenth century — which featured "great" male editors like Horace Greeley — can be applied only in a con- voluted way in dealing with the history of women in journalism. It emphasized things hoped for, not achieved. For instance, the chapter on women journalists in the History of Woman Suffrage ended: "If the proverb that 'the pen is mightier than the sword' be true, woman's skill and force in using this mightier weapon must soon change the destinies of the world."^ A similar feminist approach was taken in an 1892 article on the

sixty-member Woman's Press Club of New York. An account of "Women journal- the group, which had been founded three years earlier, stressed ists by 1889 had the "unity, fellowship and cooperation" among the members.^ nnade such an impact on the profes- The article included twenty-two biographical sketches of out- sion that the Jour- nalist, a profes- standing members of the club, founded by Mrs. J. C. Croly, sional joumal in whose pen name was "Jennie June." She called "the first was New York City, de- woman upon the staff of a daily pap>er in this city," and was voted Its entire credited with creating "the demand for women contributors" as January 26 issue to profiles of 50 well as the syndication of women's columns.^* The article con- women editors cluded with the observation that the women did not judge each and reporters, 10 of them black." other on their looks or wits but displayed a "cordial relation of - Marion IMarzolf, sisterly helpfulness."^ Up from the One of the most significant works on the history of journalism Footnote. appeared in lS73,}ourmlism in the United States,from 1 690 tol872. Like many journalism histories to come, it was written by a journalist, Frederic Hudson, managing editor of the New York Herald. According to Sloan, Hudson was the first and perhaps the most important of the Developmental historians, who pictured journalism as a progression from the political to the professional in terms of news-oriented techniques.^^ Hudson devoted a chapter to "Female Journalists," begrudg- ingly recognizing the achievements of Sarah Josepha Hale. She

21. Dickinson, 138. 22. Stanton etal., 1:49. 23. Fannie A. Mathews, "The Woman's Press Qub of New York City," Cosmopolitan 13 (August 1892): 45S-61. 24. Mathew, 455. 25. Mathew, 461. 26. Sloan, 4. .

44 AJ/Winter 1990

was editor of a magazine, Godex/s Lady's Book, "not a newspaper," so it "can scarcely, therefore, come within the scop>e of a compilation like this one," Hudson wrote.^^ Nevertheless, he

"Our large cities referred favorably to the high technical quality of fashion plates are now the and engravings in ladies' magazines like Godex/s. Suffrage pub- centres of numer- lications, in ous female writers Hudson's words, were edited by "strong-minded and reporters women," who were "active and persistent workers, full of They are bright, in- poetry and poverty . . . pouts and persuasiveness, in pushing fluential, many of them beautiful, tal- their plan of reform before the monster public."^* The good he ented, experi- saw in these publications was recognition of the power of the enced, and useful. press in social movements. Some of them are Bohemians in Hudson mentioned women who had succeeded male rela- crinoline." tives as newspaper publishers, including Piney W. Forsythe of - Frederic Hudson, Liberty lately Journalism in the the {Mississippi) Advocate, "who declined to attend United States. a convention of Mississippi editors for fear her male contemporaries would stare at her." Hudson found this acceptable behavior. He wrote, "There are now quite a number of female managers and publishers [who] do not put themselves forward or make themselves very conspicuous in their profession."^' Hudson obviously believed it was permissible for women to be journalists as long as they fit discreetly within the male- dominated field. This is a view of women's role that has marked much historical writing. As the historian Joan Wallach Scott stated, "Historians cannot use a single, universal representative for the diverse populations of any society or culture without granting differential importance to one group over another."^" As long as man, or men's experience, was made the universal representative of journalism, then woman, or women's experience, was seen as exceptional and outside a norm into which women had to struggle to fit. This viewpoint marked the history of women journalists written during much of the twentieth century.

EARLY TWENTIETH CEhTTURY Relatively few works on women in journalism history appeared in the first decades of the twentieth century, and those that did fit into, or between, the feminist and developmental perspectives. An early work was Sarah H. Porter's biography of Anne Royall, a Washington editor-publisher from 1832 to 1854 and the first person in the United States to have been convicted as a "common scold ."^^ Porter tried to expose male biases against Royall. An investigative journalist who attacked organized reli-

27. Frederic Hudson, Journalism in ttte United States, from 1690 to 1872 (New York: Harper & Row, 1873), 497. 28. Hudson, 498. 29. Hudson, 499. 30. Joan Wallach Scott, Gender and the Politics of History (New York: Columbia University Press, 1989), 25. 31 Sarah H. Porter, The Life and Times of Anne Rctyall (Cedar Rapids, Iowa: Torch Press, 1909), 221. Beasley 45

gion, Royall was ridiculed as a funny old woman by men correspondents. Porter wrote her book to prove that Royall had been a victim of sex discrimination, judged on looks, attire, and unconventional behavior, rather than journalistic enterprise. George S. Jackson, in a 1937 biography, took a similar sympathetic approach to Royall.^^ He held that history had written her off as a notorious eccentric because of her sex. The first academic study of the history of women journalists up to 1900 was a master's thesis written at the University of Missouri by Edith M. Marken in 1932. Influenced by her training at Missouri, the world's first school of journalism, Marken subscribed to the developmental model of historiography associated with journalism education. Rich with hundreds of names of individual women, the thesis reported on women's movement from specialized ladies' magazines to work on metropolitan newspaper staffs. As in almost all histories of women journalists, sexual discrimination was described, although Marken said women could overcome it with "definite, specific knowledge, and the lighter, more delicate touch which imagination has guided."33

In 1931 a popular biography of Sarah J. Hale appeared, written by Ruth Finley. She placed Hale within the context of great American women: first advocate of women as teachers in public schools; originator of the fight for retention of property rights by married women; founder of the first day nursery; campaigner for physical education for women and public playgrounds.^^ Yet Hale took no part in the suffrage movement and wrote sermons on women's moral duties to be good wives, although she favored their higher education. Finley treated her more as a representative of Victorian women's social progress than as a journalist. Therefore the book has a feminist viewpoint rather than the romantic perspective associated with biographies of outstanding nineteenth century male editors. Hale had been accorded less significance in an article that appeared in the American Mercury a few years previous.^^ The author, Richard F. Warner, attributed the success of Godey's Lady's Book to the publisher, Louis A. Godey. Warner referred to Hale as Godey's "crew."^^ During the first third of the twentieth century the outlines for journalism history of women were set. Women, not men, became the predominant authors. They usually admired their

32. George Stuyvesant Jackson, Uncommon Scold (Boston: Bruce Humphries Co., 1937), 43-44. Another kindly portrayal came in Heber Blankenhorn, "The Grandma of the Muckrakers," American Mercury 12 (1927): 87-93. 33. Marken, 129. 34. Ruth E. Finley, The Lady of Godey's, Sarah Josepha Hale (Philadelphia: Lippin- cott, 1931), 17. 35. Richard Fay Warner, "Godey's Lady's Book," American Mercury 2 (1924): 399-405. 36. Warner, 404. 46 AJ/Winter 1990

subjects, although they did not always surmount prevailing cultural biases toward women. These prejudices sometimes infused their work just as they did the work of some male authors. A clear example occurred in Bertha-Monica Steam's 1934 article on pre-Civil War women's reform periodicals in the American Historical Review.^''The subject could have been framed within the progressive model of historiography and the publications treated as efforts in the struggle to achieve democracy. Instead Steam's language trivialized the reformers' concerns, although the article may be seen as a quasi-feminist work. The periodicals were said to have "clamored loudly for some Right, or agitated vigorously against some abuse."^*

It was, however, a male historian, Arthur J. Larson, aided by his wife, who offered the first scholarly appraisal of Jane Grey Swisshelm.^' She was the editor of anti-slavery newspapers in western Pennsylvania and on the Minnesota frontier as well as the first woman to sit in the Congressional press galleries. In an introduction to a collection of her letters published in 1934, Larson adhered to the progressive school, painting his subject as a reformer and feminist who was "fearless in her adherence to what she considered the right."*° The first book on women journalists appeared in 1936 written by Ishbel Ross, who had been a well-regarded reporter for the New York Herald Tribune. Although she included the history of nineteenth-century journalists, her book. Ladies of the Press, subtitled "The Story of Women in Journalism by an Insider," concentrated on Ross's contemporaries, hundreds of whom she

"Women report- contacted to gain material. Intended for a popular audience, it ers, who mostly focused on women journalists' adventurous lives, giving dra- wrote society and matic accounts of "sob sisters" and the yellow press. She pic- soft news, were especially vulner- tured women reporters as individualists who continually had to able during the prove themselves first-class performers to overcome male edi- Great Depression hostility. when one-third of tors' all salaried news- While Ross stressed the contributions of women to American paper employees journalism, she pointed out that they still were not welcome in lost their jobs." - Betty Winf ield, the field, being forced to walk a wavering line between feminin- "Mrs. Roosevelt's ity and reportorial behavior. Describing the woman reporter as Press Conference a paradox, Ross said she must be "gentle in private life, ruthless Association."

at her work. . . . not too beguiling [because] trouble, beauty and sex are threats in any city room."*^ The highest compliment to which women respond "is the city editor's acknowledgment

37. Bertha-Monica Steams, "Reform Periodicals and Female Reformers 1830- 1860/' American Historical Review 37 (1932): 678-99. 38. Stearns, 678.

39. Arthur J. Larson, ed.. Crusader & Feminist: Letters of Jane Grey Swisshelm 1855-1865 (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society, 1934), 1-32. 40. Larson, 30. 41. Ross, 8-9. Beasley 47

that their work is just like a man's," Ross continued.*^ In an oblique way Ross's book can be seen as part of the development school, but it fits better into the feminist category because it showed women caught in psychological and social constraints. In this period women journalists were stereotyped. An example of stereotyping appeared in a biographical article on Anna CXHare McCormick, winner of a 1 937 Pulitzer Prize for her foreign correspondence in the New York Times. Current History termed McCormick, first woman to receive a major Pulitzer Prize, "vivacious, sparkling, dressed not smartly but with taste and a sense of style."^ It lauded her modesty in a man's preserve. Comments on dress and personality were ways of picturing women differently from men journalists and keeping women from being seen as their equals.

MID-TWENTIETH CENTURY A romantic approach to the history of women journalists characterized this period, marked by portrayals of women as "Any woman in or contributors to male enterprises. This can be seen in the work of interested in jour- Sara Lockwood Williams, one of the first women professors of nalism education, seel(ing guidance journalism, in 1942 within Mis- who traced the history of women about her role souri journalism in The Matrix, the publication of Theta Sigma from the literature, Phi, a journalism sorority. Lockwood focused on the contribu- would need only a few hours to cover tions of editors' wives to local newspapers based on speeches the topic thor- made by these women at press association meetings. For ex- oughly."

- Marzolf , Up from ample, she quoted from a speech given in 1881 by Mrs. Susie the Focinote. McK. Fisher, wifeoftheeditor of thefflrmm^fon(Missouri)Times, who declared, "The tone of a newspaper with a woman on the staff is purer and more deserving of a place in every household."** Williams, whose husband, Walter, founded the University of Missouri School ofJournalism where she taught, also subscribed to the developmental perspective. In her Matrix article she held that journalism education had provided "equal opportunities" for Missouri women to prove their worth in the field .^ In a quasi-biographical novel, Kent Cooper pictured Anna Zenger as a heroine of American journalism. He presented her as the guiding spirit behind her husband, John Peter, a colonial printer-publisher whose acquittal in a libel trial became a foundation of press freedom.*^ The book by Cooper, manager of the Associated Press, was attacked in an article in the William and Mary Quarterly, The reviewer, Vincent Buranelli, accused Coo- per of abandoning history for romance and declared Anna

42. Ross, 13. 43. L.C. Grey, "McCormick of the Times," Current History 50 (1939): 27. 44. Sara Lockwood Williams, "The Editor's Rib," Matrix 27 (1942): 13. 45. Williams, 14. 46. Kent Cooper, Anna Zenger, Mother of Freedom (New York: Farrar, Strauss, 1946), 330-31. 48 AJ/Winter 1990

Zenger merely "a courageous wife" who had kept her husband's newspaper going while he was in jail.^^ More objectionable than fiction was outright hostility. Preju- dices against women who replaced men on newspaper staffs "What happens during World War II pervaded an historical overview of women when 8,000 report- journalists titled "Paper Dolls" that first ran in the Saturday ers march out and 8,000 girls march Evening Post in 1944. It was reprinted three years later in an in? Masculine anthology published by the University of Georgia Press.** The growls in the city room prove that 8,000 women hired when men went to war were accused ofbeing the ancient preju- "as irresponsible as an amorous monkey [with] absolutely no dicie stands—but sense of the urgency of hot news."*' The article also abounded on a weal(ening foundation." in anecdotal and inaccurate details on women journalists' lives - Editor's note to from Anne Royall on. Stanley Frank and Serious work on the history of women journalists during the Paul Sann, "Paper Dolls." post-World War II period was glossed over through widespread use of a florid writing style that stressed the unconventional nature of exceptional women's lives. For example, Margaret Farrand Thorp's well-researched, but unfootnoted, article on Jane Swisshelm in 1949 was titled "Beware of Sister Jane." It stressed Swisshelm's "anger and impatience," and referred to her "useful venom" against injustice.^" When women journalists were accorded full-length biographies, they were portrayed so much differently than men that it is difficult to place these books within a conventional historical framework. Perhaps this is less a criticism of their biographers than an observation on the dissimilarities of the lives of men and women journalists. Still it appeared that authors sought to maximize the differences for dramatic effect. For example, the moral conduct of Miriam Florence Leslie, better known as Mrs. Frank Leslie, was featured in a 1953 biography. Purple Passage: The Life of Mrs. Frank Leslie. The author, Madeleine B. Stern, gave as much attention to her subject's unconventional personal life as to her career. As she put it, "Hers had been a colorful career—a life studded with purple passages, the result of wearing a blue stocking on one leg while she sported a scarlet stocking on the other."^^ A biography of Elizabeth Meriwether Gilmer, who won fame as the advice columnist "Dorothy Dix," depicted her career, "like the woman herself," as stranger than fiction.^^ Albert Britt's 1960 biography

47. Vincent Buranelli, "The Myth of Anna Zenger," William and Mary Quarterly, 3d ser., 13 (1956): 168. 48. Stanley Frank and Paul Sann, 'Taper Dolls," in More Post Biographies, ed. John E. Drewry (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1947), 206-17. 49. Frank and Sann, 210. 50. Margaret Farrand Thorp, "Beware of Sister Jane," in Female Persuasion: Six Strong-Minded Women (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1949), 56, 59. 51. Madeleines. Stern, Purpk Passaic- The Life ofMrs. Frank Leslie (Norman: Uni- versity of Oklahoma Press, 1953), 4. 52. Harnett T. Kane with Ella Bentley Authur, Dear Dorothy Dix: The Story of a Compassionate Woman (New York: Doubleday, 1952), 9. .

Beasley 49

of Ella Browning Scripps painted her as a devoted sister whose journalistic pursuits were secondary to family obligations and charitable activities.^^ Joumalisnn historians insisted on assuring readers that women journalists of note had retained their femininity in spite of professional success. For instance, a 1963 article by Henry Ladd Smith, a professor at the University of Washington, on Jane Cunningham Croly, the "Jennie June" referred to earlier, was titled "The Beauteous Jennie June: Pioneer Woman Journalist."^ Ladd insisted "she was a very feminine woman, which is more than could be said of some of her sister feminists."^^ After detailing her accomplishments, which included the founding of the women's club movement in the United States, he concluded, "Lest the men "In the light of history she may appear over-aggressive, a kind readers of this of frenetic 'activities girl.'"^* Since the article on Croly included piece be disheart- description of her journalistic innovations, particularly syndi- ened, let it be said that there is still a cated fashion and advice columns, it can be placed in the devel- place for the mas- opmental category, but the obvious bias makes it a questionable culine sex in journalism, but the entry. competition is to- Similarly a 1969 article on Anna Benjamin, a correspondent day much keener, during the Spanish-American war, described her as "a slight largely on account of the school of New England miss."^^ It told readers, "Although Miss Benjamin journalism trained could be as direct and decisive as a man, she was not mannish in girls, than it once was." looks," and concluded that she was "one of the first of a not very - John Drewry's long line of notable women and foreign correspondents."^* A preface to Frani( comparable view characterized a chapter on "Ladies on the and Sann, "Paper Dolls." Front Lines" in a 1968 book on the history of war correspondents that reported "nearly a dozen newshens are in Vietnam as of this writing."^' After comments on the appearances of past and present women war correspondents (one was described as "beauteous"), the author conceded, "Today's woman war correspondent is ready, willing and surprisingly able."^ An exception to this customary trivialization of woman was a three-part series on early women printers in the Boston Public Library Quarterly in 1958." The author, Ellen Oldham, stressed the forceful character of the eleven best-known colonial women printer-publishers who operated "before the emancipation of

53. Albert Britt, Ella Browning Scripps (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1960), 44,51. 54. HenryLaddSmith, "The Beauteous JennieJune: Pioneer Woman Journalist," Joumalism Quarterly 40 (1963): 169-74. 55. Smith, 170. 56. Smith, 174. 57. Charles B. Brown, "The War Correspondence of Anna Benjamin," Journalism Quarterly A6 (1969): 522. 58. Brown, 524, 530. 59. M.L. Stein, Uruier Fire: The Story of American War Correspondents (New York: Julian Messner, 1968), 228. 60. Stein, 229. 61 Ellen M. Oldham, "Early Women- Printers of America, " Boston Public Library Quarterly 10 (1958): 6-26; 78-92; 141-53. 50 AJ/Winter 1990

women."" She treated them as a group faced "with the necessity of supporting themselves, and in most cases their children."" She took care not to set the women apart from men but to note that "many of the problems and much of the daily life of these women were shared by all printers of the time."" To that extent the work might be said to have been influenced by the consensus school but only if one broadens the term to include a consensus approach to relations between the sexes. This defies reason applied to a time when women lacked any political power.

RECENT SCHOLARSHIP The outpouring of new scholarship on the history of women in journalism spurred by the women's movement often took the form of biography with a feminist flavor. Of the twenty-six articles on women from 1974 to 1983 in Journalism History alone, "Washington's thirteen were biographical studies of individuals or groups. prestigious Gridi- Along with other works published during this period, these ron Club, founded in 1908, continued studies treated women as serious individuals intent on journal- its 'stag only' istic careers in spite of overwhelming prejudice against them. nfiembership pol- Among the Journalism History articles were overviews of the icy until November

1974, when it history of women journalists by Marion Marzolf, who incorpo- voted to accept rated this material into her 1977 book. Up From the Footnote.^ Her women members." purpose was to show that the woman reporter through the years - Marzolf , Up from the FtxAnote. had been "tough-minded, determined, aggressive, intelligent, independent and professional" as well as "compassionate, hopeful, intuitive and warmly human." According to Marzolf, "Professionalism has been her code, and by it she's won the respect and admiration of her colleagues and bosses."" The tone of articles in Journalism Quarterly showed a decided change. For example, a single issue in 1977 contained a record two articles on the history of women journalists. One was on a colonial editor, Elizabeth Timothy, and the other on Western suffrage newspapers and their editors.^^ Unlike articles of the previous decade, these works treated their subjects as capable individuals and focused on their careers, not their appearance. Similarly biographies of women journalists stressed their professional accomplishments. A 1972 biography of Anne Royall pointed out the importance of her work to American historians today." Great Women of the Press, which appeared in 1983,

62. Oldham, 6. 63. Oldham, 7. 64. Oldham, 7. 65. Marion Marzolf, "The Woman Journalist: Colonial Printer to City Desk," Journalism History 1 (1974-75, 1975): 100-6, 146; 24-27, 32. 66. Marzolf, Up From the Footnote, vii. 67. Ira L. Baker, "Elizabeth Timothy: America's First Woman Editor," and Sherilyn Cox Bennion, "The New Northwest and Woman's Exponent: Early Voices for Suffrage," Journalism Quarterly 54 (1977): 280-85, 286-92. 68. Bessie R. James, Anne Royall's U.S.A. (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers Univer- sity Press, 1972), viii. a.

Beasley 51

contained eighteen biographical sketches of significant journalists (including Anne Royall, Sarah Hale, and Jane Swisshelm) from the colonial to the Vietnam era. Its authors, Madelon Golden Schilpp and Sharon M. Murphy, offered the stories of

"By and large . . "heroines" who, according to Schilpp and Murphy, remained in men in newspaper the shadows because of social restraints and neglect.^' The title work have been appeared to have been chosen as a counterpart to the romantic uniformly friendly, sometinrws ex- "great men" theme of journalism history, although the sketches tremely helpful, to themselves emphasized journalistic achievement. their women co- workers, even to Barbara Belford's Brilliant Bylines, published in 1986, com- the point of chang- bined biographical sketches of twenty-four notable newspapering typewriter rib- women with samples of their work but was not designed to bons for them— simple task at "examine whether journalists wrote any differently than women which the female men," Belford stated. Instead the anthology aimed to "show ingenuKy appears invariably to bog how the careers of women who became journalists . . . and what down." they wrote were shaped by both personal and economic neces- - Stanley Walker's sity and by the demands of the newspaper editors of their era."^° foreword to Ishbel Ladies In addition to biographical studies, the new scholarship Ross, of the Press. embraced studies of women's publications from a feminist perspective. A three-part series in Journalism History traced the history of feminist periodicals, pointing out that this genre "is an important historical record of the status of women in the twentieth century, as well as a record of the goals and philosophies of the women's liberation movement."^^ It called attention to two competing definitions of feminism: the conservative, advocating legal changes, and the liberation, proposing "total eradica- tion of sex roles."^^ The author, Anne Mather, included most publications aimed at women from The Lady's Magazine of 1792 through the women's liberation movement of the early 1970s. Other scholars provided detailed analysis of individual publications. Lynne Masel-Walters wrote on two national suffrage newspapers, the Woman's Journal, devoted to moral causes, and its more radical counterpart. The Revolution, both of which, Walters argued, made a significant impact on society.^ In her exhaustive research Sherilyn Cox Bennion analyzed twelve suffrage newspapers of the West. She concluded that they "provided a forum for a cause which had time—and justice—on its side."^* Sandra Roff looked at "ladies' periodicals" of the eight-

69. Madelon G. Schilpp and Sharon M. Murphy, Great Women of the Press (Car- bondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1983). 70. Barbara Belford, Brilliant Bylines (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986), X. 71. Aiuie Mather, "A History of Feminist Periodicals," Journalism History 1

(1974-75): 82-85; (Winter 1984-85): 108-111; II (Spring 1985): 19-23, 31. 72. Mather, 82-83. 73. Lyime Masel-Walters, "A Burning Qoud by Day: The History and Content of the 'Women's Journal,'" Journalism History 3 (1977): 103-10; and "Their Rights and Nothing More: A History of The Revolution, 1868-70," Journalism Quarterly 53 (1976): 242-51. 74. Sherilyn Cox Bennion, "Woman Suffrage Papers of the West, 1869-1914," American Journalism 3 (1986): 140. 52 AJ /Winter 1990

eenth and nineteenth centuries and found they were "an important outlet for feniinine expression and together probably had "'^ some influence on trends in manners, morals, and literature. In the last decade an increasing number of works explicitly or implicitly subscribed to a cultural approach. For example, in the "Suffrage papers first issue of American Journalism in 1983, Linda Steiner explored articulated new values, suggested the term "community" in relation to suffrage periodicals. She new dreams, and concluded that it was in the suffrage press "that women evolved provided new per- intellectually and emotionally satisfying models for spectives on communal women's experi- acting, thinking, judging and feeling."^* In a 1986 article in ences, in the effort Journalism History, Karen List explored women's roles in the new to evolve a new definition of wom- American nation through a study of early magazines. She asked anhood and to why contradictions existed between what was printed and what carve out a new apparently was addressed: "Why did the publications harp so social order." - Linda Steiner, continuously on women's domestic role if they did not fear some "Finding Commu- deviation from it?"^^ Another study looked at Vera Connolly, a nity in l^ineteenth Progressive journalist, from the standpoint of three intersections Century Suffrage Periodicals." of American history: "The development of popular women's magazines, the legacy and direction of the Progressive move-

ment after World War I, and the history of social feminism."^* The development interpretation continued to mark work by journalists who turned their attention to the recent history of women in the field. Kay Mills, an editorial writer for the Los Angeles Times, argued in her book, A Place in the News, that the growing number of women journalists was "one segment of a massive social evolution." According to Mills, "anecdotal evidence is compelling that the presence of more women assigning, writing, and editing the news has altered the definition of news, although not firmly enough."^' Historians, on the other hand, seek more than anecdotal evidence.

CONCLUSION The new scholarship primarily began with what Gerda Lerner, former president of the Organization of American His- torians, called "compensatory" history, or efforts to add women to the historical record. Although Lerner referred to women's history in general, her analysis also describes the outpouring of work in journalism history. Women were considered as notable figures worthy to be included in journalism history in terms of male achievements. In the last decade the new scholarship in

75. Sandra Shoiock Roff, "A Feminine Expression: Ladies' Periodicals in the New York Historical Society Collection," Journalism History 9 (1982): 98. 76. Linda Steiner, "Finding Community in Nineteenth Century Suffrage Periodicals," American Journalism 1 (1983): 12. 77. Karen K. List, "Magazine Portrayals of Women's Role in the New Republic," Journalism History 13 (1986): 69. 78. Mary Ellen Waller-Zuckerman, "Vera ConnoUy: Progressive Journalist," Journalism History 15 (1988): 80. 79. Kay Mills, A Place in the News: From the Women's Pages to the Front Page (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1988), 7. Beasley 53

journalism history, like that in women's history, has moved into a second stage. Lemer termed this "contribution" history. Ap- plied to journalism history, it has judged the contribution women journalists made to various social movements, particularly suffrage. Each movement, however, has been considered in terms of standards set by men.*° It is encouraging that journalism historians have raised questions about historiography as part of the new scholarship. The late Catherine L. Covert challenged three key male assumptions ofjournalism history —that journalism history is about winning, autonomy, and change. She called for history integrating women's, as well as men's, experience, by embracing "failure and despair as well as success and impact, and rhythms of repetition and return as well as innovation and change."*^ "Newspaper One of the most prolific and influential of the new scholars, dynasties . . . can Susan Henry, utilized a variety of approache.s—including con- and should be bet- tent analysis, economic and social studies, biographical inter- ter studied as family operations pretation, literary evidence, and public records in her exten- — Many male pub- sive work on colonial women printers.*^ Henry also has called lishers in newspa- for more attention to the private lives of both men and women per familes had wives who did im- journalists to understand their decisions.*^ In a Journalism Quar- portant but less terly article, she addressed the question of women's roles in visible work as newspaper families by a study of Eliza A. Otis, wife of Harrison 'joumalistic com- rades.'" Gray Otis, publisher of the Los Angeles Times.^ - Susan Henry, At the Ajmerican Journalism Historians Association conven- "'Dear Companion, Ever-Ready tion in 1987, Zena Beth McGlashan, a feminist historian, noted Co-Worker.'*" that "paradigms are in progress" for study of women journalists as scholars move beyond the "great women"approach.*^ Her own work illustrated her reconceptualization: her study of Rheta Childe Dorr documented the relationship between women's pages and advocacy journalism on behalf of women.*^ In another study, McGlashan argued that women were allowed greater flexibility than men to write about the Russian Revolu- tion of 1917 because they were not given as much credibility.*^

80. Gerda Lemer, The Majority Finds Its Past: Placing Women in History (Oxford: Oxford Ur\iversity Press, 1979), 145-47. 81. Catherine L. Covert, "Journalism History and Women's Experience: A Problem in Conceptual Change," Journalism History 8 (1981): 6. 82. Susan Henry, "Colonial Woman Printer as Prototype: Toward a Model for the Study of Minorities," Journalism History 3 (1976): 20-24. 83. Susan Henry, "Private Lives: An Added Dimension for Understanding Journalism Lives," Journalism History 6 (1979^0): 98-102. 84. Susan Henry, "'Dear Companion, Ever-Ready Co-Worker: A Woman's Role in a Media Dynasty," Journalism Quarterly 64 (1987): 301-12. 85. Zena Beth McGlashan, "The Great Woman Syndrome: A Paradigm in Process" (Paper delivered at convention of the American Journalism Historians Association, St. Paul, Minnesota, 1 October 1987). 86. Zena Beth McGlashan, "Qub 'Ladies' and Working 'Girls': Rheta Childe Dorr and the New York Evening Post," Journalism History 8 (1981): 7-13. 87. Zena Beth McGlashan, "Women Witness the Russian Revolution: Analyz- ing Ways of Seeing," Journalism History 12 (1985): 54-61. 54 AJ/Winter 1990

What is unmistakable is that many works on the history of women journalists definitely do not fit within the categories identified by Sloan, which are based on the male orientation of the field. As Henry theorized, the work to date on women's history has been generally conservative but within an expanding feminist context. The trend appears to be in the direction of exploring the tensions and ambiguities between women's experiences and journalism itself. If this is done in depth, a new, more truthful, and much more con\pelling journalism history will be produced. That journalism history, unlike what we have had to date, must encompass the history of minority women now almost ignored except for a few "notables" like Ida Wells- Barnett.*^ According to Lemer, what is needed in American history is a "synthesis—a history of the dialectic, the tensions between the two cultures, male and female."*' A start has been made in journalism history, as in an article on Ida Tarbell that examined her inner conflict between journalism and marriage.^ The history of women in journalism no longer is replete with the biases, omissions, and distortions that characterized much earlier writing. But it has a vast way to go before a true synthesis is reached.

88. Schilpp and Murphy, 121-32. 89. Lemer, 159. 90. Robert Stinson, "Ida M. Tarbell and the Ambiguities of Feminism," Pennsyl- vania Magazine of History and Biography 101 (1977): 217-39. BOOK REVIEWS

CONGRESS SHALL MAKE Because of these memo- Schenck returned to haunt NO LAW: OLIVER WENDELL rable phrases, scholars Holmes, as he moved to- in out of the legal ward a more careful con- HOLMES, THE FIRST both and community have seen sideration of the First AMENDMENT, AND JUDI- Schenck as a Rrst Amend- Amendment and became a CIAL DECISION MAKING. ment case, the first of a dissenter in Supreme By Jeremy Cohen. line of cases setting the Court cases involving free- • Iowa State University Press precedents on which our dom of speech. •1989,164 pp. ideas about freedom of Along the way to his •$21.95. Cloth speech are based. How- conclusion that those con- ever, Cohen looks behind cerned with the First ANYONE INTERESTED and around these words to Amendment must under- in the Supreme Court and conclude that the judicial stand the legal context the First Amendment will process that produced the within which it operates, want to read this brief, co- opinion had little to do as well as the theory and gent book byjeremy Cohen. with the First Amend- philosophy of the First An assistant professor at ment. He points out that Amendment itself, Cohen Stanford University's De- Holmes concentrated in provides an excellent sum- partment of Communica- his opinion on answering mary of the imwritten tion, Cohen uses Oliver questions about technical "code of behavior" of the Wendell Holmes's decision rules and statutory inter- Supreme Court and a fas- in Schenck v. the United pretations, giving little at- cinating look at the ideas States to illuminate the ju- tention to First Amend- and philosophy of Oliver dicial process and its con- ment considerations and Wendell Holmes, a "driv- nections with constitu- instead applying the logic ing force" on the Supreme tional interpretations, spe- of past nonspeech cases to Court for almost three dec- cifically of the First his reasoning. Holmes ades. He also examines Amendment. The Schenck asked not whether speech Schenck in detail, analyz- case, decided in 1919, was protected by the First ing background, argu- marked the first time in Amendment, but whether ments, and decision. the 130-year history of the speech could be treated as Appendices offer the text Supreme Court that some- an act, and he decided that of the 1917 Espionage Act one asked it to use the the antidraft circular was and its 1918 amendment, First Amendment to pre- in fact an action rather along with the text of vent government prosecu- than speech and thus sub- Schenck, marred slightly by tion. Elizabeth Baer and ject to legislative control. a typographical error that Charles Schenck had been Schenck, Cohen suggests, repeats two lines and con- convicted of violating the makes a better example of fuses the sense of the first 1917 Espionage Act by dis- jurisprudence in 1919 than paragraph of the opinion. tributing circulars urging of Holmes's beliefs about Notes are copious, but a draft resistance. In up- freedom of speech. Holmes bibliography would have holding their conviction. did not have to develop a made a valuable addition Justice Holmes enunciated comprehensive interpreta- to the book. A foreword the "clear-and-present- tion of the Rrst Amend- by Professor Everette E. danger" doctrine and comment in order to settle the Dennis, executive director pared seditious speech to case, and doing so would of the Gannett Center for "falsely shouting fire in a have been out of step with Media Studies, provides a theater and causing a accepted judicial practices. nice preview. panic." Later, the precedent of Implicit in Cohen's sense 56 AJ/Winter 1990

of Schenck as a weak foun- exploitive journalism. The in-laws and offspring of dation for a First Amend- true gothic horror for the the twenty-two original ment philosophy is a re- reader is the unwitting family members. Also in- minder of the recency and complicity in the voyeur- cluded are neighbors, fragility of rights we often ism of the authors. It is a townsfolk, and even take for granted—another disturbing work of endur- people with no connection valuable contribution of ing power. to the original work. It's this readable and well-ar- So now comes another sometimes difficult to tell gued work. writer and another pho- which names and places tographer to rustle what's are invented as the authors

. . . Sherilyn Cox Bennion left of the three families' widen the focus of the Humboldt State University privacy, and if you quailed original project. And beat the original, you're cause the real names of the going to quake at the se- original tenants have been quel. Agee and Evans published in the New York don't always come off Times and elsewhere, the well. One of the sharecrop- identity of practically ev- AND THEIR CHILDREN pers' children, Clair Bell, eryone in the new book by AFTER THEM. says that either Agee or now must be the worst- Dale Maharidge and Michael Evans—she doesn't re- kept secret in Alabama. Williamson. member which—acciden- Maharidge does a superb • Pantheon Books tally knocked her down job of explaining the and sent her into a coma. breakdown of the cotton •1989,262 pp. In Let Us Now Praise Fa- economy, however, and • $22.95, Cloth mous Men, Agee did not Williamson's photographs tell how the accident hap- are the equal of Evans's JAMES AGEE WENT to pened, but he did predict classic work. Their book is Alabama with Walker that Clair Bell woiildn't an excellent companion

Evans in the summer of live long because of it. volume to Let Us Now 1936 to write about tenant Maharidge says Agee Praise Famous Men, with farming. In Hale County knew before the book was reportorial and imagina- they found three ragged published that the child re- tive power of its own. To- sharecroppers looking for covered, but chose not to gether the books become assistance. The farmers remove his poetic lamenta- the two movements in a took them in, posed for tion from the text. If this is twentieth-century fugue. Evans's photographs, and true, Agee's omission of When Annie Mae exposed their families to the cause of the accident Gudger, the Mona Lisa of Agee's relentless scrutiny. and his literary exploita- the Depression, learns that

Agee ostensibly tried to tion of it are pretty devas- her former landlord has hide the sharecroppers' tating. But Maharidge and been buried in a plot that identity by parodj^ng Williamson tamper with will adjoin hers, she knows their names. He also their own facts by telling that only in death will they changed the names of us, in an appendix on page meet on equal terms. "Oh nearby towns and land- 258, that Clair Bell was my," she tells her son. marks but left enough "almost killed in an acci- "Look who I'm gonna be clues so that anyone with a dent caused by Agee." buried by. He give me hell map and a copy of Let Us That's better copy, but when I was living." As Now Praise Famous Men they're more certain about Agee foresaw, there was could practically knock on who knocked down Clair little ahead for most of the the tenants' doors. Agee Bell than Clair Bell is. tenants but tragedy, yet he was well aware that he Maharidge politely uses died tragically before any was doing the unpardon- the names Agee invented, of the people he wrote able, and the book is an in- then tries to make up about. "He was a mess," dictment of just this sort of new names for scores of says Emma Woods, Annie Bcx)k Reviews 57

Mae's sister. "My gcx)d- tarian socialism, and Company fire, the Law- ness, I could turn around world peace. She rebelled rence textile strike, the and write a book on him." against her wealthy New Great Steel Strike of 1919, England family's restric- and the uprisings in Gas-

. . . Paul Ashdown tive traditions at a young tonia. North Carolina, and University of Tennessee age, moving to Greenwich Bloody Harlan County in Village in the early 1900s. Kentucky. She reported There Vorse was an editor regularly on the CIO dur- for the A4flsses. She being the 1930s. Unlike her came a charter member of labor journalist contempo- MARY HEATON VORSE: the Provincetown Players, raries, Vorse often took the very strikes she THE LIFE OF AN AMERI- a member of the Liberal part in CAN INSURGENT. Club and the Heterodoxy covered. Garrison writes Club—^intimately part of that "[Vorse's] inside By Dee Garrison. the Left's political, cul- knowledge of tmion strat- • Temple University Press tural, and feminist avant- egy, combined with her • 1989, 400 pp. garde. Her close friends fervent commitment to ac- • $27.95, Cloth included Susan Glaspell curate reporting, brought and George "Jig" Cram uncommon depth and WRITING RED: AN AN- Cook, Max Eastman, Neith feeling to her work," help- THOLOGY OF AMERICAN Boyce and Hutchins ing to assure publication WOMEN WRITERS, Hapgood, John Dos Passes, in major mainstream 1930-1940. Lincoln Steffens, and magazines such as Elizabeth Gurley Rynn. Harper's, Scribner's, and the Edited by Charlotte Nekola Vorse' s literary output Atlantic that were usually and Paula Rabinowitz, with a included sixteen books, closed to leftist writers. foreword by Toni Morrison. two plays, and hundreds Vorse's audiences were • Feminist Press of articles and short stories several, also including in- •1987,368 pp. in major journals, newspa- tellectuals and reformers •$29.95, Cloth; $12.95, Paper pers, and magazines. in the Masses, Nation, and Twice widowed, Vorse New Republic, and workers THIS PAIR OF books is wrote immensely popular in her innumerable pieces highly recommended. To- women's fiction for maga- for union newspapers, gether, they illuminate the zines to support herself newsletters, and broad- history of American radi- and her three children. sides for the union press. cal women writers—a his- Dashing off what she During World War II, ac- tory that has often been called "lolljrpops" to pay cording to Garrison, Vorse overlooked. her bills, she could then may have been the oldest Undeservedly, because it devote herself to the inci- official American war cor- is a vitcd and significant sive labor and war report- respondent. In the 1950s history. For instance, Mary ing that drove her. Yet her she lived in semi-retire- Heaton Vorse (1874-1966) popular fiction was of high ment in Provincetown, still was "the foremost pioneer quality, frequently depart- writing. Her last major of labor journalism in the ing from formula to ex- story was an expose of United States," as Dee plore contemporary crime in waterfront un- Garrison, a history profes- women's issues and con- ions, published in Harper's sor at Rutgers University, cerns. in 1952, when she was 78. demonstrates convincingly Vorse covered Lenin's When she was 82, the FBI in this splendid biography. Moscow during the Bol- finally stopped adding to Vorse was prominent in shevik Revolution, and she its substantial file on her. the women's imiversal suf- reported from Hitler's At 91, Vorse remained a frage movement, and she Germany during the rise crusader, supporting a devoted her life to the of the Nazis. She was there young Provincetown min- causes of feminism, liber- at the Triangle Shirtwaist ister who was one of the — — 58 AJ /Winter 1990

first to march against the detailed context of the his- nalist. This biography Vietnam War. tory of American radical- makes plain that any dis- Researching and vyo-iting ism. The result is an inti- cussion of the history of this, the first fijU-length bi- mate exploration of Mary American radical journal- ography of Vorse's Ufe, Heaton Vorse enriched by ism must include Mary must have been a fascinat- an understanding of the Heaton Vorse. ing, challenging task. As culture and politics of her Nekola and Rabinowitz's Garrison recounts, Vorse time. Garrison's research Writing Red: An Anthology wrote, "You must under- is careful and wide-rang- of American Women Writers, stand, that when I was ing. She utilized more than 1930-1940 also makes its very yovmg. Life said to a score of far-flung archi- major contribution in un- me, 'Here are two ways val collections, including covering radical history a world rimning to mighty Vorse's papers at Wayne in this case, the history of a cities, ftill of the spectacle State University, the Emily large group of radical of bloody adventure, and Balch Papers at the women writers. As Paula here is home and children. Swarthmore College Peace Rabinowitz, an English Which will you take, the Collection, the John Dos professor at the University adventurous life, or a quiet Passos Papers at the Uni- of Minnesota and pub- life?' 1 will take both, I versity of Virginia, the lished poet, writes in the said.'" Josephine Herbst Papers thoughtful introduction, Her biographer leaves no and Edmund Wilson Pa- "Feminist attempts to re- doubt that Mary Heaton pers at Yale University, cover lost women writers Vorse is "one of the most and the American Relief have, for the most part, ig- compelling and represen- Administration Papers at nored the 1930s as a fertile tative figures in the history the Hoover Institution on era of women's literary of American radicalism." War, Revolution and Peace production. The prevailing Garrison attributes the Archives at Stanford Uni- depiction of the rise, fall, slighting of Vorse in the versity. She also consulted and subsequent rise of history of American radi- FBI case files on Vorse, waves of feminist activity calism in part to "the effect Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, places the 1930s within the upon scholarship of sex- and Robert Minor, and great hiatus between suf- ism and the Cold War." personally interviewed frage and the publication Vorse, after all, devoted about fifty of Vorse's rela- of Betty Friedan's The fifty-four years of her life tives, friends, and col- Feminine Mysticjue in 1963." to activism for libertarian leagues. Yet the 1930s were any- socialism, feminism, and Mary Heaton Vorse is a thing but a hiatus, as this world peace. Garrison model of biographical anthology shows. It in- makes a convincing argu- scholarship. Well-re- cludes short biographical ment that "this union of searched and written, it is sketches and representa- ideas was far too radical interpretive without exces- tive works from nearly for most of her contempo- sive psychologizing, pro- fifty women, including fic- raries to consider—an- viding a detailed discus- tion writers, poets, and other reason for the schol- sion of the background journalists. At least half arly inattention paid her culture and politics. Its im- were working-class white life." peccable scholarship estab- and black women. Some

So this full-length biogra- lishes it as an important are comparatively well phy is particularly wel- book for historians, but it known, such as Meridel come. Its quality is uncom- is so compellingly written LeSueur (born 1900), Agnes monly high. Writing with that it will likely command Smedley (1892-1950), Anna warmth, grace, and wit. a wide popular audience Louise Strong (1885-1970), Garrison provides plenty as well. Most important Tillie Olsen (born 1913), of personal details while for journalism historians, it Dorothy Day (1897-1980), always interpreting uncovers the history of a Josephine Herbst (1892- Vorse's life within a richly very significant labor jour- 1969), and Mary Heaton Book Reviews 59

Verse (1874-1%6). Others black women and the steel to fame and fortune by have truly been rescued industry, to accounts of Pluck and Luck. They had from oblivion—an obliv- work conditions in mills widowed mothers, they ion not attributable to their and department stores, to were hard-working and writing ability or achieve- an analysis of the politics courageous, and they were ments, but more likely to of lynching in the South. on the spot to save finan- their gender and politics. The depth and range of ciers' daughters from the The latter group includes their work far exceeds the hooves of runaway horses

Marita Bonner (1899-1971), parameters of . . . the usual and be rewarded with Ella Winter (1898-1980), range of women's work in good jobs. Russell Baker Joy Davidman, and Mary journalism in the first dec- too, had a widowed Inman. ade of the twentieth cen- mother, and in The Good Journalism historians tury." "Yet," Nekola notes, Times he starts out just like will be particularly inter- "the history of radical Dan, peddling newspa- ested in part 3, "Report- women journalists is al- pers. But he rose rapidly to age, Theory, and Analy- most totally absent from fame and at least minor sis," which features the accounts of documentary fortune (his latest book work of twenty journalists, of that era and from recent will help) without saving including Herbst, Smedley, accounts of women in any financiers' daughters. Strong, Olsen, Vorse, Day, journalism." In making How did he do it? Some LeSueur, Ella Ford, Ruth this point, she provides a people, apparently search- Gruber, and Vivian Dahl. most useful review of the ing for something negative Subjects range from peas- literature in this area. to say, have chided the au- ants in wartime China Writing Red does much to thor for working an aw- (Smedley), the plight of correct the historical rec- shucks modesty ploy women cotton sharecrop- ord. As the novelist Toni about his success. But they pers (Elaine Ellis), and Morrison writes in a brief seem to have overlooked a capitalism's exploitation of foreword, this anthology point that Baker makes women (Grace Hutchins), helps us "see clearly that quite clearly: he was born to a garment workers' the '1930s radicalism [that] with a family talent for strike (Mary Guimes Lear) appears to be a masculine words, what he calls the and New York's Lower preserve' is in fact peopled "word gene." As anyone East Side poor (Day). with questioning, caring, can see from the quality of Charlotte Nekola's intro- socially committed women this wonderful sequel to ductory essay to this sec- writers." Historians of the Growing Up (1982), he tion gives a detailed sum- American left and of knows how to use it. mary of the history of De- American radical journal- While consistently ab- pression-era women jour- ism will find Writing Red sorbing and amusing. The nalists. As Nekola, a pub- absorbing and informa- Good Times has much more lished poet who holds a tive. seriousness than meets the

Ph.D. in English from the . . . Nancy Roberts browsing eye. There is University of Michigan, University of Minnesota scorn in the portrait of the observes, "Women report- self-aggrandizing loud- ers in the 1930s rode mules mouth who was Baker's through revolutionary executive editor at the Cuba, shared trenches THE GOOD TIMES. Baltimore Sun and in the with troops in the Spanish depiction of the lordly atti- By Russell Baker. Civil War, and interviewed tude of the Sunpapers own- • William Morrow & Co. sea captains in the Soviet ers toward their editorial •1989,352 pp. Arctic. Within the United staff. There is equally in- •$19.95, Cloth States, their work ranged tense admiration for city from first-person accounts editor Ed Young and espe- of strikes, to a discussion of HORATIO ALGER heroes cially for Ellis Baker III (no the relationship between like Dan the Newsboy rose kin), a Baltimore blueblood —

60 AJ/Winter 1990

who sacrificed a splendid despairs and resilient the many fascinating sec- hiture as an editor in order hopes of its staff. Baker's tions of a book that, like to organize for the Ameri- description of the limita- most of Baker's writing, is can Newspaper Guild. tions of White House re- deceptively casual but ulti- Most of the time, however. porting should be read by mately rather serious. Baker presents his many everybody who wants to The number of reminis- journalistic colleagues know how the presidential censes by journalists on without either anger or staff manages the news "how I scooped the world" adulation, but with de- conducting a charade of is very high. Baker prefers tachment and Dickensian announcing inconsequen- to tell us how he often relish. For the many who tial events while keeping failed to scoop the world. passed some years in news the important stuff under Instead, he merely gives us work in Baltimore in the wraps. Speaking of Jim a fascinating, amusing, first decade after World Hagerty, Eisenhower's and sometimes poignant War II, as did this re- very competent press sec- memoir that also happens viewer, it will be a delight retary. Baker writes: "We to be a first

Dorsey—he of the un- statements on the impor- . . . Edward A. Nickerson blinking stare—or the tance of National Ruta- University of Delaware swashbuckling Patrick baga Week, transcripts

Skene Catling—he who of . . . welcoming remarks once slugged a printer in a to the visiting prime min- dispute over a typographi- ister of Zippity Zap. . . . We THE BAHLE TO CONTROL cal error in one of his sto- traded banter, asked a few BROADCAST NEWS: WHO ries. There are many other cheeky questions to which portraits of newspaper we didn't expect answers, OWNS THE FIRST AMEND- people met along other and a few serious ones, to MENT? paths on Baker's upward which Jim said, 'No com- By Hugh Carter Donahue. journey: Turner (Catfish) ment,' or I'll check that • MIT Press Catledge, the New York out and get back to you.'" •1989,240 pp. Times' managing editor; Covering the Senate for •$19.95, Cloth James Reston, Washington the New York Times, Baker correspondent and colum- got out of the White House THIS BOOK AIMS to ex- nist; the brilliant and bibu- reporters' "cage" and into plain the evolution of the lous Italian correspondent the bewildering and dan- concepts of equal time and Ruggiero Orlando, who gerous world where sena- fairness in American actually could tell one vin- tors alternately avoided re- broadcasting. Hugh Carter tage year of the same wine porters and courted them, Donahue argues that re- from another without a seeking to trade informa- strictions imposed on scorecard. tion for favorable public- broadcasters were never The Good Times could also ity. The reporters, in turn, justified and the public has serve as a journalism text- were constantly in danger suffered greatly as a result. book. It hilariously—and of being lured into mem- He begins by explaining instructively—presents the bership in the insiders' how, starting in the late pitfalls of police reporting, club, where publishing 1920s, political figures be- comments extensively on some facts would be re- gan to assess the uses of the insiders' cliches of garded as disloyalty. radio. He traces the na- journalism, and gives a de- Baker's description of en- tional struggle over policy tailed picture of the opera- counters with the flesh- issues related to radio's tions of a modem daily, pressing, arm-twisting utilization in the political complete with the daily Lyndon Johnson is one of arena. The author has a Book Reviews 61

distinct point of view and cast licensees. At first, they gress's suspension of equal presents his free speech feared he might nationalize time for the "Great De- inqiiiry in this context, broadcasting to help bring bates" of 1960 is discussed, pointing out that Con- the country out of the De- as well as each of three de- gress, the cottrts, and the pression. After that fear cisions a decade later in- FCC allowed the rights of subsided, Roosevelt's ef- volving citizen participa- broadcast listeners and forts to control the FCC as tion in license renewals, viewers to be eroded, along a means of keeping broad- the stripping of a license, with professional stan- casters compliant are ex- and one upholding the dards. plored as well as the after- constitutionality of the Donahue's first chapter math—an agenda setting Fairness Doctrine. Discus- offers a perspective on the the stage for the Fairness sion of broadcast debate start of the licensing sys- Doctrine. Beyond this na- issues and policy deci- tem in 1927, leading to the tional agenda, Donahue sions, involvement by the emergence of equal time as does a credible job of plac- League of Women Voters, the dominant model, bol- ing broadcasting's regional press performance and is- stered by support from disputes in a broader con- sues related to technologi- politicians eager to mount text. For example, in chap- cally driven changes in radio campaigns. He dis- ter 3, 'The Articulation of First Amendment law, the cusses the ideological and Fairness," he looks at a rise and fall of television sectional politics that came precedent-setting Boston documentaries, and the into play, and the role of case as a lead into the his- role of political advertising Herbert Hoover as com- toric Mayflower decision. constitute most of the re- merce secretary and archi- He then integrates this ma- mainder of the book, along tect of American broadcast terial with information on with a chronology of inno- regulation. Donahue network positions, citing vations in political com- points to themes presented William S. Paley and munications. and reinforced by Hoover William L. Shirer. Shirer In the concluding chap- as part of the national ra- complained that CBS's per- ters, Donahue presents the dio conferences, 1922-25: formance during this pe- view that ownership of the public interest, listener riod deprived the public of First Amendment among sovereignty, spectrum insight into the Nazi broadcasters, politicians, scarcity—^principles later movement abroad and the and interest groups is still given regulatory clout. The rise of Adolph Hitler. up for grabs. He also notes emergence and success of Similarly, Donahue argues that the courts and Con- Sen. Clarence C. Dill and that the FCC, in rejecting gress have not yet decided, his work on the creation of advice that a fairness pol- and legal experts still dis- Section 315 of the Commu- icy would be impossible to agree, on the nature of the nications Act of 1934 of- enforce, entered a legal problem and the extent of fered legislation that in- and regulatory swamp its importance. Through- sured access and provided that inhibited political uses out, Donahue takes every broadcaster discretion in of broadcasting from reach- opportunity to denigrate political programming. ing their fullest potential. the Fairness Doctrine, call-

According to Donahue, The sections that follow ing it "an illusory mecha- proponents of nationaliza- focus on Lar Daly's Chi- nism for interest groups to tion within Franklin cago challenge and the influence public opinion" Roosevelt's administration FCC decision in that case, (180). He argues that no had been manipulated to as well as the subsequent law should restrict broad- get maximum exposure for authorization by Congress casters' freedom of expres- programs of the New Deal. to exempt from equal time sion and concludes with Chapter 2 focuses on "bona fide" news events, an evaluation of the 1988 Roosevelt's time in office interviews, and incidental candidate debates and and the challenges he and on-the-spot news cov- presidential election. He brought to bear on broad- erage. Of course. Con- notes the similarity of —

62 AJ/Winter 1990

Michael Dukakis's to Adlai fer explanations of events. printed pages. Mayo must Stevenson's position This is, therefore, a pro- have collected gem upon thirty-six years earlier vocative and worthwhile quotable gem. And yet, each fought a losing battle book. It is thoroughly re- like a careful defense attor- against a better-known Re- searched and well-written, ney gathering just those publican challenger who and offers a viewpoint that precedents vital to the case succeeded in caricaturing is frequently overlooked. but not all the rulings. the liberal views of his op- Mayo is liberal with her

ponent. He points out how . . . Michael D. Murray quotes, but not redundant. George Bush's confronta- Univ. of Missouri-St. Louis Her point—^that through- tion with Dan Rather, out out the nineteenth cen- which is pictured on the tury the image of Jew was dust cover of the book, consistent only in its in- had the effect of elevating consistency—is repeated the candidate over the THE AMBIVALENT IMAGE: time and again but in such Iran-Contra issue. NINETEENTH-CENTURY insightful and often enter- Donahue provides a AMERICA'S PERCEPTION taining ways that the carefully researched ac- OF THE JEW. reader is carried along, count of broadcast per- By Louise A. Mayo. easily absorbed but never formance using a wide bored. Through references • Fairleigh Dickinson Univer- range of source material. to religious periodicals, vi- sity Press We frequently hear that tally important to Ameri- •1988,224 pp. scholarship in journalism can culture particularly in • $30, Cloth history is executed in a the first two-thirds of the vacuum or isolated con- century, to novels and text. That is not the case EVEN THOUGH LOUISE plays, as well as to news here. Donahue's back- A. Mayo has divided her stories and magazine ar- ground as a television splendid book. The Am- ticles. Mayo describes the news writer and producer bivalent Image: Nineteenth- "profound dichotomy" and documentary film- Century America's Percep- that marked the depiction maker comes into play in tion of the Jew, into such of Jews, ranging from "the his assessment of televi- chapters as "The Religious high-minded German phi- sion's performance. For Image," "Political and lanthropist" to the "wild- example, at the end of the Ideological Images," and eyed Russian anarchist, chapter on documentaries, "Eastern European Jews," the shrewd, driving busi- he points out how both as well as one devoted nessman, the meek tailor," broadcast journalists and solely to magazine and and on to images as di- politicians tend to gain newspaper coverage of at- verse as "the chosen professionally from the titudes toward Jews, the people and the Christ kill- status quo in public affairs media are central through- ers." reporting. He offers the out the book because she Coverage of Jews was view that the Fairness has drawn her examples sporadic, indicating a Doctrine inhibited docu- and conclusions from a "lack of any real deep ten- mentaries because of parti- vast array of mass-circula- sions" between the Jewish san efforts to impose ideo- tion and specialized publi- community and the logical agendas on broad- cations. middle- and upper-class casters. He also laments Anyone who has ever Christians who dominated the decline of what he done original source re- northern urban society. terms "public intellectu- search will recognize this But in the 1880s, when the als" such as Walter as a work made cogent by flood of poor. Eastern Eu- Lippmann and Robert the author's restraint. In ropean immigrants began, Hutchins, because broad- her search through what "sympathy struggled with cast journalists are both ill- surely amounted to him- distaste on the pages of suited and reluctant to of- dreds of thousands of newspapers and maga- — —

Book Reviews 63

zines." Readers who rec- the ambivalence of the at CBS news was bovmd by ognize the schisms inher- nineteenth-century media contract to radio work, ent in any group's hierar- toward American Jews Mickelson, recently hired chical structure will not be contribute to the ambiva- from WCCO in Minneapo- surprised at her conclu- lence of Americans when lis-St. Paul, supervised the sion that of all the newspa- the Nazi death camps and telecasting of the signing pers studied, the New York pogroms were being re- of the peace treaty with Times, owned by the con- ported in the U.S. mass cir- Japan in 1951. Along the servative, upwardly mo- culation press both before way, he gave another ob- bile Adolph Ochs, a Jew and during World War II? scure newcomer to CBS, married to a rabbi's And, looking ahead to the Walter Cronkite, his first daughter, was the most twenty-first century, will big on-camera assignment. "hostile and anxious to ex- scholars then examine the On behalf of all of the net- clude (immigrant) Jews as mass media of this century works, Mickelson subse- undesirable." to find that the communi- quently led negotiations Mayo avoids speculating cation and entertainment with the national parties in as to why certain publica- industries treated today's arranging for the airing of tions indulged in stere- urban enclaves of Koreans, the 1952 conventions. He otyping and racism, but Vietnamese, and Cambo- was involved in the tele- freely notes changes in indians, among others, as vising of the 1956 and 1%0 dividual journalists when curiosities, only infre- gatherings as well as of the readily discernible in their quently deserving of cov- first TV presidential debate works. Jacob Riis, for ex- erage and /or fair repre- of 1960. In 1%4, having left ample, was ambivalent sentation? CBS, he oversaw TV con- about Jews and repeated vention arrangements for stereotyped images in his . . . Zewfl Beth McGlashan the Republican National 1890 milestone. How the University of North Dakota Committee. Other Half Lives, but by These experiences con- 1898, in Out of Mulberry stantly inform From Street, had become "an en- Whistle Stop to Sound Bite. ergetic propagandist" for Mickelson rightly reminds the Jewish immigrants. FROM WHISTLE STOP readers, some of whom And, giving the press TO SOUND BITE: FOUR take the slickly produced credit. Mayo concludes DECADES OF POLITICS newscasts of the last two that newspapers and AND TELEVISION. decades for granted, of the magazines were "far more By Sig Mickelson. initial difficulties of pro- responsive" to changes in • Praeger ducing news programs. the Jewish position in In airing the 1952 and 1956 •1989,200 pp. American society than conventions, he notes, it • $39.95, Cloth;$14.95, Paper were the literary, theatri- took some courage to cut cal, and religious outlets. away from convention The author's cool, even- SIG MICKELSON HAS speakers in favor of show- handed presentation of her written a memoir of his ing something deemed research resembles ideal work in the 1950s that ei- more newsworthy. Con- reporting: Mayo does not ther he, his literary agent, vention managers had, af- become an advocate. And or his publisher insisted ter all, expected gavel-to- by not passing judgment on labeling a history of TV gavel coverage. And politi- which would have been and politics from 1948 to cians of every type recog- very easy given the com- 1988. Perhaps Mickelson nized that TV made new monness of blatantly anti- can be excused for this demands on them, and Semitic stereotyping such false packaging. He was tried to adjust. For the as the Shylock image the Natty Bumppo of CBS 1952 Democratic conclave, Mayo challenges us with TV news producers. At a even House Speaker Sam unstated questions. Did time when the best talent Rayburn, who detested the 64 AJ/Winter 1990

newest medium, wore setting is the warmed-over in and specialization of make-up. quality to From Whistle communications bibliogra- Television did not, Stop to Sound Bite. Mickel- phies published in recent Mickelson frequently ac- son told many of the same years. These three publica- knowledges, improve the stories in his 1972 history tions add to that literature nation's political culture, of TV news. The Electronic by providing researchers much as he and others had Mirror. Although special- significant new sources of hoped it would. "Rather ists in the history of televi- literature review and in- than expose charlatans sion journalism will find a formation on the issue of through an X-ray eye," he few new anecdotes, most media coverage of terror- writes, "television may journalism historians are ism and, more generally, have created a new soap- advised to save their portrayals of violence. box for them. There is little money by purchasing the Nancy Signorielli and evidence that voters are latter volume in a used George Gerbner provide better informed. Judging book store. an exceptionally useful by campaign tactics, the compilation of thousands

opposite may be true" (17). . . . James L. Baughman of journal articles, research Overall, Mickelson makes University of Wisconsin reports, and books devoted few of the wild claims for to issues of media portray- television that frequently als of terrorism and vio- can be foimd in such auto- lence and their effects. This biographies. Compared to listing of materials is a most industry veterans, VIOLENCE AND TERROR valuable and useful addi- is familiar with tion to the literature and Mickelson IN THE MASS MEDIA: a few scholarly studies of AN ANNOTATED the backbone of the publi- television and its effects. cation. BIBLIOGRAPHY. He does, in passing (116), The bibliography's anno- Compiled by Nancy Signorielli exaggerate the impact of tations are typically about and George Gerbner. Edward R. Murrow's See It one hundred words long, Now investigation of Sen. • Greenwood Press but mixed in depth and in- Joseph R. McCarthy. Yet •1988,264 pp. dication of each publica- that is an assertion that • $39.95, Cloth tion's findings. Given the virtually no one who nature and varying quality worked at CBS News or INTERNATIONAL TERROR- of research on the media and violence, however, who admired Murrow ISM IN THE 1980S: A deeply seems capable of CHRONOLOGY OF EVENTa this is not surprising. Al- questioning. though entries are not By Edward F. Mickolus, Todd There are two far more equally well-reviewed, the Sandler, and Jean M. serious problems with annotations more than Murdock. Mickelson' s work. The adequately provide the first is hardly its fault. Vir- Volume 1,1980-83. reader with an overview tually every book of this • Iowa State University Press of the approaches, issues, sort is the product of a •1989,568 pp. and general findings of CBS veteran (and Murrow • $54.95, Cloth each study. These will be quite useful to scholars the only broadcast journal- Volume 2, 1984-87. ist of culling the literature in apparently worthy a • Iowa State University Press biography). NBC, which search of specific types of •1989,696 pp. arguably had the more in- studies to read and review. • $64.95, Cloth novative and, certainly by The bibliography ap- the late 1950s, more popu- proaches the literature by lar news division, contin- AN INDICATOR OF the dividing studies into those ues to be ignored in the increasing development of that focus on media con- popular histories of the communications scholar- tent and those that focus fifth estate. Far more up- ship has been the growth on violent effects of media Book Reviews 65

content. Subdivisions ex- built primarily using re- conclusions that they plore literature on cover- ports from the Associated might draw based on use age of crime and media, Press, United Press Inter- of the data must be care- civil disorders, and terror- national, Reuters, major fully constructed. ism; effects of exposure to newspapers, and broad- and perception of violence cast networks. . . . Robert G. Picard in media; the influence of International communi- Emerson College media content on individ- cations scholars have well ual aggression; pornogra- documented the blackout phy and its relationship to of coverage from much of violence; emd cultivation the less-developed world THE SPOT: THE RISE OF studies. Studies from a va- in these media, and thus POLITICAL ADVERTISING riety of nations are in- this data base can be ex- ON TELEVISION. cluded, so the bibliogra- pected to miss many Revised edition by Edwin phy provides a broad and events that the news-gath- Diamond and Stephen Bates. less culturally biased look ering organizations ig- • MIT Press at the topic. nored. It also suffers from The chronologies of ter- a weakness in that it does •1988,395 pp. rorist events produced by not include incidents of •$25, Cloth; $10.95, Paper Edward Mickolus, Todd state-sponsored terrorism Sandler, and Jean Murdock in which government se- IN THIS BOOK the au- make readily available to curity or military forces thors attempt to combine a researchers on terrorism were the perpetrators. This general narrative history and media two of the best is unfortunate because of political television com- data sources on individual casualties from such vio- mercials, a description of terrorist acts worldwide. lence are nearly ten times common advertising tech- They are drawn from the as high as that from non- niques, a discussion of rhe- ITERATE database, which state terrorism. The omis- torical "modes" in cam- contains information on sion of state terrorism paign advertising, and an acts of terrorism, divided data, however, cannot be analysis of the effects of to accoimt for 125 variables, blamed merely on the au- political spots. This ambi- including communications thors of the chronology. tious undertaking is only of terrorist groups during Research has shown that partially successful. events. Although the infor- this violence is rarely re- The book is not strictly mation is available in data ported as terrorism and is an academic work because files for computer use, often completely ignored it lacks detailed citations publication of the narra- by the news media. Be- and footnotes. It is mostly tive description of events cause the ITERATE data- based on interviews with is useful in a variety of base relies on news re- nineteen leading political types of research on com- ports, these chronologies campaign consultants and munication and terrorism suffer. a review of political com- or helps when computer- These weaknesses do not mercials in archives at New ized analysis of the entire make this volume any less York University. As such, variable list is impossible useful or impressive, howit is filled with anecdotes or unnecessary. ever. They merely require and campaign "war sto- Although incidents are that those who use the ries" from these media impressively documented data in the printed narra- consultants. Some of the and described, this chro- tive volumes or nimieric stories and insights of nology suffers from the computerized form must these campaign consult- major weakness of all be aware of its omissions ants are fascinating, while event-based data sources: and that the chronologies others seem tired and self- it is incomplete and biased do not provide a complete serving. Some consultants, because of its information picture of terrorist vio- specially those based in sources. The database was lence worldwide. Thus, New York, are quoted 66 AJ/Winter 1990

more extensively than oth- the authors themselves re- theses, particularly in ers. Much of the book is fer to several books and graduate seminars. filled with full text and studies about campaign Startt, a history professor photos from television advertising. at Valparaiso University, commercials. The authors reject the and Sloan, a journalism This work is far different popular conception that professor at Alabama, from Kathleen Jamieson's television ads are all-pow- strongly endorse and de- Packaging the President erful "magic bullets" that fend history as a research (1984), which is a more can "sell candidates like field, declaring "History is scholarly treatment of soap." Instead, they con- the preeminent study advertising in presidential clude that there is a more among the various fields campaigns. Unlike serious danger to the of commimication re- Jamieson's work. The Spot growth of television ad- search, for it brings to- also covers advertising for vertising in politics, the gether the methods, find- a few U.S. Senate, congres- danger of "turning elec- ings, and insights of the sional, and big-city may- tions and campaigns into a others and shapes them oral races. The book some- kind of spectator sport." into a coherent explana- times seems superficial be- The authors, however, do tion of mankind." Social cause it attempts to cover not make any firm sugges- science research methods so much. tions about solving the and quantification are The strength of The Spot problems of modem cam- treated with some reserva- is contained in the insights paign advertising. tions. offered by the consultants The large number of po- In three opening chapters who were interviewed for litical advertisements and the authors discuss the na- the book, whom the au- the insights of major cam- ture and fundamentals of thors refer to as "media paign consultants in The history. Six chapters then

men." These leading con- Spot may make it worth- present instructions on ba- sultants include Tony while as a supplemental sic research procedures, Schwartz, David Garth, resource for a course on searches for bibliographic Robert Squier [sic], and advertising and politics. sources, evaluation of Roger Ailes. A major point types of historical sources,

is that these media con- . . . ]ohn y. McGinnis the problems of explana- sultants have taken the St. John Fisher College tion and interpretation, leading role in modem writing style, and tips on election campaigns, while paper presentations and political party influence publishing. Strongest of has diminished. these six chapters are those The authors categorize HISTORICAL METHODS IN on bibliographic sources campaign ads into four MASS COMMUNICATION. and types of historical types: ID (identification) sources; weakest are those By James Startt and William spots, argument spots, at- on writing style and his- David Sloan. tack spots, and "I see an torical explanation. • Lawrence Eribaum Associ- America" spots. They also A twenty-page section ates, Inc. list certain rules for using listing bibliographical ads, some of which seem •1989,216 pp. sources is encyclopedic in • obvious. For example, one $24.50, Cloth its nature. Presented in a rule states, "ID commer- dozen different categories, cials work in getting the THIS IS A QUITE substan- it suffers because citations candidate known." tial guide to methods of are alphabetized, with al- Surprisingly, the authors historical research, with a most no annotation or gra- assert that "little has been focus on mass communica- dation in importance. The written in any orderly tion, that should be useful section on bibliographies fashion" about campaign to students undertaking in communication history television advertising, yet research term papers or has twenty-nine listings; ,

Book Reviews 67

the beginning student re- schools, except for the pro- the work of a Belgian immi-

searcher could be well ad- gressive school. For it they grant artist, Ade Bethune, vised to start with the vol- offer three famous but who began her association umes by Price, Price and highly opinionated writ- with the Catholic Worker Pickett, Blum (now Blum ers: Oswald Garrison movement and its organ, and Wilhoit), Sloan, Villard, George Seldes, the Catholic Worker, in 1933 McKerns, and Schwarzlose. and Harold L. Ickes. and remains active at age Indeed, he or she could There are no mentions of seventy-five. well begin with bibliogra- the general surveys pub- Bethune' s artwork and phies in the leading gen- lished in the 1970s: Tebbel, articles have appeared in eral surveys: The Press and Rutland, Gordon, and many other religious peri- America's (1988) updated Emery and Emery. Other odicals, including Catholic sixty-seven pages of anno- items missing from the Digest, Liturgical Arts, tated listings, including otherwise remarkably Fellowship, Liturgy and dissertations and articles; complete listings are Sociology, Orate Fratres Mott's absorbing end-of- Robert Hudson's Mass (later known as Worship), chapter bibliographies; Media Encyclopedia (1987) and Christian Social Art and those by Kobre, Bleyer, and Marion Marzolf's Up Quarterly (later known as A.M. Lee, and Barnouw. from the Footnote (1977)— Catholic Art Quarterly). She Similarly, in the excellent although her journal ar- has designed covers for section on approaches to ticles on women in the several periodicals, includ- communication history in media are included. ing the Catholic School the bibliography, the stu- Editor, Altar and Home, Lit- dent should be guided to . . . Edwin Emery (retired) urgy and Sociology, Torch the two chapters in Stempel University of Minnesota and Interaction. and Westley's Research This volume, the first Methods in Mass Communi- book-length study of cation (1981)written by Bethune's life and work, MaryAnn Yodelis Smith provides ample visual and and byDavid Nord and PROUD DONKEY OF literary evidence of her ex- Harold Nelson, and to SCHAERBEEK: ADE traordinary powers as a Communication History BETHUNE, CATHOLIC religious artist, and as a (1980) by John Stevens and theorist and critic of what WORKER ARTIST. Hazel Dicken Garcia, par- Stoughton properly calls By Judith Stoughton. ticularly Garcia' s chapter "visual theology." Beauti- • North Star Press reviewing historical litera- fully illustrated with nu- ture. •1988,168 pp. merous examples of the Startt and Sloan offer a •$19.95, Cloth artist's work (including good chapter tracing the eight pages of color plates), rise and fall of six major THE CATHOLIC Worker the book diligently con- schools of historical inter- movement, founded by veys valuable biographical pretation: nationalist, ro- Dorothy Day and Peter information and presents a mantic, developmental, Maurin in 1933, has re- thorough retrospective of progressive, consensus, ceived considerable atten- Bethune's long career. Un- and cultural. But except tion in recent years for its fortunately, Proud Donkey for a brief mention in an- pioneering role in trans- of Schaerbeek is more an ap- other chapter, they ignore forming American Catho- preciation and catalog the New Left or radical lic social thought. Much than a critical art-historical school which came to less well-known is the study, and so provides the dominate American his- movement's considerable reader with few resources tory as the consensus the- influence on Catholic reli- for interpreting the real ory faded. Startt and Sloan gious and liturgical art in significance of Bethune's discuss a few leading jour- this country. Most of that work in any of its appro- nalism historians in these influence was felt through priate contexts. Neverthe- 68 AJ /Winter 1990

less, this book will un- reer. Working initially out of her own aesthetic. Con- doubtedly provide the of the John Stevens Shop sequently, the absence starting point for more in Rhode Island, Bethune here of much analysis of interpretive studies of became an important fig- Bethune's work in relation Bethune's place in modern ure in the liturgical arts to other modern and American art. movement that led up to Christian art detracts sig- While seldom reaching Vatican II, and an eagerly nificantly from the value beyond factual presenta- sought church-building of the study. Especially in tion, the volume does ef- consultant in the United the last chapters, the text fectively convey the essen- States and other countries. becomes little more than tial features of Bethune's As a religious artist, she an illustrated and anno- fascinating life and arrest- worked successfully in a tated list of commissions ing character. Bom into an great variety of media, in- and writings (though the aristocratic but somewhat cluding calligraphy, wood- volume lacks a separate downwardly mobile Bel- carving, stained glass, catalog and bibliography). gian family just before fresco, and mosaic. What artistic commentary World War I, Bethune emi- While only a very small there is fails to probe very grated to the United States portion of this work was far into Bethune's arrest- with her parents in 1928. directly connected with ing images and ideas. De- From her highly cultured the Catholic Worker move- spite these flaws, this vol- and intensely Roman ment, Stoughton's desig- ume represents a beauti- Catholic family, Bethune nation of Bethune as a ful, welcome tribute to a inherited a serene spiritu- "Catholic Worker artist" is great artist and a holy ality and keen aesthetic thoroughly justified be- woman. tastes that were all the cause her aesthetic prin- more potent for their ciples were profoundly ...Mel Piehl seeming naturalness and shaped by the moral and Valparaiso University ease of expression. spiritual outlook she de- The encounter of this rived from Day's radical confident, budding young movement. Proud Donkey Belgian-American artist of Schaerbeek provides FRANK W. MAYBORN: with Dorothy Day's radi- enough examples of A MAN WHO MADE A cal American Catholic aesthetic Bethune's values DIFFERENCE Worker movement in the to demonstrate their strong By Odie B.and Laura E Faulk. fall of 1933 proved mo- roots in both Christian • University of Mary Hardin- mentous for both parties. mystical and liturgical tra- Bethune began illustrating dition and in Bethune's Baylor Day's widely circulated rich, earthy Catholic sensi- •1989,291pp. tabloid paper, the Catholic bility. •$19.95, Cloth Worker, with her forceful While the text demon- woodcuts of Catholic strates how Bethune's THE AUTHORS recount saints performing the commitment to these val- in considerable detail the works of mercy in contem- ues enabled her to succeed accomplishments of Frank porary, working-class as artist, teacher, and W. Maybom (1903-^7), modes. These illustrations critic, it seldom delves whose family acquired the became a central feature of much below the surface of Temple (Texas) Daily Tele- the Catholic Worker tradi- her life and work. The gram just before the Wall tion, and the attention they quotations from Bethune's Street crash of 1929. His fa- attracted from such Amer- own writings show her to ther. Ward Mayborn, was ican Catholic artistic pio- be an astute natural art a major executive for the neers as John Howard critic, but she also displays Scripps-McRae newspaper Benson and Graham Carey something of the aristo- chain. The first quarter of led directly to Bethtme's cratic practitioner's dis- this well-annotated book subsequent successful ca- taste for critical evaluation describes, sometimes in al- Book Reviews 69

most trivial detail, young Attention is called to May- an interest in military af- Mayborn's life as he born's widely recognized fairs and an influential as- moved with his family efforts on behalf of young sociation with political from his birthplace in Ak- people and his grant of and military leaders of this ron, Ohio, to Evansville, journalism scholarships country that affected the Denver, Cleveland, Dallas, and internships to Baylor, affairs of central Texas for and finally to Temple, Texas, Texas A&M, North the remainder of his life. In where he found himself Texas, and Texas Tech describing Mayborn's war- publisher of the Daily Tele- Universities. He also gave time activities, the authors gram at age twenty-six, af- educational grants to the recall that he refused a po- ter a planned family enter- University of Mary Hardin- litical commission and en- prise went awry. Through Baylor and Peabody Col- listed at age thirty-nine as hard work, political acu- lege in Nashville, as well a private in the Army. He men, and promotion he as to other schools. spent much of his military built a small newspaper The Faulks describe how service assigned to the group in central Texas and Mayborn, while building Public Relations Division became a pioneer in the the Temple Daily Telegram of Supreme Headquarters, radio and broadcast indus- into one of the state's top Allied Expeditionary tries. award-winning newspa- Forces, in Europe, a posi- The success of his com- pers, expanded his hold- tion that helped him estab- munications endeavors ings to include the Killeen lish relationships that can be attributed in no Daily Herald, the Sherman proved important to the small part to promotion of Democrat, the Taylor Daily success of post-war proj- a wide variety of civic, Press, and the Fort Hood ects in central Texas. May- military, cultural, educa- Sentinel. born held the rank of ma- tional, and political inter- The volume details the jor by the time of his dis- ests. Maybom felt that the problems Mayborn en- charge. newspaper is a vital part countered in establishing Throughout this biogra- of the community and radio station KTEM in phy the authors describe should be run as such. The Temple in 1936, the first how Mayborn's executive authors portray Mayborn station outside a major talents and decisiveness as a "catalyst" who made metropolitan area, and his enabled him to manage a things happen—one who unsuccessful early efforts business empire, under- used his influence as a in expanding KTEM to in- take assignments for the media businessman and clude FM broadcasting. government, and still have civic-minded citizen to en- Another broadcast en- time for numerous civic list public and political deavor was WMAK, a ra- and cultural involvements. support for projects he felt dio station in Nashville, The last chapters of the were in the best interests which became important book detail some of the of central Texas, the state, to Mayborn's educational awards and recognitions and the nation. interests in Peabody and this influential publisher- These projects included Vanderbilt. The authors broadcaster-businessman medical and transporta- also describe Mayborn's received from a wide vari- tion facilities, industrial efforts to bring better tele- ety of social, civic, educa- plants. Fort Hood (one of vision service to central tional and professional or- the largest armored train- Texas through KCEN. ganizations. ing centers in the world), From 1939, when he be- an enlarged Draughon- came president of the . , . Elsie S. Hebert Miller airport, water and Temple Chamber of Com- Louisiana State University real estate development, a merce and Board of Devel- federal office building for opment, and later head of Temple, and a wide vari- a War Industries Commit- ety of fund-raisers for edu- tee, this persuasive media cational and social causes. entrepreneur developed RESEARCH PAPER COMPETITION Commemorating the Bicentennial of the First Amendment

The American Journalism Historians Association will sponsor a special research paper competition emphasizing subjects addressing the history of freedom of expression in the United States. The competition is part of the association's activities in 1991 commemorating the bicentennial of the ratification of the First Amendment.

Winning papers will be presented at AJHA's annual meeting in October 1991 in Philadelphia, and will be published in a dedicated issue of American Journalism, the association's journal. Completed papers and requests for additional information should be sent to: Thomas A. Schwartz School of Journalism Ohio State University 242 W. 18th Avenue Columbus, Ohio 43210

All research approaches are welcome. Submissions should be typed, double- spaced and in five copies. Submissions should be postmarked by February 15, 1991.

A SPECIAL ISSUE OF AMERICAN JOURNALISM Readings of James W. Carey's Communication As Cuiture

The Fall 1990 issue of American Journalism will feature three review essays on James W. Carey's recent book Communication as Culture. Each will assess Carey's contributions to the study of communication history. Professor Carey has agreed to respond to the three critiques.

The contributors will be: David Eason, University of Utah Carolyn Marvin, University of Pennsylvania Michael Schudson, University of California at San Diego.

Readers of American Journalism are also invited to submit Research Notes on this general topic, for publication in that same issue. Such notes might comment on Carey's book, his impact on journalism history, or his contribution to the study of conununication. Research Notes are typically 3-6 pages, written without footnotes.

Anyone planning to submit a Research Note for the Carey issue should send the Editor a precis by July 1, 1990. Finished essays must be submitted by August 15, 1990.

NON-PROHT ORGANIZATION US POSTAGE PAID UNIVERSITY OF TULSA PERMIT NO. 661

UNIVERSITY OF TULSA FACULTY OF COMMUNICATION 600 SOUTH COLLEGE TULSA, OK 74104 xi 4

AMERICAN JOURNALISM

SPRING 1990

Published by the American JournaUsm Historians Association

\/-^

AMERICAN JOURNALISM SPRING 1990

DEPARTMENTS ARTICLES .74. RESEARCH NOTES • Unity, Not Absorption: Robert Lyon Peabody Collection and the Asmonean •114« A Jewish Weekly Newspaper in New York City Makes a Home for Its Immigrant Readers. BOOK REVIEWS Barbara Straus Reed 77 Review Essay: Journalism History • Theodore Roosevelt: Textbooks Public Relations Pioneer Women War The First Master of the Media Event, the News Leak, Correspondents the Trial Balloon, and the Sound Bite. Rodger Streitmatter 96

Revolution in Print

News and Politics in the Age of Revolution

Freedom of Expression and Partisan Politics

Radio Warfare

Home Town News

Dreiser's Articles

Lucy Larcom

Right Times, Right Places

The St. Josephs-Blatt

. . . and more EDITOR EDITORIAL PURPOSE. Anyone who wishes to re-

John J. Pauly American Journalism publishes view books for American Tidsa articles, research notes, book Journalism, or to propose a ASSOCIATE EDITORS reviews, and correspondence book for review, should con- Pamela A. Brown dealing with the history of tact Professor Nancy Roberts, Rider College journalism. Such contribu- Book Review Editor, American Gary Whitby tions may focus on social, Journalism, School of Journal- Central Missouri State economic, intellectual, politi- ism and Mass Communica- BOOK REVIEW EDITOR cal, or legal issues. American tion, University of Minnesota, Nancy Roberts Journalism also welcomes ar- Minneapolis, Miimesota Minnesota ticles that treat the history of 55455. DESIGN conmumication in general; the American Journalism is pro- Sharon M.W. Bass history of broadcasting, ad- duced on a Macintosh com- Kansas vertising, and public relations; puter, using Microsoft Word ADVERTISING the history of media outside and Pagemaker software. Au- Alf Pratte the United States; and theo- thors of manuscripts accepted Brigham Young retical issues in the literature for publication are encour- ASSISTANT EDITOR or methods of media history. aged, but not required, to Barbara Buckley submit their work on a DOS- Tulsa SUBMISSIONS. All articles, based or Macintosh disk. FORMER EDITORS research notes, and corre- Wm. David Sloan spondence should be sent to ADVERTISING. Information Alabama Professor John Pauly, Editor, on advertising rates and Gary Whitby American Journalism, Faculty placements is available from Central Missouri State of Commvmication, Univer- Professor Alf Pratte, Adver- sity of Tulsa, 600 S. College tising Manager, American AMERICAN JOURNALISM Avenue, Tulsa, Oklahoma Journalism, Department of HISTORIANS 74104. Authors should send Commuiucations, Brigham ASSOCIATION four copies of manuscripts Young University, Provo, submitted for publication as Utah 84602. PRESIDENT articles. American Journalism Maurine Beasley follows the style require- SUBSCRIPTIONS. American Man/land ments of The Chicago Manual Journalism (ISSN 0882-1127) VICE-PRESIDENT of Style. The maximum length is published quarterly by the Leomard Teel for most manuscripts is American Journalism Histori- Georgia State twenty-five pages, not includ- ans Association, at the Uni- SECRETARY ing notes and tables. versity of Tulsa. Subscriptions Donald Avery AU submissions are blind to American Journalism cost Southern Mississippi refereed by three readers, and $15 a year, $10 for students, BOARD OF DIRECTORS the review process typically and include a one-year mem- Perry Ashley takes about three months. bership in AJHA. Subscrip- South Carolina Manuscripts will be returned tions mailed outside the Roy Atwood only if the author has includ- United States cost $20 for sur- Idaho ed a self-addressed stamped face mail, $25 for air mail. For Elaine Berland envelope. further information, please Ylehster Research notes are typically contact the Editor. Lester Carson three- to six-page manu- Florida scripts, written without for- COPYRIGHT. © American Edward Caudill mal documentation. Such Journalism Historians Asso- Tennessee notes, which are not blind ciation, 1990. Articles in Barbara Qoud refereed, may include reports American Journalism may be Nevada-las Vegas of research in progress, dis- photocopied for fair use in Carol Sue Humphrey cussions of methodology, an- teaching, research, criticism, Oklahoma Baptist notations on new archival and news rejwrting, in accor- Alf Pratte sources, commentaries on is- dance with Sections 107 and Brigham Young sues in journalism history, or 108 of the U.S. Copyright Nancy Roberts suggestions for future re- Law. For all other purposes, Minnesota search. Authors who wish to lasers must obtain permission contribute research notes are from the Editor. invited to query the editor. REFEREES. Thanks to the following editorial board members, who have recently read manuscripts for 5^ FROM THE EDITOR American Journalism. ONE CONSEQUENCE of all the recent interest in Dave Anderson communication history has been a remarkable in- Northern Colorado crease in the number of books being published in the Anantha Babbili field. In virtually all respects that increase has proved Texas Christian gratifying. With so many historical monographs now Elaine Berland available, teaching classes is much easier today than Webster it was ten or fifteen years ago. Moreover, each new Robert Doolittle book opens possibilities for our own work, adding Tulsa Carolyn Dyer range and depth to our understanding, provoking Iowa our curiosity anew. R. Ferrell Ervin Unfortunately all our new intellectual wealth has Southeast Missouri State left us ever more time-poor, too. Perhaps for the first E)onald Fishman time in the history of our discipline, it has become Boston College virtually impossible for an individual to keep up Thelma Gorham with everything being written in communication his- Florida A&M tory. With the nationwide expansion of programs in Carol Sue Humphrey communication, with all the intense interest in com- Oklahoma Baptist munication technology, institutions, and practices, Richard Lentz history started its Arizona State communication has to produce Louis Liebovich own specializations. That is an old, familiar story to Illinois scholars in traditional disciplines such as history and Karen List literature, but it is still news to us. Massachusetts To help readers sift through all the new books, Donald MacE)onald American Journalism is expanding its review section. Tulsa Each issue will now include reviews of fifteen or Zena McGlashan more books as well as review essays in which writers North Dakota evaluate recent books in their own areas of expertise. Patricia Muller is that the size of Wisconsin-La Crosse My hope by increasing and scope the Sharon Murphy review section, American Journalism will encourage Marquette readers to participate in a larger conversation about Sid Factor communication, a conversation that specialization Florida always threatens to silence. Robert Picard This issue also features articles by Barbara Straus Emerson College Reed and Rodger Streitmatter based on papers that Alf Pratte were chosen as among the best presented at the 1989 Brigham Young convention of the American Journalism Historians Robert Rutland Association, held in Atlanta. Tulsa Kim Smith -J.P. Iowa State Linda Steiner Rutgers Patrick Washburn Ohio Gilbert Williams Michigan State RESEARCH NOTES •

PEABODY COLLECTION try. It already includes opments from both local AT THE UNIVERSITY more than twenty-five and national perspectives. OF GEORGIA thousand programs, and it The collection was is adding from eight started in 1941 when the IF YOU WANT to develop hundred to a thousand first Peabody Awards a comprehensive history of more each year. were given by the Univer- American broadcasting or Dr. Worth McDougald, sity of Georgia and the Na- a cultural history of the director of the Peabody tional Association of United States during the Awards program, says the Broadcasters for programs past fifty years, you should collection has many assets broadcast in 1940. Winners include in your research besides its size. It has were, and still are, selected plans the George Foster thousands of programs by a board whose mem- Peabody Collection at the produced by local stations, bers are familiar with University of Georgia in it includes mamy types of broadcasting but not di- Athens. local and network pro- rectly associated with any In fact, the thousands of grams, and it represents station or network. radio and television pro- what stations, networks, The late John E. Drewry, grams in the Peabody Col- producers and others re- then dean of Georgia's lection can provide in- garded as their best work School of Journalism, sightful information about in given years and catego- started the program at the government, wars, social ries. suggestion of Lambdin movements, or almost Many collections concen- Kay, manager of WSB ra- anything else that has been trate on network programs dio station in Atlanta and depicted on broadcast sta- or particular types of pro- a member of a NAB com- tions and networks since grams such as news or mittee appointed to ex- 1940. dramatic shows. The Pea- plore development of a Since it was made more body Collection has local radio equivalent of the accessible to scholars, stu- programs from through- Pulitzer Prizes for print dents, and others in the out the country as well as media.

1980s, the collection has network programs, and it The School of Journalism been used for studies of includes various catego- (now College of Journal- the Vietnam War, the Civil ries, such as news, public ism and Mass Communi- Rights movement, and an service, education, enter- cation) has continued to American view of the So- tainment, music, children's administer the awards viet Union, as well as for a programs, and others. program, which is recog- fifty-year retrospective of Since entries represent nized by many as the most American broadcasting, what entrants regarded as prestigious in the industry, the role of local radio sta- their best work, the collec- and develop the collection. tions in World War II, the tion includes most of the The NAB continued an in- evolution of radio public critically acclaimed and indirect association for a few service programming, and fluential programs of the years, but withdrew out of other topics. past half century. They concern that its involve- The collection, which in- chronicle World War II, ment might be construed cludes most of the entries Korea, and Vietnam, the by some as a conflict of in the Peabody Awards Cold War, the space race, interest. Program sponsored by the the human rights move- Kay suggested that the University of Georgia, is ment, Watergate, the Iran- awards program be named one of the largest broad- Contra affair, cultural in honor of George Foster cast archives in the coun- change, and other devel- Peabody, a native Geor- gian who became a major Other recording omis- ongoing competition. benefactor of the Univer- sions also exist as a result The collection is being sity of Georgia after of technical problems. used, however, by faculty, achieving success with a Some early programs were graduate students, and re- New York investment recorded on fragile materi- searchers from organiza- firm. Peabodyhad died in als that haven't survived tions such as the major 1938. the effects of time or have television networks, the Georgia officials decided come apart during efforts BBC, and National Geo- soon after the awards pro- to re-record them on mod- graphic magazine. A CBS gram was started to keep ern tapes for use by re- representative doing re- all materials associated searchers and others. search for a program on with the entries. As a re- University officials are television in the 1950s col- sult, the collection includes dealing with these prob- lected some fifty-five entry and nomination lems as best they can as hours of Peabody materi- forms, scripts, photo- part of their continuing ef- als to study and excerpt graphs, press clippings, forts to make the collection for the network's program. letters from viewers, and accessible to scholars, stu- In the past year or so, the other such materials, as dents, and others inter- collection has been used as well as films, audio and ested in broadcasting. In a primary source of infor- video tapes, electrical tran- virtually all instances, the mation for the observance scriptions, and kinescopes. written materials, includ- of the fiftieth anniversary The collection includes ing descriptions of the proof television at the Smith- virtually all of the local ra- grams, that accompanied sonian Instutution, the dio and television pro- the entries have survived. MGM-Disney Theme Park, grams entered ft-om the For many years, the col- and the New Museum in beginning and most of the lection was stored in the New York, and it has been network programs, includ- journalism building and utilized in background re- ing all since 1969, when virtually inaccessible to search by a number of pro- the Peabody board and the any but staff members. But duction companies. university adopted a firm in the middle 1970s, after Dr. Barry Sherman, head no-return policy. completion of a major ad- of the telecommunications Some significant omis- dition to the university's department at Georgia, sions do exist because the main library, it was moved used the collection for an major networks at one there and steps taken to extensive study of the Vi- time requested the return catalog all materials and etnam War and television of their entries, especially re-record the older pro- for the 1987 American those on kinescopes and grams that were becoming Film Institute Video Festi- early shows recorded on fragile. val. Sherman looked at 110 "re-usable" two-inch vide- This process is still in programs on Vietnam, otape. In addition, the progress. The university Cambodia, and Laos en- board occasionally hon- obtained a grant of tered in the competition ored programs not for- $150,000 from the National between 1961 and 1985 mally entered. Endowment for the Hu- and selected 25 for festival

The Peabody Collection manities in 1979, and it screening. About half are does, however, have the committed some $232,000 local programs that pro- supporting materials on in services and materials vide a viewpoint not avail- recordings that were re- to get the project started. able in other major collec- turned, and it is seeking to More funds are needed to tions. replace missing programs complete the work, and Sherman and Patricia J. with the cooperation of the those within the media in- Priest, a doctoral student National Center for Film dustry have been reluctant at Georgia, subsequently and Television Preserva- to contribute for fear it did a study of the civil tion and its consortium of would appear that they rights movement as seen in archives. are seeking favors in the programs in the Peabody 76 AJ/Spring 1990

Collection. They found that 79 of 146 programs RESEARCH PAPER entered in the competition COMPETITION between 1949 and 1967 had been preserved. These Commemorating the Bicentennial included children's proof the First Amendment grams, dramas, and other non-news programs, as The American Journalism Historians Association will well as documentaries, sponsor a special research paper competition emphasiz- news broadcasts, editori- ing subjects addressing the history of freedom of expres- als, and public service an- sion in the United States. The competition is part of the as- nouncements. sociation's activities in 1991 commemorating the bicen- Dr. Al Moffett of Georgia tennial of the ratification of the Rrst Amendment. State University, while a graduate student at Geor- Winning papers will be presented at AJHA's annual gia in the mid-1980s, did a meeting in October 1991 in Philadelphia, and will be pub- study of "Hometown Ra- lished in a dedicated issue of American Journalism, the dio and World War II," association's journal. Completed papers and requests for and Michael Marcotte, an- additional information should be sent to: other graduate student, Thomas A. Schwartz did a study of 'Trends School of Journalism in Radio Public Service, Ohio State University 1948-1982," using entries 242 W. 18th Avenue in the awards program. Columbus, Ohio 43210 These studies help illustrate the Peabody Collec- All research approaches are welcome. Submissions should tion's unique potential for be typed, double-spaced and in five copies. Submissions providing the local view- should be postmarked by February 15, 1991. point that is so important to understanding Ameri- can history and American searchers may also ask per- tion and its use can be ob- people. It has the network mission to use the collec- tained by writing reports, as some other col- tion. Fees may be charged Dr. Worth McDougald, di- lections do. But it also pro- to cover the expenses of rector, Peabody Awards vides the local angle so of- Peabody staff members Program, College of Jour- ten missing in the network working with them. nalism and Mass Commu- reports. The nature of the collec- nication, University of The possibilities for re- tion dictates some restric- Georgia, Athens, Georgia search in the collection are tions on its use. The uni- 30602, or by calling him at about as great as the re- versity does not lend cop- (404) 542-3787 or (404) 542- searcher's sense of what to ies of Peabody materials 9273 (fax). study. One could, for ex- directly or through interli- ample, explore news bias, brary loan. Original re- . . . Ernest C. Hynds sensationalism, or agenda cordings cannot be played, University of Georgia setting in the media, the but copies are available for impact of new technology, many of them. As noted changing social roles, earlier, the process of cata- trends in programming, or loging and re-recording any number of historical programs is not complete. events and developments. Persons who would like Dr. McDougald said re- to use the collection search courtesies would be should make arrange- extended to any bona fide ments in advance. Infor- scholar. Commerical re- mation about the collec- UNITY, NOT ABSORPTION: ROBERT LYON AND THE ASMONEAN The Origins of the First English-Language Jewish Weekly in the United States

Barbara Straus Reed

EVERY MAJOR IMMIGRANTGROUP and many lesser ones established ethnic presses after arriving in the United States. These papers showed a more genuine interest in the welfare of their readers and established more personal, helpful ties with their communities than did the majority press. Overall, the ethnic press proved enormously valuable in smoothing the difficult transition to their adopted homeland. It aided this accommodation in a number of ways. Many immigrant journals offered readers needed information. Others championed social reforms that benefited the ethnic group as a whole. Additionally, papers strove to educate their readers in the ways of American life, thereby helping them acculturate or assimilate. There is little question that these journals helpjed to create a sense of the ethnic group's culture, identity, nationality, or religion in America.^ In large part, the practices of ethnic newspaper editors and publishers can be explained by understanding the social and economic position they occupied within their communities. As a result of their diversity—particularly in the early years—newspapers were often mere sounding boards for other enterprises, Barbara Re«d is an and journalists commonly subordinated editorial policies to the assistant professor in the Department interests of these ventures. The major problems confronting of Journalism and immigrant editors were their constituencies, largely illiterate, iMass Media at Rutgers University. distrustful of intellectuals, suspicious of strangers, and impov- She received her doctorate In mass 1. See for example, Carl Wittke, The German language Press in America (Lexing- communication ton: University of Kentucky Press, 1957); A. William Hoglund, Finnish Immi- from Ohio Univer- grants in America (Madison: Uruversity of Wisconsin Press, 1960); S. W. Kung, sity, and she previ- Chinese Life in America: Some Aspects of Their History, Status, Problems and Contri- ously taught at butions (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1962; reissue, Westport, Conn.: Califomla State Greenwood Press, 1973); Joseph Roucek, The Czechs and Slovaks in America University at Los (Minneapolis: Lemer Publications, 1967); Mordecai Soltes, The Yiddish Press: An Angeles. Her a^ Americanizing Agency (New York: Columbia University Teachers College, 1 950); ticle is adapted from a chapter in and Edmund G. Olszyk, The Polish American Press in America (Milwaukee: Mar- her dissertation. quette University Press, 1940). 78 AJ/Spring 1990

erished. Yet given these handicaps, n\any editors accomplished yeoman deeds in their American vineyard.^ More difficult to measure, but nonetheless present, was the element of comfort and security that the ethnic press provided to first-generation immigrants. During what must have been at best a difficult transition, newcomers often found solace in journals using familiar themes and stressing news of lands from which they had so recently departed. As such, these papers acted as cushions against the shocks and traumas occasioned by new adjustments, and, in many cases, were important mediating agencies between the immigrant culture and that of the host country. Furthermore, the press helped to articulate for uneducated new arrivals the grievances they felt acutely but found difficult to express; no other institution within the ethnic community was as capable of carrying out this function.' Each ethnic "Well before sub- is of stantial Jewish im- group part the American mosaic, and each reacted to the migretion began to American experience differently. flow, the highly fa- This paper concerns the birth and development of the As- vorable terms oy which Jews, and monean, the first English-language Jewish weekly in America, others, could enter and pieces together the available facts about its editor, Robert and accommodate Lyon. The Asmonean remains an important example of the ethnic themselves in American life were press because it came at a critical time in the history of Jewish fixed." immigration to the United States. For more than eight years - Lloyd P. Gartner "Immigration and Lyon's paper played an important role in helping the new the Formation of arrivals integrate with the majority community as well as pre- American Jewry, serve their heritage. In other words, it assisted Jews in becoming 1840-1925." part of the whole, yet distinguishable with their unique culture and traditions. Its success was due in part to the audience Lyon addressed. It helped its immigrant readers learn English. For those already fluent in English, the regular reporting of news in the Jewish community promoted not only identity but also cohesion. The advertisements made immigrants aware of available goods and services. As a metaphor, the melting pot image of immigration proves unfortunate and misleading. One scholar has suggested that a more accurate analogy would be a salad bowl, "for though the salad is an entity, the lettuce can still be distinguished from the chicory, the tomatoes from the cabbage."* As a result of these resistant bits of foreign ways within the United States, American culture has been more colorful, more cosmopolitan, more diverse than any other people's; indeed, cultural diversity has been one of the hallmarks of American civilization. An example of this "salad-bowl theory" of immigration can

2. Gary Mormino, "TTie Immigrant Editor," Journal of Ethnic Studies 9 (1981): 81-85. 3. George E. Pozzetta, "The Italian Immigrant Press of New York City: The Early Years, 1880-1915/' Journal of Ethnic Studies 1 (1973): 32-46. 4. Carl N. Degler, Out of Our Past: The Forces That Shaped Modem America, rev. ed. (New York: Harper Colophon Books, 1970), 296. Reed 79

be seen in the Jews from western and central Europe, who came to America in the nineteenth century in what is known as the German Jewish immigration. Between 1840 and 1880, a quarter- The poMibillties million German Jews (and some Polish) settled in the United of Juaaism and States.^ Primarily they settled in the cities and towns, along with Jewish IHe in America under tlie their gentile fellow immigrants from Germany, who became regime of free op- their customers in commercial enterprises. Not that immigrants tion, state aloof- arrived as prosperous merchants. Rather, they possessed little ness, and automatic emancipa- started peddlers, carried merchandise to customers in money, as tion were to be the countryside, and after acquiring sufficient capital, purchased explored by every a horse and wagon to carry on their enterprise. Later, the generation of Jews wlio came to successful ones began shops and became settled merchants, or America." "store princes" as they were popularly known.* - Gartner, The majority of these immigrants quickly accepted the aes- "immigration and American Jewry." thetic standards and cultural patterns of the American Protes- tant middle class, which seemed appropriate for the American scene, and modified their lives accordingly. Immigrant Jews de- lighted in the American climate of equality and sought to be as much like their neighbors as possible, to shed marks of their foreign origin. Yet they were Jews; complete absorption was impossible. They sought "to exist and yet not to exist, to be needed and yet to be unimportant, to be different and yet to be the same, to be integrated and yet to be separate."^ Pioneer ethnic publications, of whatever group, tend to be founded as a response to the activities of others.* The theme of defense is a strong one; for Jews, that defense was against

5. Bernard D. Weinryb, "East European Immigration to the United States," Jewish Quarterly Review 45 (April 1955): 497-528.

6. Isaac M. Wise, Reminiscences (Cincinnati: Leo Wise , 1901) 109; see also, Israel Knox, Rabbi in America: The Story of Isaac M. Wise, ed. Oscar Handlin (Boston: Little, Brovym, 1957). A few of these princes founded retail dynasties: the Strauses of Macy's, the Gimbels, Bloomingdales, Bergdorfs and so on; most, however, remained of moderate means. 7. Joshua A. Fishman, et al.. Language Loyalty in the United States: The Maintenance and Perpetuations ofNon-English Mother Tongues by American Ethnic and Religious Groups (Salem, N.H.: Ayer Publishing, 1978), 73. 8. Seie Sam G. Riley, "A Note of Caution—The Indian's Own Prejudice, as Mirrored in the First Native American Newspaper," Journalism History 6 (Summer 1979): 44-47; Sharon Murphy, "American IncUans and the Media: Neglect and Stereotype," Journalism History 6 (Svmimer 1979): 39-43; Richard LaCourse, "An Indian Perspective—Native American Journalism: An Overview," Journalism History 6 (Summer 1979): 34-38; Hank LaBrie III, "Black Newspapers: The Roots Are 150 Years Deep," Journalism History 4 (Winter 1977-78): 110-13; Juan Gonzales, Forgotten Pages: Spanish-Language Newspaf>ers in the Southwest," Journalism History 4 (Summer 1977): 50-51; Kenneth D. Nordin, "In Search of Black Unity: An Interpretation of the Content and Function of Freedom's Journal," Journalism History 4 (Winter 1977-78): 123-28; Sharon Murphy, "Ne- glected Pioneers: 19th Century Native American Newspapers," Journalism History 4 (Autximn 1977): 79-S2; Lionel Barrow, "Our Own Cause: Freedom's Jourtml and the Beginnings of the Black Press," Journalism History 4 (Winter 1977-78): 118-122; Felix Gutierrez, "Spanish-Language Media in America: Backgroimd, Resources, History," Jourruilism History 4 (Summer 1977): 34-41. 80 AJ /Spring 1990

evangelical movements to convert them to Christianity.' Such movements targeted the Jews from the early part of the nnid- nineteenth century, when they numbered in ti\e hundreds. Dur-

"Historians aener- ing the years 1843 to 1849, the Jewish community increased ally accept that substantially as whole families, rather than isolated individuals, perhaps 2,000 began to arrive in America. It was the time when the contempo- Jews lived in the Thirteen Colonies rary American Jewish scene emerged and found its shape and di- at the time o( the rection. Issues other than conversion vied for consideration. For American Revolu- tion, and fifty American Jews, experimenting with new life patterns engaged years later, about their full attention. In 1849 approximately fifty thousand Jews 1825, the number lived in the United States. Roughly thirteen to fourteen thou- was still no higher than about 6,000." sand lived in New York, the leading Jewish community in the - Gartner, country, then as now. Thirteen new congregations had been or- "Immigration and American Jewry." ganized there since the Revolution.^" New York City consistently possessed the greatest number of periodicals printed in America, and also supplied much of the talent and news for the ethnic press throughout the nation. The new immigrants, mostly from central Europe, began to find a niche for themselves economically but found the Jewish community undistinguished and divided. Many leaders were untrained and pursued their duties as religious lay readers as merely another way to make a living. Isaac Leeser, the pioneer, with his magazine, the Occident and American Jewish Advocate, attempted to reach members of the far-flung Jewish communities throughout the country. Yet his magazine appeared only monthly and went to a linruted number of subscribers; the Jewish community needed more information and inspiration—and a more frequent exchange of ideas. Also, Leeser lived in Philadelphia, a large Jewish center but one that stood in the shadow of New York's fourteen thousand, who needed their own organ. Two Jewish publications, weeklies, were established in 1849 to answer the needs of Jewish New Yorkers. Israels Herold [sic], the first, began publication in German on 30 March, with Isidor

Bush as editor; it lasted but three months." Because Bush's weekly was highly philosophical in tone, it failed to reach a large number of people. American Jews at that time possessed neither a broad general education nor even a proper Jewish one. Its demise resulted from the audience's indifference, even though

9. Naomi W. Cohen, "Pioneers of American Jewish Defense," American Jewish Archives 29 (November 1977): 123-60. One important study has dealt with the issue of reform versus orthodoxy in American Judaism as reflected in three publications. Kathryn T. Theus, "From Orthodoxy to Reform: Assimilation and the Jewish-English Press of Mid-Nineteenth Century America," American Jour- nalism 1 (Winter 1984): 15-26. 10. Ira Rosenwaike, "An Estimate and Ansilysis of the Jewish Population of the United States," Publication of the American Jewish Historical Society 50 (September 1960): 23-67. 11. The American Jewish Archives in Cincinnati has a card catalogue of the contents of Bush's pap>er. An excellent description of the publication is by Guido Kisch in "Israels Herold: The First Jewish Weekly in New York," Historia Judaica 2 (October 1940): 65-84. Reed 81

he obtained work from the most important thinkers in Europe, and his American contributors included the leading lights of American Jewish life. With the twelfth issue, he gave up. The second Jewish weekly, the first in English, was the Asmonean, begun in 1849.^^ It was edited by Robert Lyon, born 15 January 1810, the second son of Wolfe Lyon, a London trades- man.^^ He received an education for commerce and business, although he maintained an interest in science. Before age eighteen he had written essays that were published in local periodicals on the island of Jersey. Some years later, he moved to London, started a business, married Dinah Mawson of London, and became a member of the Maiden Lane Synagogue.^* He served as treasurer of the congregation. In 1840 he and another Jew, Baron de Goldsmid, presented a congratulatory address to "When the first ru- dimentary survey Queen Victoria on her marriage. In 1844 the Lyons emigrated to of American Jewry New York. They had seven children; one daughter died in 1852.^^ was undertalcen in 1877... the totai Lyon established an umbrella factory but could not make a [number of Jews] steady living in that field. At the same time, he thought he could was put at 280,000." - help tihe "Jewish cause" by publishing a weekly. Lyon's essays Gartner, "immigration and in England.^^ English had appeared in publications He knew American Jewry." well but lacked any kind of background in Hebrew and German, the two languages of the Jewish community of the time. Shortly after Lyon's arrival in America, Leeser ran two of Lyon's essays and an article about uniting American Jewry .^^ While Lyon had no experience publishing a paper, he believed his friendships in the Hebrew Benevolent Association and membership in leading synagogues would help him secure many contributors to his enterprise. (One could belong to more than one synagogue.) Financial support would depend on circulation and advertising, although Lyon acknowledged that his

12. Hyman Grinstein, "The Asmonean: The First Jewish Weekly in New York," Journal of Jewish Bibliography 1 (April 1939): 62-71. 13. He lost a brother, a property owner, in a 22 June 1851 San Frandsco fire known as "the Sixth Great Fire." Fragjnents of Lyon's life are described in "Death of Mr. Robert Lyon," Asmonean, 12 March 1858, 172. 14. According to their advertisements in the paper, Dinah Mawson 's brothers were in New York as early as 1839, when their fur manufacturing business began, but they turn up first in the 1840-41 New York City Directory. A brother, Edward, married Ellen Phillips of St. Hellers Jersey, at his father's home in London, according to "Married," Asmonean, 14 Mardi 1851, 166. She may have moved to England with the children after Lyon's death, as nothing more of her life can be learned. 15. "Death," Asmonean, 24 September 1852, 222. The extremely meticulous ge- nealogist. Rabbi Malcolm Stem, in his book, first American Jewish Families, noted only two male children, Gerald and Edmund Robert. However, Lyon addressed his final words to the oldest son, William, then age fifteen, according to "Death of Mr. Robert Lyon," Asmonean, 12 March 1858, 172. 16. "Death of Mr. Robert Lyon," Asmonean, 12 March 1858, 172. 17. "Lecturing and Lecturers, No. 1," Occident 4 (May 1846): 90-96; "Lecturing and Lecturers," Occident 4 (September 1846): 293-97; and "The Convention, Its Design, Its Utility," Occident 7 (September 1849): 320-23. 82 AJ /Spring 1990

paper had a patron." His paper was originally intended for the Jewish population ofNew York City but later circulated throughout the country." Lyon was active civically and politically. The New York City Directory of 1840-41 lists Lyon's occupation as assistant city inspector with an office at city hall. The following year, a John Hillyer is listed as street inspector, and conceivably they met there. The two tean\ed up in March 1852 to start the New York Mercantile Journal, a weekly focusing on business.^ In the Jewish community, Lyon was a vice-president of the Hebrew Benevo- lent Society. He had connections to political figures locally and nationally. Henry Clay, General Lewis Cass, and Daniel Webster all knew him. Robert Lyon, never a hardy man, suffered a stroke at work on 10 March 1858, and died three hours after reaching his home. His funeral, the largest since that of editor and diplomat Mordecai Manual Noah, included six rabbis, four synagogue presidents, the Associate United States District Attorney, officers of the Hebrew Benevolent Society, leading merchants of the Jewish community, and the "most respectable Christian fellow citizens."^^ Burial took place at the Beth Olom Cemetery in Cypress Hills, at which Rabbi Samuel Myer Isaacs, later the editor of his own weekly in New York, presided. After his death, his widow may have returned to England, where her father lived, for no listing appears in the New York City directories under her name or as his widow. The first issue of the Asmonean appeared on 19 October 1849.^

18. "Cliquism and Its Advocates," Asmonean, 26 December 1851, 92: "[The patron] is far too liberal to entrench upon otir rights; he knows his position; and though grateful for the aid rendered, we here publicly acknowledge it; for his councel [sic] has been readily given when sought by us, but wise and intelligent, he never intrudes an opinion unasked." 19. 'To Our Subscribers," Asmonean, 26 October 1849, 1. 20. Lyon announced that he and John Hillyer would publish a newspaper every Tuesday and Friday afternoon, from 140 Nassau Street, New York. Its cost was five dollars per year in advance. Called the New York Mercantile Journal and Financial Recorder, it would be devoted to the financial insurance and commer-

cial interests of America. It would have thirty-two columns, eight pages, of quarto size, bound, and could be used as a standard reference work. It would be a review of the news of the day, with reports of decisions on mercantile questions contested in the United States courts. 'It will eschew politics of every shade and hue." Also printed in French, the idea was to make the publication "an available medium for merchants in the dty to communicate by the steamer of the following day with their correspondents in Europe." See advertisements in the Asmonean, 2 March 1852, 201, and 26 March 1852, 225. The Mercantile Journal later added and Railroad Gazette to its title. The only holdings are from 19 July to 16 August 1853, and from 5 May to 1 June 1858, in the New York Historical Society. 21. "Funeral of Robert Lyon, Esq.," Asmonean, 19 March 1858, 180. 22. "Death of Mr. Robert Lyon," Asmonean, 12 March 1858, 172. Grinstein dated

it to 1 9 October, but the 26 October, as well as all others, was for the week ending on that date. The pagination of the Asmonean is irregular, and two systems prevail. First, page numbers begin with the first month of each year; then from Reed 83

Thereafter it appeared every Friday, from its owner's address.^ The masthead, large and elaborate, consisted of Jewish symbols: In the center was an escutcheon, displaying figures representing the tribes of Israel—a wolf of Benjamin, a bull of Manasseh, and "Two are better a lion of Judah. The Asmonean took its name from the surname of than one; because Mattathias and his sons, who led the successful revolt of the Jews they have a good against the Greeks in the second century B.C.^* Subtitled "A reward for their labor. ... And if family journal of commerce, politics, religion, and literature, de- one prevail against voted to the interests of the American Israelites," it ran a colunm him, two shall of "Patronage and Support" listing the names of ministers, pre- withstand him; and a threefold siding officers of nine New York congregations, and prominent cord is not quiclcly Jews from several cities. The peculiar motto, 'Two are better broken." than one, and a three-fold cord is not quickly broken," referred -Eccles.,4:9,12. to uniting American Jewry and was taken from Ecclesiastes, chapter 4, verses 9 and 12. In the third volume it was simplified with the removal of the symbols and the addition of a simple slogan, "Knowledge is power."^ The design on the first issues was copied from the Irish-American, which appeared only a number of months before the Asmonean was launched .^^ When the Asmonean began, only the Occident served as competition. But competition it was, a fact not lost on the Philadel- phia editor, Isaac Leeser, who welcomed the paper but warned the new editor: We hope that the enterprise will meet with due encouragement; at the same time, we do not hesitate in saying that it is more likely to result in a heavy pecuniary loss to the proprietors. Our own experience in publishing for our people is something like a long series of disappointments; and had it not been that we needed not the smallest portion of the proceeds for our personal support, we should have long since have relinquished the editorial chair. We are always sorry to see an inexperienced person expose himself to the disappointments which are sure to await him; we know what it is to battle with a public who do not care to hear from one, no matter what he has to say, and we therefore had hoped that for the present no more candidates for disappointment would have presented themselves. We dissuaded Mr. Bush from commencing "Israel's Herald" [sic]; he nevertheless went on, printed twelve numbers, and then

16 May 1850 through 25 July 1852, each issue additionally sports a "Whole No." 23. Robert Lyon began at 140 Nassau Street, then moved to 83 Gold Street as of 9 April 1852, then to 7 Cedar Street, then to 112 Pearl Street. 24. "The Asmonean," Asmonean, 1 November 1849, 13. "The last reigiung princes amongst the Children of Israel were Asmoneans." 25. Asmonean, 1 November 1849, 13, and "Unity is Strength," Asmonean, 24 Augvist 1852, 173. Lyon changed the motto and explained the withdrawal of the first motto in the editorial. 26. Grinstein, "The Asmonean," 63. 84 AJ/Spring 1990

Stopped, having found that we had advised him correctly. We wish Mr, Lyons [sic] a better success, though we fear the contrary,^' Despite the gloomy warning, the Asmonean endured to become Leeser's competition and survived for almost a decade, until Lyon's death. In the first issue of the Asmonean, Lyon noted his intention to promote a congregational Union of Israelites of the United States. He also wanted to disseminate information about or relating to the Jewish people. All foreign and domestic news would receive ample coverage, "up to the latest moment prior to going to press." Lyon also promised to comment on events "tem- perately." But the most important reason to publish was for "a Unity of action between'the learned and the philanthropic of Israel." He sought to diffuse "amongst our brethren a better knowledgeof principles of the Jewish faith." Further, the editor wrote, "The paper comes into existence perfectly unfettered and

unpledged ... for it is the duty of all Israelites to further every understanding having a tendency to dissipate existing preju- "The most radical dices, induce better understanding of the true interests of innovations in Ju- and a daism occured af- Israel as a religious brotherhood." He acknowledged his lack of ter the first Jews experience as a journalist, but said, "We are not deficient of zeal arrived in the United States from in our desire of preserving our national integrity, and averting Germany." the curse of infidelity from our people." He made arrangements -KathrynT.Theus, for correspondents and sought to find them in each section of the "From Orthodoxy to Reform: Assimi- country, although he never could pay them for their contribu- lation and the Jew- tions. ish-English Press of Mid-Nineteenth Politics occupied a significant place in the Asmonean, un- Century America." doubtedly as a result of Lyon's long-standing interest in it. In the fifties, the paper had opposed Know-Nothingism, and in 1856 it supported James Buchanan for the presidency and Fernando Wood for mayor of New York.^* When a reader wrote about Lyon's rather outspoken preference for various political offices, Lyon responded that his paper was a commercial, religious, and literary as well as a political organ. He maintained that part of his duty was to inform the Jewish public of his stand in political matters.^' It may very well be that periodic advertisements from Tammany Hall and the City of New York had much to do with the Asmonean' s forthright political statements and bias towards the Democrats.^" Lyon believed Jews could only be Democrats: "Israelites are Democrats of old; and if they read their history at-

27. Occident 7 (October 1849): 379. 28. Editorial endorsements of Buchanan, Breckenridge (for vice-president), and Wood (for mayor and then governor) ran in every issue from "National Democratic Nominations," Asmonean, 25 July 1856, 116, to "The Contest for the Presidency," Asmonean, 31 October 1856, 20, in which a column was devoted to a state-by-state tally of electoral votes. 29. 'Tolitics, or, No-Politics," Asmonean, 15 August 1856, 140. 30. In "Charter Election, Etec. 1," Asmonean, 13 November 1857, 5, he endorsed individuals for dty and county elections. He not only endorsed Wood for mayor. .

Reed 85

tentarively they never will be anything but Democrats."^^ The paper supported Fernando Wood for vice-president of the United States when the Democratic convention was in Cincinnati. The New York mayor would unite the conflicting votes of the party, • • • • • "Even Jewish rab- Coincidentally, corporate notices from the city of Lyon noted.^^ bis who supported New York ran in the Asmonean, as did city ordinances.^ democratic riahts Lyon took an active role in politics and reported on elections and religious liberty could not by wards and districts within the city, too, unlike other editors agree on the ex- of Jewish publications. He openly supported Emanuel B. Hart, tent to which the traditional aspects who was returned to Congress in 1850, and voting results were of Jewishness, as given to show how Hart beat two candidates by receiving thirty- a 'people set four hundred of the thirty-six hundred votes cast.^ A brief biog- apart,' could be realized, k was out of printed. noted in an editorial that Hart raphy Hart was Lyon of that controversy had been a good representative; his being Jewish had nothing that the Jewisii whatever to do with the editor's support. press in the United States was bom." Local and state acts were given in their entirety in six- or eight- - Theus, point type and without leading. A story of a rally for Charter "From Ortiiodoxy to Reform. Amendments for City Reform received play, and the amendments were printed, again in small type. For all the wards in the city, Lyon listed locations where voting would take place, whether it be at a candy, crockery, hardware, shoe, or cigar store.^ He fa- cilitated the workings of a democratic government in the same way that a regular city paper did. But Lyon's interest in politics did not stop at the state level. He knew and corresponded with Daniel Webster. When Web- ster died, Lyon turned the column rules throughout the paper as a symbol of mourning for him.^* He also ran a story from the Boston Courier on the last hours of Mr. Webster. In addition, he composed an obituary but did not mention anything pertaining to Mr. Webster's relationship with the Jewish community. Lyon referred to the deceased as "lofty spirit" and "noble-hearted secretary." To cap off the issue he produced a chronology of Webster's life. Jewish communal and foreign news, or "intelligence" as it was called, was probably the main drawing card of the As- monean. Lyon covered the news of the participation of Jews as but also for governor of the Alms House and endorsed six supervisors including one William M. Tweed. 31. "Politics or No-Politics," Asmonean, 15 Augvist 1856, 140. 32. "Fernando Wood for Vice President," Asmonean, 23 May 1856, 45. 33. "Corporation Notices," Asmonean, 6 June 1856, 59. They listed all ordinances, including those pertaining to express wagons, carts, dirt cart men, drays, public porters, hackney coach owners, and proprietors of livery stables, as well as the "complete book" in the mayor's office for "mvmidpal abuses of all kinds." 34. "Emanual B. Hart Returned for Congress," Asmonean, 8 November 1850, 21 Lyon reported on how New York City residents voted for Congress, singling out the Third, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Districts. In the Third District there were five wards, and Hart won handily in each but the Third Ward. 35. "Rally for the Charter Amendments and Secure Substantial Qty Reform; Places At Which Tickets Can Be Procured," Asmonean, 3 June 1853, 53. 36. "Brief Memoir of Mr. Webster," Asmonean, 29 October 1852, 18. 86 AJ /Spring 1990

chaplains in legislative bodies. For exan\ple, when Rabbi Julius Eckman opened by prayer a legislative body in Virginia in 1850, and when Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise served as chaplain of both houses of the state legislature of New York, Lyon duly reported—^and with pride.^^ Additionally, some news of a general nature, an occasional fictional story, book reviews, letters to the editor, editorials, and translations and excerpts from other journals filled the reading columns. At times the Asmonean stooped to the sensational. For example, Lyon was not above using sensational stories about violent deaths. He reprinted a story from the Cleveland Plain Dealer that graphically described the atrocious desecration of human remains. Students from a "Homeopathic College" nearby were thought to bear responsibility for the acts.^* In another story, which Leeser never noted in his obituaries in the Occident, one Jacob Lehman of Philadelphia was killed, his body mutilated, and dismembered. Again, the gory details made for lively reading.^' Advertising grew immensely in the first two years. By the end of the second full year, the Asmonean was carrying six full pages of advertising, three at the beginning and three at the end of each twelve-page issue.*° A discount of 20 percent was allowed to secretaries of congregations, societies, agents, postmasters, and others obtaining subscribers and remitting subscriptions. Un- like other publications of this era, however, Lyon accepted non- Jewish advertising.*^ The Asmonean ran ads for roach traps, • • • • • Lyons (not related) Essence of Jamaica Ginger for dyspepsia, "The advertise- cholera, cholic, and Lyon's (not ments of the priest, gout, rheumatism, cramp, and the doctor, and the related) Kathairion for growth and embellishment of hair.*^ lawyer appear as Other products included Dr. T. Finchei's Vegetable Eureka Plas- soon as tne immigrant community ter, Dr. Rogers' Compound Syrup of Loverwort, Tar, and Chan- attains any size. chalagua. Dr. Drake's Chinese Hair Cream, Amidon Fashion- - Robert Park, The able Hatter, Dr. Houghton's Pepsin, and Marsh's Universal Joint Inwnlgrant Press and Its Control. and Self-Adjusting Tniss.*^ Among his first and most steady advertisers was Mawson and Bros. Furs of New York and Philadelphia—and later San Francisco—relatives of Mrs. Lyon. Another advertiser was J.M. Jackson, a New York printer of Hebrew and English materials.**

37. "Theological and Philosophical," Asmonean, 8 October 1852, 246-47; and

"Prayer I," Asmonean, 30 January 1852, 133. (Dr. Morris J. Raphall was the first Jew to deliver a prayer in Congress.) 38. "Atrocious Desecration of Human Remains," Asmonean, 27 February 1852, 185. 39. " Shocking Murder near Philadelphia," Asmonean, 16 February 1852, 149. 40. See, for example, Asmonean, 17 October 1851. 41. The rates were as follows: business cards, six dollars per year, or with a subsdption eight dollars; fifty cents for first insertion up to eight lines, with eight cents per line thereafter, or for one month or longer, six cents per line. 42. Asmonean, 12 March 1852, 208. 43. Asmonean, 21 November 1851, 55. 44. Asmonean, 16 November 1849, 24. Reed 87

Lyon seemed to give advertisers their money's worth in his paper. Articles praising the advertised products pervaded all parts of the editorial content. He even ran articles in praise of the sponsors, followed by advertisements of the "famed" products on subsequent pages, a typical general practice of the time. The Asmonean carried numerous items of special note to synagogues and societies of New York and elsewhere; however, "The Gennans probably have most seemed limited to influential organizations, especially more societies those advertising on occasion for a lay reader or a Hebrew tlian otiier immi- teacher. Lyon paid particular attention to groups that paid for grant groups except the Jews." notices of their meetings. Because such payments afforded - Parte, The another source of profit, the Asmonean adopted this as policy for Immigrant Press. a time.*^ Unfortunately, Lyon could not continue the policy, and unpaid notices found their way into the paper again. Actually, getting communal news into the editorial columns sometimes proved problematic. It seemed as if Lyon were always trying to build up the financial side of the paper. In 1850 Lyon announced that notices or reports could appear only if they either appealed to Jews as a whole or were paid for, but he relented not long after that and changed his policy, probably because of a lack of material, and printed anything he received. Not long after that, however, he reverted to the original policy and allowed only paid notices.*^ The end result of this shifting of policy was a period of incomplete reporting in the paper of Jewish communal activity in New York. The Asmonean sold for three dollars per year "invariably in advance"; it never raised its price.*^ Circulation always seemed to trouble Lyon. He tried to appeal to a large audience with many interests. Regularly the Asmonean ran a blurb that it represented two hundred thousand Jews in America and included among its subscribers "a large and increasing body of Unitarians, besides a great number of the German Citizens of the United States."** Lyon claimed many subscribers in New York as well as out of town.*' While circulation was difficult to determine, the fact that he managed to fill half his paper with advertisements must have meant a large number of readers, or at least a subscription list substantial enough to convince his advertisers. The paper probably received more income from advertising than circulation.

45. Asmonean, 2 May 1856, 20; and Asmonean, 9 May 1856, 28. 46. Asmonean, 12 July 1850, 92; 'To Correspondents," Asmonean, 14 February 1851, 129; and "Notice to Subscribers," Asmonean, 3 October 1851, 213. 47. Asmonean, 24 October 1851, 1. Also, Leeser noted in his magazine that the price of the Asmonean would be three dollars. See "The Asmonean," Occident 7 (October 1849): 379. 48. Asmonean, 25 April 1851, 7. In another issue titled 'To Advertisers," he noted that Germans, Christians, and many of the two hundred thovisand Jews in America were in the audience. Asmonean, 3 March 1852, 21. 49. Lyon noted that the new postage law allowed his Asmonean to go to any part of the Union, "California and Oregon included," for one cent or six and one- foiirth cents per quarter, or twenty-five cents per year if paid in advance. 88 AJ /Spring 1990

The paper apf)eared to be financially sound through most of its existence. However, no business records of the paper are extant; thus, one can only surmise its prosperity. The important thing to remember about Lyon is that he succeeded economically, but he also had a twice-weekly newspaper dealing with finance and conrmnerce. The advertisers in that publication probably gave him some goodwill business for his Jewish newspaper, too. To that end, for example, the last issue, of eight pages, carried five full pages of advertising, minus one-third of a colunrn for editorial material relating to the ads. Most issues filled the first three pages with advertisements, for Jewish boar- dings, seminaries, Hebrew books, insurance (fire, marine, life), baniks, patent medicines, clothing, liquors, looking glasses, shipping, express companies, railroads, storage, musical instru- ments, guns and ammunition, legal counsellors, and brokers. Lyon continually rebuked those who subscribed to his paper on credit or who never got around to paying him. Apparently he willingly sent the paper to those who had not sent in subscrip>- tion money in order to keep their names on the precious lists for advertisers.^" Some never paid for even the first year's subscription, yet he sent them the paper for years. People also received the paper for a couple of years and then stopped taking it, without settling with Lyon. "We do not complain, such treatment is always the fortune of papers issued on credit, and yet our terms are cash."^^ He thought of publishing the names of delin- quents as the New York Tribune published daily receipts. He threatened to strike from the subscription list all who were in arrears for more than the current year, and in the future not to send the paper to anyone who did not comply with his regulations—"Payment in advance."^^ In answer to letters of praise and encouragement, he wrote that obtaining five, ten, or twenty subscribers would do more than a "whole volume of praise," and he asked readers to circulate the work. He also offered a bargain: for every five subscriptions remitted, he would send six copies, the last presumably to the solicitor. From the outset Lyon recognized that the majority of the Hebrew population in America was German-speaking, and, therefore, a portion of the paper had to be in that language.^^ He felt impaired because he could not effectively reach a great mass of the German-speaking population. He thought he needed a German supplement, in order to attract the large and ever-increasing number of German-speaking Jews in the city and

50. "Qiquism and its Advocates," Asmonean, 26 December 1851, 92. 51. "Editing a Paper,"Asmonean,10 September 1852, 197. 52. 'To Our Subscribers," Asmonean, 24 December 1852, 112. He threatened to stop sending papers to those two years in arrears, and later announced no more credit for subscribers; he would supply the paper only when it was paid for. See Asmonean, 10 September 1852, 197. 53. "The Asmonean in German," Asmonean, 30 May 1851, 44. Reed 89

around the country. Heknew little German, however, and found it necessary to hire an assistant for the task. Finally, in 1851, after repeated pledges, he issued one supplement and promptly scuttled it.^ But advertisements printed in German continued to appear frequently.^^ In 1856, he printed sections in German in a "In 1855 a vhriolic few issues, titled Der Asmonean. This creation seemed improp>- exchange was tak- erly timed, for most German-speaking Jews interested in the ing place in tlie subject matter were reading either Die Deborah from Cincinnati Jewish-English press. Orthodox Sinai Baltimore by Rabbi David by Rabbi Isaac Wise or the from editors blamed Einhom. Advertisements in German ran frequently in the As- tendencies toward monean, but these came mainly from business firms, such as assimilation on the changes in Juda- American Express, which probably could not estinwte Lyon's ism, and reform German-speaJking readers.^^ Lyon also added a German depart- editors blamed Christian mission- ment, and at times ran the editorial page in German, heading it aries." "Der Asmonean" in medieval typescript.^^ - Theus, In order to create a more objective, systematic, quantitative, "From Orthodoxy to Reform and generalizable description of the kinds of articles and editorials the Asmonean carried, I conducted a content analysis of a sample issues. I chose the first and last volumes of the Asmonean, then randomly selected five other volumes to sample. I then attached random numbers from a table to every issue in those volumes. The final sample included 3,987 items.

I used the same six coding categories developed by Marion T. Marzolf in her pioneering work on the Danish-language press, but created three additional categories appropriate to this study.^ The unit of analysis was the entire article or item. I defined each unit of analysis in writing, then trained two coders in using the instrument and the category system. I told them to code content as it appeared, rather than as the editor may have intended it. Nevertheless, coders frequently could not agree, so I elaborated the original definitions in order to improve reliability ratios.^' Coders classified each article into one of the following nine pol- ynary categories:

1 . Surveillance of the environment: collecting useful information

54. "Our Paper," Asmonean, 27 June 1851, 76ff. 55. See, for example, Asmonean, 23 January 1852, 126. 56. See, for example, Asmonean, 16 January 1852, 117. The German advertisements stretched to fill one page plus one column. He carried English translations of the German immediately below each article, including one story ending with a list of persons' names typeset in the German and En^ish alphabets. 57. Asmonean, 30 May 1856, 50. 58. Marion Tuttle Marzolf, The Danish-Language Press in America (New York: Amo, 1977). 59. The intercoder agreement was 91 percent. The formula used to calculate intercoder reliability was Holsti's: CR = 2M/flMl+N2), where M equals the number of coding decisions in which there is agreement, and Nl and N2 represent the total number of coding decisions by coder 1 and coder 2, respectively. Ole R. Holsti, Content Analysis for the Social Sciences and Humanities (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1969). See also, Guido H. Stempel III, "Content Analysis," in Research Methods in Mass Communication, ed. Guido H. Stempel III and Bruce H. Westley (Englewood Qiffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1981), 19-31. 90 AJ /Spring 1990

for the immigrant in the new society. Hard news. 2. Correlation of the parts of the society: mediating between the two cultures by interpreting the inunigrant's role to him. Serving as a forum. Publishers needed to have a way of edi- torializing, sometimes by letters airing their views. 3. Transmission of the social heritage from one generation to the next: passing on the older culture or the American ethnic group identity. Heritage-culture. A lesson. 4. Entertainment: amusing without regard to particular effect. 5. Accomodation experience of the ethnic group: analyzing cultural and religious factors that aid or hinder assimilation and evaluating the group's standing over time. Help immigrant accommodate to American life. 6. American press histofy: identifying trends for the period of study, history in relation to the Jewish press. Comparisons to other ethnic press developments. Includes circulation notices, prospectuses, other information about publications. 7. Community building: reporting on other communities in a way that creates a feeling of a larger community, that en- hances the feeling of "we're not just a little isolated group." A way of pointing with pride and bolstering up. 8. Non-local hard news of the Jewish community. 9. Other (includes non-Jewish material). As Table 1 shows, there is a marked change of in the types of items Lyon ran in the Asmonean. In particular, a steady progression can be discerned from emphasis on Jewish instruction and transmission of the culture to offering news of a non-Jewish nature. Lyon emphasized transmission initially. He also covered the news in volumes 1 and 2 (1849-50) more comprehensively than at any other period. He apparently had a backlog of hard news items. However, he quickly learned how to use a scissors, for by the second volume he had dramatically increased non- Jewish items from other sources. He covered the theatrical scene and literary life of New York, taking material from foreign publications such as the Edinburgh Review, Les Matinees du Samdei, "Fully one-third of Blackwood's Magazine, and Mainzer Zeitung. Material from do- the articles pn a mestic publications such as the New York Presbyterian and Godey's sample of the As- monean] called for Lady's Book appeared frequently, too. religious liberw, Also almost doubling was non-local news from the Jewish cultural inclusive- still items. By ness, and polKical community, although transmission had many participation by volume 9 there was a virtually equal number of non-local news Jews, oolh at items from the Jewish community and non-Jewish items. The honieand abroad." shift from the first volume's combination of transmission, sur- -Theus, veillance, and correlation to non-local community news and "From Orthodoxy non-Jewish items was complete. The accommodation category to Reform. swelled in volume 9, possibly because of the impact of a controversial book on that topic that was discussed in Lyon's paper. Volume 1 saw even more non-Jewish items and non-local news

from the Jewish community, more than five hundred . By volume Reed 91

Table 1 Content of Articles in the Asmonean

Volumes Sampled

Type of Content 1 2 9 10 14 15 17 Surveillance 104 46 26 11 13 8 11 Correlation 91 18 13 9 9 10 37 Transmission 191 112 46 92 29 45 51 Entertainment 9 4 1 1 Accommodation 55 44 62 44 24 8 13 Press Notes 46 48 13 16 24 24 35 Local Community 84 58 70 21 54 48 43 Non-local Comm. 76 137 197 264 101 86 81 Non-Jewish Items 33 152 198 241 157 148 215 Totals: 689 619 625 699 412 377 486

14, non-Jewish items exceeded non-local news from the Jewish community, with local community items coming in third, but with fewer than half the items. By volume 15, non-Jewish items dominated, followed by non-local news from the Jewish community, which has less than half the number of items. News of the local community and transmission are nearly the same. Finally, in volume 17, the total dominance of non-Jewish items can be seen. Such items appear almost three times as often as non-local news from the Jewish community, the second largest category. As time went on, Lyon may have felt more comfortable in America and may have wanted to share material of interest to a very wide audience. His readers were more comfortable as well, although Lyon sought a non-Jewish audience. Surely, if the Uni- tarians and Germans were reading his publication, such material would appeal to them more than the strictly Jewish material. Perhaps, too, such material served as part of an economic strategy, in his attempt to attract more advertisers. Coders also examined a nonrandom sample of the i4smon£an's editorials, to see whether they showed the same patterns of coverage as the news. They examined eight lead editorials in each year that the Asmonean was published. As Table 2 suggests, the editorials do not show any particular trend over time. In the sample there is only one editorial on non-Jewish subjects, a|> pearing in 1851, despite the increasing number of news items in that category. Lyon apparently viewed his editorial mission as very Jewish, though his editorials did cover topics that would have interested non-Jewish readers, too, such as divorce, unity, religious education, cemeteries, and abolition of the death pen- alty. Non-local news from the Jewish community followed at 20 jjercent, and offered information about Jews in other places: China, England, Switzerland, Palestine, and Afghanistan. 92 AJ /Spring 1990

Table 2 Content of Selected Editorials in the Asmonean

Years, 1849-58 Type of Content 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58

Surveillance 1 Correlation 2 3 1 3 2 2 3 6 2 Transmission 1 1 3 2 1 3 Entertainment Accommodation 4 3 2 1 1 1 2 Press Notes 1 1 1 1 1 1 Local Community 1 1 1 1 2 1 Non-Local Comm. 1 3 3 4 1 1 3 Non-Jewish Items 1

During the first four years of the Asmonean, correlation stories, relating the parts of society and interpreting the experience for the immigrant, accounted for 28 percent of the editorials. In Lyon's paper, this often meant conunent on a political or newsworthy event. Other times, Lyon would comment on the doings of local societies and organizations. An even larger category, at 31 percent, was accommodation. During the second four years in print, the Asmonean pretty much maintained the pattern it had established during the first four years under study. Editorials commented on the success of Jews' Hospital, the promptness of the New York Fire Depart- ment in responding to a local fire, the Ladies Fair at B'nai "For some German Jeshurun to aid the poor, and the devoted local Jewish citizen Jews, the German milieu in Anierica whose hard work benefited the community. Correlation ac- was so fully satis- counted for 22 percent of all editorial topics; non-local commu- fying that tney nity news and transmission for 44 percent. The transmission or more or less abandoned their ances- teaching function, in part, fulfilled Lyon's promise for his paper. tral Judaism." Lyon, ever the Englishman, wrote repeatedly on the Jew Bill - Gartner, in "ImniigratJon and England, which was rejected time and again in Parliament but American Jewry." which came up for passage regularly. Every term the House of

Commons passed it, but the House of Lords saw to its defeat. This bill would have abolished from the oath the words "on the faith of a Christian.""' Jews found this an unacceptable mixing of church and state. Thus, one can see Lyon's ability to write editorials with news pegs. Moreover, he even editorialized on the president of the United States.^^ Lyon from the beginning wanted to use his publication as a vehicle for establishing unity, at first among New York's diverse Jewish population and, later, nationally. He called for a census

60. See for excunple, "The Jews of England," Asmonean, 29 October 1852, 18-19. See also, "The Oath's Bill," Asmonean, 9 April 1858, 204. 61. Asmonean, 6 March 1857, 164, for remarks on Buchanan's inaugural address. Reed 93

of the Israelites in the United States, asking trustees and officers ofcongregations and societies throughout the country to furnish particulars about their associations, names of officers, nun\ber of members, and so forth." His Orthodox background led him, like Leeser, to the inevitable conclusion that a Beth Din, a national ecclesiastical authority, would be the best method to achieve his goal. "Unity is Strength," wrote Lyon. While regretting the lack of a reliable count of the number of Jews in America, or even of New York City, Lyon noted announcements from societies in the city. He found that "The public are astounded at the numerous list of The great majority [of German Jews} its members"; one society, only fifteen months old, had three . . . remained with- hundred. B'nai B'rith had seven hundred New York members. in Judaism and "We doubt if the majority of these p)ersons are members of the created a vereion satisfying to their other friendly institutions," Lyon wrote. There were nine lodges, desire for a reli- with fifteen hundred members in Cincinnati, Baltimore, Phila- gion which harmo- delphia, and New York, and B'nai B'rith was only eight years old nized intellectually with contemporary B'nai B'rith then." Furthermore, Lyon believed that the would liberalism, ration- continue to flourish "until it counts its supporters by thousands alism, and histori- instead of hundreds." He praised the bonds binding member to cal scholarship." - Gartner, member, the principles and values of the religion and morality, "Immigration and aiding the feeble, helping the afflicted, and guarding the widow American Jewry." and orphan. Yet he never wanted his newspaper to serve only one group. Party is the madness of many. We assume to have an opinion aiming at impartiality without deviating to the right or the left. We shall express what we think fearlessly, granting to others the same unfettered right of expression. English by birth, we do not dis- avow a latent feeling from respect from the

institution. . . . American by self-adoption, we are strongly imbued with the justice and truth of republican principles, indeed we have constantly in mind the career of our ancestors, whose course from a nomade [sic] tribe to a monarchy was that of a pure democracy, pagan history can furnish few examples more enduring, in our political aspirations we are re- publicans, in our religious faith we are Hebrews, not English, or German, Portuguese or Polish, but Jews, units of a great aggregate Heretofor [sic], there has been too much sectional feeling, dividing congregations and societies, impeding their healthy action upon momentous." Lyon spoke out: he wanted unity and peace, the "balms" for the evils that had passed. He thought the antagonistic powers

62. 'To Correspondents," Asmonean, 14 December 1849, 57. 63. "Unity is Strength," Asmonean, 7 February 1851, 124. 64. 'The Unity of Judaism," Asmonean, 8 November 1849, 4. 94 AJ /Spring 1990

possessed sufficient moral courage to forego the heat inflicted

on the "body they . . . profess to venerate."*^ Lyon made a living by purveying news; he did not obtrude his personality on the Asmonean. He felt people would not support a "party" organ, and he probably did not have the confidence of those knowledgeable about theological matters to call attention to himself and thrust his own opinions onto his readers. Editors ofother antebellum publications going to the Jewish community in America subserved the ideas which they wanted to advance. As editor of the Asmonean, Lyon wanted to conduct a publication for a wide audience. Producing a publication for the benefit of one party, he thought, would only cripple the effectiveness of that editorial effort. Because Lyon appealed to a wider audience, his paper appealed to advertisers. He sought to make Jewish readers more American by acquiring knowledge about the country they now lived in and how it operated. He ran stories about reading material, books, and magazines of his day. His theater reviews and reviews of dance and vocal performances appeared frequently. He also ran whole pages of market items and prices, including "By 1690 nearly pork, lard, and ham." He needed to take in a fair amount of every synagogue foundea by Ger- money, however, because he paid his editorial workers, colum- man Jews had nists, and translators. overturned the tra- instruction from Mordecai Manual Noah, a su- ditions of centu- Lyon had ries and talcen up perbly successful editor.^^ The two men engaged in discussions the new way." about a Noah-Lyon weekly newspaper." However, the newspa- - Gartner, "Immigration and per never appeared.^' Lyon advocated community develoj> American Jewry." ment, and corrected instances of corruption, deception, or injustice. Thus it was the Asmonean that led the fight for a Jewish hospital based on democratic practices, and that repeatedly urged the establishment of a Jewish orphan asylum. It was Robert Lyon who decried the unnecessary duplication of Jewish charities in New York, and who sought Jewish schools. The Asmonean can be praised for its public service. Surely Lyon had a sense of the role of an editor and journal- istically the conception of a newspaper as opposed to a publica-

65. Albany," Asmonean, 11 October 1850, 1%. 66. See, for example, Asmonean, 16 July 1852, 105. 67. Jonathan D. Sama, Jacksonian Jew: The Two Worlds of Mordecai Noah (New York: Holmes and Meier, 1981), 128. This book is the definitive treatment of Noah. 68. "News Items: New York," Occident 5 (August 1847): 274. "We are almost

sure it would result in a pecuniary loss . . . there is as yet no reading Jewish public of a great extent in America; from Christians but little support can be expected; and the German Jews who are here will hardly encourage any publication, even in their own language. Our friends may take our word for it, as we have sufficient experience of the extent of support realised, to speak with more certainty than they can, of the prospects of any Jewish pubhcation vmder present circumstances. Ten years hence it will be different." 69. Nevertheless Noah may have assisted financially, as Lyon himself hinted. Noah probably taught Lyon how to conduct a truly local paper. Reed 95

tion for the dissemination of views. Indeed, Lyon's newspaper was truly for a mass audience. The Asmonean reached out to readers, to provide leadership in the conununity, a community at once assimilating yet recognizing its special place in America. Yet Lyon recognized that American Jews had interests outside the American Jewish community. Therefore, he determined it was feasible to run articles dealing with business, the theater, literature, and politics. Lyon developed an excellent financial section, perhaps modeled on the "money page" of James Gordon Bennett's Herald. He aggressively promoted his advertisers, although some advertisements smacked of bad taste, quackery, and sensationalism. Certainly the Asmonean looked like the most financially successful Jewish publication of the era. Unfortu- nately his publication died with him, although for weeks after his death his widow pleaded for somebody to buy the paper or at least conduct it—to no avail. The paper folded.^"

70. 'To the Subscribers of the 'Asmonean' and the Jewish Public in General," As- monean, 19 March 1858, 180; Asmonean, 26 March 1858, 188; 'To the Subscribers of the 'Asmonean' and the Jewish Public in General," and "A Tribute and a Consolation," Asmonean, 2 April 1858, 196; 'To the Subscribers of the 'As- monean' and the Jewish Public in General," Asmonean, 9 April 1858, 204; Asmonean, 16 April 1858, 4; and Asmonean, 14 May 1858, 36. (Numbers 2, 3, and 4 were missing.) It should be noted that Rabbi Isaac Bondi of Anshe Chesed started the Hebrew Leader in 1859, which ran imtil 1874; the early issues are missing. .

THEODORE ROOSEVELT: PUBLIC RELATIONS PIONEER How TR Controlled Presidential Press Coverage

Rodger Streitmatter

NO AMERICAN PRESIDENT HAS played a larger role in insti- tutionalizing public relations in the White House than did Theodore Roosevelt. Between 1901 and 1909, Roosevelt revolutionized presidential news coverage by dominating the news—and news reporters—through the calculated publicizing of his personality, his personal life, and news events he contrived. The larger-than-life Roosevelt radiated publicity and became a master press agent for himself and his adnunistration.^ And yet Roosevelt's acumen for and success at public relations have never been adequately recognized by president-press observers, who, instead, have blamed recent presidents for allowing public relations to eclipse press relations at the White House. Those observers have attributed public relations techniques such as staged news events, the photo opportunity, the calculated timing of announcements, the anonymous source, and the manipulation and coercion of the press corps to the ad- ministrations of the last half century.^ But all of these techniques

1 Two of the reporters who covered Roosevelt discuss his success at attracting publicity in their writings. They are Isaac Marcosson, Adventures in Interviewing

(New York: John Lane, 1920), 85; J.J. Dickinson, "Theodore Roosevelt: Press- Agent," Harper's Weekly, 28 September 1907, 1410. 2. Many works attribute the creation of White House public relations techniques to presidents who have served since Theodore Roosevelt. For examples regarding Dwight D. Eisenhower, see Robert F. Burk, Dwight D. Eisenhower: Hero and Politician (Boston: G.K. Hall, 1986), 148-50; Marquis Childs, Eisenhower: Captive Hero (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1958), 218-21; Peter Lyon, Eisenhower: Portrait of the Hero (Boston: Little, Brown, 1974), 483-84, 511; James E. Pollard, Rodger Streitmatter "Eisenhower and the Press: The Partial News Vacuum," Journalism Quarterly 33 is an associate pro- (Winter 1976): 3-8; John Tebbel and Sarah Miles Watts, The Press and the fessor in the Scnool Presidency: From George Washington to Ronald Reagan (New York: Oxford Univer- of Communlcalion sity Press, 1985), 464-76. For examples regarding John F. Kennedy, see Victor at the American Lasky, JFK: The Man and the Myth (New York: Macmillan, 1963), 531-35; Michael University in Wash- Schudson, Discovering the News (New York: Basic,1978), 171-72; Tebbel and ington, D.C. Watts, The Press and the Presidency, 476-89. For examples regarding Lyndon originated during the Theodore Roosevelt presidency in the first decade of this century. This article identifies and discusses Theodore Roosevelt's public relations techniques, many of which condnue to exist, in more sophisticated forms, in today's White House. Concur- rently, then, the findings of this article suggest that many of the obstacles that members of the presidential press corps face in the 1990s are not new. For those obstacles were firmly planted at the White House a century ago. The second half of the nineteenth century was not a period of rapid advancement in the president-press relationship. During this period, the political parties generally controlled the office of the presidency, while the individuals in that office were characterized by a general level of mediocrity. From the perspective of the press, the White House was not an imp>ortant source of news, and not a single correspondent regularly covered the Executive Mansion.^ Congressmen had been much quicker than presidents to recognize the benefits of publicity. So the legislators had, in 1823, established press galleries in both the Senate and House of Representatives.^ The fifty correspondents working in Washing- ton learned about the activities of the president second hand, through congressmen who met regularly with the president and then recalled those meetings for the correspondents gathered in the press galleries.^ The president-press relationship had been

Johnson, see Paul Conkin, Big Daddy from the Pedemcdes (Boston: Twayne, 1986), 184-86; David Cuthbert, '7ohnson and the Media," in Exploring the Jc^nson Years (Aiistin: University of Texas Press, 1981), 214-30; Schudson, Discovering the News, 171-72; Alfred Steinberg, Sam ]6hnson's Boy (New York: Macmillan, 1968), 536; Tebbel and Watts, The Press and the Presidency, 489-500. For examples regarding Richard Nixon, see James David Barber, The Pulse of Politics: Electing Presidents in the Media Age (New York: W.W. Norton, 1980), 320; James Deakin, Straight Stuff—The Reporters, the White House, and the Truth (New York: William Morris, 1984), 255-94; Tebbel and Watts, The Press and the Presidency, 500-15; Theodore White, The Making of the President 1968 (New York: Signet Books, 1970), 130. For examples regarding Jimmy Carter, see Michael Baruch Gross- man and Martha Joynt Kumar, Portraying the President: The White House and the

News Media (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1 981 ), 1 1-1 2; Laurence H. Shoup, The Carter Presidency, and Beyond (Palo Alto, Calif.: Ramparts Press, 1980), 67-68, 94; Tebbel and Watts, The Press and the Presidency, 521-31. For examples regarding Ronald Reagan, see David S. Broder, Behind the Front Page: A Candid Look at How the News Is Made (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987), 180-82; William H. Chafe, The Unfinished Journey: America Since World War II (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 478-«0; Bill Plante, "Why We Were Shouting at the President," Washington Post, 11 October 1987, 7(H); Tebbel and Watts, The Press and the Presidency, 53 1 -53; Steven Weisman, "The President and the Press: The Art of Controlled Access," New York Times Magazine, 14 October 1984, 35-37. 3. "W.W. Price Dead; Washington Editor," New York Times, 25 October 1931, 28; "'Bill' Price Dies after Operation," Washington Star, 25 October 1931, B-12. 4. Delbert Qark, Washington Dateline (New York: Frederick A. Stokes, 1941), 15; "News of Congress," Washington Evening Star, 21 December 1895, 10. 5. "News of Congress, A Visit to the Press Galleries in Both Houses," Washington Evening Star, 21 December 1895, 16; Tebbel and Watts, The Press and the Presidency, 319. 98 AJ/Spring 1990

languishing in virtual dormancy, then, when Roosevelt was suddenly thrust into the White House. Roosevelt stormed the presidency with the confidence that often can be found in a person reared in a wealthy, patridan family where all things seem possible. Indeed, before Roosevelt turned forty years of age, he already had achieved the impossible. Despite childhood illness that prevented him from pro- gressing through traditional schooling, Roosevelt had overcome his physical limitations to earn a Phi Beta Kappa key from Harvard and to become a military hero as a Rough Rider cavalryman.^ Both his privileged upbringing and his personal triumphs inclined Roosevelt toward flexibility and a willingness to experiment with new approaches and to forge new paths. During his two terms in office, Roosevelt developed a new relationship with the fledgling Washington press corps. He re- defined that relationship, establishing press relations as a recognized public function of the chief executive. A master of self-promotion, he secured his original popularity by his publicity, and then he extended and strengthened that popularity through more publicity. Above all the other men of his time, Roosevelt understood the power and necessity of publicity if a person is to achieve substantive results.^ Roosevelt recognized the effect that news had on public opinion and then exploited that effect, experimenting with innovative public relations techniques by "Continually opposed by his which he made journalism work for him. party's chieftains, Roosevelf s presidency coincided with the American news- [Roosevelt] could not have climbed paper's evolution into a big business.* As publishers invested in- to the Presidency creasingly larger sums of capital in newspapers, they felt mount- without an aKema- ing pressure to build the large circulations that would attract ad- tive channel to power. For TR, the vertisers. Tum-of-the-century publishers, therefore, learned and channel was the responded to the reality that the masses would rather be enter- new mass-circula- tained by personal details about people in the news than read tion newspaper, exploding on the technical details about statecraft. In covering the White House, scene in New Yorl( therefore, newspapers eagerly emphasized human-interest City just as he was trivia p)er- gearing up his ca- material. During the Progressive Era, the from the reer." sonal lives of American presidents became a staple of the White - James D. Barber, House press corps.' The Pulse of Politics. Roosevelt fit perfectly with the new emphasis on personal coverage. Reporters covering the White House—as well as their readers—were captivated by Roosevelf s robust, dynamic per-

6. Roscoe Thayer, Theodore Roosevelt (New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1919), 126; David McCullough, Mornings on Horseback (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1981), 207. 7. Dickinson, "Theodore Roosevelt," 1410.

8. J. Lincoln Steffens, "The Business of a Newspaper," Scribner's Magazine 22 (October 1897): 447; "The Advance of Fifty Years," Editor and Publisher, 5 October 1901, 4. 9. This trend is discussed by president-press scholar George Juergens in News From the Vfhite House: The Presidential-Press Relationship in the Progressive Era (Chicago: Uruversity of Chicago Press, 1981), 7. Streitmatter 99

sonality, to the point that who Roosevelt was and how Roosevelt lived sometimes overshadowed what he did, although he did quite a lot.^° Roosevelt recognized that newspapers had changed since the Civil War. The era of the powerful publishers, such as James Gordon Bennett, Charles Dana, and Horace Greeley, had passed; the era of the news reporter had arrived. Roosevelt said: "In our country, I am inclined to think that almost, if not quite, the most important profession is that of the newspaper man. He wields great influence."" On another occasion, Roosevelt said: "It is, of course, a truism to say that no other body of our countrymen wield as extensive an influence as those who write for the daily press and for the other periodicals."^^ Roosevelt knew that modem, industrialized, urbanized Amer- ica wanted facts, not opinions, and that it wanted those facts pre- "[Roosevelt] is the most adroit, tlie sented in terse bulletins, not flowery discourse. Roosevelt accu- most far-seeing, rately gauged the importance of the individual reporter, under- the f ranicest, and standing that, among the masses of the early 19(X)s, news stories the least secretive of the entire guild in that appeared on the front page were more effective molding of publicity pro- public opinion than were cerebral editorials. If he could use his moters upon the personality to influence how reporters wrote about him on page round earth to-day." one, it would not matter a great deal what the sages might say - J.J. Dickinson, about his policies on the editorial page. Theodore Roosevelt: Essentially, Roosevelt saw the public's insatiable curiosity Press Agent." about the president as a resource, not a threat. That curiosity offered Roosevelt the opportunity to dramatize himself, to become a symbol of the country he was leading into world prominence. If the minutiae of a president's life were of public interest, the president could achieve a mythic status. He could grow larger than life and, by so doing, rise to a higher plane than that of the people who might challenge him. Roosevelt was aware that it would serve him well to flood the newspapers with stories about himself, regardless of the degree to which that meant his personal life was exposed to public view. Understanding the advantages of remaining constantly in the public eye, Roosevelt willingly revealed himself—or at least the image he created of himself—^to a curious public. Roosevelfs publicity-seeking techniques can best be analyzed through the discussion of seven general public relations principles that guided him. Together, these techniques and these principles define Roosevelt's strategy in relating to the press and, ultimately, to the public. First, Roosevelt expanded the boundaries of presidential news. The traditional definition of White House news—a daily

10. David S. Barry, who covered Roosevelt for the New York Sun, discussed this point in Forty Years in Washington (Boston: Little, Brown, 1924), 263. 11. Frank L. Mott and R.D. Casey, Interpretations of Journalism (New York: F.S. Crofts, 1937), 472. 12. Dickinson, 'Theodore Roosevelt," 1410. 100 AJ /Spring 1990

chronicle of official activity—was too passive for him. Roosevelt was the first occupant of the White House who understood that, with imagination, the president could generate news on demand and dominate the news by making his personality and personal life of compelling public interest. He knew that the president, unlike any other government official, can be certain of universal newspaper play by merely releasing an item about a routine activity in his daily life.^^ 'Teddy" Roosevelt captured the imagination of the press and the public. When he ascended to the presidency at the age of forty-three, he became the youngest man ever to enter the White House—fifteen years younger than his predecessor. And, unlike Grover Cleveland and William McKinley before him, he was dynamic, with a great deal of personal magnetism. Roosevelt biographer Edmund Morris wrote: 'Teddy Roosevelt is a man of such overwhelming physical impact that he stamps himself immediately on the consciousness."^* And a contemporary of Roosevelt provided a graphic image when he observed: "You go to the White House, you shake hands with Roosevelt and hear him talk—and then you go home to wring the personality out of your clothes."^^ Roosevelt used the East Room for bouts with Japanese jujitsu experts and Chinese wrestlers, and Secret Serv- ice men struggled to keep up with him during his daily hikes and horseback rides.^^ Such activities translated into compelling newspaper copy. Typical was a front-page story in the New York Times titled "President's Riding Pace Too Fast for Troopers." The story described Roosevelf s visit to Chattanooga, Tennessee, where members of his party rode in carriages while the president mounted a horse: The cavalcade was hardly under way before the President started his horse at a sharp trot, and for a mile and a half led the regiment a merry chase over the battlefield. The pace was so hot that several of the troopers were unhorsed, and it was necessary to call the ambulance corps into service.'^ Today's reader is amazed by the lack of substance in many of the stories written about Roosevelt. Non-news clearly had the potential of garnering prominent coverage, as long as it involved the president. A story on the front page of the Washington Post,

13. George E. Reedy, press secretary to President Lyndon Johnson, discusses this topic in The Twilight of the Presidency (New York: New American Library, 1970), 102. 14. Edmtind Morris, The Rise ofTheodore Roosexjelt (New York: Coward, McCann and Geoghegan, 1979), 20. 15. Edward Wagenknecht, The Seven Worlds of Theodore Roosevelt (New York: Longmans, Green, 1958), 108. 16. Tliayer, Theodore Roosevelt, 270. 17. "President's Riding Pace Too Fast for Troopers,"N«u York Times, 7 Septem- ber 1903, 1. Streitmatter 101

for example, began: 'Tresident Roosevelt passed a quiet Sunday with his family at his Sagamore Hill home."" A New York Times story was created simply by the White House announcing who had visited Roosevelt one day while he was vacationing at Oyster Bay: 'Tresident Roosevelt had four guests at luncheon this afternoon. They were invited some time ago." All four men said their visits were social, not official, but that did not prevent the most powerful newspaper in the country from devoting thirty column inches of its front page to the minute details.^' While Roosevelt never hesitated to publicize his own personal activities, his willingness to extend that publicity to his There were 58 correspondents in is his as a public relations children a testament to growth Washington in pioneer. When Roosevelt entered the White House, he attempted 1868, and 171 by to shield his children from the press. "I want to feel that there is 1900. ..209 in 1920, 251 a decade a circle drawn about my family," he told reporters. "I ask you to iater. ... in 1962 respect their privacy."*' If a reporter violated the First Family's . . . there were 4,300 accredited privacy, faced Roosevelt's wrath. Just before the family's first he members. Thanksgiving in the White House, for example, a New York -JohnTebbei World reporter wrote that the Roosevelt children had tormented and Sarah Miies Watts, The Press turkeys being fattened up on the south grounds of the mansion, and the Presidency. chasing and frightening them. The president ordered that news from the White House and executive departments no longer be given to the World^^ But Roosevelt soon made a 180-degree turn regarding press coverage of his family, realizing that his six children—ages three to seventeen when he entered office—could keep the Roosevelt name in the newspaper on dull news days. The change was documented by Alice Roosevelt Longworth in her autobiography. She recalled, with incredulity, that, before her family entered the White House, "'Publicity' for the members of a politician's family was not considered either necessary or 'nice.'"^ But then the First Daughter discussed how her father had ended the ban on the First Family being a source of publicity. She said: "Being photographed became almost a matter of course."^ The Roosevelt children made their way into print through the spotlighting of their various antics and personality traits. Ethel, for example, became the greatest tomboy in First Family history through reports about her strength and courage. Typical of newspaper stories that helped create this reputation was an At- lanta Constitution article titled "Ethel Roosevelt Is Nervy." The

18. "Sunday at Sagamore Hill," Washington Post, 29 June 1903, 1. 19. "The President's Guests," New York Times, 12 July 1902, 1. 20. Mary Randolph, secretary to seven presidents and personal friend of dozens of First Family members, quotes this statement in Presidents and First Ladies (New York: D. Appleton-Centtiry, 1936), 179. 21. Barry, Forty Years in Washington, 269. 22. Alice Roosevelt Longworth, Crowded Hours (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1933), 34. 23. Longworth, Crowded Hours, 34. 102 AJ /Spring 1990

Story described how the cinch on Ethel's pony had slipped, resulting in the eleven-year-old landing on the ground: The pony reared and was about to pitch forward, when Ethel cried out to him sharply and, recognizing the voice of his mistress, the pony stood perfectly still while the little rider extricated her skirts from the stirrup and sprang to her feet She declined all offers of aid, readjusted the saddle herself and rode off again. But for her sharp cry to the pony it would have trampled upon her chest.^* Such stories enhanced the president's image as a strong, re- "Much of sourceful leadpr who could survive any crisis. President-press RooMvelt't suc- historians have concluded that Roosevelt was well aware of the cess asa politician, his prominence as benefits of such stories.^ a reformer, his Second, Roosevelt recognized that a person in the public eye leading posHlonas a progressive can increase his or her publicity value through dramatic state- came from his ments and actions. So the image-conscious Roosevelt put his ability as a politi- various natural abilities into use to generate publicity. cal journalist. He hammered out his Roosevelt, for example, sprinkled his speech with vivid phras- phrases wHh the ing, choosing words that would look good in the newspaper the sidll of an experi- next day. Roosevelt carefully considered the choice of his words, enced craftsman and the unceasing weighing the precise effect of each one.^^ The list of clever, eneray of a memorable statements that came from his mouth reads like a propnet." - Aloysius Norton, guide for how to be quotable for the press or, in contemporary Theodon terms, how to speak in television sound bites. On foreign policy: Roosevelt. "Speak softly and carry a big stick." On the Spanish-American War: "It wasn't much of a war, but it was the best war we had." On his decision to run for president in 1912: "My hat is in the ring." On the hapless feeling of every parent of a teenager: "I can be president of the United States—or—1 can attend to Alice." Roosevelt coined many punchy words and phrases that remain a part of the language to this day, including: muckrakers, trustbusters, malefactors of great wealth, square deal, bull moose, and lunatic fringe. Roosevelt also staged events and actions to reap additional publicity. An entertainer, he tailored a good deal of his show for the press. For example, Roosevelt did not simply plan a hunting trip to Colorado in 1905—he orchestrated it. Roosevelt biographer Henry F. Pringle wrote that the president was "nervously anxious" to appear in the best light as a hunter. "The first bear must fall to my rifle. This sounds selfish, but you know the kind

24. "Ethel Roosevelt Is Nervy," Atlanta Constitution, 11 July 1902, 1. 25. Jcunes E. Pollard, the pioneer in the study of president-press relations, came to this conclusion in his book. The Presidents and the Press (New York: Maanillan, 1947), 569. 26. Charles Willis Thompson, who covered Roosevelt for the New York Times, discusses the president's precision as a wordsmith in Presidents I've Known (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1929), 115. Streitmatter 103

of talk there will be in the newspapers about such a hunt," Roosevelt wrote a fellow hunter. "It n\ust be a success, and the success must come to me."^^ Other overt acts that Roosevelt undertook, at least partly as publicity stunts, included descend- ing to the bottom of Long Island Sound in a navy submarine, operating a steam shovel while he was in Panama observing progress on construction of the canal, and riding ninety-eight miles on horseback in seventeen hours, proving that the com- mander-in-chief could meet the requirements he had set for senior military officers. But the best illustration of Rooseveltean high drama followed an act of fate. During the 1912 campaign, Roosevelt had set out to address a political rally in Milwaukee when he was shot by a fanatic opposed to the idea of a third-term president. The address was only a minor campaign event, but Roosevelt refused to alter his schedule. "I will deliver this speech or die, one or the other," he said, as though he were delivering a line from a Shakespearean tragedy.^* The next day's story, which blanketed the entire front page of the New York Times, was extraordinary, depicting Roosevelt in the heroic dimensions of a twentieth century prophet. Roosevelfs dramatic gesture had paid off, with interest: Col. Roosevelt arose and walked to the edge of the platform to quiet the crowd. He raised his hand and instantly there was silence. "If s true," he said. Then slowly he unbuttoned his coat and placed his hand on his breast. Those in the front of the crowd could catch a sight of the blood- stained garment. "I'm going to ask you to be very quiet," said Col. Roosevelt, "and please excuse me from making you a very long speech. "I'll do the best I can, but you see there is a bullet in my body."^' Roosevelt had to halt his speech four times, the story stated, because of the applause and "tumultuous cheering." Roosevelf s decision to give the speech was a public relations triumph. Regardless of whether his action was spontaneous or calculated—or some of both—it pumped new life into the campaign. Of course Roosevelt did not stage the shooting itself, nor is there proof that he made the speech for its publicity value. But the statement Roosevelt released from his hospital bed two days later certainly shows that he played the incident for all the drama he could get:

27. Henry F. Pringle, Theodore Roosevelt: A Biography (Rahway, N.J.: Quinn and Boden, 1931), 345. 28. "Maniac in Milwaukee Shoots Col. Roosevelt; He Ignores Wound, Speaks an Hour, Goes to Hospital," New York Times, 15 October 1912, 1. 29. "Maniac in Milwaukee," 1. 104 AJ /Spring 1990

"If one soldier who happens to carry the flag is stricken another will take it from his hands and carry it on. One after another the standard bearers may be laid low, but the standard itself can never fall — Tell the people not to worry about me, for if I go down another will take my place."^ Third, Roosevelt recognized that a powerful official's public image will be enhanced if the public perceives him as remaining close to the ordinary citizens whom he governs. Historian John Morton Blum described Roosevelt as "an easy companion of the woodsmen and cowboys he befriended at his ranch in the Dakotas."^^ Roosevelt, seeing the merits of such a public perception, expanded and exploited his natural ability to relate to the "little people."

Of course it is impossible in every case to know if Roosevelt consciously pursued the publicity that resulted from his interaction with everyday citizens, but he definitely sought that publicity in some cases. For example, when Roosevelt learned that a McKeesport, Pennsylvania, man had named his twentieth child 'Theodore," the president dispatched a personal letter to the father. Simultaneously, he took the extra, publicity-seeking step of distributing copies of the letter to newspaper reporters. Roosevelf s action landed him space on the front page of iheNew York Times because the newspaper reproduced the letter: "The President desires to present his congratulations to yourself and Mrs. Signet and to assure you of his hearty appreciation of the compliment paid him in the selection of a name for your son. He also wishes the young Theodore a long and prosperous life and extends his highest regards to all members of your family."32 A close reading of newspaper articles suggests that many of Roosevelf s personal activities may have been staged for their publicity benefit. A story about the family attending an Episco- pal church near Sagamore Hill, for example, stated: "At the conclusion of services an opportunity was taJcen by the members of the parish to pay their respects to the Chief Executive."^^ It is likely that it was Roosevelt who provided parishoners with that opportunity—and the newsmen with the opportunity to write their stories. Indeed, Roosevelt may have been the first president to or- chestrate a photo opportunity. When an Associated Press reporter was writing a story about Thanksgiving at the White House, Roosevelt arranged for the story to be illustrated with a

30. '"Not I, the Cause/ Roosevelt's Motto/' New York Times, 17 October 1912, 1. 31. John Morton Blum, The Progressive Presidents: TR, Wilson, FDR, LB] (New York: Norton, 1980), 23. 32. "President to His Namesake,"New York Times, 10 July 1903, 1. 33. "Sunday at Sagamore Vm," Washington Post, 29 June 1903, 1. Streitmatter 105

photograph of him signing a Thanksgiving proclamarion—even though obtaining the photograph meant staging an event. Roosevelt delayed signing the paper until the photographer arrived at the White House, then interrupted a session with his secretary of state, who was at the White House to help him prepare his annual message to the country, so that the photographer could arrange the camera and the sitting.^ Roosevelf s delaying of an important matter of state in order for a news photographer to capture the image of a contrived event contains all the components of the most popular contemporary public relations technique at the White House, the photo opportunity. Fourth, Roosevelt was aware that how news is disseminated, such as the timing and presentation of announcements, can in- "What Roosevelt wanted was a pub- fluence the quantity the quality of coverage. This and news licity machine astuteness was most clearly demonstrated in his public relations ready at hand that had only policy of timing the release of announcements to ensure the most he to crank up when- desirable treatment in the press.^ ever he needed it." Roosevelt understood the cycles of breaking news. He an- -Tebbel and Watts, The Press and the nounced negative news on Friday, ensuring that stories were Presidency. published on Saturday when many people were more interested in enjoying the weekend than in reading the newspaper. And he saved positive news until Sunday, on the other hand, because he wanted the guarantee that the stories would receive good play in Monday editions. Reporters have trouble filling Monday newspapers because most sources are dry on the weekend, when Monday stories must be written. Stories released on Sun- day, therefore, tend to receive more space and to be given stronger placement. Roosevelt was the first national politician to see the advantage of disseminating important utterances on Sunday.^* A researcher has no difficulty identifying the results of Roosevelf s calculated timing. A typical example appeared on the front page of the New York Times on a Monday in 1903. The extremely favorable story began: The interior decorative work on the White House has gone so far that it is possible to appreciate the beauty of the scheme of improvement that is being wrought out— The work that has been done on the east front to construct the new entrance has been pushed at a rapid pace lately.^^ The information contained in the article obviously was not of such a timely nature that it could not have been released the previous week. But the positive tone of the story makes it clear

34. The reporter was Arthur Wallace Dunn, who describes the event in Fmm Harrison to Harding: A Personal Narrative, Covering a Third of a Century (Port Washington, N.Y.: Kennikat Press, 1922), 2:24-25. 35. Pollard, Presidents and the Press, 569.

36. Willis J. Abbot, who covered Roosevelt for Hearst Newspapers, discusses this topic in Watching the World Go By (New York: Beekman, 1974), 244. 37. "The New White House," New York Times, 7 September 1903, 1. 106 AJ /Spring 1990

why the White House held the information for optimum play and impact. Roosevelt also timed news events to deny coverage to his political opponents, using his status as the number-one news- n\aker in the country to dominate the news whenever he wanted. Roosevelt taught this lesson to Charles Evans Hughes in 1908. When Hughes announced that he would meet with the Repub- lican Club of New York on the night of 31 January to talk about "[Roosevelt's] national issues, Roosevelt knew that the New York governor guiding motto Is would use the appearance to announce his candidacy for the this: 'Let me have free access to the Republican presidential nomination, which Roosevelt wanted channels of pub- to go to his friend. Secretary of War William Howard Taft. licity and I care Hughes expected the newspapers to report his statement the not who makes my country's laws—or morning after he made it, but Roosevelt did not want Hughes's what tiie other fel- name in the headlines.^* So, on the afternoon of 31 January—too low does.'" - Dicicinson, late for publication in the afternoon newspapers—Roosevelt Theodore announced that he was calling on Congress to provide work- Roosevelt." men's compensation for federal employees and to regulate the abuse of the injunction in labor disputes. The president's an- nouncement was a bombshell that sent Shockwaves through the country's business community—and obliterated news coverage ofHughes'sannouncement-RooseveltbiographerWilliamHenry Harbaugh labeled Roosevelfs action a "brilliant political maneuver."^' When critics said that the president had treated Hughes unfairly, Roosevelt told reporters: "If Hughes is going to play the game, he must learn the tricks."*" Fifth, Roosevelt expanded the duties of the presidential staff to include press relations. He did this by delegating publicity responsibilities not only to his two executive secretaries, but also to the first White House social secretary and to at least one chief adnunistrator for an executive agency.*^ Roosevelt laid the groundwork for the position of presidential press secretary, although he left it to the efficiency-minded Herbert Hoover to designate one person, George Akerson, to work full time as press secretary, p>er se. "Roosevelt's two key aides filled the same position in all but name," Juergens wrote in his study of press-president relations during the Progressive Era.*2

38. William Henry Harbaugh, Poroer and Responsibility: The Life and Times of Theodore Roosevelt (New York: Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, 1961), 336. 39. Harbaugh, Power and Responsibility, 336. 40. Harbaugh, Power and Responsibility, 336. 41. The fact that several Roosevelt staff members vmdertook public relations duties indicates that it was the president himself, and not a specific aide, who was the architect of Roosevelt's press policies. Fvirther evidence that the policies came from Roosevelt is the fact that those policies began to evolve when Roosevelt was governor of New York and continued to evolve throughout his presidency, and no single staff member with press responsibilities remained with Roosevelt throughout that time period. 42. Juergens, News from the White House, 46. Streitmatter 107

The first of these two aides was George Cortelyou, the executive secretary Roosevelt inherited from William McKinley. Cortelyou's duties included those generally attached to a secretary, such as taking dictation and making appointments, and also extended to those of an office manager. Under Roosevelt, Cortelyou also was given the responsibility of dealing with the press. If a reporter had a question that the president was too busy to answer or that could be answered just as well by the secretary, the reporter was sent to Cortelyou.*^ The Roosevelt aide most closely involved with reporters was

William Loeb, Jr., whom Roosevelt named executive secretary when he appointed Cortelyou to head the newly created Depart- ment of Commerce and Labor. When Roosevelt was governor of New York State, Loeb had served as his secretary. When Roosevelt became president, he came to rely more and more heavily upon his loyal assistant. It was during the six years that Loeb served as presidential secretary that the position expanded significantly into the area of press relations. Loeb, for example, was given the power to provide the press with official denials.** It was Loeb's assessment of public opinion that prompted Roosevelt to designate his presidential successor.*^ One of the most important powers Roosevelt gave Loeb was that of controlling the amount of access reporters had to the White House. Altfiough Roosevelt was the most accessible of "The mobile coun- tenance of the presidents, there were practical limits to reaching the president serviceable Loeb of the United States. After all, news correspondents could not be ... Is the baronie- ter by which the calling the president at all hours of the night. But there was no cuckoo gauges his such limitation on a secretary. Newsmen routinely called Loeb standing at the as late as 1 a.m., which was even later than they were willing to White ^se." - Dickinson, call their own bosses.** Loeb's virtually unlimited availability "Theodore meant that correspondents could, for the first time, depend on Roosevelt." the White House as a news source every minute of every day. And such access also meant that the White House could be mined for some sort of story even on the slowest of news days. Loeb's most visible press function was leading the daily press briefing, a phenomenon that had begun under McKinley. The White House used such sessions to make announcements that may not have been worth the president's time, and yet still had the potential of resulting in newspaper coverage. The briefings also provided a vehicle tfirough which Roosevelt could successfully disseminate information about subjects that he wanted covered but that were more appropriately handled by someone other than the president. It was Loeb, for example, who provided most of the details about the Roosevelt children and family activities. In giving Loeb this responsibility, Roosevelt essen-

43. Tebbel and Watts, The Press and the Presidency. 338. 44. Pringje, Theodore Roosevelt, 410. 45. Pringle, Theodore Roosevelt, 500-501. 46. Louis W. Koenig, The Invisible Presidency/ (New York: Rinehart, 1960), 175. 108 AJ /Spring 1990

tially allowed the secretary to determine the exact amount of privacy the president and First Family were allowed.*^ Loeb also established the tradition of a presidential press secretary serving his boss by accepting the blame for actions that the president actually had taken but that later were criticized by the press or the public. In the words of political scientist Louis Koenig, "If things went wrong, the trusty formula was applied, 'blanw it on Loeb.'"** An example involved Roosevelt's request that Congress allot ninety thousand dollars to maintain and improve the White House stables where his favorite horses were kept, even though the White House itself received only sixty thousand dollars for the same purpose. Koenig wrote: "By some roundabout and no^ altogether convincing explanations seeking to prove he was to blame, Loeb took the lashes involved for this gaudy fiscal expression of equine love."*' Another example of how Roosevelt added press relations to the functions of the presidential staff was the appointment of the first White House social secretary, whose duties included publicizing White House social events. Ishbel Ross wrote in her groundbreaking history of American women journalists that the bars around the First Family "were let down an inch" by the appointment of the social secretary: She sent out dinner lists, so that at least the society editors were appeased. At the bottom of each list there usually appeared an item about the flowers, and a brief note saying that the President's wife would wear black satin and pearls, and Alice would wear blue, or whatever the costume of the evening happened to be.^° Another member of the Roosevelt administration who played an important role in the expansion of staff functions into the area of public relations was Gifford Pinchot, chief of the U.S. Forest Service. Pinchot's efforts to increase publicity for his agency clearly demonstrated that Roosevelt's public relations efforts extended well beyond the White House. In his examination of Pinchot's press management efforts, Stephen Ponder wrote: "Agency records and congressional debate suggest that government management of news by executive branch agencies was widespread ."^^ Witii Roosevelt's encouragement, Pinchot revolutionized government agency press relations. He created a press bureau, hiring former newspaper reporters to write and to distribute

47. Juergens, News from the White House, 48. 48. Koenig, Inmsibk Presidency, 162. 49. Koenig, Inmsible Presidenq/, 162. 50. Ishbel Ross, Ladies of the Press: The Story of Women in Journalism by an Insider (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1936), 311. 51. Stephen Ponder, 'Tederal News Management in the Progressive Era: Gifford Pinchot and the Conservation Crusade," Journalism History 13 (Summer 1986): 43. — — Streitmatter 109

news releases to secure newspaper and nwgazine coverage. He developed a lecture program that sent conservation lecturers preceded by press releases, of course—across the country. The most sophisticated of Pinchofs public relations achievements was the staging of news events. In his book. Breaking New Ground, Pinchot advised that: "Action is the best advertisement. The most effective way to get your cause before the public is to do something the papers will have to tell about."^^ Among the "news events" that Pinchot staged were a White House Confer- ence on Conservation and an American Forest Congress, which brought together four hundred representatives ofbusinesses dependent on forest resources. Pinchot's greatest public relations achievement came in 1907, when Roosevelt led a group of officials, news correspondents, and photographers on a steam- boat cruise down the Mississippi River to gain support for a national waterways policy. Photographs of both Roosevelt and Pinchot taken during the trip were reproduced in newspapers all over the country.^^ Roosevelt said of Pinchot's conservation publicity campaign: It is doubtful whether there has ever been elsewhere under the government such effective publicity publicity in the interest of the people—at so low a cost— It was securing the publication of facts about forestry in fifty million copies of newspajjers a month at a total expense of six thousand dollars a year. Not one cent has ever been paid by the forest service to any publication of any kind for the printing of this material. It was given out freely, and published without cost because it was news.** In his autobiography, Roosevelt also praised Pinchot as the most valuable public official in his administration.^ Sixth, Roosevelt was convinced that a newsmaker would receive favorable press coverage if he won the affection of the "Roosevelt's suc- correspondents covering him. The president, therefore, accom- cessful rise to the modated reporters in an effort to pull them onto his White House Presidency . . . was team. fueled by nis remarkable rela- Outwardly, Roosevelt's relationship with the press appeared ationshlp wKh the relaxed and friendly, differing dramatically from the press- reporters of his president relationships that came before or after. His aim was to day." - Bariier, The use his personality his to and power charm the reporters, to Pulse of Politics. make them feel that he had taken them into his confidence and, therefore, had made them insiders at the White House and in the

52. Gifford Pinchot, Breaking New Ground (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1947), 329. 53. Ponder, "Federal News Management," 45. 54. Theodore Roosevelt, The Autobiography of Theodore Roosevelt (New York: Octagon Books, 1958), 215. 55. Roosevelt, Autobiography, 210. 110 AJ /Spring 1990

creation of national and international policy. If the reporters thought of themselves as part of a presidential team that was shaping history, they would write favorably of their leader and his programs. Roosevelt referred to the reporters as his "Newspaper Cabi- net" and always tried to make tfiem feel like they were part of his team. The president was more than willing to do so, convinced that his investment would produce lucrative returns through favorable coverage by the press corps. Roosevelt shattered precedent by making himself available to correspondents daily and adopting a "boy's club" style of press briefing that was entirely new to the newsmen. He had developed the style while he was governor of New York. Both as governor and as president, he provided reporters with confidences, anecdotes, jokes, and legislative gossip. When he had to give them an official statement, his tone would become more formal. After Roosevelt made an official statement, biographer Edmund Morris said: "He would confess the truth behind the statement, with such gleeful frankness that the reporters felt flattered to be included in his conspiracy."^* Roosevelt can be credited with creating the presidential press corps because he was the man who first provided permanent WWte House quarters where reporters covering the president "[Roosevelt] can- could assemble.^' One day Roosevelt saw a group of reporters not understand, in standing in the rain and cold, buttonholing politicians. The view of the fact that he is so f ranic president immediately ordered that a small anteroom be set and outspoken to aside for the reporters, establishing the White House press any and all representatives of pub- room.^* licity who easily For Roosevelt, the action had several benefits. First, having all obtain audience correspondents in one place made it easier for the president to with him, why newspapers or generate news by distributing information to many reporters at other publications one time. Second, giving reporters space inside endeared the re- should impugn his porters to Roosevelt. Third and most important, providing motives or question his sincerity." permanent quarters for the reporters inside the White House - Dicldnson, indicated to the reporters that they were not outsiders but that "Theodore they were insiders, filling a public function, almost as if they Roosevelt." were members of the president's staff. Roosevelf s efforts paid off. He succeeded in pulling reporters into his camp and, thereby, convincing them to foresake their objectivity. His success is best documented in a revealing article published in Harper's Weekly six years into the Roosevelt presi-

56. Morris, Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, 693. 57. Roosevelt took the action after William W. Price of the Washington Evening Star decided that the existing system of gathering bits of White House news from congressmen on Capitol Hill after they had visited the president was not efficient. Price started questioning visitors as they left the White House. For a fuller discussion of Price, see the author's article "William W. Price: First White House Correspondent and Emblem of an Era," Journalism History 16 (Spring 1989): 7. 58. "First White House Reporter Dies," Editor and Publisher, 31 October 1931, 38. Streitmatter 111

dency. The article, entitled "Theodore Roosevelt: Press-Agent," argues that presidential reporters were serving as assistant press agents, with Roosevelt as their boss. The writer had worked as a White House reporter for more than a year: "I was what is known in Washington as one of the President's newspaper cuckoos. In the parlance of Washington, a cuckoo is a journalistic bird that is permitted to make its principal roost close to the Executive chamber."^' I Seventh, Roosevelt realized that a leader's power and prestige offer a potential for manipulation of the press that can result in further expansion of the leader's power and prestige. Roosevelt used his office, as well as his abundant personal charm and charisma, to manipulate the press in various ways. The president divided reporters into two groups. The 'Tara-

dise Qub" was for his favorites, the men who always wrote fa- "Naturally, since vorable stories. He made these correspondents insiders to an he relies so confidently upon the extent never before contemplated. The "Ananias Club," on the power of publicity, other hand, was for the outsiders.*" If a reporter wrote something ne chafes under Roosevelt believed was not true, or wished was not true, the the criticisms of that power." offender was moved into the Ananias Qub. Members of that - Dicidnson, group were punished by being denied access to White House "Theodore news. Roosevelt." Roosevelt introduced this coercion on the first day of his presidency. Within hours after returning from William McKinley's funeral, Roosevelt called the managers of the three major press associations into his office and announced that if any reporter published news that the president thought should not have been published, he would be punished by having legitimate news withheld from him. When one of the press association managers protested that a personal grievance against a particular reporter should not be treated as an official matter, the president ignored the argument.*^ If a reporter wanted to obtain the news and, therefore, satisfy his editors and his readers, he had to accept Roosevelt's high-handed tactics in order to remain in the Paradise Qub. Most reporters buckled under to the president's intimidation tactics and wrote the favorable stories that he wanted. From the perspective of today's White House press corps, the most serious of Roosevelf s manipulative techniques was his invention of the "authoritative White House source." He knew he would benefit from appearing open and friendly to reporters because then they would publish material that they had heard informally but that he was not willing to release officially. So he gave reporters information with the stipulation that they had to

59. Dickinson, "Theodore Roosevelt," 1410. 60. Ananias was described in the New Testament as a man who lied about his gift to the church and then fell dead. 61. Barry, who was one of the managers, recounts the session in Forty Years in Washington, 268-69. 112 AJ /Spring 1990

attribute it to anonymous sources. The standing White House rule against the president being quoted was enforced, and any Some of the books wrinen byTheodore reporter who violated the rule immediately was elected to the Roosevelt: Ananias Qub." After creating this policy, Roosevelt had free rein to control exactly what words were quoted as conning The Naval War of 1812 {\B62) directly from his mouth. Roosevelt seemed relaxed and chatty during his press brief- Hunting Tripa of a ings, later, Ranchman {^66S) but, years reporters who covered the president pointed out that Roosevelt always limited his comments to what he had ThomaaHart intended to say." No one, for example, ever succeeded in prompt- Senfon (1887) ing the president into a conunent as he exited a train or entered Life of Gouwmeur a hotel corridor. MbrrJs (1888) Reporters also helped Roosevelt inaugurate the first trial

History of the City balloons launched from 1600 Pennyslvania Avenue. His chum- ofNewYork[^^9^) miness with reporters and his ability to determine what could

The Winning of the and could not be attributed to him allowed the president to test West, 4 volumes the popularity of a new policy or program he was considering. (1889,1894,1896) He would arrange to give an exclusive interview to a single re-

The Rough Riders porter and then introduce the new idea. If the public liked the (1899) new idea, the president basked in public favor; if the new idea encountered public disapproval, Roosevelt promptly repudi- Oliver Cromwell (1900) ated the interview, and the hapless correspondent began looking for a new job." Roosevelf s most successful launch involved The Strenuous the selection of his successor. Roosevelt wanted Taft to succeed Life (1900) him, but the president did not know if Taft would be popular Outdoor Pastimes among voters. So, Roosevelt biographer Pringle wrote, the presi- of an American Mi/)rer(1905) dent used the newspapers to test Taff s public appeal, calling in his favorite reporters to assist him in the exploration." African Game Because Roosevelt was himself a journalist—after he left the rra//s (1910) presidency, he became a contributing editor for the Kansas City Theodore Star and wrote monthly columns for Outlook and Metropolitan Roosevelt: An Autobiography magazines—and because he had such power over the newsmen (1913) around him, he sometimes wrote the "news" from the White House in his own words. Roosevelt knew the value and influ- America and the Worid War {^9^5) ence of a news paragraph written as he wanted it written. He never hesitated to suggest news articles to reporters, and he The Great Mven- sometimes went so far as to write out stories in his own hand." ftire(1918) One such instance occurred on a speaking tour in New England in 1902; another during a fight to enact a new railroad rate.^^

62. Oscar King Davis, who covered Roosevelt for the New Yorlc Sunday Times, discvisses this topic in Released for Publication (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1925), 123. 63. Thom|>son, Presidents I've Knoxim, 118-19. 64. Abbot, Watching the World Go By, 244. 65. Pringle, Theodore Roosevelt, 501. 66. Barry, Forty Years in Washington, 270-71. 67. The first instance involved a trolley car accident in which the president was thrown from his carriage and injured. Edna N. Colman described the incident in White House Gossip, from Andrew Jackson to Calvin Coolidge (Garden Qty, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page, 1927), 281. The second is described in Barry, Forty Years in Washington, 271. Streitmatter 113

The public relations techniques Theodore Roosevelt introduced at the White House did not disappear after he left the bully pulpit eight decades ago. Indeed, they have evolved into some of the major obstacles that stand in the way of the White House press corps disseminating the news today. Examples are as common as White House press releases, although the techniques have become increasingly sophisticated. The timing of White House announcements, for example, now includes not only the day of the week, but also the precise hour of the day in order to accommodate—or manipulate—evening television news programs.^ Many presidents of the second half of the twentieth century have helped to develop the various public relations devices. Franklin Roosevelt built on the first Roosevelf s avoidance of direct quotations, ruling that he would be quoted directly only when his press secretary distributed the quotations in writing.^' John F. Kennedy shined the publicity spotlight on his family even more brightly than Theodore Roosevelt had. Richard Nixon expanded Roosevelf s strategy of intimidation and coercion of the press corps. Ronald Reagan perfected Roosevelt's ability to provide the impression that he was relaxed and open while he held tight control over access to the truth. Most recently, presidential hopefuls refined Roosevelt's experimentation with photo opportunities, George Bush visiting a factory that makes Ameri- can flags and Michael Dukakis wearing fatigues and a helmet while parading an Army tank in front of the TV cameras. Many of these public relations ploys are frightening. But not one of them is new, and not one of the recent presidents should be blamed for springing them, without warning, onto the White House press corps. Reporters covering recent presidential ad- ministrations have had ample time to recognize—and to defend themselves against—the most recent manifestations of these public relations techniques. For all of these techniques were first used almost a century ago by Teddy Roosevelt, one of the best public relations men ever to reside in the White House.

68. Tebbel and Watts, The Press and the Presidency, 544. 69. For a full description of Franklin Roosevelt's public relations techniques, see Betty Houchin Winfield, "The New Deal Publicity Operation: Foundation for the Modem Presidency," Journalism Quarterly 61 (Spring 1984): 40-48. BOOK REVIEWS

JOURNALISM according to Krompac (3) printed news, in ballads HISTORY TEXTBOOKS (179), and it remains a and newsbooks; (4) news- AND THEIR USES valuable and comprehen- papers, from Strasbourg in sive reference book, up- 1609 through mass-circula- Karen K. List dated through the Iran- tion papers; (5) reporting, Univ. of Massachusetts Contra affair, with notes from its beginning and an armotated bibliog- through problems with ob- JUST AS MOST teachers raphy at the book's end. jectivity; and (6) electronic of journalism have made The task, then, for those news. The book, which space on their bookshelves of us selecting readings for covers "two or three for the sixth edition of the journalism history is to de- milennia of newsmon- legendary text that has termine what becomes a gers," first mentions dominated the field for al- legend most: What might Gutenberg on page 86 and most three decades, Edwin we like to retain from the is half finished before it and Michael Emery's The Emery tradition? And, at turns to newspapers. Ex- Press and America faces the same time, what might tensive and extremely use- new competition. we like to see added, de- ful notes and bibliography Three new books offer leted, or altered? appear at the book's end. teachers of the course a The three books consid- Stephens points out in viable choice of texts — ered here differ in some his introduction that this is Mitchell Stephens's A His- significant respects from an interpretive as opposed tory of News, Jean Folkerts one another. Stephens's to an exhaustive history, and Dwight Teeter's Voices book, already available in one that concentrates on of a Nation, and William paper, uses as its overarch- people and publications David Sloan, James Stovall, ing theme the history of that illuminate the nature and James D. Startt's The news, a staple of all hu- of journalism, which he Media in America. All three man societies, allowing for defines as "the activity of books are well-written at- illumination of "continvii- gathering and disseminat- tempts to enhance diver- ties across centuries and ing the news." The book is sity in the journalism his- cultures." The book is di^ meant in part to correct tory text marketplace. All vided into six sections, past interpretations that three differentiate them- each organized chrono- "see innovations and firsts selves from the Emerys' logically: (1) spoken news, where we should be seeing new edition, which has in villages, marketplaces, connections and continui- been reviewed favorably and coffeehouses; (2) writ- ties." Much of the continu- by Don Shaw in Journalism ten news, in the Roman ity, he says, is "previously History (Spring 1988) and Empire, China, and Europe; unobserved," and the by Frank Krompac in American Journalism (Sum- Boolcs Reviewed In Tliis Essay mer 1988). Shaw does point A HISTORY OF NEWS: FROM THE DRUM TO THE out that the book at certain By Mitchell Stephens. Viking, 1988. 401 points "requires much SATELLITE. pp. from the teacher ... to $24.95. Cloth; $9.95, Paper. chart a course through this VOICES OF A NATION: A HISTORY OF MEDIA IN THE thicket of trends, issues, UNITED STATES. By Jean Folkerts and Dwight Teeter. names, and developments" Macmillan, 1989. 577 pp. $30.50, Cloth. (36). At the same time, the THE MEDIA IN AMERICA: A HISTORY. Edited by William new edition has been David Sban, James B. Stovall, and James D. Startt. Publishing somewhat "streamlined," Horizons, 1989. 420 pp. $36.95, Cloth. a

book addresses "revolu- convincingly, as do the approach allows the book tions that, when examined voices of media corpora- to rely on primary source from a broader perspec- tions that produce metro- research, and a short anno- tive, turn out not to have politan dailies, mass circu- tated bibliography appears taken place." lation magazines, and tele- at the end of each chapter. Folkerts and Teeter take vision news and entertain- This book more than the an approach in Voices simi- ment." The work draws on others attempts to differ- lar in most respects to that the most recent scholarship entiate itself from other of the Emerys—a chrono- available and seems par- journalism history texts by logical exploration of the ticularly strong in the ar- claiming that it is not an interaction of media, pri- eas of the authors' research encyclopedia of facts. "The marily newspapers, and interests: the eighteenth emphasis is not on voltmii- society from colonial days century revolutionary and nous details, dates, and to the present. The social federal periods, as well as names. While such mate-

history approach does in- reform and minority rial is used selectively, it is clude coverage of advertis- presses of the nineteenth included not because of a ing, public relations, maga- century. sense of obligation to list zines, film, and broadcast- The third book. Media in every American journalist ing as well. The book is America, is a collection of of the slightest importance divided into four chrono- essays by eighteen authors who ever lived, as media logical sections: (1) early that, taken together, deal history textbooks have America, from the printing with "all of the major been prone to do, but be- revolution to commercial ideas, events, and people cause the individuals, newspapers; (2) expansion who contributed to the events and dates selected and conflict, from the par- history of the media in are outstanding or repre- tisan press to the Civil America." The first of the sentative examples that War; (3) modernization eighteen chapters, "Com- help explain the nature of and reform, from Recon- munication Before Amer- the media." struction to World War I; ica," begins with the dawn Comparing coverage of and (4) media in a modem of writing and the last, one issue, event, or indi- world, from the Roaring 'The Contemporary Press, vidual in each text quickly Twenties to UPI's prob- 1945-Present," ends with a illustrates some of the dif- lems. It is attractive gra- discussion of the chal- ferences among the three. phically and is enhanced lenges ahead, with the- The Alien and Sedition by introductory essays at matic chapters in between Acts of 1798, probably cov- the beginning of each proceeding in more or less ered in most journalism chapter and summaries a chronological fashion. history classes, seem a and notes at the end. While focusing on the me- good choice for the pur- The authors tell us in the dia, it also looks at the his- poses of this essay. introduction that "this torical context in which Stephens devotes about book addresses the media they operated. two pages to the acts in his as a complex societal and The book's introduction fourth section on newspa- cultural institution— says it is a "history of a pers. Chapter 11, "News product of many voices. It people and their network, and Revolution," discusses views these voices within the mass media, that has the American and French a social, political, and eco- tied them together It is revolutions, a free press nomic framework and con- the story of the huge cen- and "mass circulation and siders the impact of own- tral nervous system that newspaper ownership." ers, audiences, journalists, has made it possible for He describes the acts and technology, and govern- the many and diverse their use against opposi- ment. Within this frame- parts of America to com- tion editor Benjamin work, the voices of blacks, municate and mold their Franklin Bache and Con- women, immigrants, and relationship with one an- gressman Matthew Lyon. other minorities speak other." The multi-author "Unlike France under 116 AJ /Spring 1990

Napoleon," he writes, "the context, the acts are dis- own research, is appeal- United States turned back cussed as they were used ing, some continuity is lost from this road." against Cobbett, Bache, in that approach. While Voices covers the acts in a William Duane, and oth- the depth of the research five-page section in chap- ers. Blanchard's chapter effort is much appreciated, ter 5, "A New Nation." The then moves from the Brit- the editors in the introduc- chapter consists of sections ish roots of press freedom, tion almost seem to over- on individual partisan edi- beginning with William state the case for the use of tors and their papers, in- Caxton and his printing primary sources in that cluding the Federalists press, through the colo- text. 'Textbooks that use John Fenno and William nial, revolutionary, and other books and journal Cobbett, as well as the Re- federal periods to the elec- articles as their main publicans Philip Freneau tion of Jefferson to the sources of information al- and Bache; a section on the presidency. Her discussion ways run the risk of giving acts themselves; sections of the acts gets to the po- a distorted picture of his- on Jeffersonian newspa- litical motivations behind tory." Distortion in the pers, including the Intelli- their passage and differ- original research is the real gencer and the Post; and ences between Federalist risk. One must be able to short segments on the elec- and Republican interpreta- trust the historians en- tion of 1824 and maga- tions of freedom of the gaged in the primary zines and their audiences. press. Blanchard quotes research or those like The discussion of the acts from the congressional rec- Folkerts and Teeter who, includes more background ord on the acts to give a in addition to their own re- than does the Stephens sense of what this debate search, rely on analyzing book on the reasons why was about. and synthesizing the work they were passed, the na- Each treatment of the of others. ture of the acts themselves, Alien and Sedition Acts, As for the Stephens book, the Virginia and Kentucky then, illustrates some of the James Startt in an earlier resolutions, prosecutions strengths and weaknesses review in American Journal- under the acts, and their of these books from the ism (Summer 1989) com- expiration. perspective of the teacher mended the book for offer- The Media covers the acts trying to choose among ing a broad synthesis of in two chapters, chapter 4, them. time and space and an in- "Party Press: 1783-1833," The Media offers the full- ternational perspective, by David Sloan, and chap- est discussion of the mean- which can be seen in ter 5, 'Treedom of the ing of the acts and their re- Stephens's relating of the Press, 1690-1804," by lation to politics in Amer- Alien and Sedition Acts to Margaret Blanchard. ica at that time, but be- contemporary French Sloan's chapter looks at cause of the multi-author thinking. But Startt also leaders' use of the press to approach, one reads first criticized the book for mold public opinion in about practical application lacking a strong contextual this era. It begins by dis- of the acts against partisan framework and for repeat- cussing the press as a po- editors and in a later chap- edly jumping about "from litical instrument and its ter about the philosophy place to place and from relation to the first party behind those prosecutions present to a variety of system, then looks at a and disagreement as to pasts," as illustrated by the good number of individ- their acceptability. Ironi- other material contained in ual editors and newspa- cally, the strength of The the same chapter. pers, and ends by discuss- Media—its multi-author The same criticism could ing newspaper content primary source frame- be made of Voices, which and style, the development work—also may be its offers a fuller discussion of jovirnalistic practices, weakness. While hearing using the most recent and the decline of the eighteen different voices, scholarship, but one sand- party press. Within this each engaged in his or her wiched in a chapter with —

Book Reviews 117

other concerns that have the same: other stories, that make the material no strong thematic rela- while they might be told, meaningful and to drop tionship. While Stephens seem secondary. David some detail. After all, no might overreach at times Nord argued in a recent one can include everything to sustain his theme, at essay, "A Plea for Journal- anyway, not even the least he has oneiVoices and ism History" (Journalism Emerys. Krompac wrote of to a lesser extent The Media History, Spring 1988), that their new edition: "No his- might look more selec- "power is not the only tory is sufficiently compre- tively at journalism history proper subject for media hensive to satisfy every- than does the Emery book, history, but it is the most one, and this is no excep- but they still suffer from important subject. And to tion." Stephens was grouping material that is study power, we need Suited for slighting an- unrelat^ except by chro- more, not less, attention to cient India and the elev- nology. While The Media the historical institutions enth to thirteenth centu- offers a thematic approach of mass media, especially ries. Every one of us could within each chapter, some journalism." That may be cite omissions in the other seem to deliver on that the case, but what then be- two texts in question here. promise more than others, comes of those who speak If we can, therefore, accept and the overall thrust of in different voices—the the fact that no one can in- the book is in line with the powerless, the disenfran- clude everything, the next basic framework in which chised, those who deviate step is to admit that it's a the story of journalism his- in significant ways from mistake to try. tory has been told in the the great men and their in- Even so, my attempt to past. The same is true of stitutions who have been develop and hone a the- Voices. and still are the focus of matic journalism history The primary problem journalism history? Phyllis course in the belief that with both these texts is Rose has written, 'If you less is more has not been that while working hard to do not appreciate the force easy. In fact, changing per- distance themselves from of what you're leaving out, spectives and dropping the Emerys, neither is re- you are not fully in com- detail has been difficult ally different enough in at mand of what you're but at the same time a de- least two respects: overall doing" (Writing on Women, lightful unburdemng. Af- conceptual framework and 1985). What is left out of ter all, I came out of Bud lack of thematic approach. these two texts is an alter- Nelson's graduate history Every set of chapters from native framework that seminar at Wisconsin, in prospective texts that I would let the reader see which he said on the first have reviewed in the last journalism history from a Tuesday, "Read Emery five years—with one ex- different perspective. and Emery by Thursday." ception—shares these By the same token, the At the University of Mis- characteristics. Every list books also are like Emery souri School of Journalism, of questions forwarded to in that they are somewhat I taught the venerated me by publishers focuses exhaustive in terms of de- History and Principles of on framework and ade- tail at the expense of a Journalism, succeeding quacy of detail. While all meaningful thematic ap- William Howard Taft, who of these authors and pub- proach. If publishers, au- had succeeded Frank lishers would love to sup- thors and teachers of jour- Luther Mott. Mott spent plant the Emerys, they nalism history were not so weeks lecturing on Horace flatter them enormously concerned with detail on Greeley alone. Those by insisting that prospec- every aspect of the sub- Greeley lectures included tive texts should be so ject—preferably in chrono- Mott's galloping across the much the same. logical order—perhaps it stage in the lecture hall as As for the conceptual would free up writers to he talked of Greeley driv- framework, the central embrace new approaches, ing a wagon west, causing thrusts of the texts remain to find overarching themes his teaching assistants to 118 AJ/Spring 1990

fear for his life. Bill Taft 8:40 a.m. three times a WOMEN WAR once told me that after week in an auditorium CORRESPONDENTS Mott retired, he could holding three hundred OF WORLD WAR II. sense when his successor people, I learned early on By Lilya Wagner. was about to introduce that a book's capacity to • Greenwood Press Greeley in the saga that is engage those students by journalism history. And he offering them relevance, •1989.187 pp. would just show up to lec- fresh insights and an effec- •$37.95, Cloth ture. I'm sure those lecttires tive means of not only were memorable. Taft cer- learning but genuinely en- THIS SLENDER VOLUME tainly never forgot them. joying journalism history includes eighteen brief Mott and others' exten- was important to them chapters on individual sive use of minutia did not and essential to my sanity women war correspon- escape Nord, who pointed and survival. I have talked dents. Here are names out in his essay that tradi- to more than forty-five missing from books on ei- tional journalism history hundred students about ther World War II or jour- has been trivial: "In the journalism history in those nalism history—^Ann first history of journal- nine years. I'm still wait- Stringer of the United ism," he wrote, "Frederick ing for the book. Press; Iris Carpenter of the Hudson explained that TThat is not to take away Boston Globe; Ruth Cowan William Cullen Bryant from the books discussed and Bonnie Wiley of the lived to nearly 11 by eating here, all of which will be Associated Press; Tania hominy, brown bread, oat- used by any number of Long Daniell and Sonia meal and stewed fruit, and teachers of journalism his- Tomara of the New York working out with light tory. All are excellent ref- Herald-Tribune; Kathleen dumbbells," information I erence books. All are ad- McLaughlin and Virginia feel certain was not lost to mirable accomplishments. Lee Warren of the New Mott's students. Nord later As Shaw wrote of the York Times; Lyn Crost of concluded: "Like Frederic Emerys: 'Talk is cheap. the Honolulu Star-Bulletin;

Hudson, we cannot ne- . . . They have written." Helen Kirkpatrick of the glect William Cullen But while all will be re- Chicago Daily News; Bryant, though we may quired in certain journal- Catherine Coyne of the not need to know what he ism history classes next Boston Herald; Alice-Leone ate for breakfast. We do fall, the best classes being Moats and Martha Celhorn need to know how he fit taught will not be driven of Collier's; Sigrid Schultz into the political intelli- by any of these books. of the Chicago Tribune; Inez gentsia of New York, and Rather professors teaching Robb of International how his l^ew York Post the best courses will make News Service; Shelley linked that elite to a more their own way through Mydans, Mary Welsh, and general, but still special, some of the material using Lael Laird Wertenbaker of reading public." It is not a theme that will engage Time-Life. Examples of the inconceivable to me that a their students for two war correspondence of ten first-rate journalism his- simple reasons: the mate- of the women accompany tory course or text might rial is inherently fascinat- the chapters along with not only ignore Bryant's ing and the theme they eight photographs. diet but Bryant himself, have chosen to use en- Other women correspon- depending on its theme. gages the professors them- dents are mentioned in a Having taught journal- selves. concluding chapter. Three ism history twice almost appendences list all ac- every semester for the past credited U.S. women cor- nine years to both gradu- respondents during World ate students and under- War Il^a total of 127. graduates, most often in a Their news organizations required class that met at also are listed. Bcx)k Reviews 119

In an opening statement, units (made up of men of Press in France, 1775-1800, the author, vice-president Japanese descent bom in to be interesting and use- for institutional advance- the United States) in the ful. Edited by Robert ment at Union College in war. The outspoken qual- Darnton of Princeton and Lincoln, Nebraska, out- ity of many of the women Daniel Roche of the Uni- lines difficulties faced in comes through too. Con- versity of Paris, the book obtaining the names of the sider Alice-Leone Moats, was sponsored by the women correspondents still working as a journalist New York Public Library and locating material (she writes a weekly col- as part of its French Bicen- about them. Much of the umn for the Philadelphia In- tennial exhibition. The es- biographical data in the quirer). Asked if she capi- says are largely historical, chapters comes from the talized on her good looks but their diversity—^from author's interviews and during the war, she re- the prerevolutionary poli- correspondence with the plied, "You bet I did." tics of publishing and cen- journalists. The book includes a few sorship to the economics A five-page introduction factual errors. Eleanor of printing to the products gives an overview of the Roosevelt did not start her of the press, e.g., journals, correspondents' experi- woman-only press confer- pamphlets, books, alma- ences. They faced discrimi- ences because Ruth Cowan nacs, prints, songs, and nation in obtaining ac- asked her to, as the chap- ephemera—suits them to a creditation and were lim- ter on Cowan states. In wide audience. ited in their movements in fact, Eleanor Roosevelt be- The first three essays, the field. Some complained gan these conferences "Censorship and the Pub- of being restricted; others years before Cowan ar- lishing Industry" by thought they had enjoyed rived in Washington. Roche, 'Thilosophy Under special privileges because Much more intensive ex- Cloak" by Darnton, and they were women. Wagner amination of the role of "Malesherbes and the offers only one general women correspondents is Call for a Free Press" conclusion—that women merited. This volume, byRaymond Bim will journalists wanted to be however, represents a interest scholars who "where the big story was," start. It is an obvious labor study the evolution of just like the men did, al- of love, and the author press freedom. Roche's though she notes that a should be applauded for article describes the ambi- few of the women went to her work. guities of censorship in the war scene primarily as eighteenth

wives of men stationed . . . Maurine Beasley He weaves a narrative overseas and secondarily University of Maryland about an increasingly mas- as reporters. sive state bureaucracy For many the war repre- staffed with academics sented the high point of and clerics, who often col- their careers. Of the eight- laborated with authors, een profiled, nine left jour- REVOLUTION IN PRINT: publishers, and guilds. Di- nalism after the war, some THE PRESS IN FRANCE, rected by the contradictory to pursue allied occupa- 1775-1800. tasks of maintaining the tions and others because of ideology of the absolutist Edited by Robert Darnton marriage. The significance monarchical state and en- and Daniel Roche. of their work is revealed hancing publishing as • by the material presented. University of California Press commerce, censors found For example, the chapter •1989,351pp. themselves protecting an • on Lyn Crost details her $50, Cloth; $24.95, Paper elitist system that did nei- noteworthy contribution ther. Then, as now, censor- to war reporting. She was SCHOLARS IN communi- ship even stimulated book the only journalist to cover cation will find the essays sales. the actions of U.S. Nisei in Revolution in Print, The "Bad books," including 120 AJ /Spring 1990

political and religious trea- losophies of the Enlighten- Journal, newspaper, and tises as well as pornogra- ment, market forces, and ephemera publishing phy, were coded "philo- publishing. flourished, but the uncer- sophical" by buyers and Carla Hesse, in "Eco- tainties of competition led sellers. Damton discusses nomic Upheavals in Pub- to a crisis in the expensive clandestine forms of com- lishing," goes beyond the genre of book publishing. munication and barter be- usual story of the abolition Other essays cut a differ- tween philosophical book- of royal censorship to as- ent path to understanding sellers, methods of con- sess the cultural revolution the relationship between cealing banned works and that followed. She focuses the revolution and pub- fooling customs agents, attention on the freedom lishing. Pierre Casselle, in smuggling practices, and of publishing, not only "Printers and Municipal the range of punishments from censors, but from the Politics," takes a bio- meted out for offenders. thirty-six legal publishers graphical approach, detail- Noting that commerce and of the Paris Book Guild ing the rising and falling government made distinc- who, after 1789, struggled fortunes of municipal tions between legal and to maintain their elite printers who worked at dangerous genres, but not status. Many lost their the rapidly changing cen- among "phUosophical" businesses as the literature ter of political power. works, he concludes that of the Enlightenment, e.g., Phillipe Minard exam- liberty and libertinism Voltaire and Rousseau, re- ines the nature of work, were inextricably linked. placed the classical, legal, wages, hours, technologi- Birn's article analyzes the and religious culture of the cal innovation, labor or- memoranda calling for a Old Regime, which had ganizations, and the fall free press written by been their charge. Draw- and reconstitution of print Chretien-Guillaume ing upon letters, memo- craftsmanship in "Agita- Lamoignon de Malesherbes, randa and economic rection in the Work Force." the director of the French ords, Hesse ties the fall of Michel Vernus's "A Pro- book trade office from Guild publishers to vincial Perspective" exam- 1750 to 1763. As the direc- changes in legal and edu- ines the ideological battle tor of this censoring body, cational institutions that fought through the printed he was forced to censor rendered stocks of Old word in the province of books and maintain the Regime books useless. De- Frache-Comte. He details privileges of elite Parisian spite vehement protesta- how political ideas were publishers. However, his tions, the National Assem- imposed on traditional memoranda reveal that he bly refused to maintain the forms of religion and song. believed France would Guild's exclusive interests: He also notes that, despite prosper by developing a books no longer were re- the influx of the printed publishing industry based viewed or examined, au- word, the political mes- on market principles. He thors registered and sub- sage spread there mainly saw that censorship al- mitted their works to the via the oral tradition. lowed the illicit and for- Bibliotheque Nationale to Jeremy Popkin's "Jour- eign presses to unduly in- establish proprietary nals: The New Face of fluence the growing rights, a work entered the News," reveals how the French public sphere. He public domain ten years ideology of the Enlighten- believed that if prior re- after an author's death, ment inflected the devel- straint were eliminated, and no measures were es- opment of the ideology of the press could be con- tablished to prevent pirat- journalism: it would facili- trolled by the judiciary ing. tate the rise of popular through libel law. His While the elites fell, new sovereignty through pub- memoranda reveal a com- printers and booksellers lic debate on a national plex understanding of rose: during the revolution scale, transmit the public's French institutions, politi- their numbers quadrupled opinions to elected repre- cal power and control, phi- and tripled, respectively. sentatives, and allow lead- — Book Reviews 121

ers to enlighten the public. popular science, which publishing history, legal Popkin quotes journalists tried but failed to impose and philosophical studies, to give a sense of the role itself on academic science visual communication, or of the press in the public writing, and entrance-level historical methodology. It sphere, "One can teach the university textbooks. includes a wealth of illus- same truth at the same The last four articles trated materials, with one moment to millions of "Almanacs: Revolutioniz- eight-page color signature. men; through the Press, ing a Traditional Genre," they can discuss it without by Use Andries; "Prints: . . . Robert Craig tumult, decide calmly and Images of the Bastille," by University of Minnesota give their opinion." Rolf Reichardt; "Songs: Popkin then goes on to Mixing Media," by Laura show how vehement press Mason; and "Ephemera: partisanship fell short of Civic Education through this ideal, leading not to Images," by James Leith NEWS AND POLUiCS IN rational discourse but to —examine how the revo- THE AGE OF REVOLU- contradictions between the lutionaries co-opted tradi- TION: JEAN LUZAC'S ways elected leaders saw tional media formats to "GAZEHE DE LEYDE." themselves and the ways enhance the credibility of By Jeremy D. Popkin. they were portrayed in the their messages. For in- • Cornell University Press press. He concludes that stance, Andries demon- the French revolutionary strates that new political •1989,304 pp. press should not be seen views, notions of time, and • $34.50, Cloth simply as a historical arti- Jacobin philosophies of na- fact, but as an example of a ture were worked into the IN RECENT YEARS a central contradiction in the almanac. The traditional number of illuminating press of all modern states format appealed to the studies of aspects of Euro- with representative gov- masses, who, since the fif- pean journalism in the ernments. teenth century, had used eighteenth century have Pornographic political almanac calendars to pre- been published. These in- pamphlets are the subject dict the weather and fol- clude works by Michael of Antoine de Baucque's low religious holidays. Harris and Jeremy Black article, 'Tamphlets: Libel However, the revolution- on the political press in and Political Mythology." aries substituted their po- Britain, Gary Marker on It is a fascinating examina- litical ideology for super- the Russian literary intelli- tion of the recurring stition and religion. gentsia, and Jack Censer, themes and literary de- Damton and Roche, the Robert Darnton, and Nina vices used by revolution- contributors, the New Gelbart on the pre-revolu- aries to discredit the aris- York Public Library, and tionary press in France. tocracy. An "us-them" di- the University of Califor- Jeremy D. Popkin's study chotomy contrasted the nia Press are to be com- of the Gazette de Leyde, an healthy practice of revolu- mended for this outstand- obscure French-language tionary sex, metaphori- ing collection of essays. It biweekly newspaper pub- cally connoting fitness to will help American schol- lished in the Netherlands govern. ars draw connections be- between 1677 and 1811, is Jean Dhombres's "Books: tween the American and among the best of these Reshaping Science," shows French revolutions, the new books. On the face of that scientific books be- philosophies that formed it Popkin's subject seems came academically special- them, and the evolution of narrow and unpromising. ized at the end of the press freedom. Its diver- Yet he has written a vol- eighteenth century. How- sity of subjects, data, and ume that all students of ever, due to public interest methods result in a book journalism are likely to in science, two new genres that is useful for advanced find interesting. of science writing emerged: courses in journalism and What lifts Popkin's ac- 122 AJ /Spring 1990

count of the GoTette de the years before the French pensates for this in its de- Leyde above the minutiae Revolution confronted a scriptive chapters. These of eighteenth-century nar- growing divide between contain brilliant elucida- rative is his use of the pa- news presentation and the tions of practical aspects of per to illustrate general shaping of opinion. The eighteenth

European journalism in zation, it more than com- Smith brings considerable Book Reviews 123

expertise to his study of Subversive Activities Con- outside the status quo political expression. In this trol Act of 1950 along with (e.g., the two-party sys- volume, one of a series of the political manuevers of tem). Nevertheless, seven studies in rhetorical Sen. Joseph McCarthy. Smith's expertise in rhe- communication. Smith ex- Among other things. torical theory and experi- amines both historic and Smith cites the rhetorical ence as a television net- modem techniques of po- disadvantage of radicals work news consultant en- litical persuasion, empha- having to establish some able him to integrate in a sizing rhetorical-persua- value above freedom of useful way his discussion sive processes by which expression as a major fac- of rhetorical strategies political and social realities tor in the outcomes of with the realities of mod- are interpreted and cre- these contests in which the em joumalistic organiza- ated. moderate judgments of the tions. Readers with jour- Smith begins by tracing majority prevailed. nalism backgrounds will the fundamental tension At this point Smith turns appreciate his first-hand between ideology and his attention to the pres- knowledge of television pragmatics. Using as ex- ent, beginning with an news. amples the persuasive analysis focused on free- Although the split be- processes that arose from dom of expression in the tween the historical and the philosophical confron- broadcast media. Assess- the present might mini- tations between the Puri- ing the scarcity rationale mize the adoption of this tans and the Revivalists underlying broadcast book by teachers of jour- and later between the regulation as anachronis- nalism history, the volume Populists and the Social tic, he argues for applying is appropriate for courses Darwinists, he argues that full rights of the print me- in freedom of speech and the balance of political per- dia to all media of mass press, especially if a rhe- suasion has tilted histori- communication. Address- torical and conservative cally in favor of the prag- ing persuasion in presi- perspective is desired. matic majority, composed dential political campaigns. . . . Robert M. Ogles largely of synthesizers and Smith advocates the abol- Purdue University compromisers. This, in ishment of Congressional turn, has promoted rela- regulations restricting tive stability in American campaign fund-raising ac- society. tivities. Next, he examines Moving to political par- what he terms inadvertent RADIO WARFARE: OSS ties, he examines the and disguised persuasion AND CIA SUBVERSIVE struggles between three arising from cinematic and PROPAGANDA. radical groups that pro- video techniques and edi- By Lawrence C. Soley. posed to change the torial decisions by news • Praeger American system by chal- personnel, concluding the lenging freedom of expres- book with a reiteration of •1989,264 pp. sion for the sake of na- his opposition to regula- • $24.95, Cloth tional security. These position in resolving the tentions were opposed by sions associated with free- SOLEY'S FOLLOWUP to those who held freedom of dom of expression in the Clandestine Radio Broadcast- expression as the supreme contemporary media envi- ing (1987) is a solidly re- social value and legal ronment. searched and well-nar- guarantee. The three con- Smith has contributed to rated examination of cov- troversies are the events a scholarly, conservative ert radio broadcasting be- surrrounding the passage treatment of his topic. Per- fore, during, and just after of the Alien and Sedition haps lacking in his analy- World War II. The author Acts of 1798, the Recon- sis is the possibility that draws upon recently destruction Acts following future American change classified reports to trace the Civil War, and the can emerge from sources the history of American, 124 AJ /Spring 1990

European, and Asian sub- (OSS) documents, and edging this and not specu- versive radio transmis- newspaper articles pro- lating on what he could sions. He provides no star- vides a handsome treasure not document. tling revelations about the of sources. Occasionally he Essentially, though, this impact of broadcast propa- relies too heavily on the is an informative historical ganda, but instead offers a biography of OSS director piece that explores rela- step-by-step reconstruc- William Donovan as well tively uncharted history tion of the organization as New York Times articles, and carefully fits a few and implementation of but, overall, his careful re- more pieces into the World fifth

We see how American ef- Radio Warfare is not with- . . . Louis W. Liebovich forts to confuse and de- out its flaws. Its theme is University of Illinois moralize the enemy with the political, military, and radio news and propa- communications strategies ganda met variously with that shaped the develop- French arrogance in Alge- ment of these World War ria, Chinese Nationalist in- II broadcasts. Yet, for some HOME TOWN NEWS: transigence in Asia, resis- reason, he begins the book WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE tance from Douglas with several pages of AND THE EMPORIA MacArthur in the South loosely constructed refer- GAZEUE. Pacific, and transmission ences to contemporary By Sally Foreman Griffith. difficulties around the clandestine operations and • Japanese home islands. closes in the same way, Oxford University Press Similarly, Soviet clandes- hardly offering an over- •1989,304 pp. tine broadcasts suffered view of the main theme. • $24.95, Cloth from ideological con- Soley also struggles to straints and miscalculation explain the impact of these SALLY GRIFFITH'S BOOK of German soldiers' loy- war broadcasts. He points gives us a valuable study alty to Hitler. Interest- out that road signs in Ger- of William Allen White, ingly, a number of ploys many were altered accord- who serves as a better ex- were used to overcome ing to the directions from ample of a Progressive some of these hurdles. clandestine news broad- than of a small-town Americans, for instance, casters and that this was newspaperman early in broadcast German soccer one indication that Ger- this century. match results on the mans were listening to the When White stepped off propaganda stations on American radio signals. At the train in Emporia, Kan- Sunday nights before the other times, he flatly states sas, in 1895 at age twenty- match scores were aired that German soldiers be- seven, he brought his skills on Nazi-controlled sta- gan ignoring German as a printer, some experi- tions. Germans, anxious to propaganda stations and ence on the Kansas City hear the results, begin tun- tuning to American clan- newspapers, and good po- ing into the clandestine destine broadcasts. He also litical connections. White stations. American mili- argues that Nazi broad- had borrowed three thou- tary positions were misre- casts from Stuttgart had a sand dollars to buy the ported to confuse the Ger- great impact on the French Emporia Gazette. He was a man populace and Nazi before the fall of Paris in real small-town editor military strategists. These 1940, but does not support with advertising and job broadcasts occasionally his assertion. It is certainly printing to sell, aging backfired and confused difficult to determine the equipment, and large American military officers. impact of covert radio op- debts. In little over a year, Soley's mixture of bio- erations during wartime, however, his editorial graphical references. Of- but Soley would have been "What's the Matter With fice of Strategic Services better off simply acknowl- Kansas?" had been re- —

Book Reviews 125

printed nationally and livery. Booster pride in lo- cial Street businesses, his White had assumed the cal unity became oppres- newspaper was swept into role of Small-Town Editor sion of individual rights the network of national and spokesman for a way during the war. As Robert life. of life. As Griffith demon- Wiebe and several other White provides an ex- strates, his changing politi- historians have written, ample of the Progressive cal and social attitudes un- small-town life was in- mentality that held to- til his death in 1944 re- vaded by outside forces. gether both a community flected the conflicts and Griffith describes two pub- and a national political contradictions of the Pro- lic campaigns that symbol- movement. In this book, gressive movement. ized the change in Empo- Griffith has assembled a Politically, White could ria. The first was a street wealth of detail that leads be in several places at fair in 1899 that celebrated somewhere. It eventually once, although his more the self-sufficiency of Em- adds up to meaningful generous moods tended lo poria. The second was a changes in the life of the win out. Originally a Re- fund-raising drive after nation. This is a marvelous publican booster of small- World War I for a YMCA cultural history (originally town capitalism and con- building, a drive orches- a dissertation that shows formity, he would later trated by a nationally the influence of the au- support free speech and based outsider organiza- thor's advisors, including tolerance in a post-war tion, that symbolized the Cathy Covert, James world dead-set on oppres- death of local independ- Baughman, Elizabeth sion. He could boost capi- ence. White headed both Eisenstein, Richard talist business and advo- campaigns. Schwarzlose, and Bernard cate public ownership of White's professional ex- Weisberger, among oth- utilities at the same time. perience was not typical of ers). Griffith convincingly He favored expanded de- small-town editors. He demonstrates the need to mocracy while harboring wrote for McClure's and look at small-town Amer- resentment for the work- Atlantic Monthly, helped ica before making any ing class, blacks, immi- found the American Maga- sweeping generalizations grants, and anyone who op- zine in 1906 with IdaTarbell about Progessivism. posed his political stands. and John Phillips, and

A friend of Theodore published his short stories . . . Norman Sims Roosevelt, he supported and novels for a national University of Massachusetts the Progressive Party until audience. Yet two of Grif- it failed at the polls. Like fith's chapters demon- other Progressives, his strate the impact of new rhetoric of community technologies and advertis- THEODORE DREISER'S spirit drew him into sup- ing on the real small-town "HEARD IN THE CORRI- port for World War I, and editor. The purchase of a later for Prohibition. three thousand dollar lino- DORS": ARTICLES AND Many of those episodes, so type machine meant that RELATED WRITINGS. clearly related in Griffith's White would stop writing Edited by T.D. Nostwich. book, exposed contradic- inflamatory editorials. • Iowa State University Press tions in Progressivism. Later, the arrival of a new •1988,180 pp. Events were moving away printing press that used •$22.95, Cloth from White. Even before stereotyped mats permit- World War I, his booster ted the invasion of na- THESE EARLY anecdotal appeals to "buy local" tional advertising and di- articles for Chicago, St. foundered on the rocks of minished the "locals" Louis, and Pittsburgh national advertising for news of births, weddings, newspapers. Professor brand-name products and deaths—that had been the Nostwich writes, have mail-order catalogs lifeblood of White's news- "only slight value as litera- brought by rural free de- paper. Like the Commer- ture," and give very little 126 AJ /Spring 1990

promise of the magnitude R.L. Jeffery, "stopping at with some of the awkward of Dreiser's future work. the Wellington," and a few and elephantine sentences That is true, but Nostwich months later, for the St. in Dreiser's later writings, is too modest about the Louis Gbbe-Democrat, to a which have given him a value of this collection. In Charles Brandon "at the reputation as a "good bad fact, it gives many hints of Lindell." Dreiser attrib- writer." What remains the the direction of E)reiser's uted tales to his famous same is the descriptive future interests — in the song-writing brother, Paul power that Dreiser always practical world of busi- Dreiser, without explain- had, and the emotional ness, as seen especially in ing their relationship. force, the sorrow and the the Frank Copperwood The variety in the tales pity, that shines through trilogy (The Financier, The and in their plausibility is the writing in such poign- Titan, The Stoic), in the na- considerable. They include ant articles as one—^used ture of highly successful so|und advice from a medi- twice, for different news- entrepreneurs like Copper- cal person that handling papers—about family wood, in realistic fiction, money is a great transmit- graveyards in rural Indi- in mysticism and in the ter of disease (that dollar ana fallen into decay be- rich world of the senses. bill may have been in the cause no one is left to care. Where before, these ar- stocking of a street- Nostwich's introduction ticles of Dreiser's were walker!), to unbelievable admirably puts these ar- buried in newspaper files, tales of being buried alive, ticles in context. His "At- they are now easily avail- to political anecdotes, tales tribution Notes," in which able. From now on, any- about faithful dogs he explains exactly how he one studying the develop- mourning for their dead deduced or conjectured ment of Dreiser as man masters, and observations Dreiser's probable author- and artist will need to turn on the arts, on the soul- ship of each article, are at the outset to this valu- shrinking meanness of equally good. able work, which makes poverty, and on the joys of

. . . Nickerson an excellent supplement to luxury. How many of Edward A. the much larger Theodore these tales Dreiser actually University of Delaware Dreiser: Journalism, Volume heard in the hotels he vis- One, also compiled by ited we shall certainly Nostwich. never know, but it doesn't The articles represent the matter, for they clearly THE WORLDS OF LUCY anecdotes that Dreiser came from his avid curios- LARCOM, 1824-1893. supposedly heard, when ity about life and his eager By Shirley Marchalonis. he was a young newspa- questioning of every per- • University of Georgia Press per reporter, in the corri- son he met who he dors of big hotels from thought could tell him •1989,336 pp. • various guests. In fact, as about it. Dreiser's editors $40, Cloth Nostwich points out, the must have suspected that "visitors" were frequently he was fabricating at least SHIRLEY Marchalonis's fictiorwl, and the anec- the sources for these ac- account is a superbly writ- dotes were urban legends counts, but clearly they ten, absorbing biography or other tales picked up found them so entertain- of this prominent nine- here and there and as- ing that they ignored their teenth-century American signed a narrator. One of doubts — and this fact in writer whose poetry (or them, Dreiser's own har- itself provides another "verses," as she preferred rowing experience of los- chapter in journalism his- to call them) and moral es- ing his way in a labyrin- tory. says appeared in maga- thine cave, narrated in his The startling aspect of zines and weekly literary autobiography. Dawn, is these tales is how grace- newspapers like the attributed in a piece for the fully written they are. The Atlantic and the New York Chicago Daily Globe to one contrast is often sharp Independent and who —

Book Reviews 127

served as an editor of the the Lowell Offering, during pects of "keeping school" children's magazine. Our the most creative stage of (record-keeping, house- Young Folks, in its early the Lowell experiment. keeping, discipline) as op- years. During a six-year stay on posed to teaching, and the Like her contemporary the prairies of Illinois from advantages of a secure fi- and acquaintance, Harriet 1846 to 1852, Larcom ful- nancial position that lim- Beecher Stowe, Lucy filled a long-time dream of ited her time to write ver- Larcom was also not a having a formal education sus the risk of leaving "typical" nineteenth-cen- by attending the Mon- Wheaton to devote her tury American woman. ticello Seminary at time to a writing career. She refused ultimately to Godfrey, Illinois. Although Larcom's chance to rec- marry, even though she engaged at the time to a oncile her need for a liter- was engaged for several young man lured by the ary career with her equally years. She sought every promise of adventure in important need to live in- avenue of independent liv- California, she resisted dependently came when ing available and accept- what she regarded as an she was appointed one of able to her in order to unsettling and frivolous three editors for James achieve and maintain con- promise of fulfillment in Field s's new magazine. trol over the time she the far West and returned Our Young Folks, first pub- needed to write. to her home and family in lished in January 1865. As Bom in 1824 in Beverly, Massachusetts. Part of Marchalonis notes, the edi- Massachusetts, Larcom what she resisted, too, torship gave Larcom a was one of eight daughters however, was a marriage "modest but secure niche and the second yoimgest that she feared would in the world of letters." It of ten children (the oldest snap shut intellectual ad- also gave her enough two of whom were her ventures and opportimi- money to live on (fifty dol- half-sisters). One of the ties to write and discuss lars a month), in addition many strengths of this bi- ideas, which she enjoyed to payments for poems ography is its clear picture most of all. and occasional private tu- of the centrality of family The return to Massachu- toring. It gave her, too, a relationships and personal setts began a decade of style of emplo5mient that friendships to the develop- struggle and success. permitted her to balance ment of Larcom 's charac- Larcom taught at Wheaton the "stir" of city living and ter and writing style. Female Seminary from the "stillness" of living When she was eight years 1854 to 1862, and devel- close to nature in the old, Larcom experienced oped a mentoring and mountains or at the ocean the death of her father, deepening friendship with according to her need whom she worshipped. the poet John Greenleaf she could, after all, read Survival required her Whittier, whom she had manuscripts anywhere. mother to move the family met in the salon days in When she became sole to Lowell and open a Lowell. Four books of her editor of the magazine in boarding-house. Young moral essays were pub- the fall of 1868 her salary Lucy was compelled to lished during these years was doubled. Larcom was work as a mill girl in order as well as numerous especially competent with to supplement the family poems. By the early 1860s, and enjoyed handling the income. The eleven years she was an accepted mem- literary aspects of an edi- of mill experience, from ber of Boston's literary so- tor's job (e.g., selecting 1835 to 1846, not only ex- ciety, headed by the pub- manuscripts, planning lay- posed Lucy to the drudg- lisher James Fields (of outs, talking to writers), ery and cacophony of fac- Ticknor and Fields) and but she was "nearly hope- tory work but also to the his wife Annie. But Lar- less" with the business as- intellectual stimulation of com wrestled increasingly pects like budget and lectures and discussions with what she saw as the deadlines. In later years, as and the chance to write for loathsome and boring as- her confidence grew, she 128 AJ /Spring 1990

became more interested in see financial security much poems for children that such business asf>ects of more than a few months they co-edited and for her books as advertising, before her at a time. Over which Larcom had done reviews, and the quality of time, she also developed a most of the work. covers and bindings. In more professional attitude The importance of 1870 another of the origi- about asking appropriate Larcom's life for scholars nal editors displaced her payment for her work, of communications history as editor-in-chief, although thus enabling herself to is indirect. Marchalonis's she remained associated survive even when her in- purpose, of course, is to with the magazine until it come left her close to the create a biography of a was sold to Scribner's in margin. writer and not to write as a 1873. Marchalonis, an associate communications historian. Another of her profes- professor of English and She achieves her goal, but sional dreams became a comparative literature at in the process leaves some reality in late 1868 when a Pennsylvania State Uni- teasing questions for com- collection of her poems versity, Berks Campus, munications historians was published by Fields, is especially effective in unanswered. How, for ex- Osgood (formerly Ticknor showing the interplay of ample, did publishers and and Fields). Several other Larcom's personal, domes- editors decide payments collections of her poetry tic experience and public for writers' contributions? and prose appeared up to affairs, particularly her Were women writers, as the year before she died. strong abolitionist views, one incident discussed in Larcom continued her the effects of the Civil War the book suggests, consis- own writing while work- on New Englanders, and tently disadvantaged in ing as editor of Our Young her methods of coping such decisions? Larcom Folks, earning from with changes in American was accused twice of pla- twenty-five to forty dollars culture and literary style giarism when her poems per published poem in in the 1880s. For every were published—^how magazines like Scribner's— stage of Larcom's life, common were such a sign of progress from the Marchalonis provides just charges and how serious a early days when she re- enough historical context legal concern were they for ceived payment in the to show the connections publishers, editors, and form of magazine or news- between Larcom's private authors? paper subscriptions or no world and the larger Marchalonis gives us an payment at all. Her trepi- movements of state and exceptionally readable and dations about financial se- nation. In keeping with fully documented account curity led her to accept an- her expertise, Marchalonis of this nineteenth-century other teaching position in is also effective in analyz- writer. For a commtmica- 1873, with disastrous ef- ing and critically assessing tions historian, her book fects on her physical and Larcom's poetry. She pro- provides detail and texture psychological well-being. vides a balanced view of for the larger tapestry of She promised never again her subject with clear, judi- history. And in her able to accept a teaching job cious interpretations of hands what wonderful de- that would confine her available evidence. tail and texture that is! and cause her to lose con- Marchalonis also shows Marchalonis succeeds in trol of her life. many of the difficulties another way as well: she It was a promise she kept which even a successful rescues for us in the twen- chiefly by publishing her author like Larcom had to tieth century the remarka- work, teaching private endure, as happened in bleness of even the most classes, and lecturing the 1870s when Larcom's ordinary aspects of this (which she hated almost as old mentor and friend, earlier woman who strived much as teaching) for the Whittier, failed even to against the confinements duration of her life, even mention her by name in of her age to find a style of though she could rarely the preface to a volume of living that would sustain Book Reviews 129

her independence, help glances of the publishing before publication and her talents grow, and per- magnate. We learn of complained to Luce about mit her to share the prod- Luce's reluctance to fire or some of the phraseology. uct of those talents with replace managing editors. Was pre-publication re- the wider world. Luce's lukewarm verbal view of articles by sources endorsement of Donovan common among maga- ("you'll zines in the 1950s? He . . . Terry Hynes as his successor California State University, do"), his acceptance of muses that maybe sources Fullerton Donovan's criticism of should not have been al- Tim^s one-sided and lowed previews of manu- sometimes unfair editorial scripts, but he does not say policy, and Luce's lonely why he did not stop the private life. But much is practice. Nor does he ex- RIGHT TIMES, RIGHT left out. plain why he allowed staff The author criticizes members to accept junkets PLACES: FORTY YEARS other works about Luce from businesses. Why did OF JOURNALISM, NOT and Time Inc. for failing to he allow Life to "buy" sto- COUNTING MY PAPER capture the color of the ries and get the magazine ROUTE. man and the organization, into the mess with Clifford By Hedley Donovan. but Donovan himself fails Irving's phony Howard •Holt miserably here. His narra- Hughes biography in •1989.461pp. tive glosses over serious 1971? All he says is that • $27.95, Cloth personnel matters decided he didn't want someone under Luce's administra- else to get it! He barely BOOKS ABOUT TIME Inc. tion, such as Whittaker addresses the topic of and cofbunder Henry Luce Chambers's service as for- women and minorities in have begun to crowd li- eign editor of Time and journalism or at Time Inc. brary shelves, but the special advisor to Luce in The exception to this famed publishing empire the 1940s, Charles Mohr's superficiality is an absorb- has been a powerful force resignation as Saigon bu- ing essay at the end of the in American journalism reau chief in 1%3 because book on the American and certainly there is room of pro-Diem Time articles, press and the need for for more good works. Un- and John Herse/s and journalists to police them- fortunately, Hedley Dono- Theodore White's resigna- selves. van's book is not in that tions in 1946 over Time's Donovan, a brilliant category. This is a 450- pro-Nationalist Chinese writer and editor, grew up page seminar on magazine stance. in Minnesota and was editing and management. Occasionally, Donovan graduated from the Uni- Donovan was Luce's suc- raises questions about the versity of Minnesota and cessor in 1964 and obvi- roles of journalists and Oxford University. He ously a peacemaker at their editors in society, but glided smoothly from re- Time Inc. He contents him- he often fails to offer an- porter for the Washington self with recounting in swers. Why, when he was Post, to writer for Fortune, glowing terms nearly all managing editor of Fortune to managing editor of For- the editing and personnel in the 1950s, did Donovan tune, to editor-in-chief of decisions he made over a allow Fortune sources rou- Time Inc. Surprisingly, he long career. Little contro- tinely to review articles be- writes most interestingly versy here. He is still keep- fore publication? This led about his boyhood, his ing the peace. Donovan to consider quit- parents, Minnesota, and Donovan, by his own ting in 1956 when a piece his Oxford days. He re- admission, was probably on the Eisenhower Ad- lates touching stories closer to Luce than any ministration was changed about his mother and fa- other person at Time Inc. after White House advi- ther, whom he obviously Yet we only get brief sors reviewed the article revered, and about his first 130 AJ /Spring 1990

forays into the worid be- immigrants spawned a material is lamentably yond Minnesota. But his great diversity of publica- weak. While making use wife and children are only tions, ranging from large of a few major secondary shadowy figxires that flit in general-circulation urban works on German-Ameri- and out without much papers to specialized jour- cans and on the politics of depth. nals oriented to profes- the World War I era, the liiis imbalance also char- sional fields, social organi- author fails generally to acterizes the recollections zations, and religious au- pursue the subjects raised of his professional life. He diences. One example of beyond the pages of the St. mentions hundreds of this myriad assortment Josephs-Blatt in other collat- names, but ultimately we was the St. Josephs-Blatt, a eral sources. The result is leam little about any of German Catholic weekly that we leam little of the these people except that published by Benedictine contexts of these matters, they were brilliant and monks at Mt. Angel Abbey either in regard to the could edit up a storm. in Oregon. Begun as a readership of the paper, The book has its mo- small monthly issued by a the significance of the po- ments. The few insights Catholic parish, the pap)er litical and diplomatic is- into Luce's life, the chilling was turned into a weekly sues, or the general state of episode when the Synanon and published at the abbey German-American jour- cult harrassed Donovan fi-om 1889 to 1952. Like nalism. and his family in 1977, his many smaller ethnic publi- The core of the book con- dealings with the kooky cations, it did not try to centrates on the period of

Howard Hughes, and his appeal to all German- World War I, a troubling revelations about the inner Americans, but was aimed time for German-Ameri- financial workings of Time at a Catholic audience, can papers. The course fol- Inc. are all interesting and avowed a religious mis- lowed by the St. Josephs- enlightening. Overall, sion, and circidated pri- Blatt was not unlike that of though, the book is marily in the western many German-American strangely bereft of histori- United States. From 1889 papers. At the war's outset cal value and surprisingly to 1929, its editor was the the paper remained an ar- uninformative considering Swiss-born monk Brother dent exponent of German that its author occupied a Colestin Mueller. Brother cultural values, and of- position of such promi- Colestin, clearly a man of fered its version of a neu- nence. strong opinions, domi- tral and objective view of nated the editorial pages the conflict in Europe, pre-

. . . Louis Liebovich of the St. Josephs-Blatt all senting press reports from University of Illinois through his tenure. Germany as an antidote to Steven Harmon's study the allegedly British-domi- of the St. Josephs-Blatt was nated coverage appearing originally a master's thesis in English-language news- in German literature at papers. The editorial col- THE ST. JOSEPHS-BLAH, Portland State University. umns repeatedly de- 189&-1919. In its book form, it retains nounced British machina- By Steven W. Harmon. many of the earmarks and tions as the cause of the • Peter Lang limitations of a master's war. But these positions • 1989, 200 pp. thesis. Harmon has read came back to haunt the • $37.95. Cloth through the pages of the newspaper after America's paper fi-om 1896 to 1919 declaration of war in early THE LAST QUARTER of and presented excerpts of 1917, and the Blatt had to the nineteenth century its editorial comment, usu- defend itself against accu- marked the heyday of Ger- ally in large block quota- sations of disloyalty. Even- man-language journalism tions in the original Ger- tually the paper suspended in America. The booming man and without transla- publication from April population of German tion. The analysis of this 1918 to September 1919. Book Reviews 131

This suspension is only There are scores of books and societies inhabited by vaguely dealt with by Har- on the history of photo- upper- and upper-middle- mon; it appears not to graphic technology, per- class gentlemen, and it is have been brought about haps reflecting the tradi- in these institutional set- by governmental action. tioi\al oversupply of tech- tings that standards for Remarks in the book's nical "how-to" manuals, photographic picture mak- foreword (by Martin textbooks, pamphlets, and ing in Spain were estab- Pollard, the archivist of magazines. There is a lished between 1890 and Mt. Angel Abbey) suggest prominent art history of 1950. that it was by action of photography, concerned Placing Spanish ama- Brother Colestin's abbot, with identifying a progres- teurs within the context of but the affoir needs more sion of elite photographic amateur developments explanation. styles and establishing a throughout Europe and Harmon's book offers pantheon of noteworthy North America, King de- one small example from photo artists. But both tails the international in- the vast and complex these approaches have fluences and technical world of German-lan- been limited by their lack printing processes that guage journalism in its of attention to the social contributed to the rise of most flourishing period. It and institutional contexts Spanish pictorialism, a does not see very far be- of picture production and romantic and picturesque yond the horizons of that use, by their neglect of the approach to the making of one journal and its editor. broadest and most popular "beautiful" pictures. He Many more examples of terrains of photographic describes the manner in German journalism await activity, and by a more or which small groups of further exploration to less complete disregard for well-positioned gentlemen deepen our understanding historiographical issues in the Real Sociedad Foto- of the most prolific ethnic pertaining to the history of grafica de Madrid and the journalism that America photography and commu- Agrupacio Fotografica de has produced. nication media. Catalunya in Barcelona It is against this back- controlled the publication

. . , James M. Bercfuist ground that King's of Spain's leading photo- Villanova University monograph. The Photo- graphic magazines, ad- graphic Impressionists of ministered and judged the Spain, represents a unique nation's most prominent approach to media history. photographic salons and Unlike most photo histori- exhibitions, and pic- THE PHOTOGRAPHIC IM- made ans he treats photographic torialist work the standard PRESSIONISTS OF SPAIN. aesthetics as historically of "good" photography in By S. Carl King. "local and transitory." For Spain for over fifty years. • Edwin Mellen Press King, strategies of depic- The value of King's book • 1989, 289 pp. tion and canons of taste for scholars of journalism • $49.95, Cloth are tied to specific social, and communications is economic, and class cir- twofold. Rrst, it is a case IT IS CURIOUS that the cumstances and are not study of the social produc- history of photography the inevitable result of uni- tion of cultviral forms, a has remained so discon- versal aesthetic principles. study that demonstrates nected from the history of Thus, his history of photo- the importance of study- media and communica- graphic pictorialism in ing the socially orches- tions, especially since Spain is a history of social trated processes through questions surroimding the organization, economic which media forms of rep- nature of photographic circumstances, technical resentation are created. depiction are so central to processes, and class inter- Second, it extends beyond studies of mass media rep- ests. It is a history of ama- a strictly Spanish context resentation and reporting. teur photography clubs because it links up with 132 AJ /Spring 1990

similar types of current re- tions this suggests. He proper historiographical search in the U.S. and else- rightly points out the con- setting, but also provides where. For more than a tinued dominance of picto- the reader with a solid bio- decade, those dissatisfied rialist aesthetics in salons graphical overview of with the narrow parame- and exhibitions world- other work about the suf- ters of photographic his- wide. But he fails to even frage movement in Ire- tory have be«i calling for mention the industrial land. This first chapter is "other histories," histories promotion of this aesthetic the best one in the book. of amateur, professional, in the twentieth century, Murphy's study capably commercial, and industrial instead persisting in his presents the variety of ef- photography, histories of description of it as an "ar- fort in the Irish women's photo production that ex- tistic movement." suffrage movement as the amine the use of photo- It is disappointing that issues of votes for women graphic picture making in King did not do a'better and Irish Home Rule be- various industrial and au- job of situating his subject came intertwined between dience contexts. (The his- within a new, broader con- 1900 and World War I. tory of photojournalism, ception of photographic Some suffragists sup- for instance, is still, for the history. But despite the ported efforts both to give most part, waiting to be contradictions and short- women the vote and to done.) King's book repre- comings, he points us in gain Irish Home Rule, sents one of those "other the right direction for fur- while others emphasized histories." ther work. The "other" his- one goal over the other. The weakness of King's tories are slowly emerging. Because of the difference work is that it doesn't go in emphasis, the Irish suf- far enough in its attempt . . . Michael Griffin frage movement was to provide an alternative University of Minnesota splintered in ways differ- to traditional photo his- ent from similar efforts in tory. In some chapters he Britain. As was true else- still clings to an approach where, the Irish suffrage that tech- movement was predomi- overemphasizes THE WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE nical history without re- nantly a middle-class MOVEMENT AND IRISH vealing the social contexts movement, but it was of technological develop- SOCIETY IN THE EARLY never limited to one spe- ment. In other chapters he TWENTIETH CENTURY. cific group. Both women is still too preoccupied By ClJona Murphy. of leisure and women with canonizing a select • Temple University Press trained for professions group of individuals and •1989,240 pp. supported efforts to gain legitimizing pictorialism • $34.95, Cloth women the right to vote. as a great art form. The primary goal—^to gain Throughout the book his- IN HER STUDY of the suf- women the right to vote toriographical issues re- frage movement in pre- on the same terms as men main submerged and un- Worid War I Ireland, —appeared to many of its examined. He moves from Cliona Murphy provides supporters to be a logical brief discussions of the an insightful, but sadly part of the move for Irish "bourgeois nature" of pic- flawed, survey of the Home Rule. Others, how- torialism and the class- struggle for the vote by ever, emphasized the need based nature of the values Irish women during the to gain Home Rule first it celebrates, to long- early twentieth century. and then to consider the winded biographical de- Murphy begins her study issue of female suffrage. scriptions of the "unique with a carefully con- The disagreement over and creative" individuals structed survey of previ- whether to include votes who formed the move- ous work in the field. In for women in the move for ment, never addressing doing so, she not only Home Rule proved to be the potential contradic- places her own book in the the issue that kept Irish Book Reviews 133

suffragists from truly unit- points she is making. If the Alexander Meiklejohn's ing in their efforts to gain desire of the reader is to political expression theory, the vote. Because of the gain a good understanding and Harry Kalven Jr.'s no- lack of cohesiveness in the of the Irish press and its tions of common law and

movement, it failed to win reaction to the suffrage tolerance as fundamental suffrage for women before movement. Murphy's First Amendment building

World War I. work will not be com- blocks come to mind. Even though the move- pletely satisfying. These theorists were not ment failed. Murphy con- Finally, this book has an- journalism or communica- cludes that it still had a other serious flaw that tion scholars, but profes- major impact on Irish soci- weakens its impact. It is sors of law and philoso- ety, for it entered into all badly edited, for it is full phy. areas of Irish life. She con- of serious grammatical By the late 1920s a differ- siders the impact of the mistakes. Comma splices, ent type of scholar emerg- suffragists on Irish society incorrect division of ed. Ralph Grosman, head by studying the reactions words, and lack of needed of the journalism depart- of the churches, the intel- punctuation detract from ment at the University of lectuals, the general pub- the good information pre- Colorado, teamed with a lic, and the press. For jour- sented in the book. lawyer to write what we nalism historians, the reac- Murphy's work is a useful recognize today as a press tions of the press are obvi- survey of the Irish suffrage law case book. The interest ously of most interest. movement prior to World in law as it applied to jour-

Here, however, Ms. War I, but the many me- nalists, and later to broad- Murphy fails to fulfill her chanical errors weaken its casters, advertisers, and goal. According to impact. public relations counsel- Murphy, "the Irish press ors, was a natural one for was . . . heterogeneous in . . . Carol Sue Humphrey those working in schools its views" of the Irish suf- Oklahoma Baptist Univ. of journalism. Many of our frage movement (122). current media law texts However, she fails to pres- are written in part or in ent much solid evidence to whole by authors with ad- support her contention. FREEDOM OF EXPRES- vanced degrees in commu- She quotes extensively nication rather than in law. SION IN THE AMERICAN from the suffrage paper, Paralleling the rise of so- MILITARY-A COMMUNI- the Irish Citizen, and also cial science in journalism presents comments from CATION MODEUNG schools during the 1960s, women who felt their ANALYSIS. researchers began to take cause was not receiving By Cathy Packer. an interest in empirically adequate press coverage. • Greenwood based questions raised by However, her study fails •1989,350 pp. media law themes. The to adequately prove any • $47.95, Cloth free press and fair trial is- great interest in the suf- sue and the effects of news- frage movement by the RESEARCH INfVOLVING person's privilege, for ex- mainstream Irish press. In communication and law is ample, attracted the atten- a book of over two undergoing a metamor- tion of commimication himdred pages, only four phosis. The roots took theory researchers such as deal directly with the reac- hold in Zechariah Chafee's Steven Chaffee as well as tions of the press. Al- classic examination of free- media law scholars such as though Murphy is clearly dom of speech in 1920, David Gordon. familiar with the Irish which has inspired numer- The last decade has newspapers of the period, ous treatises combining brought us to still another she does very little except case law with Rrst distinct branch of research quote from them occasion- Amendment theory. Vince involving communication ally to support other Blasi's "checking theory," and law. Scholars are now 134 AJ/Spring 1990

examining assumptions points out, any correlation reviews of modeling, the about communication that between loyalty and re- dichotomy between civil- appear to be embedded in pression of speech, effi- ian and military law and law. This is no easy task. It ciency and prohibited ex- the rationales supporting requires fine tuning and a pression, or combat ability each, constitutional and careful touch to apply the and exposure to compet- military precedent, and conceptual tools of the ing and conflicting ideas is her identification of cur- communication researcher strictly speculative. The rent issues. to the often rigid defini- communication assump- In the end Packer's thesis tions and advocacy-based tion embedded in law is not compelling. Models conceptualizations of law. seeyns as though it should are simply too weak a tool Cathy Packer, an assis- be true, but is it? Is the to effectively motmt such a tant professor of journal- First Amendment anti- challenge. Models neither ism at the University of thetical to military per- fully explain nor predict. North Carolina, who holds formance and national se- But Packer knows this and a doctorate in mass com- curity demands? claims only to raise the is- munication, has attempted The book strays from sue. Perhaps more impor- such a combination. She pure questions of freedom tant are the questions in- provides a careful and de- of expression at times into herent in Packer's attempt. tailed analysis of the mili- issues more closely related If we cannot apply com- tary legal system and the to organizational commu- munication research and First Amendment as it ap- nication. Packer considers theory directly to law, how plies to speech involving the importance of horizon- can we best study areas in military personnel. Her tal and vertical speech pat- which communication and work is rooted in the re- terns traveling between law indeed intersect? cent past, covering rights the enlisted ranks and the Where are the disciplinary such as petitioning, asso- officer corps. Her material boundaries between or- ciation, press, and speech, is based on a review of the ganizational commimica- from 1951 well into the available literature, most tion, freedom of expres- 1980s. Packer finds lineage from sociology and psy- sion, and law? Packer en- for current indoctrinations chology. And from this courages us to challenge in the social science re- she raises questions based the too easily accepted search and the legal prac- on communication model- wisdom that free expres- tices of the 1940s. ing. She constructs a sion in the military is at Her compilation of this model of military commu- best inefficient and at often overlooked area is a nication and compares it worst dangerous. The in- valuable resource raising to a traditional communi- tuitive answer, she pro- important questions about cation model. Packer sug- tests, just may be wrong. the role of dissent in a de- gests that communication The conceptual road map mocracy. Clearly military theory challenges the mili- we need to answer restrictions on expression tary model of tightly regu- Packer's questions, and fall outside our normal lated expression. others challenging norma- expectations of constitu- At the heart of Packer's tive assumptions about tional protection. Packer work is her finding that communication, lies documents the offical and military and civilian prece- within the research area legal rationales. Foreign dent recognize the armed we are now calling commu- diplomatic relations must forces as a "separate soci- nication and law. Here we be protected. Strict order, ety" and use that concept can experiment with the discipline, and obedience as a basic rationale for ob- interdisciplinary tools must be maintained to in- fuscating fundamental from communication and sure an efficient military rights. Neither modeling from law necessary to response in armed conflict. nor empirical work sup- chart a useful course. Loyalty must be main- port that rationale. Packer Packer has set her ship tained. Yet as Packer finds. Her case is built on afloat on just these waters. Book Reviews 135

The course is not yet clear, in communication tech- gave inspiration to the Ra- but at least the voyage has nologies seem to emerge dio Act of 1927 as well as begun and Packer^s log is from the presentations and other mechanisms for af- most useful for the as- panel exchanges reported firmation of the public in- sumptions she challenges. in the book. First, a safari terest in industrial policy- of constitutional lawyers making. Although the at worst, . . . Jeremy Cohen and scholars is hunting for agencies have, Stanford Unixxrsity First Amendment trophies been controlled by the in- in the silicon jungle. No dustries and, at best, like byte, datum, or downlink (Juello, sat by perplexed, is safe from the safari's liti- the coffeehouse continues gious predilections. The to remind the safari that THE FIRST AMENDMEm'- lawyers advocate assign- more is at stake than the THE CHALLENGE OF NEW ing all of the new media to First Amendment interests TECHNOLOGY. their appropriate booths in of the industrial litigants Edited by Sig Mickelson and the marketplace of ideas, a and to remind the pillbox Elena Teran. delicate and difficult task that more is at stake than • Praeger that could take decades, the profits of the industrial • 1989, 250 pp. cost millions of dollars in shareholders. • $35.95, Cloth attomies' fees, and con- The three approaches are sume an equal number of adequately represented in IN HIS TELLING final re- pages in law reviews. the book, one in an excel- mark at a conference ad- Second, a pillbox of in- lent series of volumes on dressing how the law of dustrial protectionists, public policy issues pub- freedom of expression fits who in previous decades lished by Praeger over the in the development of new were in league with the sa- last few decades. The cast communication technolo- fari to the extent that to- is impressive, including gies, senior FCC commis- gether they could maxi- First Amendment experts sioner James Quello con- mize government benevo- Daniel L. Brenner, commu- fessed that "the potential lence and minimize its nication law director at application of the Rrst regulatory tendencies, is UCLA, and Richard M.

Amendment to advjmced scaling a new slope (to mix Schmidt Jr., general coun- communications is mind- metaphors) it would rather sel for the American Soci- boggling. Unforturwtely, not make slippery by the ety of Newspaper Editors; so are the solutions to the politics of administrative media leaders David problems." As one of only oversight and the vagaries Laventhol, president of two policy-makers among of appellate court judica- Times Mirror Co., and nineteen participants in ture. As part of the mili- J. Richard Munro, then the 1987 "First Amend- tary-industrial-scientific head of Time, Inc.; policy- ment—^Third Century complex, the pillbox makers Quello and Rep. Al Conference" whose pres- would prefer virtual com- Swift; and public interest entations are published in mon carrier status (so as to advocate Henry Geller, di- this book, Quello and his protect profits and enjoy rector of the Center for perplexity seem imfortu- monopoly) to the purgato- Public Policy Research. nately yet accurately to re- ries to which broadcast Use of the book for teach- flect the present role of the and cable entities say they ing or research purposes is First Amendment in poli- have been banished with limited because the pres- cies affecting the emerging their semi-regulated stat- entations lack documenta- media. uses. tion, but probably for the Three approaches to the Finally, a coffeehouse of same reason the advocacy intersections between the progressive critics some- of positions is less re- libertarian traditions of how has survived from its strained than they would freedom of expression and heyday of the first part of be in a research context. the continued expansions the century when they The result is a book laced 136 AJ /Spring 1990

with hypotheses, some of Altholz, a professor of his- low church arguments which are ripe for re- tory at the University of abound within it. Of search. Although few Minnesota, is a specialist course there are chapters speakers failed to ac- in Victorian religious his- on the Presbyterians and knowledge the signifi- tory. Here he turns his Catholics, along with one cance of historical lessons considerable talents and chapter each on the free- in resolving futuristic as acumen to the question of thinkers and that comfort- well as current problems, religious discourse ing group, the "others." the potent myths of the through the press in the The study weaves the his- Zenger case, the Stamp then still very United tory of the period effec- Act, the framing of the Kingdom of England, Ire- tively but not overbear- First Amendment, and land, Scotland, and Wales, ingly with the original his- Near v. Minnesota, among shying only from the reli- tory of the religious press, other "lessons," inspire gious-political discourse of so that the context of the much of this discussion. Ireland by admitting that press's contribution is con- there religion and politics sistently apparent.

. . . Thomas A. Schwartz were truly inseparable. Copious notes are com- Ohio State University This catalogue discussion plemented by a well-se- of the religious press be- lected bibliography and a gins with a general essay comprehensive index of on the scope of the study, the religious periodicals of THE RELIGIOUS PRESS helping us set the pattern the period. As Altholz of the book in mind while points out, the index of IN BRITAIN, 1760-1900. recalling for us the central- titles mentioned in the text By Josef LAItholz. ity of the religious press in includes, at least, all of the • Greenwood people's lives. It really religious periodicals of •1989,200 pp. should go without saying import in Victorian Brit- • $39.95, Cloth that the religious press ain, and then some. touches more people more This signal work is a nec- EVERY FEW DECADES deeply than even the most essary resource for the there is a new recognition celebrated of the secular bookshelf of Victorian spe- that religion, however it is press, especially in the pre- cialists and deserves as defined, plays a central electronic era of Victorian well to be recognized as a role in the development Britain. But because it is serious contribution to the and movement of society routinely dismissed as development of journalism and culture. And every dealing "only" with reli- history. few decades somebody gious matters, it is not al- recognizes that, in retro- ways seen as a serious . . . Phyllis Zagano spect, religion was there contributor to the ways in Boston University all along, percolating which society works. But ideas, essays, arguments, even editors of religious and politics. periodicals get hanged ev- Students of Victorian lit- ery once in a while (as Dr. THE DIALECTIC erature and history, of William Dodd, chaplain to IN JOURNALISM. course, have always the king and editor of the By John C.Merrill. known this. Now journal- Christian's Magazine, • ism historians can share learned only too late), and Louisiana State University this view from Josef Alt- so Altholz's detailed dis- Press holz's perch, and take a cussions do grab one's at- •1989,280 pp. closer look at the role of tention. • $29.95, Cloth the religious press in Brit- The press he sees as most ain during the late eight- active between 1760 and OBJECTIVITY AND sub- eenth and throughout the 1900 is mostly Anglican, jectivity, freedom and con- nineteenth centuries. and internal high versus trol, reality and illusion: —

Book Reviews 137

journalism long has dialectic to the tension be- earlier conviction that it seemed torn between the tween freedom and control was proper for the press to pull of powerful poles. in journalism. He opposes have power (freedom) Resolution of the tension the thesis of freedom with without concomitant obli- between the poles, the the antitheses of social gations to the people." He quest really for the proper control. He looks for a admits, "At one time role of journalism in social synthesis in a global defi- American-style press free- life, has continued to nition of journalism ethics dom in its extreme mani- evade the social sciences. based on sense of duty festation CThe people be It has become evident that (deontology) and concern damned; / am the editor!') some part of the quest for consequences (teleol- had a great appeal for must lead down the road ogy). A "deontelic ethics" me." He writes, "For years of ethics, responsibility encourages journalists to I took such positions. I in short, philosophy. find their own middle thought that by taking This perspective lies at ground between blind ad- stands I was being coura- the heart of the most re- herence to principle and geous, when often I was cent book by John Merrill. the allure of expediency. being foolhardy. I saw my A professor emeritus of Merrill finds further pos- convictions as necessary, journalism at the Univer- sibilities for the dialectic when in fact,they were of- sity of Missouri who has throughout journalism. He ten no more than biased taught most recently at argues against those who sophistry. I saw my icono- Louisiana State, Merrill would take an either-or clasm as helpful, when of- has been over this ground approach to central conten it was simply confus- before. Through more than cerns, such as objectivity- ing and debilitating." thirty years and twenty subjectivity and authori- Such honesty and insight books, he has drawn in- tarian-libertarian systems. strengthen the book. And sights from the mix and He affirms that the dialec- though he frets that his clash of journalism and tic is consistent with plu- new, dialectical self might philosophy. ralism, the clash of ideas in suffer from lack of vigor Merrill is a serious stu- the marketplace, the ever and emphasis, those who dent of his fields. No changing but ever familiar have witnessed Merrill popular philosophy here, world of the news. lumber and growl like an no quick case studies of As Merrill notes, this old bear through a journal- newsroom ethics. book rethinks the contro- ism conference must agree His book is divided into versial stance of The Im- that vigor and emphasis two parts. In the first part, perative of Freedom, which are the least of his worries. Merrill discusses the es- he published in 1974. He There is plenty here for a sential notion of the dialec- acknowledges that the journalism historian to ab- tic. He writes with disarm- early book's heavy liber- sorb. Within his argument, ing clarity. The dialectic is tarian thrust apfjeared to Merrill provides a history simply "the principle of slight ethics and responsi- of thinking about press contradiction. Everything bility in favor of press free- freedom, weaving Milton tends to clash and merge dom. "Although," he says, and Locke with Lippmann, with its opposite. Develop- "this 'weakness' of the ear- the Hutchins Commission,

ment is everywhere. And lier volume was, I think, and Four Theories of the

the development proceeds exaggerated, I have tried Press. More broadly, he of- by the dialectical process." in the present work to fers an acceptance of para- He goes on to trace the right this real (or per- dox, an embrace of contra- roots of the dialectic ceived) wrong." diction within journalism through Plato, Aristotle, He is true to his word. that rings true to the care- Rousseau, Hegel, and There are some wonderful historian. And finally, Nietzsche. fully engaging paragraphs Merrill illustrates the In the second part, Mer- in which Merrill acknowl- subtle value of the dialec- rill applies the notion of edges "the sterility of my tic for historical study and 138 AJ/Spring 1990

points the way to contin- contributions of rank-and- concludes that Wobblie art ued, thoughtful explora- file activists, particularly and cultural forms chal- tions of the philosophy of immigrant activists who lenged the definition of journalism. carried European tradi- American life imposed by tions of revolutionary un- government and business

. . . Jack Lule ionism into the American elites while helping to University of Tulsa labor movement. shape a dynamic concep- It is these European in- tion of workers' culture. fluences, especially French For its targeted and syndicalism, that most in- rather detailed reading of RED NOVEMBER, BLACK terest Salerno. The bulk of the cartoons, poems, and NOVEMBER: CULTURE his study is concerned songs as cultural political with identifying the diver- texts, this book has some- AND COMMUNITY IN THE sity of political and cul- thing to say to historians INDUSTRIAL WORKERS tural ideas that informed of the press. For its general OF THE WORLD. the IWW. The emerging "bottom up" approach Salvatore Salerno. By picture is of a complex so- that focuses on rank-and- • State University of New cial movement: pluralistic, file intellectuals and immi- York Press heterogeneous, and rich in grant artists, the book cer- •1989,160 pp. European tradition. tainly reinforces the bene- • $34.50, Cloth After the author estab- fits of such social history. lishes (and somewhat bela- But, unfortunately for the THE INDUSTRIAL Work- bors) this point, he moves press historian, the au- ers of the World (IWW) is on to a discussion that thor's protracted criticisms certainly one of the most should be of some interest of other scholars' work studied of the generally to press historians: the and his extended discus- overlooked and under- significance of Wobblie art sions of French syndical- studied American radical forms as vehicles for revo- ism take up most of this Left. But, says Salvatore lutionary consciousness. slim volume. Salerno, a Metropolitan Foremost among these art

State University professor, forms are political car- . . . Lauren Kessler scholars have not yet done toons published in IWW University of Oregon it justice. Red November, newspapers and tracts (but Black November is an at- mostly in the Industrial tempt to expand histori- Worker), twenty-seven of ans' understanding of the which are reproduced IWW not just as a political throughout the book. He force but as a social move- also discusses Wobblie TEENAGERS AND TEEN- ment emerging from a di- poems and songs. PICS: THE JUVENILIZA- verse cultural context. Salerno's method is to TION OF AMERICAN Salerno convincingly sketch in the historical MOVIES IN THE 1950S. criticizes other scholars for moment—a strike, a free By Thomas Doherty. basing their interpreta- speech fight, for example • Unwin Hyman tions of the IWW almost —and then discuss how • solely on the group's offi- the cartoons, poems, and 1988, 275 pp. cial actions and events. songs expressed the true •$34.95, Cloth; $12.95, Paper Approached from this per- pluralistic nature of the spective, the IWW appears IWW at that moment. He DOHERTY'SBOOKISa more homogeneous and sees this art as a means of well-written account of a more purely American both disseminating politi- colorful era of film his- than it really was, main- cal ideas and creating a tory—^the age of / V^as a tains Salerno. Previous his- workers' culture, and finds Teenage Werewolf ^nd At- torians have missed or se- in it many direct links to tack of the 50 Foot Woman, verely underestimated the European radicalism. He Hot Rod Rumble and Teen- Book Reviews 139

age Wolfpack. In short, this clear, enlightening, and WESTERN IMAGES was the advent of what he entertainingly written OF CHINA. calls the "teenpic." analysis of the motion pic- By Colin Mackerras. Doherty begins his dis- ture industry in general, • Oxford University Press cussion of the 1950s teen- and in particular the gen- pic by placing the phe- eral state of the industry •1989,368 pp. nomenon within its his- after the advent of signifi- •$29.95, Cloth torical context, demon- cant competition from tele- strating that its develop- vision broadcasting. Much AN AUSTRALIAN pro- ment during the fifties was of this historical back- fessor of modern Asian an economically-moti- ground information will studies describes the ways vated response to demo- be immediately relevant to in which Westerners have graphic changes in the studies of genres other perceived China by exam- composition of American than that of the teenpic, ining significant accounts movie audiences. "Holly- and will be of interest to from history, literature, wood's platonic ideal" of students of the motion pic- and the media and judging entire families attending ture industry in general. the effects the power rela- the movies together repre- Analysis of the teenpic tions of the day have had sented an era that was rap- genre itself recognizes sev- on Western views. idly coming to a close, eral different subforms of The first two parts of his largely because of "Holly- the teenpic: "rock 'n' roll book deal with Western wood's nemesis": televi- teenpics"; films concerned images of China's present sion. The movie industry, with juvenile crime, or during the period prior to according to the author, "dangerous youth"; "hor- 1949, and with Western actively began to court the ror teenpics"; and an enig- images of China's past teenage audience as a spe- matic category the author during the same period. cific, exploitable group by refers to as "the clean teen- The third section describes the mid-1950s, and the pics." This latter label is and evaluates Western im- teenpic was a recognizable applied to those films that ages of the People's Re- staple of the industry by were produced as a result public of China. There are around 1960. of a cultural backlash di- extensive notes and bibli- The author sees the teen- rected against the "vio- ography. pic as a subcategory of the lence, vice, and rock 'n' Mackerras poses Michel "exploitation" film. He roll-ridden films" usually Foucault's "power/knowl- explains that the fifties ex- associated with the teen- edge" concept as a guide ploitation film commonly pic. These included such to his study, and con- exhibited three characteris- films as Bemardine, Shaggy cludes that the dominant tics: (1) Because the film's Dog, Tammy and the Bache- images of most periods subject matter was "con- lor, and April Love. have tended to be in ac- troversial, bizarre, or Teenagers and Teenpics cord with, rather than op- timely," it was amenable makes a cogent argument pose, the interests of the to "wild promotion," (2) for the acceptance of the main Western authorities the budget was "substan- teenpic as a distinctive or governments of the day. dard," and (3) its audience genre that is worthy of His major example, of was teenaged. The teenpic study, while offering a course, was the dramatic is, according to Doherty, a clear taxonomic structure shift in American attitude historical derivative of the for analytical study of the toward the People's Re- exploitation film tradition teenpic by future scholars. public in the wake of that dates at least as far President Nixon's 1972 back as the 1930s. In pre- . . . Steven Phipps visit to a cotmtry subjected senting requisite back- Indiana-Purdue University to a bitter anti-China pol- ground information re- at Fort Wayne icy since 1950. garding the exploitation The study finds the low film, Doherty gives us a point of Western images of 140 AJ /Spring 1990

China to be in the nine- Louis Brandeis and news media, principally teenth and early twentieth Samuel Warren, William daily newspapers. The centuries. Mackerras Allen White, and George subtitle misleadingly sug- judges iniages to be Seldes. Section 2, covering gests that "media criti- mainly favorable since journalists and their bi- cism," a broader subject, is 1976, but finds academics ases, includes work of the topic. One also can and journalists in the late Theodore Roosevelt on quarrel with the main title. 1980s to be more skeptical muckraking, Spiro Ag- Killing the Messenger. The of the People's Republic new's speeches on media critics whose works are in- than the popular outlook. bias, Walter Lippmann cluded do not, in fact, con- The shock of the June 1989 and Charles Merz's cri- centrate on blaming news- events in Tiananmen tique of the New York papers for the conditions Square confirms his judg- Times's coverage of the on which they report but ment. Russian Revolution, and rather criticize joumalisfic Clifton Daniel's account of practices and perform-

. . . Edwin Emery (ret.) the same newspaper's cov- ances. University of Minnesota erage of the Bay of Pigs These quarrels aside, invasion. Represented in many readers will be "The Power and Limita- grateful for an introduc- tions of the Press" are Will tion to such thinkers as Irwin, Upton Sinclair, Carl Seldes, Irwin, and Sinclair KILLING THE MESSENGER: Ackerman, and Robert and for the opportunity to 100 YEARS OF MEDIA Maynard Hutchins. Re- examine the fascinating CRITICISM. garding the task of im- study of the Times's re- Edited by Tom Goldstein. proving reporting, the porting on the Russian • Columbia University Press volume includes Joseph Revolution by Lippmann •1989.272 pp. Pulitzer's views on the and Merz. • $38, Cloth need for journalism educa- Regrettably, the collection and the examination tion does not give any sug- THE EDITOR'S AIM in as- of the media and news gestion that a rich critical sembling the pieces for about minorities prepared literature has been pro- Killing the Messenger was by the Commission on duced by female critics of to "bring to a wider audi- Civil Disorders. Finally, the news media. Gaye ence some often neglected under "news and reality" Tuchman's writing on pieces of seminal thnking are the contributions of symbolic annihilation of about the press." To that Frederick Lewis Allen and women by the mass media end he has chosen contri- John Hersey. would have made a pow- butions from fifteen U.S. The editor's desire to erful contribution to the critics, men whose creden- bring to current scholars section on journalists and tials for assessing press and journalists a heritage their biases. performance range from of earlier criticism un- those of Spiro Agnew to doubtedly will be fulfilled. . . . Jean Ward those of Louis Brandeis. While such selections as University of Minnesota The earlier years of the pe- those from the commis- riod are emphasized in the sions on freedom of the collection, in order to press and on civil disor- make visible contributions ders are readily available, that the editor believes are others are less visible and less accessible and less vis- accessible. ible than they deserve to Fortunately, the selec- be. tions are more closely fo- Section 1, on "reporting cussed than the title sug- on public and private mat- gests. The material is lim- ters," presents works by ited to criticism of the r

NON-PROHT ORGANIZATION US POSTAGE PAID UNIVERSITY OF TULSA PERMIT NO. 661

A M KR IC.W PIRNAI.ISM

UNIVERSITY OF TULSA FACULTY OF COMMUNICATION 600 SOUTH COLLEGE TULSA, OK 74104 :f

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AMERICAN JOURNALISM

BYU Library S

OCT 2 8 2005

SUMMER 1990

Published by the American Journalism Historians Association

AMERICAN JOURNALISM SUMMER 1990

DEPARTMENTS ARTICLES •144- RESEARCH NOTES • "Such Things Can Only Happen in British Press An Anglo-American America": Response Press Conflict to the Scopes Trial •173- The "Monkeyville" Trial As Evidence of the Degradation of Modem Culture. BOOK REVIEWS Dean Rapp 148 Review Essay: Film, Television, and • CBS World News Roundup: Setting the Visual Communication Stage for the Next Half Century O'Keeffe, Steiglitz CBS Radio Gathers Its Correspondents and the Critics from across Europe for a Momentous Broadcast. Donald G. Godfrey 164 Hollywood Speaks

Daniel Defoe: His Life

How Many Words Do You Want?

The Culture of Print

New Essays by Henry Fielding

The Biography ofOttmar Mergarithaler

Mass Media in China

Hattie/See You at the Movies

. . . and more EDITOR EDITORIAL PURPOSE. Anyone who wishes to re-

John J. Pauly American Journalism publishes view books for American Tulsa articles, research notes, book Journalism, or to propose a ASSOCIATE EDITORS reviews, and correspondence book for review, should con- Pamela A. Brown dealing with the history of tact Professor Nancy Roberts, Rider College journalism. Such contribu- Book Review Editor, American Gary Whitby tions may focvis on social, Journalism, School of Journal- Central Missouri State economic, intellectual, politi- ism and Mass Commvmica- BOOK REVIEW EDITOR cal, or legal issues. American tion. University of Miimesota, Nancy Roberts Journalism also welcomes ar- Minneapolis, Minnesota Minnesota ticles that treat the history of 55455. DESIGN communication in general; the American Journalism is pro- Sharon M.W. Bass history of broadcasting, ad- duced on a Macintosh com- Kansas vertising, and public relations; puter, using Microsoft Word ADVERTISING the history of media outside and Pagemciker software. Au- Alf Pratte the Uiuted States; and theo- thors of manuscripts accepted Brigham Young retical issues in the literature for publication are encour- ASSISTANT EDITOR or methods of media history. aged, but not required, to Barbara Buckley submit their work on a DOS- Tulsa SUBMISSIONS. AU articles, based or Macintosh disk. FORMER EDITORS research notes, and corre- Wm. David Sloan spondence should be sent to ADVERTISING. Information Alabama Professor John Pauly, Editor, on advertising rates and Gary Whitby American Journalism, Faculty placements is available from Central Missouri State of Communication, Univer- Professor Alf Pratte, Adver- sity of Tulsa, 600 S. College tising Manager, American AMERICAN JOURNALISM Avenue, Tulsa, Oklahoma Journalism, Department of HISTORIANS 74104. Authors should send Communications, Brigham ASSOCIATION four copies of manuscripts Young Uruversity, Provo, submitted for publication as Utah 84602. PRESIDENT articles. American Journalism Maurine Beasley follows the style require- SUBSCRIPTIONS. American Maryland ments of The Chicago Manual Journalism (ISSN 0882-1127) VICE-PRESIDENT of Style. The maximum length is published quarterly by the Leomard Teel for most manuscripts is American Journalism Histori- Georgia State twenty-five pages, not includ- ans Association, at the Uni- SECRETARY ing notes and tables. versity of Tulsa. Subscriptions Donald Avery All submissions are blind to American Journalism cost Southern Mississippi refereed by three readers, and $15 a year, $10 for students, BOARD OF DIRECTORS the review process typically and include a one-year mem- Perry Ashley takes about three months. bership in AJHA. Subscrip- South Carolina Maniiscripts will be returned tions mailed outside the Roy Atwood only if the author has includ- United States cost $20 for sur- Idaho ed a self-addressed stamped face mail, $25 for air mail. For Elaine Berland envelope. further information, please Webster Research notes are typically contact the Editor. Lester Carson three- to six-page manu- Florida scripts, written without for- COPYRIGHT. © American Edward Caudill mal documentation. Such Journalism Historians Asso- Tennessee notes, which are not blind ciation, 1990. Articles in Barbara Qoud refereed, may include reports American Journalism maybe Nevada-Las Vegas of research in progress, dis- photocopied for fair xise in Carol Sue Hvunphrey cussions of methodology, an- teaching, research, criticism, Oklahoma Baptist notations on new archival and news reporting, in accor- Alf Pratte sources, commentaries on is- dance with Sections 107 and Brigham Young sues in journalism history, or 108 of the U.S. Copyright Nancy Roberts suggestions for future re- Law. For all other purposes, Minnesota search. Authors who wish to users must obtain permission contribute research notes are from the Editor. invited to query the editor. REFEREES. Thanks to the following editorial board members, who have recently read manuscripts for FROM THE EDITOR American Journalism.

THIS several Paul Ashdown WHEN JOURNAL began years ago, it Tennessee took American Journalism as its title, in a deliberate John Behrens echo of Frank Luther Mott's famous history. But the Utica College of Syracuse study of even American journalism now often begins Newell Boyd with a turn to the international. Both articles in this Houston Baptist Michael Buchholz issue illustrate the consequences of that turn. Indiana State Donald Godfrey's study of the first radio news Thomas Connery roundup reminds us that international warfare has College St. Thomas of always won journalism's undivided attention. War Anne Cooper continues to Ohio be perhaps the archetypal news story, David Eason the compelling event that ultimately justifies jour- Utah nalists' sense of hurry. But increasingly journalists Eldon Eisenach turn to the world whether in war or peace. They find Tulsa themselves able to chart major economic or political Kathleen Endres Akron stories only with the help of global coordinates. Lars Engle Dean Rapp's study of British press reaction to the Tulsa Scopes trial reminds us of a second sense in which Ted Glasser American journalism can be considered international. Stanford Its daily chronicle of life in Myron Jordan the United States offers up Washington State "America" as an object of worldwide contemplation Sidney Kobre and debate. Even the simplest news story may tell a Maryland Community College moral tale about the character and direction of Philip Lane American life. California State-Fresno Linda Lawson That life, it seems, still means a great deal to the rest Indiana of the world. Sometimes, as in Rapp's instance, the Jack Lule story of "America" forebodes a dark future: a de- Lehigh based mass culture washes over the world, or William Matsen computerized Bemidji State weapons (with a great show of devoutness Jerilyn Mclntyre and sincerity) set the world ablaze. At other times, Utah however, the talk about "America" reminds us of a Joseph McKems promise, a vow to repudiate all ancient blood feuds, Ohio State a pledge to open our hands start Catherine Mitchell and anew. North Carolina-Asheville Journalism carries stories about America to the E.A. Nickerson world. But it is itself also a character in those stories. Delaware To the extent that journalism plays both roles with Vincent Norris honor, it earns for America the world's respect as well Pennsylvania State as its curiosity. Quentin Schultze Calvin College -J.P. James Startt Valparaiso Thomas Volek Kansas Reg Westmoreland North Texas Joel Wiener City College of New York .

RESEARCH NOTES

AN ANGLO-AMERICAN fate of the Titanic, Bateman interested only in securing PRESS CONFLICT: THE examined their "faulty" and relaying "spicy copy" editors. 7/r4A//C DISASTER reports. for their The most serious were Worse yet, on "close in- the reports to British pa- spection," Bateman found THE CONFUSED AND in- pers from their New York that all too many of the ar- accurate reporting on the correspondents that all ticles published on the Ti- Titanic disaster in mid- passengers on the Titanic tanic were "rehashed from April 1912, in the British were transferred to the those published a few daily press, became a mat- Parisian, the first ship to days previously when the ter of serious concern to reach the scene, and that Titanic first sailed from some British editors and the Titanic was taken in Southhampton" on 10 journalists. To some, such tow by the Virginian. April. The result was that as the veteran London When the Times of London the readers were con- newsman Charles T. queried the source of these strained "to wander aim- Bateman, the Titanic trag- reports, it found that they lessly through a mass of edy offered "a notable ex- were based on intelligence confusing reports and ru- ample" of the manner in from the Central News mours instead of prepar- which news often reached Agency. The agency, in ing for them a connected the British press from turn, had obtained its news account based on intelli- American sources and was from reports published in gence that may be de- received and processed by New York evening papers scribed as 'official' and the various editorial staffs and allegedly based on in- discriminating between in London. formation derived from that and other statements Bateman first voiced his the White Star Line, the that come to hand." It is criticisms in an article on owners of the Titanic. incumbent, said Bateman, "The Daily Papers and the Bateman used this item to that "All correspondents Titanic' Disaster," pub- emphasize "the peril of should have instructions lished in the London printing cables that are to state the precise source weekly trade paper the largely inspired by the of their information at Newspaper Owner on 20 New York evening papers" times of great sensation,

April, five days after the and the "foolishness" of and [that] the reports . . sinking of the Titanic. British correspondents in should begin: . . . 'Our Bateman asserted that the cabling "the merest gossip New York correspondent fate of the Titanic was an- or surmise as bed-rock gathers from the New other example of how the facts." He blamed the York papers'—and the daily press and the news managers of the White narrative should be agencies are "unwisely Star Line in the United printed with this reserve." served by their regular States and Britain for not Bateman also noted that American and Canadian telling the press all that the early deadline adopted correspondents." Indeed, they knew of what had by many newspaper man- beginning with the prem- happened to the Titanic, as agers (so that their papers ise that "Neither the well as the newsmen would reach distant parts American nor the Cana- "dupes," who failed to ex- of the nation in time to be dian journalists who con- ercise "scrupulous care" in read at breakfast) ex- tribute to the British dai- verifying what they had plained why some dailies lies or news agencies are to been told. He also charged were "outdistanced" by be congratulated on their that the correspondents competitors who had ren- earlier messages" on the and reporters seemed dered news of the Titanic on Wednesday morning than some of their contem- was disproved by later in- (17 April). Thus people in poraries were able to "save telligence on the fate of the Oxford read in their pa- themselves" by providing Titanic. And, according to pers on Tuesday morning a more accurate account of E.C.S.,"They represented (16 April) that all of the Ti- what had happened to the ... all the news obtainable tanic passengers were safe, Titanic. then and for many hours only to find when arriving E.C.S. praised Reuters afterwards." What also in, say, Leeds that those News Agency for the helped was the courtesy living further away had al- prompt and efficient serv- and cooperation of the ready learned that almost ice it rendered in sending White Star Line office in all passengers had been the first message at 12:45 immediately communicat- lost at sea. a.m. on Tuesday that the ing, even before seven a.m. In order to understand Titanic had gone down at on Tuesday, whatever the manner in which the 2:20 a.m. on Monday. At "scrap of information" the morning press dealt with first, some of the papers White Star management the news of the loss of the were skeptical of the infor- had available on what had Titanic, Bateman examined mation from Reuters and happened to its great liner, all of the major London contended, in view of the and inviting the press to dailies. He found that they news of the Titanic' s move- ring their office as often as varied widely in the tim- ments published in the they liked. ing, detail, and source of evening papers on Mon- A week later, on 27 their coverage of the trag- day (15 April), that the April, the journalist "M" edy. time for the sinking of the wrote about "The Titanic In the same issue of the ship should have been Story" in the regular Newspaper Oumer (20 listed as 2:20 p.m. But these "Newspaper and the April), another journalist, doubts vanished as soon News" column of the writing over the initials as the Reuters dispatch Newspaper Owner. "M" "E.C.S.," rendered an ac- was confirmed by intelli- generally supported count of "The Titanic' gence from other sources. E.C.S.'s point of view and Disaster. How the News There then followed "a indirectly challenged Came Through." E.C.S. quick succession of mes- Bateman's assertions. "M" described what had oc- sages," coming mostly declared that "Never in curred as a classic "stop- from New York, based on British history . . . have press" sensation, mainly communications from the newspapers been called because the morning pa- ships that had come to the upon to give their readers pers 'locked up the aid of the Titanic. At this such a thrilling story as formes" of their Tuesday point, noted E.C.S., "the that of the sinking of the

(16 April) issue, confident difference in time has to be Titanic, . . . awful in its de- that the liner was being taken into account when tail but raised to the height towed to Halifax. There calculating the hour at of grandeur by its stories was, said E.C.S., "a keen which the true dimensions of simple duty and noble sense of relief" in the of the disaster were made devotion." "M" also noted newsrooms that there was known in this country." that much had been writ- no loss of life in this "un- The cables were in conten of "the many false sto- sinkable" ship. But no stant use between one and ries" during the earlier sooner had the presses three a.m. on Tuesday and part of the week and that done their work when almost every message the press had been con- "this optimism was de- seemed to be so much "old demned by many for its stroyed" and "first editions meat" to the editors. Yet role in publishing those were thrown out of date as E.C.S. was convinced that earlier untruths. "Arm completely as the evening there was no "embroi- chair criticism is easy," papers of the previous dery" of the news and that said "M," by those who in- night." However, the pa- none of the information, sist that all news should be pers going to press later "cabled at high pressure," verified by editors before . 146 AJ /Summer 1990

publication, but what and unprecedented cir- ifax) —had received from more could an editor do cumstances." New York information than what was done? Edi- On 18 May, Bateman that all passengers were tors have no choice but to dealt with the misleading safely evacuated from the accept in good faith the dispatches in his article, Titanic. Unfortunately, news coming through rec- "The False Titanic Mes- said Bateman, the pub- ognized news agencies sages. Is London or New lished dispatches gave the and from accredited over- York Responsible?" It is, impression that the Ex- seas correspondents. he declared, "For the change Telegraph Com- If blame must be appor- honour of the British pany had received its in- tioned for the earlier press" that the source of formation from Halifax in- grossly misleading dis- the "false messages" which stead of New York. Appar- patches on the fate of the "completely deceived eve- ently, the London bureau Titanic, argued "M," on ryone" must be discerned. of the Associated Press the basis of "all evidence According to the testimony had immediately cabled

. . . now available it is of the general manager of the message, as printed in fairly conclusive that the Associated Press of Amer- the Evening News, to New fault lay not with the Brit- ica, Melville E. Stone, to York as news received ish press but with the the United States Senate from the Halifax corre- American correspondents. inquiry on the Titanic dis- spondent of the Exchange Never so safe and cautious aster, the American press Telegraph Company! To as their English brethren, held the London newspa- Bateman, such transmis- they were perhaps even pers responsible for the er- sion was "a strange proce- more rash upon this occa- roneous reports. Stone dure," especially since the sion; and as the news pub- specifically blamed the Associated Press bureau in lished over here was nec- Montreal Star primarily, London probably had the essarily almost exclusively and the Exchange Tele- Exchange Company's received from the other graph Company secondar- cable machine in its office. side, our papers—and ily, for informing the Lon- On the other hand, their readers—have expe- don press and the Associ- Melville Stone accused the rienced a week or so of ated Press office in Lon- British news agencies of American journalism. don that all of the Titanic's supplying "false news" Some of the inaccuracies passengers had been res- while his own agency,

are explainable . . . but cued and were en route to from the English side, there remains much for the Halifax. cabled back to New York American press to account The managing director of information that had a for." the Exchange Telegraph short time before come Therefore, as far as the Company, Wilfred King, from the United States. In- British press is concerned, immediately refuted deed, the Associated Press said "M," "the hasty Stone's charges by show- bureau in London insisted judgements passed upon it ing that the two messages that the messages in ques- must be reversed." In fact, sent by the Exchange tion were cabled to Britain "With such a multiplicity Company on 15 April, from Halifax "by the rep- of conflicting messages ar- concerning the evacuation resentatives of the British riving almost simultane- to Halifax and the safety of news agencies" and subse- ously, and with no avail- all Titanic passengers, had quently published in al- able means of verifying originated in New York. most all of the London dai-

them, . . . the position was Examining what five ma- lies. The Westminster Ga- unique But of the jor London evening news- zette immediately assured treatment of the news as it papers had published on Bateman that it had not re- arrived there can only be 15 April, Bateman found ceived any messages from one fair conclusion . . that all except one—the Halifax on the rescue of [t]he British press did its Evening News (which had the Titani(fs passengers, utmost in urrfavourable relied on news from Hal- and that the only commu- Research Notes 147

nication it had received Anglo-American press re- about the Titanic came lations, which in many from New York. For ways had not been good Bateman here was "irrefu- since the emergence of the table" evidence that the "New Journalism" in Brit- London bureau of the As- ain during the 1880s and sociated Press had "sent its more sensational off- back to New York news spring in Northcliffe's that had come from that daily journalism at the centre, in a form that was turn of the nineteenth cen- inaccurate and unwar- tury. Much of the sensa- rantable." Thus the Ex- tionalism and excess of the change Telegraph Com- "New Journalism" in Brit- pany was not to blame for ain was attributed to its the misleading messages, emulation of American but the London bureau of press practices and popu- the Associated Press. lar journalism. In any Bateman added that, as the event, this controversy on Exchange Telegraph Com- the reporting of the Titanic pany readily admitted, the tragedy emphasizes the news it had received from need for greater research New York was obtained and study of Anglo- from reports in the New American press relation- York press and "else- ships since the nineteenth where." century. Bateman's article termi- nated the discussion and . . . J.O. Baylen (Emeritus) firmly placed the blame Eastbourne, England for the grossly wrong information on the fate of the Titanic, its passengers, and crew on the American

news media. However, it is interesting to note that he dropped his criticism of the alleged "tendency" of British correspondents to communicate, and their editors to publish, unveri- fied news reports and his insistence that foreign correspondents should identify the source of their information. But perhaps more significant is the fact that this controversy on the report-, ing of the Titanic disaster revealed the London press's low opinion of the practices and veracity of American journalism and journalists. It also sheds some light on the state of "SUCH THINGS CAN ONLY HAPPEN IN AMERICA": BRITISH PRESS RESPONSE TO THE SCOPES TRIAL In Americans' Debates over Evolution, the British Foresee the Rise of Mass Culture

Dean Rapp

IN JULY 1925, WHILE JOHN SCOPES was being tried in Dayton for having violated a Tennessee law prohibiting the teaching of human evolution in the state's schools, it was often remarked that not only America but the whole worid was fascinated by the proceedings.^ This was certainly true of Britain, where the Lon- don newspap)ers, which circulated nationally, provided extensive trial coverage that was in turn commented u|X)n by a wide variety of other periodicals. Of course the interest of the British press in the trial was not so intense as that in America. There

were no banner headlines about it, few pictures or cartoons, and quantitatively much less coverage: of the dailies, the Telegraph published the most material (triple that of the Times of London), but the amount of news space it gave to the trial during its ten days was roughly equivalent to just two days' worth of the trial reportage in the New York Times. Yet the trial was considered newsworthy enough that, on average, the dailies printed pieces about it in sixteen of their twenty-seven issues during July. This essay points out that this British interest in the trial was prompted in part by its fascinatingly bizarre human interest elements, which most dailies sensationalized for their readers' Dean Rapp teaches summer amusement. Although during the 1920s straightfor- British and Euro- ward economic and political news predominated in its coverage Kean history at fheaton College, of America, the British press was always on the lookout for such Illinois. He is the

. British trial. author of Samuel 1 There are no studies of the response of the press to the Scopes As Whltbread1764- for the American press response to the trial, this study is particularly indebted 181 5: A Social and to: Donald F. Brod, "The Scopes Trial: A Look at Press Coverage after Forty Political Study Years," Journalism Quarterly 42 (Spring 1%5): 219-26; Ed Caudill, "A Content (Gariand, 1987), Analysis of Press Views of Darwin's Evolution Theory, 1860-1925," Journalism and of a number of Quarterly (Winter 1987): 782-86, 946; Charles Edward Caudill, "The Evolution articles in Ameri- of an Idea: Darwin and the American Press, 1860-1925" (Ph.D. diss.. University can, British, and of North Carolina, 1986); "Larger Aspects of the Dayton Trial," Literary Digest, Canadian historical journals. 1 August 1925, 9-11; Marvin N. Olasky, "When Worid Views Collide: Journal- ists and the Great Monkey Trial," American Journalism 4 (Summer 1987): 133-46. uniquely dramatic stories. Some of them evoked a favorable response, like Charles Lindbergh's nonstop trans-Atlantic solo flight, which symbolized the Americans' dynamic vitality and optimism that many British admired. On the other hand. Prohi- bition was massively but unfavorably reported, in a manner not dissimilar to that of the Scopes trial, while the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti was denounced. It was in its commentary on such stories in particular that the British press analyzed the character and influence of American culture. This was likewise the case with the Scop)es trial, for, as will be argued, its primary attraction was that it enabled British commentators to claim that Britain "h shall be unlaw- was culturally superior to the United States, thereby providing ful for any teacher in any of the uni- an outlet for their postwar resentments of the accelerating Ameri- versities, nornials canization of British popular culture, and the growing wealth and all other pub- and power of the United States. Drawing on the more unfavor- lic schools of the state, which are characterization of able elements of a long-standing British supported in whole Americanism, they asserted that the trial manifested America's or in part by the rampant commercialism, dominated by excessive advertising public school funds of the state, to and the media; its propensity to standardize thought; and most teach any theory importantly, its intellectual inferiority as evidenced by the ob- that denies the story of the Divine scurantist, anti-evolutionist Fundamentalists, who governed in creation of man as America to a degree inconceivable in progressive Britain.^ Based taught in the Bible, upon such contentions, they complacently concluded of the trial andto teach instead that man has that "such things can only happen in America."^ descended from a Although this overall interpretation of the trial was distinc- lower order of animals." tively British, in its separate components it was quite similar to - from Section 1 the unfavorable commentary of the big city newspapers of the of Tennessee's northeastern and midwestem states, perhaps in part because "anti-evolution statute." most of the reporters for the London dailies filed their trial reportage from the Eastern seaboard, only the two from the News and the Telegraph actually reporting from Dayton itself. But as will also be observed, viewpoints apparently borrowed by British reporters from their urban American colleagues were usually given a decidedly British slant. This essay's interpretation of the British response to the trial is based upon the reportage of it in forty-four pteriodicals. To insure a representative sample and a wide range of different perspectives, the survey included seven of the sixteen London dailies; the leading provincial daily; and many of the most influential secular and religious weeklies and monthlies, which along with the newspapers spanned the political spectrum from conservative to socialist, and embraced Protestant and Catholic viewpoints, both theo- logically liberal and very conservative.*

2. For the most comprehensive overview of British attitudes to America during the 1920s, see George Harmon Knoles, The Jazz Age Revisited: British Criticism ^ American Civilization during the 1920s (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 1955). 3. Saturday Review. 25 July 1925, 87. 4. The following were surveyed: (1) London dailies: Chronicle, Herald, Mail, News, Telegraph, Morning Post,Times; (2) the daily Manchester Guardian and the Sunday Observer; (3) secular weeklies and monthlies: Contemporary Review, —

150 AJ /Summer 1990

Although both the British and American press highlighted the zanier aspects of the spectacle at Dayton, the British gave it their own twist by invariably interpreting it as a reflection of typically American traits, as defined of course by the British themselves. It was the "biggest show since Barnum," as several British journalists remarked, thereby emphasizing the Ameri- can nature of the showmanship. While American papers likewise reported that Daytonian businessmen were selling monkey umbrellas and monkey neckties, to the British this was proof of the ubiquity of American commercialism, as were the "Ameri- can showmen" who busily exhibited to Daytonians performing apes and a dwarf dubbed the "missing link."^ To the British, American-style publicity techniques were • • • • • "This statute con- equally all-pervasive at Dayton. Since America's "rampant" tains nothing what- publicity agents, as one commentator charged, were "prepared ever in reference to run anything and anybody in the United States," he consid- to teaching the theory of evolution ered it no doubt true as rumored that the Daytonians had hired in the public such agents to boost their town. Nor was the gossip unlikely, schools of Ten- trial in nessee. And, your according to another reporter, that the would be held a Honor, the caption baseball stadium from which it would be broadcast nationally contains nothing by radio an absurd prospect, but "being America," a "wholly else—nothing — else." probable" one. Even more likely was that American publicity - excerpt from techniques would mar the trial reportage of American journal- Clarence Darrow's ists so that their accounts would be filled with "all those gro- remarks at the Scopes trial. tesque features that accompany an American Press sensation."^ Of course, nearly all the London dailies likewise sensationalized the affair, as indicated by such multi-deck headlines as "Camp-Meeting under the Big Speaker. Open-Air Revivalism in Monkeytown, Tenn. Sobs and Cheers."^ Typically this referred not to any event in the trial, but to its colorful sidelights. Else- where in the press, such sensationalizing of the trial was itself considered a pernicious American influence, as when one periodical chided the press for allowing this "American method" to sweep the field of British newspaper journalism, a charge of traditionalists ever since the "New Journalism" of the 1880s had commenced borrowing techniques from the American press.* Though by the 1920s even the Times had incorporated some of

Discovery, Illustrated London News, John O'London's, Journal of Education, Lancet, Nation, Nature, New Age, New Statesman, Outlook, Review of Reviews, Round Table, Saturday Review, Schooimaster, Spectator; (4) Protestant mainstream papers: Baptist Times, Christian World, Guardian, Inquirer, Methodist Recorder, Methodist Times, Modem Churchman, Primitive Methodist Leader, Theology, United Methodist; (5) Protestant evangelical papers: Christian, Christian Herald, Dawn, English Churchman, Journal of the Wesley Bible Union, Record; (6) Catholic papers: C.K.'s Weekly, Month, Tablet (the first was conservative, the latter two more liberal). 5. News, 11 July 1925, 7; Review of Reviews, 15 August 1925, 118; Herald, 7 July 1925, 1; Telegraph, 15 July 1925, 11; Mail, 18 July 1925, 6. 6. niustraUd London News, 1 August 1925, 198; Manchester Guardian, 1 July 1925, 9; Review of Reviews, 15 August 1925, 74. 7. Chronicle, 20 July 1925, 7. 8. British Weekly, 9 July 1925, 318. Rapp 151

these techniques, its reportage on the Scopes trial differed from the other dailies' by avoiding the jocularly derisive term "Mon- "The statute de- keyville" and eschewing emotional headlines for the decidedly fines exactly what dull and unvarying "The Tennessee Trial." Yet those papers the people of Ten- nessee desired whose coverage was more sensational were not wholly so—two and Intended and of them published expository articles by eminent pro-evolution- did declare unlaw- ful and K needs no ist scientists who in clear, nontechnical terms marshalled the interpretation." current evidence for human evolution, while pointing out that - excerpt from still more knowledge was needed to fill certain gaps in the William Jennings Bryan's remarlcs at theory. Except for a tripartite expository article by another scien- the Scopes trial. tist in the Manchester Guardian, the press did little else to educate their readers about evolution, for most newspapers were primarily interested in highlighting the Dayton affair itself.' Like many of their American counterparts, British newspapers disapprovingly reported that, the spectacle outside the courtroom infiltrated the legal proceedings, turning them "into a three-ringed circus" paralleling that outdoors. But this too was interpreted as typically American. The American love of publicity was detected in the shocking courtroom delays to allow photographers and motion picture cameramen to take everyone's pictures. It was observed operating in the curiously inappropri- ate mixture of this publicity machine with religion, as capsulized in the headline "Prayer and Flashlights in the Great Heresy Trial. Judge Brings Bible and Dictionary, Then Poses for Camera." And it was readily perceived in the solicitous recognition of the needs of radio broadcasting by the Fundamentalist judge, who was mocked for assiduously chewing gum close to a microphone so that his smallest whisper could be heard by his millions of listeners. Thus when one periodical remarked of the trial that Americans were the "best advertisers in the world," it was not meant as an altogether complementary comment.^" Equally disturbing to British journalists was the courtroom use of such skills to manipulate public opinion. One editorialist was particularly disgusted that both prosecutors and defenders used the trial to advertise to the American people their views regarding evolution. This courtroom manipulation of public opinion, he contended, was "unlike anything conceivable in the Courts of most European countries," and resulted in the total disappearance of the dignity expected in any British court. Yet he presumed to know exactly why Americans were so adept at such

9. See G. Elliot Smith, "Man and the Ape," Mail, 16 July 1925, 8; J. Arthur Thomson, "Evolution or the Bible?" News, 14 July 1925, 6; Julian Huxley, "The Darwinian Theory of Evolution," Manchester Guardian, 13 August 1925, 7-8; 14 August 1925, 9-10; 15 August 1925, 11-12. Smith was professor of anatomy at the University of London; Thomson, Regius Professor of natural history at Aberdeen University; and Huxley, professor of zoology at King's College, Lon- don. 10. "Religion and Science in Tennessee," Round Table, September 1925, 736;

News, 15 July 1925, 7; Chronicle, U July 1925, 3; Christian World, 16 July 1925, 8; Record, 23 July 1925, 514. 152 AJ /Summer 1990

manipulation—it had been raised in Annerica "to a fine art by the experience of party caucuses and of Presidential campaigns."^^ While British commentators were convinced that American- ism pervaded the spectacle of the trial, some were less certain that it could account for its dominating issue, which the British "[The anti-evolu- press, like the American one, proclaimed in its headlines to be tion statute] is full of weird, stranae, the conflict of science versus religion: "'Genesis' v. Darwin," and impossible and "Angels or Apes?"^^ That this controversy should have arisen in imaginary provi- America was perplexing to those who pondered how "a land sions. Driven by bigotry and nar- reputedly inhabited by the most progressive of civilised peoples" rowness they could nevertheless be so reactionary as to denounce evolution come together and consider it incompatible religion. make this statute and with Such comments and bring this liti- assumed, as did the headline, "Truth v. Fanaticism" that evolu- gation." tion was scientifically valid, thereby rendering it impossible for - Darrow. progressives to believe anything else. But if some believed that "American obscurantism" was a contradiction in terms,^' others found a readily available solution to this apparent paradox in the argument of the northern United States press that Fundamental- ist anti-evolutionism was a product, not of the whole country, but of the rural South, which culturally lagged far behind the North. A Washington correspondent for one London daily did dispute the characterization by the eastern press of Fundamen- talism as solely a southern phenomenon, countering that "the Fundamentalists in New York City are as bitter and bigoted as in Dayton." Moreover, a few British journalists reported that even in Tennessee there was an "educated minority," presumably evolutionist, while several Tennesseans currently in Britain wrote letters to the editor defending the state against the charges of intellectual backwardness, one of them pointing to Vanderbilt University as an example of the state's educational achievements. This, however, was rebutted by an American academic who contended that Vanderbilt had about the same effect on the general intelligence of Tennesseans as Trinity College, Dublin, had on the popular culture of Ireland. He then advanced his own cultural lag interpretation: the Tennesseans, never having shaken off their frontier traits of intolerance and indifference to book learning, consequently opposed evolution violently, especially since they learned of it so recently and suddenly because they lived in remote rural areas far from the modern civilization of the North.i* Other Americans writing in the British press proffered similar cultural lag theories, which British commentators thereupon elaborated with a cruel caricature of the Tennessean Fundamen- talists that rivaled the most biased accounts of the New York City 11. Times, 25 July 1925, 13. 12. Morning Post, 11 July 1925, 11; 16 July 1925, 11. 13. Mail, 16 July 1925, 8; "'Fundamentalism' and Evolution: Thoughts on the Dayton Trial," Review of Reviews, 15 August 1925, 118. 14. Morning Post, 16 July 1925, 11; William Rufus Scott, letter to the editor. Observer, 16 July 1925, 18, and S.E. Morison, letter to the editor, 19 July 1925, 18. Rapp 153

press. Ironically, the only favorable portrayal of Fundamental- ists was by Scopes himself, in an article for the News wherein he praised their congeniality and lovability, and credited them for their courteousness to him.^^ The closest British commentators themselves came to such charitableness was their condescend- ing description of Fundamentalists as simple, devout, country folk. But a harsher portrait predominated. To the British, Funda- mentalists were primitive agriculturalists who nevertheless exhibited the typically acquisitive modem business instincts of Americanism. Yet simultaneously they were quite irrational, as demonstrated by the "Holy Rollers" of the hills around Dayton, whose exuberant services, as one reporter marvelled, exuded the "atmosphere of medievalism mixed with radio. Ford cars and electric light." As for the Scopes trial jurors themselves, they were "mostly sun-baked farmers," one of whom was illiterate, as nearly every periodical informed its readers. Indeed, the jurors were so ignorant, as one journalist meanly joked, that they would no doubt think the square of the hypotenuse was some newfangled fertilizer. These uneducated Tennesseans, led by the chief prosecutor William Jennings Bryan—the "modern Inquisitor"—were carrying out the "terror of the Fundamental- ist Inquisition," which aimed at forcing on others such reactionary beliefs as Biblical literalism, anti-evolutionism, and a "pri- mordial hostility to science."^^ This British portrayal of Fundamentalism as a southern, anti- intellectual, anti-scientific movement was apparently borrowed from liberal American journalists, particularly those writing for "K isn't proper to the urban, progressive press. The progressives' disparagement bring experts In of American business civilization and their condescension to- here to try to de- wards rural, small-town America paralleled that of the British feat the purpose of the people of this elite, in part because the mindset of the late nineteenth century state by trying to American progressives had itself been influenced by certain show tfiat this Victorian British social critics who had held these attitudes. Due thing that they denounce and out- progressives' of to such earlier transatlantic influences, the view law is a beautiful Fundamentalism was even more attractive to British commenta- thing that everybody ought to be- tors on the Scopes trial than might otherwise have been the case. lieve in." In America, the liberal interpretation of Fundamentalism there- - Biyan. after dominated the historiography of it until the 1950s. But since the 1960s, a revisionist school has argued, among other things, that the Fundamentalists were not wholly rural, southern or uneducated. Indeed, strong northern, even urban, intellectual influences helped shape the Fundamentalist mindset. Nor were all Fundamentalists creationists, and among those who did believe in special creative acts of God, only a minority thought that everything was created in six actual days, while others even

15. News, 18 July 1925, 7.

1 6. New Age, 30 July 1 925, 1 51 ; Mail, 1 1 July 1 925, 7; 14 July 1 925, 7; News, 1 3 July 1925, 7; Outlook, 18 July 1925, 38; 25 July 1925, 51; Chronicle, 13 July 1925, 9; New Statesman, 17 June 1925, 305; T.P.'s WeeWy, 8 August 1925, 511. 154 AJ /Summer 1990

allowed for considerable evolutionary development. Moreover, they were not so much anti-scientific as they were unsympa- thetic to Darwin's hypothetico-deductive method, preferring instead an old-fashioned Baconian view of science that emphasized collecting hard facts without prior theorizing and then building non-speculative scientific conclusions on them.^^ Viewed in this historiographical context, the British press of the 1920s was propagating the initial elements of a mainstream American interpretation of Fundamentalism that would last for decades before being challenged. But British commentators of the 1920s inconsistently upheld this interpretation, for unlike the American liberal journalists who helped initiate it, they were often less interested in demonstrating that southerners lagged far behind northerners than they were in emphasizing the great extent to which Britain was intellectually advanced over Tennessee, the South, and perhaps most of the United States. In the hands of some journalists, enlightened America shrank to remarkably small proportions. As one of them complacently asserted, since only a few Ameri- can centers of learning, mostly in New England, had attained the cultural level of literally scores of Eurof>ean centers, the British "may now claim to be, in comparison with the bulk of Ameri- cans, a progressive people in religious and philosophical thought."^" As British commentators diminished the size of enlightened America, so they enlarged the predominance of unenlightened

"[John Scopes] Is Fundamentalism. Some clainr»ed that it governed half the coun- here because ig- try, others suggested three-fourths, and one, relying on an norance and big- that it otry are rampant, American source, even reported was the viewpoint of and it is a mlphty ninety percent of the population. If it was so widespread, it could strong combina- be legitimately attributed, not just to southern traits, but to tion, your Honor, it maices him fearful" American national characteristics. Consequently, some con- - Darrow. tended that its crusading spirit could be ascribed to American emotionalism, which also conveniently explained Bryan's na-

tional prominence, for he had achieved it, so they argued, by successfully appealing to America's "gutsy emotionalism." It was to be expected, another commentator remarked, that waves of sentiment would periodically sweep across America, carrying everything before them, just as had already happened with Prohibition, an equally preposterous crusade to most British journalists.^'

17. William E. Ellis, "Evolution, Fundamentalism, and the Historians: An His- toriographical Review," Historwn 44 (Novemberl981):15-35;RonaldL. Numbers, "The Creationists," in Cod and Nature: Historical Essays on the Encounter bettoeen Christianity and Science, ed. David C. Lindberg and Ronald L. Numbers (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986), 394-401; George M. Marsden, "Funda- mentalism," in Encyclopedia of the American Religious Experience (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1988): 947-62. 18. "'Fundamentalism' and Evolution," 119. 19. Telegraph, 28 July 1925, 10; Cuardian, 17 July 1925, 622; "Religion and Science Rapp 155

Indeed the parallel with Prohibition suggested still another American trait behind the Tennessee law—the American propensity to standardize thought, as opposed to the "individualism which is the most marked characteristic of the Englishman." To some journalists, this distinction resolved the paradox so

perplexing to others that in the "Land of Liberty," a "dark intol- "The question Is erance of the Middle Ages" should have prompted a "cold- can a minority in this state come In attempt to reimpose intellectual slavery" on the schools. blooded and compel a Instead of this being "history's greatest irony," as one commen- teacher to teach Bible tator asserted, it could easily be explained by another's conten- that the b not true and maice that 'standardisation,' which Americans love tion "We abhor the parents ct because they mistake it for efficiency. We retain a preference for these children individual freedom and for spontaneous irregularity." In con- pay the expenses of the teacher to trast, Americans "love uniformity in their institutions, their tell their children clothes and their ideas. As one of their writers has said, 'In what these people believe is false America "liberty" means liberty to keep in step.'" Consequently, and dangerous." America was not so much a land of liberty after all, whereas - Bryan. England was happily "the freest country in the world," where such a challenge to academic freedom as the Tennessee law was inconceivable. No wonder that Britain's "progressive minds," as one clergyman confidently assured the secular press, considered the law to be "ludicrous and preposterous."^" Nowhere was such British progressiveness more readily apparent, as nearly the whole British press asserted, than in the overwhelming acceptance of evolution by the British public. According to one commentator, not even English tenant farmers in remote districts were as narrow-minded as their counterparts in Tennessee, although sixty or seventy years earlier they might have been. Perhaps this difference was attributable, another commentator speculated, to the fact that even England's most rural counties were more likely to have learned much earlier of evolution than the American South because they were less isolated from the culture of the big cities. Or possibly, as the zoologist Julian Huxley suggested, it was due to the British intellectual aristocracy (of which he was a prominent member), from whom progressive opinion quickly filtered down to the uncul- tivated masses, whose own views on intellectual matters counted for far less in Britain than did those of their counterparts in the more democratic America, where no such aristocracy even existed.^^ For whatever reasons, it was agreed that the British public was pro-evolutionist; but it was likewise claimed that it had reconciled evolution with religion, making a Scopes trial conflict in Tennessee," 744. 20. Nature, 11 July 1925, 83-84; Saturday/ Review, 25 July 1925, 87; Mail, 11 July 1925, 7; 18 July 1925, 6; Discovery, August 1925, 278; "'Fundamentalism' and Evolution," 119. 21. "'Fundamentalism' and Evolution," 119; Outlook, 1 August 1925, 78; Julian Huxley, "America Revisited. II. —Fundamentalism," Spectator, 22 November 1924, 772. 156 AJ /Summer 1990

most unlikely in Britain. Journalists themselves championed the compatibility of evolution with religion, as did scientists writing for the press, one of whom confidently asserted that there was "every reason in the world for being both evolutionist and religious."^ Americans argued similarly, yet the British "[Religion] i< one Many of those particular press claimed that such an idealistic or religious interpretation of things that should evolution was more widespread among British scientists and be left solely between the individ- teachers than those in America. According to one columnist, an ual and his Mai(er, occasional British scientist might explain the universe on mate- or his God, or what- rialistic lines, but in reality, such materialism was dead in ever talces expression wHh him, and England. However in America, it was claimed, evolutionists it is no one else's were materialistic atheists. To substantiate this, an Edinburgh concern." - Darrow. professor referred to some recent American books "containing the baldest possible statement of a purely mechanistic conception of the universe," whereas "no man of first-class standing in any British university was putting forth stuff of that kind today." Others concurred, one of them asserting that while American teachers sought to undermine traditional faith, British university professors did not teach scientific subjects as definitely materialistic propaganda. Some British commentators furthermore charged that in American universities, Freudians and behavior- ists were even more guilty of propagandizing than their colleagues in biology. One such journalist, contending that psychology had made an "extraordinary conquest" of America, suggested that Bryan should have made a bogey of Freud rather than Darwin.^ This British description of an irreligious American scientific and academic community accorded with the contention of the American anti-evolutionists that the religious faith of their children was being undermined in the schools. As the only part of the anti-evolutionist argument accepted by some in the British

press, it evoked from them, if not sympathy, at least a certain degree of understanding of the Fundamentalist mindset. It was not altogether unreasonable, they pointed out, that parents whose taxes paid for the schools should demand that since religious teaching was prohibited in them by law, so should anti- religious instruction.^* But to some commentators this was a much less preferable educational solution to the problem than that provided in Britain's state elementary and secondary schools which, they claimed, taught both evolution and religion. As one

religious periodical explained it, British teachers could teach human evolution in a science class, while emphasizing during religious instruction that we are all children of God, thereby averting an American style educational crisis on the issue.^

22. J. Arthur Thomson, "Evolution or the Bible?" News, 14 July 1925, 6. 23. Manchester Guardian, 16 July 1925, 10; 19 August 1925, 16; S.K. Ratdiffe, "America and Fundamentalism," Con temporary /?«r;ira;, September 1925, 294-95; Discovery, August 1925, 278. 24. Mail, 18 July 1925, 6; "Religion and Science in Tennessee," 740-41, 743. 25. Theology, October 1925, 183-84. Rapp 157

As the British press also proudly assured its readers, Britain had just as successfully warded off a religious conflict over evolution, primarily because the churches had accommodated themselves to it. Proof of this was forthcoming from clergy who eagerly proclaimed their enlightenment to the secular press by ridiculing anti-evolutionism and Fundamentalists in terms as fierce as the journalists. That the clergy quoted by the secular press were representative of the mainstream viewpoints of their denominations was corroborated by the church press itself. Some religious periodicals did chide the newspapers for sensationalizing the Scopes trial, but most unhesitatingly accepted their indictment of the anti-evolutionists. Furthermore, of the dozen mainstream church papers surveyed for this essay, eight directly supported some form of theistic evolution, three implied their support of it, and only one was noncommittal, publishing both a pro- and an anti-evolutionist article. Providing such a hearing for both viewpoints was quite unusual, not only in religious periodicals, but also in the secular press, where there "The parents have a right to say that was only a single such instance of doing this.^^ Evidently a no teacher paid by balanced representation of views was thought quite unneces- their money shall rob their children sary, because as one church paper remarked, it was difficult to of faith in God and imagine how anything else but evolution could be taught in send them hack to England. Still another religious paper implied that the British their homes, slcep- churches had so familiarized even rank-and-file churchgoers tical, infidels, or agnostics, or athe- with evolution that "in scarcely a village chapel of any Christian ists." denomination in the United Kingdom would any allusion to - Bryan. Evolution send the temperature up one degree."^^ Mainstream religious periodicals thus agreed with the secular press that all sectors of British public opinion had reconciled evolution with religion, thus preventing a British version of the Scopes trial. But the press, both secular and religious, emphasized that such an accommodation had not always prevailed in England, for immediately after Charles Darwin had published his Origin of Species in 1859 there had been an intense conflict between science and religion. Yet this Victorian conflict was itself a source of immense satisfaction to the press, for it had taken place more than sixty years earlier, whereas the United States, so the press asserted, was just now experiencing a similar conflict, demonstrating that intellectually it was more than half a century behind England. This assumption that the conflict between science and religion had long since subsided in Britain was challenged by an educational journal that pointed out that as recently as 1907 a schoolmistress who had mentioned Darwin's theory to her class had been accused of infidelity at a public inquiry of the local education authority. Its dismissal of the charge prompted a local protest meeting, which was condoned by the vicar, who was subsequently taken to court and forced to pay

26. For a list of the religious periodicals surveyed, see footnote 4. 27. United AAethodist, 6 August 1925, 383; Methodist Times, 16 July 1925, 9. 158 AJ /Summer 1990

damages for having told his congregation that her teaching had injured the children.^* The journal speculated that such a situation could recur, but the vast majority of commentators, none of whom mentioned the 1907 case or anything sinular, thought otherwise. Convinced that Britain had indeed been emancipated from the controversy long ago, most expressed astonishment that the United States, so progressive economically, was so far behind England intellectually. However, one rather smug cler- visited the earlier "What is the Bible? gyman who had States twenty-five years ... The Bible it remarked that he was not altogether surprised at the backward- made up of sixty- ness America was currently exhibiting, for during that visit he six books written over a period of had found it "pitifully manifest" that Americans were already about one thou- half a century behind the times; but "one did hope," he piously sand years added, that "the intervening years would have opened their Who is the chief mogul that can tell eyes."^' us what the Bible Since the conflict of the 1860s allegedly demonstrated Eng- means?" - Darrow. land's long-term intellectual superiority over America, and also supposedly cast some light on the Scopes trial, the press frequently alluded to its best known dramatic incident—the confrontation at the British Association meeting of 1860 between the young scientist Thomas H. Huxley, a defender of Darwinism, and Bishop Samuel Wilberforce, its critic. As the press described it, their encounter was a "battle royal" in which the Bishop, representing the church "in its most militant mood," ridiculed Darwinism out of "blind religious prejudice." Happily, however, he was triumphantly defeated by Huxley, who in the ensuing stormy years succeeded through his fearless championship of evolution in securing a victory for the freedom of scientific inquiry.^" This story the press so dramatically retold was long accepted as the valid account of the Victorian reception of Darwinism. But revisionist historians have recently contended that Wilberforce, far from responding out of religious prejudice, presented a scientific assessment of Darwinism that included some criticisms that have since proven correct.^* Revisionists further maintain that the notion of a clear-cut, intense conflict in the nineteenth century between science and religion (both in Britain and America) is too simplistic, given, for example, the criticisms and uncertainties regarding Darwinism amongst scientists, the quite rapid accommodation to the theory of evolution by some clergy, and the sense of conciliation on both sides. To these revisionists, the image of sharp conflict is a legend devised by the late Victorians.^^ The British press of 1925 was therefore unwit-

28. Schoolmaster, 3 July 1925, 18. 29. Nature, 11 July 1925, 78. 30. John O'London's, 1 August 1925, 570; Nature, 11 July 1925, 84. 31. J.R. Lucas, "Wilberforce and Huxley: A Legendary Encounter," Historical Journal 22 (1979): 319-20. 32. For an historiographical overview, see James C. Livingston, "Darwin, Darwinism, and Theology: Recent Studies," Religious Studies Review 8 (April Rapp 159

tingly propagating a somewhat mythical Victorian account, and even hopelessly distorting it still further by sometimes equating the British events of the 1860s with the Scopes trial. In its updated, anachronistic version of the story, the British Association meeting of 1860 was "Our own Monkeyville," with Huxley as Scopes and Wilberforce as Bryan. The Wilberforce of 1860 stood where "these Fundamentalists of America with their pamphlets 'God or Gorilla' stand to-day," while in the years following the encounter with Huxley, "many an English 'Fundamentalist'" was only doing (albeit less spectacularly) what the Tennesseans were doing now. But ultimately, by this analogy, Huxley slew the British forefathers of the current American Fundamentalists, thus settling the British conflict between science and religion for all time.^^ Although the press derived considerable satisfaction from England's supposed resolution of the conflict so long ago, a few commentators questioned whether even during the 1920s evolution really was so universally accepted in England. One columnist, pointing to the pro-evolutionist bias of Fleet Street, speculated that there were many more in England who would vote for Moses over Darwin than could ever be gathered from reading the press commentary on the Scopes trial. A few others concurred, including a pro-evolutionist Anglican clergyman who "When h comes to Bible experts, ev- of all contended not only that large numbers of church members ery member of the denominations still believed in creationism, but that whenever jury is as good an Christians did proclaim evolutionism, an outcry ensued from expert on the Bible as any man that those who protested against such outspokenness because it they could bring, would be unsettling to Sunday School children, who were still or that we could bring. The one being taught that all living creatures were created in six days. beauty about the

Still another religious commentator even speculated that a large Word of God is, it proportion of rank-and-file church members could "be swayed does not take an expert to under- if towards the Fundamentalist position" a "popular appeal" stand K." were made with "passionate conviction."^ - Bryan. Perhaps some insights into the degree to which the British public accepted evolution can be gained from a religious poll of 1926, rather unscientifically conducted by the Nation, a liberal political weekly, and the News. Both asked their readers to fill out a questionnaire that included the question, "Do you accept the first chapter of Genesis as historical?" Of the almost nineteen hundred who replied to the Nation, thirty-six percent of whom claimed to be active church members, only six percent answered the question affirmatively. Of the fourteen thousand in the News poll, sixty-three percent of whom were active church members, thirty-eight percent replied yes. It is likely that the middlebrow

1982): 112-15. 33. John O'London's, 1 August 1925, 570; Telegraph, 23 July 1925, 10; "'Fundamen- talism' and Evolution," 118; News, 14 July 1925, 6. 34. Observer, 19 July 1925, 11; Guardian, 24 July 1925, 643; Expository Times, October 1925, 5. 160 AJ /Summer 1990

Nation contained a much higher proportion of highly educated readers than the mass circulation News, while the readership of the latter included a large number of nniddle-class, churchgoing Nonconformists, as reflected in its poll respondents, whose high percentage of church membership was double the national average.^ There is no way of knowing how the respondents interpreted the poll's question about Genesis, which did not specifically mention evolution; but perhaps their responses do suggest that many of the educated elite accepted evolution, as Fleet Street assumed, while a significant minority of the churchgoing masses did not. Or as more narrowly interpreted by an Anglican weekly, among the readers of the News, 'Tundamen- talism has its supporters."^^ Such British anti-evolutionists were ignored during the Scopes trial by both the secular and mainstream religious press, save in the News, which did briefly mention two conservative evangelical Protestant groups who had not accommodated to evolution.^'' But even in the Victorian era a number of British evangeli- "What does the cals had made such an accommodation, as did evangelicals in law My? ... It makes the Bible the 1920s.^ Yet there still were also anti-evolutionists among the the yard stick to most conservative evangelicals of all denominations who were measure every consequently quite sympathetic to the American anti-evolution- man's Intellect, to measure every ist crusade. Their press clearly reflected this, for of the six man's Intelligence evangelical periodicals surveyed for this paper, only the leading and to measure evangelical every man's learn- Anglican weekly condemned the Tennessee law and ing.'^ refrained from championing the American Fundamentalists' - Darrow. campaign.^' The other five, believing in varying degrees that "the Bible should be preferred to Darwinism,"*" could hardly have differed more sharply from the rest of the press in their interpretation of

the Scopes trial . It is true that they deplored its circus atmosphere and the all-pervasiveness of American publicity methods, and they even characterized the American Fundamentalists as a "simple people" who employed silly methods to advance their cause. Yet they vigorously denied that the Fundamentalists were ignorant, bigoted fanatics. Instead they praised their spiritual earnestness as being far superior to the easy-going religious indifference of the British. To them, Bryan was a "devoted Champion of the Faith." They commended the judge (whose in-

35. Nation, 16 October 1926, 75. 36. Church Times, 17 September 1926, 301. 37. News, 11 July 1925, 7. The groups mentioned were the Bible League and the speakers at the annual Bible conference at Keswick. 38. David N. Livingstone, Darwin's Forgotten Defenders: The Encounter between Evangelical Theology and Evolutionary Thought (Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans, 1987), 96-99, 135-45; David W. Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modem Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s (London: Unwin Hyman, 1989), 207. 39. The Anglican weekly was the Record. For a list of the evangeliad papers consulted, see footnote 4, item 5. 40. Christian, 2 July 1925, 3. Rapp 161

troduction of things spiritual had been so ridiculed by the rest of the press) for instilling a "more worthy spirit" in the proceedings, not only by proclainrdng that God would guide him, but by "very beautifully and simply" asking the court to begin each day with prayer. As they perceived it, the Tennessee law was a good and noble act that did not suppress liberty of thought. Instead it protected school children from the very real dangers of an evolutionary teaching that, because it induced moral degener- acy, was also a major cause of the recent "kidnappings, murders, and other horrors" in America.*^ Yet even to these conservative evangelical periodicals, evolu- "The legislature tion was not nearly so important an issue as it was for the Eald evolution a American Fundamentalists, nor did they and their readers ever igher honor than

engage in an American-style militant activism against teaching it deserves. Evolu- evolution in the schools. Certainly they were deeply concerned tion is not a theory, but a hypothesis." at the "drift towards total secularization" in Britain's state schools, - Bryan. and criticized the quality of their religious instruction, which one of their periodicals complained was often perfunctorily given by non-Christian teachers. But on the issue of evolution itself their nonmilitancy was probably best expressed when this same periodical emphasized the overwhelming odds against a movement in Georgia that hoped to ban evolution from all the schools of the world: a whole new generation of teachers would have to be trained; all modern educational literature would have to be rewritten; and the British public would need to be educated

anew, since it thought the evolution issue had been settled long ago. It therefore advised not militant public action, but cool judgment, patient endeavor, and the teaching of the Gospel.*^ The majority of British conservative evangelicals were similarly moderate, although during the 1920s a few of the most extremely conservative ones referred to themselves as Fundamentalists, while in 1927 their most fiercely anti-evolutionist periodical even renamed itself the Fundamentalist.*^ But as has been recently pointed out, within British evangelicalism as a whole, these extremists were a very small, underfi- nanced, weakly organized group that was held in check by the more numerous moderate conservatives, who eschewed any American-style militancy. Scholars of both American and British evangelicalism have convincingly argued that such nonmilitancy was rooted in the relatively greater intellectual tolerance of religious differences by the British Protestant churches than by the American ones. It was due as well to the prominence among British (but not American) evangelicals of Anglicans, who as

41. Christian, 2 July 1925, 3; 16 July 1925, 3; English Churchman, 16 July 1925, 346; 30 July 1925, 375-76; Journal of the Wesley Bible Union, August 1925, 470, 472. 42. Christian, 24 September 1924, 26; 11 February 1926, 4; 10 March 1927, 3; 13 September 1928, 4; 11 April 1929, 24. See also the comment in Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modem Britain, 207. 43. TThis was the Journal of the Wesley Bible Union. 162 AJ /Summer 1990

members of the British church establishment, with its latitudi- narian stance, likewise encouraged tolerance for the theological opinions of others. Traditionalism, a much more powerful force in Britain than America, was itself a moderating influence on British evangelicals. Moreover, the likelihood of a public furor over new, controversial theological issues was diminished by the greater familiarity with such matters of British church members, due in part to the centralization of British intellectual life and its communication network throughout England, which prevented the type of cultural lag between different areas of the country that in America was such an important source of the alarm over evolution.** Had the British press not been so dismis-

sive of the possibility of anti-evolutionism in England, it might "Ignorance and fanaticism is ever well have buttressed its argument that a Scopes trial could not busy and needs occur in Britain by f>ointing out that among British anti-evolu- feeding. Always it tionists, it is feedina and most opposed militancy, while those who favored to gloating Tor more. a degree were a tiny, uninfluential minority.

. . . After awfiile, In conclusion, the British press reported the Scopes trial as an your Honor, it is tiie setting of man engaging human interest story. It was less interested in seriously against man and informing readers about evolution than it was in dramatically creed against simplifying it in terms presumably most readily understandable creed until with flying banners and to them—apes, Darwin, Wilberforce, Huxley, and science versus beating drums we religion. It thus perpetuated these familiar Victorian images of are marching backward to the evolution, but through the distorting lens of the Scopes trial. By glorious ages of combining this with a championship of the pro-evolutionists, a the sixteenth cen- ridicule of the American anti-evolutionists, and a disregard for tury, when bigots lighted fagots to their counterparts in Britain, the press conveyed a decidedly bum the men who pro-evolutionist message to its readers. dared to bring any But the British commentators on the trial were primarily intelligence and enlightenment and interested in using it to demonstrate the intellectual superiority culture to the hu- of the British over the Americans, whose cultural achievements man mind." - Darrow. and values they thereupon disparaged. According to the historian of the overall British evaluation of America during the 1920s, such anti-Americanism was on the rise by mid-decade; but even so, taken as a whole the British critique of the American character during the twenties was leavened with praise so that it was on balance (he concludes) a "not altogether unfriendly appraisal."*^ Nearly devoid of such commendation, the British commentary on the Scopes trial was thus more unfavorable to America than the overall British assessment of it at the time. This was perhaps attributable to the cultivated elite's strong aversion to the trial's sales psychology, use of the media, manipulation of public opinion and standardization of thought—all elements of

44. Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modem Britain, 220-28; George Marsden, "Fundamentalism as an American Phenomenon, A Comparison with English Evangelicalism," Church History 46 Qune 1977): 216-24; Mark A. Noll, Between Faith and Criticism: Evangelicals, Scholarship and the Bible in America (San Fran- cisco: Harper and Row, 1986), 63-64, 86-87. 45. Knoles, Jazz Age Revisited, 13, 21, 29, 57. Rapp 163

the commercialized mass culture which was most rapidly ad- vancing in America, but p)ermeating England as well. In the elite's view, this commercial culture undermined their cultural supremacy and debased cultural standards, not only through an egalitarian assumption that instead of deference to elite opinion "The Bible is the also everyone's cultural taste should be weighed equally, but by Word of God; the a manipulative media appeal to the emotions of the masses who, Bible is the only expression of like animals, acted all alike with a "herd instinct," rather than man's hope of sal- with individuality. "Democratic man is a species of ape," as one vation The critic put it.*^ Bible is not going to be driven out of In this cultural context, apes as ancestors of humans were this court by ex* much less worrisome to British commentators than those in the Eerts who come "Monkeyville" crowd, which, they believed, consisted not just undreds of miles to testify that they of Daytonians, or even Americans, but of the British masses, for can reconcile evo- whom all aspects of commercial culture were vastly appealing, lution, with its an- cestor in the none more so than its American components such as the Holly- jungle, with man wood movies to which they eagerly flocked. In belittling Ameri- made by God in can culture and values, some who commented on the Scopes trial His image, and put here for purposes mighthave hop>ed to counter this extraordinary appeal of America as a part of the by suggesting that it was not so alluring after all. But their divine plan." - disparaging trial commentary might likewise have stemmed Bryan. from apprehensions that this tide of commercial culture was eroding some of the very qualities that they upheld as distinc- tively and superiorly British. Perhaps Julian Huxley, even when arguing that the British masses had yielded to the evolutionism of the intellectual aristocracy, suspected that due to the advance of convnercialized culture, the masses were not really so culturally deferential anymore, just as others who unfavorably contrasted Americans with the individualistic, phlegmatic, less materialistic traits of the supp)Osedly authentic Britisher recognized that these too were being weakened by the same cultural trends. Consequently their assertion that "Such things can only happen in America," though aptly expressing their confidence that a British conflict of science versus religion was impossible, masked their fearful realization that in the broader context of the trial's reflection of mass commercial culture and its world-wide Americanization, such things were indeed unfortunately happening in Britain as well. That the British commentary on the trial should have focused primarily on the character and influence of American popular culture is attributable to such fears.*

46. This interpretation of the British cultivated elite's atitude towards commercialized mass culture is based on D. L. Le Mahieu, A Culture for Democracy: Mass Communication and the Cultivated Mind in Britain Between the Wars (Oxford: Qar- endon Press, 1988), 103-21. * For his helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper, I should like to thank Mark NoU. —

CBS WORLD NEWS ROUNDUP: SETTING THE STAGE FOR THE NEXT HALF CENTURY

World War II Begins, and Broadcast News Discovers Its Distinctive Format

Donald G. Godfrey

WILLIAM S. PALEY SAID THAT "radio news grew up with World War 11."^ During the war, radio newsnnen filled the airwaves with the tragedy of conflict. Edward R. Murrow vicari- ously brought the war from London into American homes.^ Some, like Elmer Davis, carried messages of isolationism.^ H.V. Kaltenbom was even accused of being a fascist.* All of them Murrow, Robert Trout, Douglas Edwards, William L. Shirer, Chet Huntley, and a new breed of reporters—portrayed the war as they saw it. According to Paul White, these people did not really set out to become "news broadcasters."^ At first some of them were in the field organizing events for broadcast. As radio news matured, however, their names became household words. Little has been written about the history of radio news,

perhaps because it is so difficult to deal with historical materials when the primary record is within a broadcast format.^ Most of

1. William S. Paley, Foreword to History in Sound, by Milo Ryan (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1963), v. 2. Donald G. Godfre), The Critical Analysis of Spoken Word Broadcasts," Journal of the Association for Recorded Sound Collections 14 (1982): 19-32. 3. Alfred Haworth Jones, "The Making of an Interventionist on the Air: Elmer Davis and CBS News, 1939-1941," Pacific Historical Review 42 (February 1973): 74-93. 4. "Kaltenbom Edits the News," 27 October 1939, CBS-KIRO Milo Ryan Phonoarchive, reel 684, National Archives (hereafter dted as Phonoarchive). To the casual listener this broadcast seems a libel on democracy. See David Gillis Donald G. Godfrey (Ph.D., University Qark, "The Dean of Commentators: A Biography of H. V. Kaltenbom" (Ph.D. of Washington) is diss.. University of Wisconsin, 1965), 475. associate profes- 5. Paul White, News on the Air (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1947), 43. sor at the Walter 6. Milo Ryan, "Here Are the Materials—Where Are the Scholars?" Journal of the Cronl(ite School of Association For Recorded Sound Collections 2 (1970): 24-32. See also Donald G. Journalism and Godfrey, A Directory of Archives (Washington: Broadcast Education Association, Telecomnfunica- 1983), i, and Cathleen C. Flanagan, "The Use of Commercial Sound Recordings tion, Arizona State in Scholarly Research," Journal the Association for Recorded Sound Collections 11 University. of (1979): 3-17. the accounts of rad io news have been biographical . Whi te, Paley, and Shirer have provided their personal accounts as radio news pioneers/ Irving E. Fang has published biographical sketches describing the early radio personalities.* Few works have discussed the influence of World War II on the practice of radio news. Pat Cranston has discussed the history and development of the American Armed Forces Network News.' Robert R. Smith has traced the origins of radio network commentary to World War II radio news.^° In describing the press-radio war and the resulting restrictions placed upon radio news during the 1930s, Giraud Chester has noted, almost in passing, that it was "following the European crisis . . . [that] both CBS and NBC organized their own newsgathering services."" Still other researchers have traced the development of news, but few have analyzed the specific historical foundations of broadcast news. This article discusses what William Paley said was radio's "According to a first on 13 March newscast, the CBS World News Roundup Fortune survey 1938.^^ This broadcast established a precedent for broadcast made in 1939, 70 percent of Ameri- news, a "roundup" style that is still evident today. A look at that cans relied on the first broadcast clearly illustrates the impact CBS Radio News radio as their prime had in establishing a format that is still widely used in both radio source of news." - and television news. Daniel Czitrom, Media and the Radio had a dramatic effect on the lives of those living American Mind. through the Great Depression. Historians examining this period, however, most often equate it with the variety and entertainment program of radio's "golden age." As George Douglas has noted: The depression was the making of radio in more ways than one. Smaller incomes, recession, deflation, meant that more Americans had to watch their pocket books and spend more evenings at home before the fireplace. Now they would sit before the radio.^^ But the depression also helped set the stage for another development in broadcast history. In that politically charged climate, the low cost of receivers made radio a potentially powerful source of political information as well as entertainment.

7. Paul W. White, News on the Air (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1947); William S. Paley, i4s /( Happened (New York: Doubleday, 1979); William W. Shirer, Tuxn- tieth Century Journey: The Nightmare Years, 1930-1940 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1984). 8. Irving E. Fang, Those Radio Commentators (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1977). 9. Pat Cranston, "Some Historical Newscasts of the American Forces Network," Journalism Quarterly 41 (Summer 1964): 395-98. 10. Robert R. Smith, "Origins of Radio Network News Commentary," Journal of Broadcasting 9 (Spring 1%5): 113-22. 11. Girauld Chester, "The Press Radio War: 1933-35," Public Opinion Quarterly 13 (Summer 1949): 263. 12. In Ryan, History in Sound, v. Also see As It Happened, 133. 13. George Douglas, The Early Days of Radio Broadcasting (Jefferson City, N. C: McFarland, 1987), 206. .

166 AJ /Summer 1990

As the issues of the depression and European conflict unfolded and the industry grew, radio became the major platform for ideological discussion. Through the use of radio. President "Unlike any previ- Franklin inspired confidence in ous nwdlum of D. Roosevelt a crushed banking comnunlcatlon. system. Just minutes after Roosevelf s radio address on the commercial radio banking crisis of 5 March 1933, he began to receive telegraphs ex- formed a perpetual pressing unequivocal evidence of public response to his broad- E>art of everyday Ife during the cast.^* 1930s." Reacting to Roosevelt's fireside chats on the Deal," - Czhrom, "New Media and the critics Huey P. Long and Father Charles Coughlin used radio to Amerkan Mind. hammer home their platforms for social justice. In his home state of Louisiana, where he owned—and used—both the radio station and newspaper. Long recruited more than five million people for his "Share Our Wealth Society" after only four radio news appearances.^^ In 1932, Long had publicly supported Roosevelt's nomination as Democratic candidate for president. According to Long, it was "Roosevelt or Ruin." By 1934 his attitude had changed; he charged that it was "Roosevelt and Ruin." Long proposed redistribution of the wealth—taking from the rich and giving to the poor—as a cure for the depression. Father Coughlin was not well known until his radio broadcasts began. After only a few months of periodic broadcasting, he had drawn enough listeners to secure a membership of millions for the Radio League of the Little Rower.^^ As the war approached. Father Coughlin criticized Roosevelt's administration for getting America into "the present mess of foreign entan- glements."^^ Roosevelt countered, of course, preaching for his "arsenal of democracy."^® These ideological debates were all broadcast on this powerful new information medium of radio. A host of noted politicians and commentators debated the issues of the depression and scared the audience with sounds of the approaching war. Alexander Kendrick later described the impact of radio on the American audience: Although it [radio] does not instigate the tensions, radio elongates the shadow of fear and frustration [created by the] mechanized columns of Hitler. Radio exposes nearly everybody in a country to a rapid, bewildering succession of emotional experiences.^' Just two years after the first CBS World News Roundup, the phrase "This Is London" echoed in the ears of listeners through-

14. Hadley Cantril and Gordon W. AUport, The Psychology of Radio fl^ew York: Peter Smith, 1941), 32. See also Phonoarchive, tape 4116. 15. Ernest G. Borman, 'This Is Huey P. Long Talking," Journal of Broadcasting 2 (Spring 1958): 111-12. See also Cantril, 7-9, and Phonoarchive, tape 4279. 16. Cantril, 18. 17. Phonoarchive, tape 4062. 18. Franklin Roosevelt, "Arsenal of Democracy," radio address, 29 December 1940. Also see Roosevelt, 3 January 1938, Phonoarchive, tape 4279. 19. Alexander Kendrick, Prime Time: The Life ofEdioard R. Murrow (Boston: Little, Brown, 1%9), 234. .

Godfrey 167

out America .^°Wri ring about the influence of radio on informed public opinion in the 1930s, Fortune magazine reported that "the nation's favorite recreation was listening to radio . . . [and] newscasts ranked third among favorite radio programs."^^ A 1938 essay on Murrow in Scribner's underscored the importance of radio as an information source, noting three advantages that Murrow (and radio) had over the "greatest American newspaper": First, he beats the newspapers by hours. Second, he reaches nrullions who otherwise have to depend on provincial newspapers for their foreign news. And third, he writes his own headlines.^ Few Americans doubted the impact of radio during the thirties. The Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre of the Air broadcast of "War of the Worlds" on 30 October 1939 dramatically illustrated the effect of the news-style radio format. Several factors worked together to generate that program's impact. People were used to real. radio bulletins, and Welles's bulletins sounded They were "In those days, be- received by an audience already emotionally charged by the fore and during ideological challenges raised by radio commentators who had most of the war, we were not per- discussed the depression and the approaching war. As Paul niitted to use re- White noted, it was because of these factors that the audience cordings. Every- thing was live and "believed the Welles production even though it was specifically nwved directly stated that the whole thing was fiction."^^ from the reporter's During the 1930s, particularly as the war approached, radio microphone into your home." offered important information and involved listeners emotion- - Edward Murrow, ally in the eventsof their time. In many respects, radio was unlike from "We Take You Back," all other media. Dixon Wector, quoting Plato, argued that the 13 March 1958. size of the groups in which men can be governed depends upon the range of the human voice.^* For Welles and others, radio certainly increased that range and its influence. It was as an information medium, bringing home the issues and challenges of a rapidly changing society, that radio laid the foundation for the broadcast news format we know today. During the thirties information, news, feature, and commentary programs grew in popularity. The press-radio war restrictions limited news to bulletins and forced the radio programming of the early thirties to emphasize coverage of special events. News broadcasts were limited to bulletins aired in the morning and evening, and to events such as the "Vatican Choir at Easter time, a speech by De Valera or folk music from Scandi- navia," and to political speeches and sporting events.^ AsShirer

20. Robert Trout, "CBS Twelve Crowded Months," 29 December 1940, Phonoarchive, tapes 3701-4. 21. "Newspaper versus News Broadcasts," Fortune 17 (April 1938): 104-9.

22. Robert J. Landry, "Edward R. Murrow," Scribner's 1 04 (December 1 938): 7-1 1 23. White, 47. 24. Dixon Wector, "Hearing Is Believing," Atlantic Monthly 175 (June 1945): 54. 25. Edward R. Murrow, "We Take You Back," CBS Radio News documentary, 13 March 1958, Phonoarchive, tape 4065. 168 AJ /Summer 1990

put it, he and Murrow were busy in Europe "putting kid choirs

on the air for . . . Columbia's American School of the Air."^^ But as coverage of public events and the ideological debates increased, so did the number of commentators and the radio support staff. During the 1930s the number of commentators grew from six to twenty.^^ Both CBS and NBC distributed guidelines for these growing staffs: commentators were to "elucidate and illuminate the news of common knowledge and to point out the facts on both sides."^* The press-radio war forced the radio networks to nurture in- house newsgathering organizations. According to White, the first CBS news organization was founded in 1933 with General "[Murrow] has Mills as sponsor. The Columbia News Service was tied in with more influence upon Anierica's the "Dow Jones ticker service and a British news agency in reaction to foreign addition to its own small bureaus in New York, Los Angeles, news than a ship Washington, and Chicago."^' Paley said that the aim of CBS was full of newspaper- men." "no less than to build our own international news-gathering - "Edward R. organization."^" With the press-radio war and establishment of MurTow,''ScWbner's, the Press Radio Bureau, however, CBS gave up its original December 1938. service.^^ The bureau agreed to supply two five-minute news "summaries" per day, but they were not broadcast until nine- thirty in the morning news, or until after nine in the evening; news bulletins were limited to thirty words.^^ By late December 1938, however, the Press-Radio Bureau ceased to serve the networks.^ But CBS and NBC had already established a foundation for news programming in their commentary and feature program staffs. As World War II unfolded, the purpose of these fledgling organizations was transformed from commentary and public affairs to news; they were to provide the first "eyewit- ness" news roundup. The program that established today's news format emerged 13 March 1938, just three months after the Press-Radio Bureau had ceased its service. This was the first CBS World News Roundup. In his memoirs Paley called it the "first round robin of European news and commentary on the Nazi invasion of Aus- tria."^ Robert Trout, who anchored the roundup, described it as "a special broadcast which will include pickups direct from London, Paris, and such other European capitals as at this late hour abroad have communications channels available."^^

26. Shirer, 288. 27. Smith, 114. 28. Paul W. White, "Covering a War for Radio," Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 213 (January 1941): 83. See also News on the Air, 199. 29. White, News on the Air, 39. 30. Paley, in Ryan History in Sound, vi. 31. White, News on the Air, 41. 32. Chester, 256-57. 33. "Press Radio off the Air," New York Times, 28 December 1938, 23. 34. Paley, As It Happened, 133. See also Ryan, History in Sound, v. 35. Robert Trout, "We Take You Back," CBS Radio News program, 13 March 1958, Phonoarchive, tape 4065. Godfrey 169

The major players in this event were White, Shirer, and Murrow. It was White, stationed in New York as the director of public affairs for Columbia, who initiated this first World News Roundup. He notified Shirer, who was given less than a day to pull together his part of the newscast from Europe. Shirer was Columbia's central European director, stationed in Vienna. An anxious participant in this "live" news broadcast, Shirer had been frustrated for some time at being unable to interest "anyone at CBS in letting [him] report first hand on the fate of Austria."^^ Murrow, Columbia's European director, stationed in London, was head of CBS's "foreign staff, a staff of one [Murrow]."^' Robert Trout, known for his "smooth voice" and later called "The Voice of CBS News," anchored the roundup from New York.38 The approaching world war and the German annexation of Austria provided the occasion for this first World News Roundup. As the German soldiers absorbed country after country, millions of people were turning to radio as their means of information, anxious to learn of "every step in the unfolding tragedy of the European war."^' By March 1938, Austria had fallen to the German invaders, and the world was wondering about the fate of France and Great Britain. Hitler was massing a powerful weapon. The conflict, heretofore referred to as the "European Phony War," was becoming very real.*" Radio was becoming the source for the most immediate information concerning this growing threat. Murrow was in Warsaw, Poland, on 1 2 March 1938, arranging for a special musical program for CBS. Shirer, whom Murrow • • • • • had hired, was in London manning the bureau in Murrow's "Until eight o'clocl( that Sunday night, absence. It was Shirer, who received the call to action from no one on tnis earth White, who organized the round-up from Europe.*' Lacking a had ever heard a support staff, Shirer organized a series of stringers, calling upon world news roundup." reporters from already established print bureaus and a member - Robert Trout, of the British Parliament. These people all functioned as report- from "We Take You Back," ers to "round up" the European news and present differing 13 March 1958. perspectives on the rapidly unfolding events. Shirer's stringers included Edgar Mowrer of the Chicago Daily News, Ellen C. Wilkinson, a member of the British Parliament, and Pierre Hy ss of the International News Service, a prestigious if somewhat reluctant group of first-time radio reporters.*^ Mowrer was away from Paris on vacation, and "it took some urging [by Shirer] to

36. Shirer, 294. 37. Paley, As It Happened, 131.

38. William S. Shirer, Berlin Diary (New York: Alfred E. Knopf, 1 941 ), 104; Trout, Phonoarchive, tape 4065. 39. Henry Steele Commager, The Pocket History of the Second World War (New York: Pocket, 1945), 23. 40. Commager, 40-43. 41. White, News on the Air, 46. 42. Paley, in Ryan, History in Sound, vi. See also Shirer and White texts. 170 AJ /Summer 1990

persuade him to return to broadcast."*^ Wilkinson hesitated because she did not want her participation in the roundup to hint at official British involvement in the European war. Huss was under the close eye of the Nazis in Berlin; and Murrow, who wanted to broadcast, was looking for an open shortwave transmitter between Warsaw and Vienna. Organizing the broadcast was also more than a matter of arranging prominent stringers. The broadcast was a totally live program, and it was easier to get the stringers than it was to get "News Director Paul White had had the technical shortwave radio stations lined up throughout Eu- curtains hung on rope for a live broadcast scheduled from New York. Murrow's the waiis of one of fledgling one-person broadcast bureau made full use of an al- the offices here to deaden the sound, ready established personal network of influential colleagues: rigging up an int- "Murrow and [Shirer] had newspaper friends in every capital in provised studio Eurojje."*^ But, for each European city, Shirer needed a short- for the crisis." - Trout, from "We wave radio transmitter powerful enough to carry the signal from Taice You Bacic," Europe to New York, and the German troops had closed the 13 March 1958. shortwave transmitter in Poland. So Murrow left Warsaw and headed for Vienna, where he hoped a shortwave broadcasting station would be open to permit his participation in this first World News Roundup. It was feared that he would not be able to participate, and Trout had even written "a little apology explaining that the Vienna transmitter was closed, and he had not prepared a Vienna introduction in advance."*^ It would be ideal at this point to quote the original CBS

broadcast at length, as listeners heard it. Unfortunately, the program exists only in fragments. CBS had banned broadcast recordings and insisted that everything they did must be live. Nonetheless, it is pjossible even from these fragments to feel the exigence of the world p)ower struggle and the importance of that precedent-setting broadcast. The historic broadcast began at 8:00 p.m., eastern standard time. Trout was the anchor who introduced the program, the subject material, and the participants. Shirer led with his report from London, followed by Wilkinson with comments on Brit- ain's annoyance with Hitler. "No one [in Britain] wants to go to war," she noted.*^ Mowrer, who had been expelled from Ger- many by Hitler, described Hitler's "brutal naked force."*' And Huss delivered a somewhat guarded report from Berlin: "All classes in Germany believed that Austria had come back to the German fold of its own will."**Murrow's report was simple and direct: This is Edward Murrow speaking from Vienna, it is

43. Shirer, Twentieth Century, 305.

44. Shirer, Berlin Diary, \Qf7. 45. Trout, Phonoarchive, tape 4065. 46. Shirer, Twentieth Century, 3(J7. 47. Shirer, Twentieth Century, 305-8. 48. Shirer, Twentieth Century, 308. ,

Godfrey 171

now nearly two-thirty in the morning and Herr Hitler has not yet arrived. No one seems to know just when he will get here, but most people expect him sometime after ten tomorrow morning. There's a certain air of expectancy about the city everyone waiting and wondering.*' It worked. New York received the first reports from the major European capitals, and, for the first time, America was introduced to a radio news roundup—live reports from a variety of news locations. The international news and the live "roundup" format were now a part of broadcasting. Shirer recounted that first newscast: One a.m. came, and through my earphone I could hear on our transatlantic "feedback" the smooth voice of Bob Trout announcing the broadcast from our New York Studio. Our part [from Europe] went off alright

I think. Edgar and Ed were especially good . . . New York said on the "feedback" afterward that it was a success. They want another one tonight.^" That first World News Roundup, in other words, was more than just another report from Europe. It was a precedent-setting radio program, so successful in fact, that CBS called for a second the "To bring you the following night. picture of Europe Little of the event is recorded in the popular literature, per- tonight, Columbia haps because of the heightened press-radio competition or per- now presents a special broadcast in haps because the event marked only a moment a rapid with pickups direct evolutionary process. According to Newsweek, for example, the from Lonoon, from "Big Broadcast" of spring 1938 was radio's coverage of the Paris, and such other European coronation of King George and Metropolitan Opera perform- capitals as have ances.^^ But the CBS World News Roundup left a permanent communication channels available. mark on the history and growth of broadcast journalism. The . . . Columbia be- World News Roundup changed the information role of the gins its radio tour radio. Previously radio had only commented on the news that of Europe's capitals whn a transo- print organizations gathered. Now it was gathering its own ceanic pickup news and emphasizing factual, on-the-spot reporting rather from London. We than commentary. take you now to London." In the years that followed that first broadcast, CBS coverage - excerpt from of the European war expanded. Within less than a year, the Trout's Introduc- tion to first world world news roundup became a nightly fifteen-minute news news roundup. program. Paley telegraphed Murrow and Shirer following the Czechoslovakian invasion broadcasts, complimenting them on the work they had accomplished: "probably the best job ever done in radio broadcasting."^^The CBS radio news staff grew as

49. "In Appreciation of Edward R. Murrow," BBC Broadcast, undated. Phono- archive, tape 4063. See also "This Is Ed Murrow," CBS broadcast, 30 April 1965, Phonoarchive, tapes 3971 a,b,c. 50. Shirer, Berlin Diary, 107. 51. "Radio: The Big Broadcast," Newsweek 11 (9 May 1938): 24. 52. Shirer, Twentieth Century, 370-71. 172 AJ /Summer 1990

the war expanded and the demand for information increased. By the end of the war, the staff at CBS Radio had grown from a "This particular handful of commentators to 170 reporters and stringers who, type of radio reporting is only while covering the globe, had filed almost thirty thousand twenty years old. reports with CBS.^' The twenty-first World War II and CBS marked the beginning of a new era for year in hunians is supposed to pro- radio and television journalism. The foundations of radio and duce maturity and television news were laid in those first CBS roundups. Radio and responsibility. The television best in radio re- news networks today continue to emphasize newsgath- is yet to ering and on-the-spot factual reporting, within a format that still resembles that first used in the World News Roundup. Before 13 - Murrow, from "We Tal(e March 1938, Edward R. Murrow described broadcasting as "a You Bacic," leisurely, civilized sort of business." After the first CBS World 13 iMarch 1958. News Roundup, the news was "rather more interesting and considerably more hectic."^*

53. Milo Ryan and I took Ryan's text. History in Sound, which lists all CBS Radio News Broadcasts from 1939 to 1945, and computerized the contents, so that we could search for various themes. Additional searches produced chronological listings, alphabetical listings, and subject-related themes. The program and the completed analyses are deposited in the Milo Ryan Phonoarchives, National Archives. 54. Murrow, "We Take You Back," Phonoarchive, tape 4065. BOOK REVIEWS

FILM, TELEVISION, raphy, typography, graphic form and culture, journal- AND VISUAL design, desktop publishing. ism and mass communica- COMMUNICATION The "mass communication research has lagged of the hybrid, on behind, failing to incorpo- Michael Griffin tion" side University of Minnesota the other hand, has cen- rate models for the analy- tered on survey-based resis of visual media forms Relying on the standard search of media uses and and practices. Where are texts, one would conclude effects, with the nature of the theories for explicating that each medium developed media forms themselves the role played by various in its own hermetically sealed largely taken for granted. types of news footage in vacuum tube, without knowl- We are left with a sys- the message structure of edge of or interaction with tem of journalism educa- television news? Or meth- the other. tion in which scholarly at- ods for analyzing advertis-

. . . Richard B. Jewell tention is rarely devoted to ing practices, which have the visual forms of mass progressively de-empha- THE STUDY OF visual media, and media as im- sized language in favor of media has long occupied a portant as film and televi- the grammar of image as- curious (and precarious) son are continually under- sociation? Where is the place in programs of jour- emphasized. As film and systematic study of word/ nalism and mass commu- communication studies image relationships inte- nication, usually appended have turned their attention grated in the analysis of to narrowly defined train- to questions of television newspaper information. ing sequences in photojournalism or publications Books Reviewed in This Essay graphics, sometimes ne- MOVIES AS MASS COMMUNICATION. By Garth Jowett glected altogether amidst and James M. Linton. Sage, 1989. 169 pp. $19.95, Cloth; $9.95, an overwhelming empha- PsD^r sis on press reporting and HOLLYWOOD AND BROADCASTING: FROM RADIO editing. While everyone TO CABLE. By Michele Hilmes. University of Illinois Press. seems to recognize that 1990. 264 pp. $24.95, Cloth. visual media have grown FIFTIES TELEVISION: THE INDUSTRY AND ITS to dominate mass media CRITICS. By William Boddy. University of Illinois Press, 1990. systems in the twentieth 407 pp. $24.95, Cloth. century, such recognition THE EVOLUTION OF AMERICAN TELEVISION. 2d edi- has yet to manifest itself in tbn. By George Comstock. Sage, 1989. 384 pp. $39.95, Cloth; standard curricula. Much $19.95, Paper. of this, perhaps, can be at- TELEVISION CULTURE. By John Fiske. Routledge, Chapman tributed to institutional in- and Hall, reprinted 1989. 400 pp. $42.50, Cloth; $13.95, Paper. ertia; academic programs PRIME-TIME FAMILIES: TELEVISION CULTURE IN traditionally preoccupied POSTWAR AMERICA. By Ella Taytor. University of California with "news editorial" se- Press, 1989. 196 pp. $20, Cloth. quences are slow to re- WORLD FAMILIES WATCH TELEVISION. Edited by spond to changing empha- James Lull. Sage, 1988. 296 pp. $35, Cloth; $16.50. Paper. ses in the mass media en- RAYMOND WILLIAMS ON TELEVISION. Selected writings vironment, and tend to be edited by Alan O'Conner. Routledge, Chapman and Hall. 1989. most receptive to expan- 256 pp. $14.95, Paper. sion in those areas tradi- MAKING MEANING: INFERENCE AND RHETORIC IN tionally associated with THE INTERPRETATION OF CINEMA. By David Bordwell. print journalism—photog- Harvard University Press, 1989. 384 pp. $29.50, Cloth. 174 AJ /Summer 1990

magazine formats, or the vides multiple, many-lay- and Taylor's Prime Time impact of synthetic im- ered paradigms for inves- Families provide historical agery? tigating the industrial pro- examples of such studies Theories and methods duction of conventional of "television culture," for analyzing the increas- forms, relationships be- each presenting a history ingly ubiquitous juxtaposi- tween media institutions and analysis of particular tions of electronic and and ideology, the proc- television forms, their so- photographic images, il- esses of media socialization cial, political and indus- lustrations and words jos- and professionalization, trial origins, and their cul- tling across the television and mass media audiences tural significance. screen (or the pages of and interpretive patterns. Lull's World Families newspapers and maga- Several recent publica- Watch Television squarely zines) are still missing, not tions reflect these develop- addresses the need, sug- only from standard curric- ments and provide a trove gested by Fiske, for build- ula but also from research of theories, ideas, and re- ing a body of research on presented in mass commu- search to those concerned audience reception and in- nication journals and at with the historical impact terpretive communities. conferences. Attempts to of visual communication He has collected studies incorporate word and im- in the mass media. attempting to discern the age relationships in media Jowett and Linton's Mov- use and significance of analysis, and to account ies as Mass Communication television viewing within for the visual mode in and Hilmes's Hollywood the family contexts of dif- mass communication re- and Broadcasting reject the ferent cultures, from China search more generally, ne- arbitrary divisions between and India to Europe and cessitate reaching out to film and broadcasting to the U.S. literatures not normally provide newly conceptual- Bord well's Making Mean- associated with journalism ized histories of visual ing, simultaneously a his- education or American mass media institutions. tory of film criticism and a mass communication re- Comstock's The Evolution rhetorical analysis of film search. of American Television sum- interpretation, offers new In this regard, a wide- marizes the establishment insights about the way we ranging and important lit- of American television as a approach, make sense of, erature in film and televi- mass media industry, ex- and talk about media in sion offers itself to those plores the development of general. And the selection attempting concrete analy- viewing patterns and use of Raymond William's ses of modern media forms among television audi- writings On Television, ed- and practices. Arising ences, and outlines the re- ited by Alan O'Connor, of- from fields as diverse as sponses of psychologists fers a sampler of brief, en- cinema studies, American and sociologists who have joyable essays by one of studies, cultural studies, established the present tra- the fathers of British cul- art history, literary theory, dition of mass communi- tural studies and one of rhetoric, the sociology of cation research. the first scholars to em- popular culture, media Fiske's Television Culture phasize the failure of studies, and the history of complements Comstock by mainstream mass commu- broadcasting,this literature summarizing the "other" nication research to attend incorporates methods and tradition of television to and explain concrete insights from film theory, studies—the application of "media forms and prac- rhetorical analysis, narra- semiotics, narrative the- tices." tive theory, semiotics, ory, and theories of repre- In Movies as Mass theories of interpretation, sentation from cultural Communication, Jowett and audience research, and the studies and literary theory Linton try to counter the

history and sociology of .. to the specific forms and tendency to view the cin- media industries and cul- practices of television. ema as "art," as a cultural tural production. It pro- Bodd/s Fifties Television text to be approached with —

Book Reviews 175

the tools of literary theory on the part of much media cultural studies, and new and aesthetic analysis, by research to attend to rela- movements for the ethno- describing the cinema his- tions between mass media graphic study of audiences, torically, as a mass com- production and cultural family contexts, and inter- munication industry. By form. Historical research is pretive communities, it focusing on the economics of particular importance in does provide a useful and and sociology of movie this regard, since cultural insightful summary and production and movie au- forms demand historical analysis of the evolution of diences, they make an im- explanation and analysis American television as an portant contribution to the and an historical awareness industrial system, and the study of mass communica- of the interrelationship be- dominant psychological tion in general. Chafing at tween organizations of and sociological models of the conventional separa- production and the aes- American mass communi- tion of film studies from thetics of cinematic form cation research that have studies of mass communi- has been more prevalent in emerged in response. cation—^the "tendency to film studies than memy Comstock concludes position movies as a sepa- other areas of mass com- rather pessimistically, not- rate form of 'entertain- munication research. ing the immunity of the ment,' with a specialized Comstock's Evolution of televison business to criti- audience"—they make a American Television repre- cism and research on tele- compelling case for exam- sents a somewhat parallel vision effects, and observ- ining movies as "one seg- account of the development ing that "the evolution of ment of the mass commu- of television and television American television" has nication infrastructure." In research. Comstock's work "become a model for the so doing, they summarize is undoubtedly one of the world." the many approaches to most comprehensive sum- Hilmes's Hollywood and research encompassed by maries available of the Broadcasting joins Jowett such an approach, from "paradigms" by which the and Linton in decrying the historical and economic American television indus- separation of film studies studies of industry struc- try has developed: the con- from broadcasting and ture and patterns of pro- ceptions and forms of en- mass communication, and duction, distribution and tertainment, news, and po- stressing the need for a marketing, to studies of the litical campaigning that unified study of media movie audience, the movie- have characterized the and society. She concretely going experience, and the television system; social demonstrates her point by psychology of viewing, to and economic factors that tracing the historical links the movies as a world- have shaped audience be- between the broadcasting wide cultural influence havior and the viewing and Hollywood industries shaping our "visual per- "experience"; the array of in American since the hey- spective," to the extensive research questions and in- day of radio. In an un- interrelationships between vestigative approaches precedented historical ac- movies and other media. that have been applied to count, Hilmes documents Movies as Mass Communi- the medium by American Hollywood's early at- cation is unique in the way mass communication tempts to gain control of it explicitly establishes the scholars; and the demon- the budding radio net- importance of incorporat- strable impact television works, and reveals how, ing cinema studies within has had oft public atten- thwarted by regulatory mass communication re- tion, family life, percep- difficulties and the resis- search. The book not only tions, and learning. While tance of both broadcasters suggests the senseless arbi- Comstock's work does not and film exhibitors, the trariness of excluding film take into account discus- film industry turned to from mass communication sions of televison intro- producing radio program- research but points to a duced in the last fifteen ming in the thirties. Focus- more far-reaching failure years by critical theory. ing on the Lux Radio Thea- 176 AJ /Summer 1990

ter as a case study, she re- the seventies and eighties social relations in the veals the process of "com- has led to the disappear- American family and petition and cooperation" ance of "Hollywood" and changing depictions of between radio and the "broadcasting" altogether families in the episodic movies that has made Hol- as we have known them. dramas and sit-coms of lywood a major broadcast HoUyivood and Broad- television. Hers is a more production center. Hilmes casting is a perfect antidote ideahst approach than that shows how Hollywood to media research defined of Boddy or Hilmes, at- pulls together the desire of by and limited to a specific tempting to identify the in- commercial sponsors to as- technology, medium, or fluence of Zeitgeist, cultural sociate their products with industry, displaying as it moods, a "structure of film stars, the desire of the does the advantages of a feelings," as well as demo- industry for a nationally more integrated study of graphic changes, social broadcast promotional fo- media systems. shifts in marital relations, Tum, and the desire of the Similarly, Boddy ob- and deepening divisions radio networks and stations serves the "growing seri- of class, race, and gender for popular programming. ousness with which televi- in forms of popular culture. Hilmes compellingly ar- sion history is viewed from As a self-defined "sociolo- gues that the relationship outside the traditional gist of culture," Taylor be- established between Hol- field of broadcast studies," lieves that cultural forms lywood and radio in the and notes the recent atten- shed light on underlying thirties set the stage for the tion to television from film social perceptions and evolution of Hollywood's studies, semiotics, literary feelings, and that the relations with television, theory, and American study of popular culture helping to facilitate the studies. "One weakness of makes a valuable contribu- relatively rapid accommo- American television histo- tion to our knowledge of dations made between net- riography," he writes, "has the media's role in social works and studios during been the isolation and mu- change. the fifties and early sixties. tual impoverishment of Surveying television's Of special interest is her these strands." His book. depiction of the American analysis of the special dis- Fifties Television, attempts family in the post-war era, course produced by the in- to provide a more inte- Taylor focuses particularly tersection of broadcasting, grated analysis of the on the seventies as a time advertising, and film, a emergence of the Ameri- of social upheaval and discourse characterized by can television industry. By changing family structure a segmented, permeable carefully examining the and marital relations. She structure marked by fre- economic and regulatory sees these changes re- quent interruptions and a environment of the fifties, flected in the symbolic "relatively shallow dieg- a crucial period in which representations of prime- esis." That discourse dif- the structure and form of time television, with pro- ferentiated broadcast pro- American commercial tele- grams centered on the gramming from theatrical vision became entrenched, domestic presentation of film while drawing upon Boddy links business prac- families and changing many of the cinema's nar- tices to program forms, family life emerging in the rative and signifying con- thereby clarifying the so- early seventies, and pro- ventions. Hilmes describes cial and economic origins grams focused on the the carryover of this seg- of television culture. workplace and structured mented, serial, disrupted By contrast, Taylor, in around the creation of sur- discourse into television. Prime-Time Families, links rogate family relationships Then, in the final chapter, television culture to the within the workplace gain- she suggests that the changing cultural milieus ing increasing prominence growing conglomeration in which it has been as the decade progressed. and concentration of the viewed, finding connec- "All in the Family" pro- entertainment industry in tions between changing vides a central focus for — Book Reviews 177

Taylor's discussion of so- the first collection of com- Fiske's Television Culture cial conflict early in the parative ethnographic raises all of the pertinent decade (chapter 4). Pro- studies of family television questions concerning the grams with "workplace viewing. The book in- expanding role of televi- families" like "The Mary cludes work by several of sion in our interpretation Tyler Moore Show," the pioneers of naturalistic of the world around us. "M.A.S.H.," "WKRP in audience research: David Fiske writes of the ma- Cincinnati," and "Lou Morley, whose long-term nipulative power of the Grant" are seen to repre- research on domestic rela- "realism" we ascribe to sent a reaction to the con- tions and family viewing pictures; the ideological tinuing disruptions in the in Britain has become a role played by narrative traditional ideal, a place to model for others to follow; structures routinely em- regain some of the solidar- Thomas Lindlof, whose bedded in television's "re- ity, security and warmth book Natural Audiences alistic" presentations; its that Americans feel they (Ablex, 1987) was one of interpretations of gender have lost (chapter 5). the first collections of and social roles; and the Taylor presents yet an- qualitative research on highly codified nature of other perspective by which media uses and effects; television news as a genre. to to understand the signifi- and J. S. Yadava and Usha He draws our attention cance of visual media rep- V. Reddi, two of the lead- the fabricated culture of resentations. By astutely ers in the expanding field television—a culture we recognizing the centrality of ethnographic research all too often mistake for of the family in television on media adoption and our own. He makes clear portrayals, a medium that use in India. the interrelatedness and so frequently portrays World Families Watch Tele- "intertextuality" of all me- families to family viewers, vision takes seriously the dia today, and the need to she has identified a funda- proposal made by Sol understand television's mental characteristic of Worth more than a decade growing influence over television, a characteristic ago that we move from the cultural production of all that demands further in- study of semiotics, a privi- kinds. He also refers to the vestigation within the con- leged analysis by legiti- type of work represented texts of actual viewing. mized experts of the man- in World Families Watch Lull's World Families ner in which cultural sys- Television by stressing the Watch Television draws to- tems generate meaning, to active nature of audiences gether just such pioneer- what he called "ethno- and the need to further ex- ing work on family televi- graphic semiotics," the amine "modes of recep- sion viewing. Rejecting the study of the way "real" tion," the "making of idea that culture can be people in actual interpre- meaning," and the poly- studied solely through the tive communities make semy of television texts. analysis of media texts sense and meaning of the This selection of works, "Cultures are not found, cultural products around all published or reprinted they are created socially^' them. Bordwell's Making within the last yetir and a —Lull refuses to take the Meaning comes close, with half, represents an expand- "family" for granted. He its analysis of the rhetori- ing literature on the visual argues that the family is a cal and interpretive strate- media that cannot be ig- problematic in the interac- gies employed by film crit- nored by journalism schol- tion between media and ics to make sense of and ars, that, in fact, needs to society that must be exam- evaluate the cinema. The be more fully incorporated ined closely and at length. routines and practices he into journalism and mass Building from a growing examines clearly have rele- communication programs. body of naturalistic field vance not just for film We cannot continue to let research in the eighties scholars but for all of us received and arbitrary di- that he himself helped to who watch and write visions of knowledge and lead. Lull has produced about any visual media. study obstruct the pursuit —

178 AJ /Summer 1990

of mass media studies. titled "Matters of Fact and pretation above contempo- These surveys and studies, Matters of Opinion"—and rary dogma and agenda. taken as a group, suggest a be able to present evidence From the start, Lynes whole much greater than as fairly as possible with demonstrates that what the sum of its parts, and the goal of fulfilling a the- would be regarded now as lay the groundwork for a sis or theme. Barbara sexisttreatmentof O'Keeffe new tradition of research Buhler Lynes not only ac- also may have been her that demolishes the old complishes this but also ticket into the male-ori- academic boundaries di- may alter the reader's ented art world of the viding different media, opinion of O'Keeffe. 1920s. But this ploy cost different technologies, and In the opening chapters, O'Keeffe in the long run, differing disciplinary ap- Lynes documents Alfred casting a long shadow proaches. Journalism and Stieglitz's obsession with upon her status as artist mass communication O'Keeffe as a fellow artist, and professional. As Lynes scholars in America would photogenic model, extra- notes, O'Keeffe did not at- do well to throw open the marital lover, and subse- tempt to censure Stieglitz; doors of heretofore insu- quent independent wife. she simply put forth her lated programs and wel- Already well-established own artistic manifesto to come such interdiscipli- when O'Keeffe came to counteract her husband's. nary study of the visual live in New York at his Lynes's readers, then, get and electronic media, for bidding in 1918, Stieglitz to experience these two the time is already past became O'Keeffe' s chief versions (or visions) of when journalism and mass promoter and myth- O'Keeffe doing battle in media of all kinds have maker, maintaining that what essentially becomes come under the influence her genius stemmed from journalism's inability to of the industrial produc- her sex and sexuality. depict what it hitherto had tion of images. Stieglitz, who based his as- refused to report: in this sumption on Freud, per- case, the dynamic presence petuated the myth on gela- of "a woman artist" (a latin silver prints, some de- bel that eventually an- O'KEEFFE, STIEGLITZ AND picting a nude O'Keeffe in gered O'Keeffe, who sharp focus (as opposed to wanted to be reviewed as THE CRITICS, 1916-1929. the blurred nude already artist sans "woman"). By Barbara Buhler Lynes. in vogue). The result is a research • UMI Research Press Lynes, as scholar, pres- book with a plot narrated •1989,376 pp. ents a balanced view of via a selection of ninety • $39.95, Cloth such matters. For instance, pieces of pertinent criti- in treating the gender im- cism. The critics become THIS BOOK'S TITLE de- plications of Stieglitz's fa- characters in a morality picts the subject matter mous portraits of O'Keeffe, play about the creative precisely. But the theme is the author writes: "Al- genius of a woman who is more pertinent: how jour- though there is no ques- also a pawn of the times. nalist-critics, even the tion that Stieglitz objecti- Here is a representative most enlightened of the fied the female body in excerpt by Paul Rosenfeld post-Armory Show era, some of the photographs, embracing tenets of the stereotyped Georgia in others he defined a Stieglitz view: 'The pure, O'Keeffe, one of America's strong, spirited, serious now flaming, now icy col- most innovative artists. artist and woman." This is ors of this painter, reveal Such an overplot has its but one of dozens of inter- the woman polarizing her- risks, particularly in a pretations throughout the self, accepting fully the na- scholarly work such as this. book in which Lynes ture long denied, spiritual- The author must distin- changes our perspective of izing her sex The or- guish fact from opinion O'Keeffe merely by put- gans that differentiate the indeed, one chapter is ting historic fact and inter- sex speak. Women, one — —

Book Reviews 179

would judge, always feel, bibliography, and a com- stereotype. Schuchman when they feel strongly, plete index. thinks it is far past time to through the womb." The book is being offered do away with negative Rosenfeld's articles em- at such a reasonable price and stereotypical images barrassed CKeeffe. She that teachers may also of deafness, to retire the writes in a letter: 'They want to consider it as a image of victim as object make me seem like some recommended text. of pity, to stop presenting strange imearthly sort of deafness as a pathological creature floating in the . . . Michael J. Bugeja condition. air—^breathing in the Ohio University The author makes his clouds for nourishment case very well. He traces when the truth is I like the depiction of deafness beef steak—and like it rare over eighty years and compares the Holl3rwood at that." HOLLYWOOD SPEAKS: CKeeffe's view of her art version with the reality. He DEAFNESS AND THE FILM was as direct as her per- finds reflected in Holly- ENTERTAINMENT sonality. One of her contri- wood's products a na- butions as a modernist INDUSTRY. tional cultural bias toward was her ability to resurrect By John S. Schuchman. deafness and deaf people. the cliche of the still-life • University of Illinois Press These products have done flower. She states: "I have •1988,200 pp. their share of harm. For painted what each flower • $24.95, Cloth example, audiences have is to me and I have painted been insensitive to comic it big enough so that oth- WHAT A SHAME for most parodies of deafness and ers would see what I see." Americans that they gain the "dummy" figure. Gen- The only criticism one much of their knowledge erations of Americans may level at Lynes's book of the deaf community and have grown up with their is the brevity of its conclu- culture via film and televi- prejudices formed and re- sion, less than six and a sion. Deafness in Ameri- inforced by film and tele- half pages. By the end she can society has been sub- vision stereotypes. has gained the reader's jected to particularly cruel The typical Hollywood trust to such an extent that stereotyping since early plot has involved lots of "I one would like to hear motion picture days. The can hear" miracles brought more of her opinions, par- author of this study, him- on by some trauma. Deaf ticularly about how the la- self a hearing child of deaf characters in films are of- beling of CyKeeffe has con- parents, saw deaf charac- ten expert lip readers and tributed to current-day ters in movies that bore capable of perfect speech media misperceptions little resemblance to the very uncommon character- about women artists. deaf people that he knew istics of the prelingually The book appeals to sev- as a boy or those he works deaf. When American Sign eral disciplines, from jour- with tcday as a professor Language—a crucial as- nalism to feminist studies. of history at Gallaudet pect of deaf communica- The writing is clear and University. tion—has been used at all, concise; the format, organ- Hollywood, as usual, re- it more often than not has ized and assessible. The flects ignorance of the been badly done, or the book contains six well-re- broader culture. Many camera cuts to the hearing searched chapters, twenty- studies that have recently actor's expression and the three plates of Stieglitz explored the presentation effect of signing is lost. photos and CKeeffe paint- of various groups in Deaf actors have seldom ings, short biographies of American society on the been employed to play the critics and reprints of cited basis of gender, ethnicity, parts of deaf characters. It reviews in the appendices, or class, and now disability, was 1968 before the first detailed and informative have found Hollywood adult deaf actor on a net- notes, an extensive select mired in formula and work series appeared. In — s

180 AJ/Summer 1990

1986 the deaf actress grams covers the silent nominal attempt by mon- Marlee Matlin had the first movie era, talking motion archs William and Mary to starring role in a major pictures, the changing of control the English press. motion picture. the "dummy" stereotype, Great literary journalists Schuchman recounts the appearance of deaf like Defoe and Jonathan how the images of deafness actors, and the impact of Swift were the result. have changed over the television. Professor Defoe's heritage as a jour- decades. In silent films, Schuchman's carefully re- nalist included the famous deafness was used as a searched filmography de- Miltonic doctrine of free- device of trickery; the deaf scribes hundreds of inter- dom of the press, uttered depicted as tragic, pitiful, esting movies and televi- in 1644 during the English dependent victims. In the sion programs featuring Civil War, and the Whig- 1930s and 1940s, the deaf some aspect of deafness. Tory system of two-party were portrayed as mutes Hollywood Speaks is a sig- government that grew out with little significant nificant contribution to an of that conflict. Whereas signed dialogue, or else important aspect of film John Bunyan was the last as naturally speaking lip history. of the Puritans to be of lit- readers. Starting with erary significance, Defoe

Johnny Belinda in the late . . . Maureen J. Nemecek was the first of the "Dis- 1940s, film and television Oklahoma State University senters"—those who fa- began to feature deaf char- vored Presbyterianism or acters who used sign lan- Independentism over the guage in major roles. But reestablished Anglican the limited availability of church, which came with captioned movies after the restoration of Charles DANIEL DEFOE: HIS LIFE. 1927 still excluded the deaf II to the English throne in By Paula R. Backscheider. audience from the me- 1660—to be of journalistic- • Johns Hopkins University dium. Schuchman's point literary significance. Press is that the deaf audience Defoe founded the Whig had every right to com- •1989,688 pp. periodical Review in 1704, plain. Only in the 1970s, at • $29.95, Cloth at a time when English the behest of the FCC, was journalism was barely closed caption technology DANIEL DEFOE (1659- fifty years old. Roger provided for television 1731) was not only a great L'Estrange, editor of the programs. founder of the English Tory Observator, died the In addition, the Holly- novel but also a father same year. Showing the wood presentation has some say the father—of connections among jour- contributed little to the English journalism. Defoe's nalism, verse forms of the understanding of deafness. influence transcended the day, and religious pam- Movies dependent on for- modern-day divide be- phleteering, L' Estrange' mula and stereotype "have tween "literature" and paper was written in a dia- popularized a simple- journalism. His young logue that often rhetori- minded view of deafness." manhood spanned the cally pitted religio-political As educators, we have to Restoration in English his- foes against one another in keep in mind what our tory, which included the a provocative manner. students may or may not Glorious Revolution in Defoe, having been pillo- know about deafness. This 1688 and the demise of the ried three times in 1703, book will make them ques- last Newspaper Licensing avoided this tradition, as tion the presentation of Act in 1694. These two oc- well as the violent party deafness as well as other currences reflected, respec- affiliation of seventeenth- cultural "types." The his- tively, the ascendence of century journalism, and torical presentation of the English parliament founded the Review along deafness in Hollywood over the English crown, more moderate lines, with films and television pro- and the end of any but a more of an eye toward Book Reviews 181

commerce and literature a merchant who quickly ating his work. Here is a than partisanship. went bankrupt, to recov- representative passage: Defoe's career was a ery—only to find himself a "Even in this tumultuous, hodgepodge of successes political fugitive and, fi- serious world, Defoe must and failures, bankruptcy nally, a political prisoner; have done the things chil- and rescue, obscurity and (2) his middle life, starting dren always do. He must the eventual climb to liter- with his release from have played in the vacant ary immortality with the prison by the influence of lots and built with the publication, at age sixty, of a high-ranking govern- stones and boards in the Robinson Crusoe—although ment official who used wreckage from the fire. He the book was not well re- him later as a political spy, undoubtedly knew the ceived by the literary es- to his forced remove from markets, shops, ware- tablishment of Defoe's a relatively moderate com- houses, and wharves of the day, aimed as it was at the mercial position, to more city well. He surely saw increasingly influential of the partisan journalism pickpockets pumped [Wa- English middle class. that had got him pilloried ter was pumped on them Indeed, Crusoe contains so in 1703; (3) a resurgence of for punishment], thieves many of the values of the his literary talent and ef- hanged, and the carriages English middle class as to forts in the face of failing of the wealthy crowd the make it virtually a mirror political alliances, to Robin- narrow streets." of the manners of early son Crusoe and literary suc- Although Daniel Defoe: eighteenth-century British cess, followed by a typi- His Life may perhaps be bourgeois life, a culture cally bourgeois concern for more interesting to an au- whose contours Crusoe progress-oriented "proj- dience with a penchant for does not desert even dur- ects"—followed by declin- literary history, it will ing his marooning. ing health and death. yield a good deal of satis- Implicit in Robinson On the way, we learn faction as well to those in- Crusoe were not only the what an exciting life Defoe terested in journalism his- values of the middle class really did live: his convic- tory, especially to those in- but a new economic as well: tion for sedition, his politi- terested in the history of the publishing of adven- cal role as a double agent, literary journalism. ture books on speculation, his creation of a spy net- Backscheider's scholar- without aristocratic pa- work, his infiltration of ri- ship, at times formidable, tronage. As a corollary to val newspapers, and his is never forbidding, and this new method, as Edwin acquaintance with some of she is a gifted, entertaining Emery has pointed out, the most famous and noto- writer. Her book is an im- Crusoe was widely repub- rious people of his day. portant contribution, then, lished in American colo- Backscheider's book, the to two fields—journalism nial newspapers. first fuUbiography of Defoe and literature—whose Paula R. Backscheider's since 1958, is extremely modern-day dichotomy Daniel Defoe: His Life is one well-researched and richly her adventuresome, dis- of the few Defoe biogra- detailed, and includes presenting subject would phies to give plenary treat- viously unpublished likely neither have ap- ment to his literary-politi- manuscript material from proved of nor understood. cal journalism and to his almost every period of Highly recommended. connections and contribu- Defoe's life. It will surely tions to the press system of be the definitive biography . . . Gary L. Whitby his day. Backscheider, a of Defoe for sorne time to Springhill College professor of English at the come. Backscheider, who University of Rochester, occasionally falls a little traces Defoe's life in three into the jargon of literary parts: (1) his birth to a analysis, is best when de- Remish butcher's family, tailing some facet of the through his brief career as author's life and not evalu- —

182 AJ /Summer 1990

HOW MANY WORDS DO the same things with Until that happens, one YOU WANT? AN INSIDER'S greater depth and analysis. might more profitably STORIES OF PRINT AND The first third of the spend time with two other TELEVISION JOURNALISM. book is about Midgely's recent books, one a mem- print career, which in- oir, the other an interpre- By Leslie Midgley. cluded stints on the Denver tive study—Russell • Birch Lane Press Post, Louisville Courier- Baker's The Good Times and •1989,320 pp. Journal, Chicago Times, and Peter J. Boyer's Who Killed •$19.95, Cloth New York Herald Tribune, CBS?—^before picking up including the latter's Paris Midgely's largely glossy TO QUOTE MICHAEL D. edition, and Collier's and offering. Murray in the fall 1989 is- Look magazines. Research-

sue of this journal: ers . "An- interested in those or- . . Daniel W. Pfaff other book about CBS?" ganizations and people Pennsylvania State Univ. Afraid so. This time an- who worked for them other veteran of that much- might find something of written-about network, al- interest here. There is a though not an on-air per- helpful name index. sonality, takes readers Midgley also describes THE CULTURE OF PRINT: through his career, which the production of some of POWER AND THE USES OF began on newspapers, the many CBS documenta- PRINT IN EARLY MODERN moved to magazines, and ries and instant news spe- EUROPE. ended at CBS, where he cials of his tenure, such as Edited by Roger Chartier and spent twenty-five years, the fall of the Diem regime translated by Lydia B. five of them as executive and coverage of the JFK Cochrane. producer of the "Evening assassination in 1963 and • Princeton University Press News." several tributes to such •1989,351 Like most books of this people as Richard Rogers, pp. • $45, Cloth type, this is largely a fond John Wayne, and Jack remembrance of things Benny. past, anecdotally presented The presentation is stac- WHEN IT COMES to by a man who thoroughly cato. Short, punchy para- wines, sauces, and liter- enjoyed what he was doing, graphs. Lots of sentence ary/cultural studies, the sought to do it well, and, fragments. same doctrine seems to seemingly, almost never As for the general level apply: "If it's French, it's experienced a dull moment. of analysis, this is about it: got to be good." Properly As such, it has greater 'Television news offers deconstructed, this doc- potential interest for pictures that demand at- trine turns out to be more young people entering the tention and with them religious faith than natural news professions—par- bring emotion, which is law. But, like most reli- ticularly broadcasting not to be scorned but in- gious faiths, there's a nug- than it does for communi- deed highly prized. get of truth in it; and this is cation history researchers. "Printed news offers far especially so for that sub- For the researcher's pur- more complete informa- field of literary/cultural poses, it is rather thin and tion. studies known as "the his- not particularly fresh. 'Take your pick." tory of the book." In this Midgley was there for In fairness, he doesn't field, I'm pleased to report, many of the great events pretend to be profound: the doctrine usually holds of his times, from World 'The whole ball of wax of up very well indeed. War II through the convul- television and its effect on What French historians sive 1960's, Vietnam, and society cries out for a Gun- have done so well is to Watergate. But so were nar Myrdal to explain turn the technological his- countless others, many of what it really is and what tory of printing and the whom have written about its future is going to be." business history of pub- Book Reviews 183

lishing into the cultural on hagiographic pam- tion; not enough empirical history of reading and phlets, sensational tracts, research. In several chap- readers. They have pio- prayer books, marriage ters the readers are more neered in the study of, not covenants, doctrinal inferred than found, and just literacy, but the uses of books, and official news the argim\ents are largely literacy. A major figure in proclamations. Most of the the authors' own more-or- this new cultural history of authors discuss pictures as less inspired readings of reading has been Roger well as words, and the texts. Most are nicely em- Chartier, editor and con- book includes some won- pirical however, and there tributing author of The derful illustrations (unfor- is mercifully little of the Culture of Print. Chartier tunately reduced to eye- jargon of French literary was a key organizer of the squinting size). studies that American collaborative effort that My own favorite chapter scholars find so helpful produced the Histoire de is by Paul Saenger on when they are confused. VEdition Francaise, which manuscript "Books of Indeed, several of the es- has inspired similar multi- Hours" (prayer books) in says are ingenious and volume projects in Britain, the late Middle Ages. quite successful in their re- Germany, and the United Saenger describes a critical lentless pursuit of readers. States. His own book on change in the nature of For example, Chartier the culture of print has re- reading in western Europe himself makes excellent cently become available to well before the age of use of a collection of mar- English readers as The Cul- print. This was the devel- riage charters, many of tural Uses of Print in Early opment of silent reading which were altered and Modern France (Princeton and its uses in a new style customized by their buy- University Press, 1987), of private religious piety. ers; Marie-Elisabeth translated by Lydia G. Saenger explains how si- Ducreux draws upon the Cochrane. lent reading (as opposed interrogation dossiers of The main theme of much to oral liturgy and ritual Protestant book readers of this work, including the prayer) required a new caught up in the Catholic essays in The Culture of kind of "comprehension inquisition in eighteenth- Print, is what Chartier calls literacy" and, significantly, century Bohemia. the "plural appropria- promoted a new intimacy Might American histori- tions" of the printed word. between the reader and ans learn research meth- The term "power" in the the book, an intimacy be- ods as well as jargon from subtitle is important and yond the purview of priest the French? I think so. In- intentionally ambiguous. and prince. In other words, deed, it is happening al- Several of the essays are long before Gutenberg set ready. Several recent about how printing was his first line of type, the books suggest that Ameri- used by elites to impose book had begun to speak can historians are develop- authority and orthodoxy directly to the mind of the ing an exciting and genu- in religion or politics. But reader; and the world was inely empirical history of the imposition of authority changed. Perhaps as well reading and readers in this via print is risky, for while as anything I've read, this country. My own favorites the authorities may do the little essay shows how the are Cathy N. Davidson, printing, it is the reader power of the word inheres Revolution and the VJord: who reads. And reading in the reading not in the The Rise of the Novel in seems to be an enterprise printing, in the reader not America (Oxford Univer- inherently corrosive of au- in the press. sity Press, 1986); David D. thority. This book is about Of course, the nine es- Hall, YJorUs of Wonder, that cultural corrosion. It is says in The Culture of Print Days of Judgment: Popular a collection of case studies are not equally good. Religious Belief in Early New of how texts were appro- Some suffer from the con- England (Knopf, 1989); and priated by readers for their genital defect of cultural Richard D. Brown, Knowl- own uses, with chapters studies: too much specula- edge Is Power. The Diffusion 184 AJ /Summer 1990

of Information in Early The volume marufests yond its impressive dis- America, 1700-1865 (Oxford monumental scholarship play of the scholarship of Ur\iversity Press, 1989). and reports significant literary attribution. Perhaps the pubUcation findings. Battestin's pur- Battestin is to be com- of The Culture of Print will pose in doing it was "to mended for his presenta- inspire us to bring this new disclose not only one of tion of the individual es- history of reading into the the best kept, but one of says. Each is preceded by a history of American jour- the most important, secrets full and engaging intro- nalism. of eighteenth

. . . David Paul Nord with his impeccable cre- that informed readers will Indiana University dentials as a Fielding not wish to skip. The es- scholar could have carried says reveal Fielding's nar- this study to successful rative skills and erudition. conclusion, for it involved They are amusing, satiri- rigorous and extensive ap- cal, and sometimes cynical NEW ESSAYS BY plication of literary attri- but always effective state- HENRY FIELDING: HIS bution methodology. He ments in the Hanoverian CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE demonstrates a master's public debate. They pene- C/?>1/TSM4A/ (1734-1 739) touch at perceiving paral- trate into the whirlwind of AND OTHER EARLY lels and correspondences the era's political journal- JOURNALISM. of thought and language ism, for the Craftsman was between the attributed the "principal political By Martin C. Battestin with a works and Fielding's journal of the decade." stylometric analysis by known writings. In Moreover, as the leading Michael G. Farringdon. Battestin's judgment, organ of the opposition, it • University Press Virginia of thirty-one of the essays, afforded Fielding repeated •1989,640 pp. which constitute the body opportunity to attack • $50, Cloth of the book, bear abundant prime minister Sir Robert and distinctive signs of Walpole. One of his favor- HENRY RELDING'S Fielding's probable au- ite targets was Walpole's reputation as a leading thorship. He is less certain Daily Gazetteer. Fielding's eighteenth

Book Reviews 185

ism historians will find it the National Museum of the patents, and he never informative about the style American History; docu- had a controlling interest and content of eighteenth- mentation establishing the in the company. This cir- century political journal- autobiographical nature of cumstance became par- ism and will encounter in the "biography"; an article ticularly critical when it many examples of the reprinted from the New company control passed cultural and humorous York Tribune of 1889 de- into the hands of a news- rhetoric that characterized scribing that newspaper's paper syndicate. The syn- the press at that time. It is experience with the ma- dicate was interested in unfortunate that the chine; selected pages from acquiring machines for its book's price will limit its the catalogue of Mergen- own use but not, for a time, acquisition mainly to spe- thaler' s machine shop; an in making them available cialists and libraries with annotated collection of to others: from 1886 to an interest in eighteenth- photographs, illustrations, 1889 the company essen- century studies. They, and textual reproductions; tially undermined its own however, should not be- Schlesinger's identification reputation publicly, while without it. of the linotype-set portions newspapers such as the of the first Tribune page to Tribune were in fact using

. . . James D. Startt include them; and his tech- the linotype. By the time Valparaiso University nical explanation of how company control shifted the linotype print might and other stockholders at- have been made to match tempted to resecure its the hand-composed text as reputation, Mergenthaler closely as it does. had been forced to relin- THE BIOGRAPHY OF Mergenthaler' s linotype, quish what control he had OHMAR MERGENTHALER, so called because it typeset had. INVENTOR OF THE an entire "line of type" Thus Mergenthaler' LINOTYPE. from text entered at a story stands in stark con- Edited by Carl Schlesinger. typewriter-like keyboard, trast to the prevalent myth • Oak Knoll Books allowed one operator to of the successful inde- •1989,144 pp. perform the work of both pendent inventor, and as • $35, Cloth the hand compositor and testimony to the perils of the type foundry. It con- the U.S. patent system. CARL SCHLESINGER'S structed a type mold letter That the first printed page collection on Ottmar by letter, adjusted spacing in Schlesinger's volume Mergenthaler, inventor of between words to justify contains only a quote, the linotype, presents an the line, filled the mold printed in oversized type, assortment of information with molten metal, turned "attributed" to Thomas about the inventor, his in- out the final line of type, Edison, heightens this vention, and the story of and re-sorted the molds. irony: Edison's success has its commercial introduc- According to the biogra- long formed the backbone tion and diffusion. The phy, Mergenthaler, a ma- of this myth, and one can bulk of the volume con- chinist and model builder therefore find quotes on all sists of the reprinted 1898 in Washington and later manner of topics "attrib- "biography," apparently Baltimore, arrived at this uted" to hinl. Unfortu- dictated by the consump- final conception after a se- nately, this volume sup- tive Mergenthaler himself ries of improvements on a ports an alternative myth, a year or two before his machine he was asked to in this case one about the death. The volume also in- model but that proved im- underappreciated genius cludes the following: com- practicable. Mergenthaler who is badly mistreated ments by Wolfgang Kum- worked with the backers by the greedy men who mer of Linotype AG and of the original version, and control his fate, and who by Elizabeth Harris of the with the company they dies young and unre- Division of Graphic Arts at formed; he did not hold warded, a victim of over- 186 AJ /Summer 1990

work and heartbreak. Of tional communist system. the leadership of Deng is course, elements of any News values changed, praised. Also, in an echo myth are valid, but a more new topics were covered, from the debate over a useful history must be and journalists were al- new world information crafted weighing the dif- lowed greater leeway in order, the Chinese media ferent viewpoints pre- their work. are lauded for growing sented by different kinds To tell that story. Wan more and more objective of evidence, and incorpo- Ho Chang draws on inter- because of their connection rating technical detail into views with journalists in to the Commvmist Party, a larger picture. The mate- China, supplemented by while Western journalists rial in this volume may printed sources such as are seen as incapable of serve as a useful starting Chinese journal articles objectivity because their point for the student of and yearbooks. As director news is written to sell pa- this phase of printing his- of the international gradu- pers. tory; for a synthetic story ate journalism program at The Marxist angle is par- placed in well-rounded the University of Missouri, ticularly evident in the his- historical context, the Chang has also worked torical section, which ac- reader must look else- with Chinese media pro- counts for about one-sixth where. fessionals doing graduate of the book. Chinese jour- work in the United States, nalism history is seen pri-

. . . Nina Lertnan and some of their research marily as the history of the University of Pennsylvania is incorporated into his press of the Communist book. Party, even before the for- The result is a detailed mation of the People's Re- account of four newspa- public in 1949. Thus, the pers and three broadcast- media of the Chiang MASS MEDIA IN CHINA: ing systems, preceded by a Kai-shek regime are barely HISTORY THE AND brief history of journalism mentioned. THE FUTURE. in China and followed by Unfortunately for a book By Wan Ho Chang. a section on journalism about the future of the • Iowa State University Press education and Chinese Chinese mass media, the •1989,352 pp. journalists' perception of events of June 1989 have • $34.95, Cloth the role of the press. Par- belied much of the opti- ticularly interesting is the mism and faith in Deng THE RECENT POLITICAL chapter on the World Eco- that is expressed in changes in Eastern Europe nomic Herald of Shanghai, Chang's book. As the au- and the Soviet Union point one of the papers that thor notes in a sad, brief to a new role for the mass sprang up as China moved afterword, the Chinese media in these countries. toward a market economy press has chosen to tell the Exactly what that role is and as the need for eco- history of the student pro- remains to be seen, but it is nomic information grew. tests based not on what re- likely that the Soviet Com- While it provides detailed ally happened but on munist media theory out- information about the me- Party directives, describ- lined by Wilbur Schramm dia in China, Chang's reli- ing the reporting about the in Four Theories of the Press ance on Chinese sources student protests before no longer applies. has its problems. The tone they were crushed as the The example of China of Mass Media in China is work of "a small band of may indicate what is in far from neutral. In accor- thugs" seeking to confuse store. In the late 1970s, as dance with the Commu- the people. If Mass Media part of the economic re- nist Party line of the 1980s, in China had taken a more forms of Deng Xiaoping, the "ultraleftist" policies of disinterested view toward the mass media of that na- Mao Zedong and the Gang its topic, the difference be- tion were allowed greater of Four are denounced tween the book and its af- freedom than in the tradi- throughout the book, and terword would have —

Book Reviews 187

seemed less ironic and in- had a corporeality, and every week. Here, a biog- explicable. therefore a presence, un- rapher and an autobiogra- like any such personalities phist deal with the politi- ... Jonas Bjork before them. When to this cal implications of this Indiana Univ. at Indianapolis presence was added the power, and in both cases, motion picttire industry's the subjects of these books, genius and enthusiasm for actress Hattie McDaniel promotion, the results and actor Melvyn could be both awesome Douglas, are finally, fasci- HATTIE: THE LIFE and frightening. natingly, unable to under- OF HAHIE MCDANIEL Lary May, in his The stand the sources of their By Carlton Jackson. Screening of America, has own celebrity, and of the • Madison Books ably shown that Douglas difficulties both found •1989,256 pp. Fairbanks and Mary when this celebrity was •$17.95, Cloth Pickford were the first translated into the political (and perhaps to this day arena. But the reader will SEE YOU AT THE MOVIES: the most adroit) actor and find in these works the cir- and conse- THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF actress to translate their cumstances images into off- quences of political activ- MELVYN DOUGLAS. screen screen personalities. These ity in the lives of two By Melvyn Douglas and Tom personalities, in fact as whose fame originated in Arthur. carefully managed and as their skills as performers, • University Press of America fictional as any film role, and extended into a quite •1986,268 pp. were the basis of a tran- different realm. •$25.75, Cloth; $10.25, Paper scendent, international Carlton Jackson's admir- fame, which in turn made ing biography of Hattie THE ELECTION OF Pickford and Fairbanks McDaniel is a welcome ad- Ronald Reagan to the virtually political figures dition to the continuing ef- presidency—and his per- in America, and caused fort by scholars such as formance as president them to be treated as de EXjnald Bogle, Richard have raised scholarly facto royalty and arbiters Dyer, and most notably interest in the political of manners and mores Thomas Cripps to chal- uses of celebrity, and in from about World War I lenge the negative consen- the politician-as-celebrity. through the late 1920s. sus on early black moving- Michael Rogin's recent Two recent books view the image performers. That work, Ronald Reagan, the intertwining of politics consensus, on actors such Movie: And Other Aspects of and celebrity from very as Louise Beavers, Stepin Political Demonology, has different perspectives, but Fetchit, Eddie Anderson, shown how, in Reagan's both have as a premise the and Bill Robinson, as well case, these two very differ- extraordinary poignancy as McDaniel, arose solely ent figurations of Ameri- of motion picture stardom from interpretations of the can popularity came to- in a political context. Dur- stereotyped characters gether in a single individ- ing the so-called "Golden those actors played in the ual. What is often forgot- Age" of Hollywood light of the later history of ten is that the actor-presi- (which both these works the civil rights movement. dent had important his- treat) the power of the Those roles of the thirties torical precedents in Hol- movies as a cultural force and forties are often hu- lywood. As a mass me- was unquestioned, and miliating and embarrass- dium, the movies had cre- star images were central to ing by present standards, ated personages of genu- individual identification but until the publication of inely national influence, and mass socialization in a Thomas Cripps's Slow Fade and because of the movies' nation that sent ninety mil- To Black (0)dord Univer- uruque representational lion people through the sity Press, 1977), few abilities, these individuals doors of movie theaters scholars had been willing 188 AJ /Summer 1990

to exchange solid research such documentation of the many ways beyond racial for bad criticism when dis- lives of black performers distinction, McDaniel's cussing the image of black just doesn't exist. For in- functional opposite, and so performers on screen. stance, in discussing his autobiography tells of In Hattie McDaniel, McDaniel's careers as a sa- an inversion of the terms Jackson has a worthy, fas- loon singer in Milwaukee of her celebrity. Douglas cinating central figure. A and as the star of the radio actively sought a role as a gifted performer on stage, and television show minor political policy- screen and radio, McDaniel "Beulah," Jackson's narra- maker. But while McDaniel won a 1939 Academy tive could have benefited gained political integrity Award for "Gone With the from more rigorous local from her films, Douglas Wind," the first ever given and corporate history, re- continually found his a black. But that was spectively, rather than rely lightweight screen image a merely one of a dozen im- so heavily on anecdote liability. portant "firsts" that made and McDaniel's own pa- Douglas quickly won McDaniel a herald of inte- pers. A more precise focus movie stardom in the early gration in the entertain- on the position of blacks 1930s, after an apprentice- ment industry. Following within these institutions ship in stock and on Cripps's example, Jackson could only strengthen Broadway. At MGM in the is adroit in suggesting the Jackson's picture of an in- 1930s and 1940s, he was impact McDaniel's career dividual at the very center often cast as a suave, witty had on black Americans of of incipient social change. leading man, a perfect her time. Historians of the In a readable, enthusias- complement to the stu- black press will find useful tic manner, Carlton dio's leading women such Jackson's examination of Jackson makes Hattie as Garbo, Crawford, Diet- the reception of McDaniel's McDaniel the heroine of rich, and Loy. After World life and films in papers her own life. This choice War II service, bored with such as the Pittsburgh Cou- has its pitfalls; as Jackson his screen career, Douglas rier and the Amsterdam would admit, McDaniel returned to the stage, News, although more sys- was often not the engineer where he had a distin- tematic coverage of these of integration in the enter- guished career as an actor and other black journals tainment industry, but and director. Infrequent would have been welcome. rather a very important but brilliant film roles, in As a serious talent and as lightning rod around character parts, high- a figure in the pre-history whom the storms of the lighted Douglas's last of the civil rights move- early civil rights move- years; he won two Acad- ment, Hattie McDaniel re- ment raged. Black artists emy Awards before his ceives excellent testimony like McDaniel lived in an death in 1981./'// See You in her behalf from Jackson. uncomfortable space, at the Movies was written, Where McDaniel's career bounded on one side by with Tom Arthur of James is well-documented, such the roles their white em- Madison University, in the as during her years with ployers offered them, on last years of the actor's life. producer David O. another by the values they Interestingly, Douglas's Selznick in the late 1930s were asked to portray as career crossed that of and early 1940s, Jackson the most visible members McDaniel at a crucial junc- provides an especially in- of their race, and on a ture in both their lives. formative account of the third by their own pro- Douglas tested for the part debates about the screen clivities and interests. The of Rhett Butler in "Gone image of the black Ameri- way into that space may With the Wind," and can that took place off- not be accessible to any bi- though producer David O. screen, in writers' minds, ographer, but in its explo- Selznick judged his per- producers' offices, and in ration lies the meaning of formance the finest read- newspaper columns. these remarkable lives. ing of the part he had seen, Most often, however. Melvyn Douglas was, in he nonetheless cast Clark Book Reviews 189

Gable. It is significant that ments such as the Holly- wealth of detail about both this disappointment is un- wood blacklist, and the her professional and pri- mentioned in Douglas's two Stevenson campaigns, vate lives. She came to the autobiography; indeed, the first presidential candi- magazine in 1925, only six Douglas's film career is date to use organized ce- months after its founding, given almost desultory lebrity endorsements and and soon made herself in- treatment. He quickly out- spokespersons such as dispensable to editor grew movie stardom, and Douglas and Myrna Loy. Harold Ross, advising much of his account of his Readers of previous gen- about everything from days as leading man is eral works on politics and cover art to humor and filled with anecdotes that the Hollywood commu- making a case for the suggest that he found the nity, such as Larry Ceplair trend-setting poetry and behavior of other actors, and Stephen Englund's fiction that became the such as Crawford and The Inquisition in Hollywood New Yorker" s trademark. Gloria Swanson, infantile (University of California She discovered and culti- and bizarre in the extreme. Press, 1983), will find im- vated such writers as John Where McDaniel con- portant first-hand confir- O'Hara and Vladimir Na- stantly struggled with the mation here, written in bokov. Janet Planner, a political implications of Douglas's always thought- longtime New Yorker con- stardom, Douglas sought ful, articulate style. tributor, called her "the anonymity, seeking to Douglas is also interested best woman editor in the make his political way in in the press reception of world." the late New Deal period his political ventures, and In writing this biogra- without recourse to his these are cited throughout. phy, originally published movie fame. As he discov- The lives of Douglas and two years earlier by ered, this was impossible, McDaniel are well-reported Harper and Row, author and his career as a movie in these books, and their Linda H. Davis had the star and his life as a liberal careers as public figures good fortune to receive as- political figure were con- are two significant, if dif- sistance from White's fam- stantly entangled. The ferent, examples of the in- ily members, including her somewhat naive Douglas terplay of the screen and children and her husband, was introduced to political social change as expressed E.B. White. She also used action in the mid-1 930s in the persona of the Katharine White's papers through his wife, actress- movie star. and letters, deposited at turned-politician Helen the Bryn Mawr College

Gahagan Douglas. His . . . Kevin Jack Hagopian Library, to good advan- most sustained activity University of Wisconsin tage and benefited from came during World War interviews with many of II, during which he served her acquaintances. Still, as first in the Office of Civil- Davis admits in her pref- ian Defense, and then as a ace, something "essentially ONWARD AND UPWARD: liaison officer in charge of private and unknowable" A BIOGRAPHY entertaining troops in the OF remained. That undoubt- China-Burma-India thea- KATHARINE S. WHITE. edly would have pleased ter. After the war, Douglas By Linda H. Davis. White, a reserved New helped devise the remark- • Fromm International. Englander who refused able "Call Me Mister," a •1989,300 pp. even to be included in a "readjustment musical" •$11.95, Paper 1937 edition of Women of that had great success on Achievement, because she Broadway. The rest of THIS BIOGRAPHY OF saw it only as an appeal to Douglas's tale is that of a Katharine S. White, an edi- the vanity of those it de- liberal gadfly, active dur- tor and guiding force at scribed. ing but never central to the New Yorker for thirty- Although she became en- significant postwar mo- five years, provides a gaged at eighteen to law 190 AJ /Summer 1990

student Ernest Angell, lationships with her writ- SPECIAL RELATIONSHIPS: White always intended to ers and provided them A FOREIGN CORRESPON- work outside her home. with intelligent apprecia- DENT'S MEMOIRS FROM Attending Bryn Mawr tion, whether they were ROOSEVELT TO REAGAN. while Angell finished his recognized writers or By Henry Brandon. law degree at Harvard young college students. • Atheneum only reinforced her deter- William Shawn, who suc- mination. The couple post- ceeded Ross as editor of •1988,432 pp. poned marriage until a the New Yorker, paid her •$19.95, Cloth year after her graduation. this tribute, "Numberless Angell had joined his fa- writers have written better HENRY BRANDON, who ther's law firm in Cleve- because of what you were plied Washington thirty- land, where White found a able to give them, and five years for The Sunday job surveying the living many editors, including Times of London, has few and working conditions of me, have been able to be of matches in American jour- the city's handicapped more service to writers nalism history for me- residents. She maintained and artists because of what thodically cultivating her own bank account and you have taught them." sources. In 1949, when his divided the household ex- The biography contains U.S. assignment became penses. When asked, late many such illuminating permanent and he needed in her life, if a hospital quotations from letters a place to live, Brandon form should list her occu- both to and from White. chose a neighborhood that pation as "housewife," she Particularly interesting are would increase the likeli- replied indignantly, "semi- the views of herself that hood of his path crossing retired fiction editor." she included in correspon- that of "the mighty." For She tried several jobs, dence with family and the same reason, he rev- both paid and volunteer, friends. More citations eled in his bachelorhood after the Angells moved to from her published work because "the 'spare man' New York City in 1919. By would have been helpful. was a vital commodity on the time she found her Admittedly, she made her the dinner party circuit." niche at the New Yorker, greatest contributions as His painstsJcing cultiva- she had two children and an editor, but she also tion of people in power problems with her mar- wrote columns and letters compounded exponen- riage. She met E.B. White for the New Yorker. Davis tially to include weekends through his work for the offers very few samples of at Ctean Acheson's farm, magazine and married that work. time at the Kennedy villa him a few months after a Using no note numbers in Florida, and tennis with Nevada divorce in 1929. in the text, the book lists Richard Helms. "Social She had a third child in sources by page, with key snorkeling," as he calls it, 1930, at age thirty-eight. words from quotations to was not Brandon's sole ap>- Davis suggests that identify them. This makes proach to covering Wash- White found in her work for easier reading but can ington, but his mastery of at the New Yorker an outlet be confusing when one it as a journalistic method for her maternal instincts tries to sort out references. was significant in distin- more satisfying than actu- A nice selection of photo- guishing his insightful ally mothering her chil- graphs is included, as well weekly reports in the Sun- dren. This example of the as an index. day Times. author's psychologizing is In Special Relationships, one of many scattered . . . Sherilyn Cox Bennion Brandon provides an inter- throughout the book, some Humboldt State University pretive chronicle of post- better substantiated and World War II U.S. policy- more gracefully expressed making. It is no mere re- than others. Certainly hash. Brandon draws on White developed close re- secret documents not Book Reviews 191

available when he was re- my relationship with also will find fresh mate- porting major events; on him." Although sensitive rial on the emergence of the memoirs of leading fig- to the possibility of being the question-answer for- ures; and on his own jeopardized by snorkeling, mat for interview stories. evolving perspective, Brandon was less worried In 1957, five years before sharpened by time. Anglo- about appearing biased Hugh Hefner introduced American relations are il- than about getting stories. his polished Playboy inter- luminated with fresh de- Of similar interest to views, Brandon proposed tail, as when Acheson was journalism historians are tape-recorded, verbatim irked when Sir Anthony Brandon's accounts of interviews to his editor as Earl presumed to call him governments using jour- a way for the print media "dear Dean" at their first nalists as couriers, another to compete with the direct- meeting. On such things practice less tolerated to- ness of television. The edi- swung the "special rela- day than before journalists tor's response: "We prac- tionship" between these began reassessing their tice the written word, two countries. methods in the late 1960s. therefore we cannot print The "special relation- Brandon tells of a 1961 in- the spoken word in the ships" of Brandon's title terview in which new at- Sunday Times.." Brandon operates at several levels. torney general Robert Ken- finally prevailed, and his For journalism historians, nedy communicated series of interviews with Brandon's explanations of through him to the British American intellectuals fol- relations between report- government. Said Ken- lowed. ers and sources are rich nedy: "I hope you know Brandon's book is pri- material for exploring the we want David Ormsby- marily a reflective study major shifts in journalistic Gore as British Ambassa- on his experience covering practices since World War dor here. You'd better tell U.S. foreign policy. Be- II. Snorkeling, as an ex- your prime minister and cause details on the era's ample, was among the ac- your readers." reporting methods are sec- cepted, even praiseworthy Brandon relates stories of ondary to his main story, methodologies in the pre- governments leaning on Brandon is neither defen- Vietnam, pre-Watergate reporters, himself in- sive nor apologetic about period, before American cluded, for peeking into them. The revelations are journalism became con- foreign situations. In 1962, peripheral and unintended, scious, some might say ob- when Brandon returned which gives them special sessed, about even the ap- from a reporting trip to credibility. pearance of undue source Cuba, President John influence on their stories. Kennedy sent a deputy to . . . John Vivian In one sense, Brandon was his house to debrief him. Winona State University ahead of his time in being The president was aware sensitive to reporter-source at the time that Cuba was relations. For instance, installing Russian ballistic about his relationship with missiles, but he didn't PROPAGANDA: A PLU- John Kennedy, he writes: want the Russians to know RALISTIC PERSPECTIVE. "One way I dealt with this that he knew, and he problem was to keep my didn't want to risk tipping Edited by Ted J. Smith III. private and professional them by having Brandon • Praeger. relations separate. I never seen coming to the White •1989,192 pp. asked the president a pro- House even by a back • $37.95, Cloth fessional question at pri- door. Brandon had infor- vate occasions. Or, when- mation the president IF WISHES WERE horses, ever I criticized Kermedy found useful even though beggars would ride. If or his administration, I it was not enough for a scholarly intentions were never asked myself story. enough, then this book whether this might end Journalism historians would comment on propa- 192 AJ /Summer 1990

ganda without practicing of assiiming that the cluding that anyone who it. While readers may dis- masses are zombies under criticizes the government agree with the pro-Right the control of the voodoo is a cynic. Instead of de- slant of some of the essay- press. His bizarre com- moralizing youth, drawing ists, they will appreciate ments on relativism miss up petitions, writing let- the multidisciplinary ap- the point of that intellec- ters, and testifying before proach to theoretical per- tual stance. Just because committees give them les- spectives and the applica- relativists believe values sons in democratic partici- tion of propaganda tech- evolve within a cultural pation, Hogan and Olsen niques to contemporary context does not mean argue. Not everyone who situations. In the introduc- they accept all perceptions supports the nuclear tion, Ted J. Smith III ex- of truth as coequal. Smith freeze approves of Choices. plains that he hopes to does not recognize the dif- Hogan and Olsen dilute generate discussion be- ference between respecting their strongest argument, cause "propaganda has be- diverse points of view and that descriptions of the come inextricably inter- embracing them. victims of nuclear bomb- twined with political is- Bob Smith and Roy ings frighten children, by sues and perspectives." Godson overlook the cul- lamenting the lack of de- In his chapter, "Propa- tural conditioning that in- pictions of atrocities suf- ganda and Order in Mod- stills within citizens a fered by prisoners of war. ern Society," J. Fred sense of national pride and The best essay in the MacDonald suggests that suspicion of anything for- book is "Smoke and Mir- an educated, liberal elite eign, especially anything rors: A Confirmation of controls the multitude. He Communist. Occasionally, Jacques Ellul's Theory of notes that popular arts the authors draw uninten- Information Use in Propa- promote cultural values. tionally humorous conclu- ganda" because Stanley B. Artists create a West that sions. For example, while Cunningham presents tell- never existed by shaping repeating Moscow's accu- ing examples from the the past into images ap- sations that American sol- world of tobacco adver- pealing to the present. diers started the AIDS epi- tisements to illustrate the Propaganda enables the demic. Godson observes: famous philosopher's be- status quo to solidify "When folded the abstract lief that information and power. designs on each page de- propaganda intersect. On the other hand. Smith pict soldiers (apparently Like many anthologies, worries about the insidi- American) engaged in sex- the book lacks an integrat- ous effect of anti-American ual acts with each other." ing focus. Once done with messages hidden in the Apparently, behind the the introduction, one may news. In his essay, "Propa- iron curtain even pornog- read the chapters in any ganda and the Technique raphy is harnessed to pull order. The intellectual of Deception," he accuses the state's ideological flaw, which may be un- journalists of deliberately freight! avoidable in such a trea- presenting false informa- The authors discuss the tise, is the stale parade of tion under the guise of subject eruditely but lean, political justifications. news. He claims that re- if not tip over, to the Right. Nevertheless, the essays porters promote their ide- For example, although J. raise intriguing questions ology at the expense of Michael Hogan and David about information, ideol- truth by not vindicating Olsen raise valid concerns ogy, and democracy. No the United States when it about the one-sided nature doubt Propaganda: A Plu- is accused of crimes. Smith of 'The Rhetoric of 'Nu- ralistic Perspective would suggests that readers auto- clear Education'" as it is provoke debates on the re- matically believe the gov- articulated in the National lationship between com- ernment is guilty. Ironi- Education Association's munication and truth in cally, he commits the Choices program, they courses in mass communi- Marxist intellectual fallacy spoil their analysis by con- cation, rhetoric, history. —

Book Reviews 193

political science, and knowledge about the hu- balanced assessment of American studies. man body and its functions, Macfadden's life and work, was truly one of a kind. and does it in a readable

. . . Paulette D Kilmer His early feats of strength style that can be enjoyed University of Missouri and his long career of flex- by both scholars and more ing and posing and telling general readers. The Bowl- the rest of America how to ing Green State University grow strong and improve Popular Press has done a their lives, accounts for the creditable job of producing BODY LOVE: THE AMAZING nickname Time gave him the book, which includes CAREER OF BERNARR "Body-love Macfadden," twenty-four pages of illus- MACFADDEN. which in turn accounts for trations. This reviewer's By William R. Hunt. the title of this book. only complaints are that a • Bowling Green State Uni- In its 223 pages writer number of pages popped versity Popular Press William R. Hunt, whose out of the binding, and

•1989,223 pp. earlier books have dealt that the index might have •$35.95, Cloth; $18.95, Paper mainly with Alaska and been a bit more extensive. the Arctic, takes an unbi- Hunt's well-researched MOST NOTABLE journal- ased look at this flamboy- account shows the writer's ists, as figures in the pub- ant figure of the magazine admiration for this singu- lic eye, have at times found and tabloid newspaper lar man's energy and au- themselves the objects of world of the early to mid- dacity, but at the same criticism, but how many twentieth century. time seems to agree with have been variously char- Why another Macfadden the American Medical As- acterized as a faddist in- biography when four al- sociation's comment that clined to crackpot notions, ready existed? The answer Macfadden was primarily a cult leader with paranoid is that three of the four "someone with something delusions, a gross vulgar- were by Macfadden "in- to sell." ian, the "apostle of the cor- siders": Clement Wood, poreal," and "the bare who was an employee; . . . Sam G. Riley torso king"? Fulton Oursler, one of Virginia Polytechnic Insti- What successful maga- Macfadden's top execu- tute and State University zine publisher with some tives; and Oursler's wife seventy-five books to his Grace. All three varied credit, other than Bernarr among the obsequious, the Macfadden, would have worshipful, and the re- JOURNALISTIC STAN- been pilloried by H.L. spectful. The fourth and DARDS IN NINETEENTH- Mencken as an arrogant most recent of these biog- CENTURY AMERICA. hillbilly possessed of a vast raphies (1953), by ex-wife By Hazel Dicken-Garcia. and cocksure ignorance? number three Mary and Macfadden, who had a former New York Graphic • University of Wisconsin California mountain editor Emile Gauvreau, Press named after him; who tried was weighted to the other •1989,352 pp. to elevate strength and side, making fun of the ag- •$42.50, Cloth; $14.50, Paper health to the status of a re- ing muscle man and health ligion, calling it Cosmo- fanatic, as its title. Dumb- HAZEL DICKEN-GARCIA tarianism; who invented a bells and Carrot Strips, indi- of the University of Min- device called, unbelieva- cates. Macfadden, his $30 nesota has offered a bly, the Wimpus to deal million fortune in ruins sweeping reading of nine- with male impotence; who and beset for back alimony teenth-century journalism considered all physicians by ex-wife number four, history in Journalistic Stan- to be money-hungry died two years after its dards in Nineteenth-Century quacks and himself the publication. America. The focus in this possessor of limitless Hunt provides a more reading is an analysis of s — s

194 AJ /Summer 1990

standards as understood drawn, she is careful in the nalism; and sensational- by journalists and critics. book not to overstate the ism, a word she finds first Standards are understood divergences between used in 1869. The agreed- to be rooted in the struc- phases, noting that they upon standard that ture and role of the press overlapped and that certain emerged from all of this and in the practices of elements persisted—for in- was responsibility. (Also journalism, which are in stance, she correctly under- interesting in this chapter turn rooted in cultvire; cul- scores the persistence of were early calls for jour- ture is, in turn, understood partisanism throughout nalism education.) broadly to include ideas, the nineteenth century. Any reader of a book technology, economic, po- Dicken-Garcia empha- with this scope will find litical, social, and value sizes cultural causality, but things with which to be structures. Dicken-Garcia in a very broad sense. dissatisfied. I was dis- is careful to distinguish Take, for instance, her disturbed by several features. her project from a study of cussion of the journalistic First was an assumption of ethics, which she describes changes of the Civil War homogeneity on several as dealing with broader era, which featured the levels. Dicken-Garcia talks and less mutable values. In disruption of partisanism, about a homogeneous an interesting passage, she the formation of a news press, public, and society, compares the current focus habit among a reading not allowing for classes of of journalism ethics with public, the rise of report- newspapers, segmented the "great person" view of ing as an occupation, and audiences, and a society history in that both em- the rise of wire reporting, divided by class, race, re- phasize individual agency. along with the develop- gion, gender, religion, and In contrast, she calls for ment of at least one new ethnicity. For instance, her and employs a structural style of reporting, the in- sample of newspapers in approach to standards. verted pyramid. These chapter 3 is limited to pa- Within this conceptual changes, while suggested pers with at least a ten- framework, Dicken-Garcia by "culture," were year record of continuous proposes a three-phase prompted by exigency. publication or a position outline of press develop- The conceptual frame- among the top-ten circula- ment for the nineteenth work and historical outline tion leaders. She acknowl- century. In each phase, occupy the book's first edges that this will intro- shifts in "role" are accom- hundred pages. The real duce a bias toward eastern panied by shifts in content heart of Dicken-Garcia' urban papers, and in fact and structure. In the first research is in chapters 4 for 1800-10, one of her phase—to 1830—the role through 7, where she sample periods, she uses was political, the content delves into primary mate- almost exclusively New idea-centered, and the rial from journalists and England Federalist papers. structure printer-domi- critics. The best material is She implies that these pa- nated (presumably); in the from the post-Civil War pers represent "the press," second phase—1830 to the years, when criticism be- but begs the question Civil War—the role was came more abundant and whether "the press" was informational, the content more specific as newspa- an actual entity (though event-centered, and the pers became more compli- elsewhere she notes that structure editor-domi- cated and less well under- the press was not fully an nated; in the third phase stood by the public. The institution until the latter to 1900—the role was busi- themes emphasized in this nineteenth century). I have ness-centered, the content criticism included some argued elsewhere that the story-centered, and the that are strikingly mod- newspaper history of the structure journalist-cen- ern—the profit motive and nineteenth century makes tered. While this sketch reliance on advertising; more sense if one divides makes Dicken-Garcia' trivialization; invasion of the press into classes of outline seem too rigidly privacy; "personal" jour- newspapers with different —

Book Reviews 195

values, functions, struc- ism and a congruent ideol- discussions of journalism tures, and audiences. ogy of impartiality (which ethics and practices. Dicken-Garcia divides the is dealt with much later, in press by period, but balks chapter 4, where it is . . . John Nerone at divisions within periods. treated as an eighteenth- University of Illinois A second troubling ab- century aberration). sence involves ideology. Perhaps it is reluctance to Dicken-Garcia declines to tread in the minefield of use the word ideology, per- ideology that leads LIBEL AND THE FIRST haps because it is so heav- Dicken-Garcia to limit her ily freighted. But by plac- sources of press criticism AMENDMEm*: LEGAL ing "standards" on the to published books and HISTORY AND PRACTICE cusp of practices and val- magazine articles, a third IN PRINT AND ues she inevitably impli- serious deficiency. Ex- BROADCASTING. cates ideologies. As a result cluded from discussion By Richard Labunski. of her reluctance to talk were private journals and • Transaction Publishers about ideologies, she tends correspondence, public •1989,327 pp. to list values in criticism addresses, courtroom ar- •$29.95, Cloth; $18.95, Paper rather than presenting guments, legislative de- them as features of a co- bates, and material on re- herent whole. Also missing lated issues, like treatises AS RICHARD LABUNSKI is ideology's companion, on politics. Neglected are illustrates quite clearly, li- "Utopia." Surprisingly, public figures like Thomas bel law has become such a there is little in the book Jefferson, commentators morass that litigating a li- about visions of an ideal like Frances Trollope and bel case is "sheer madness" press. Alexis de Tocqueville, for everyone involved. Un-

I was troubled by the ab- movements like anti-ma- fortunately, however. Libel sence of some of the more sonry and abolitionism, and the First Amendment of- familiar historical debates and reformers and radicals fers little guidance for stu- on specific ideologies like Josiah Warren, to dents and practitioners of Revolutionary republican- mention a few from just the law trying to make ism, artisanal republican- the early part of the cen- sense of that morass. ism. Free Labor, and the tury. Indeed, so restricted This book is well-written, like, some of which bear is the pool of press criti- and it offers both an inter- directly on issues that cism that Dicken-Garcia esting discussion of the Dicken-Garcia introduces. cites only half a dozen theoretical foundations for For instance, she quotes pieces from critics before the actual malice defense considerable material from 1850. in libel law and a useful the Federalist press that Also disturbing, fourth, summary of possible solu- indicates an absolute intol- is the author's refused to tions to the current prob- erance of political opposi- ask "who the critics were." lem of libel law. However, tion but attributes it to Surely the situation and it proffers unsupported "inexperience," an odd as- agenda of the author are and erroneous assump- sertion, since she argues crucial items in the inter- tions about the media and that partisanism had been pretation of any text of the courts and makes an a constant habit of U.S. press criticism. ill

Stamp Act Crisis in 1765. flawed text, then, but it broadcasting as a unique A better explanation can addresses crucial concerns area of libel law. be made by referring to and draws on important The best part of this underlying political ideo- and often ignored sources. book, and it's a part worth logical structures, specifi- It will, one hopes, draw at- reading, is its discussion of cally the persistence of tention to the significance the theoretical foundations Revolutionary republican- of history in contemporary for the actual malice de- 196 AJ /Summer 1990

fense against libel, created fact, hostile to the First tion that broadcasting by the U.S. Supreme Court Amendment. Although the presents different libel in New York Times v. Burger Court was not re- problems than the print Sullivan in 1964. Labunski ceptive to media requests media and that broadcast- argues persuasively that for expanded First ing therefore is "particu- the Court set out to protect Amendment rights in ar- larly vulnerable to libel the "uninhibited, robust, eas such as the protection suits." Labunski's lengthy and wide-open" discus- of confidential sources and discussion of this point sion of public issues but protection against news- merely detracts from his strayed from that course to room searches, the Court's book because the argu- instead protect reporting record clearly supports the ments are largely anecdo- about public people. That conclusion that it did not tal and, even allowing for switch, he argues, means seriously undermine the that, unconvincing. For that the media today have First Amendment protec- example, Labunski sug- greater constitutional pro- tions established by the gests that a broadcast re- tection when writing Warren Court a decade porter might be more about the private lives of earlier. Labunski is consid- interested in obtaining an public people than they do erably more convincing investigative story to in- when writing about pri- when he argues that the clude on his audition tape vate people who uninten- current libel law fails to than in exposing corrup- tionally become involved protect the media ade- tion. Therefore, Labunski in public controversies. quately in part because it says, the broadcast re- Therefore, he concludes, is too complicated for porter may not care neither the news reporting lower court judges and ju- whether his employer is on public issues nor public ries to understand; they sued for libel as a result of individuals' reputations therefore frequently fail to his work. According to are adequately protected. to apply the actual malice Labunski, broadcast re- Labunski' s explanations test as the Supreme Court porters are a nomadic lot for why that it is so are intended. However, he likely to move on before poorly substantiated and also expresses a distrust of the case gets to court. No sometimes wrong, how- the motives of the state doubt that scenario has ever. For example, and lower federal courts been played out by some- throughout his book, which that lacks support. one, somewhere, some- first appeared in hardcover Another valuable part of time. But it's not typical of in 1987, Labunski portrays Libel and the First Amend- broadcast journalists and the U.S. Supreme Court as ment is Labunski's sum- certainly does not distin- demonstrating "an un- mary of possible solutions guish broadcast journalists ashamed hostility to the to the current problems of from print reporters. The First Amendment claims libel law. While nothing latter have their own proof journalists." Labunski is on the list is new, this fessional ambitions and particularly harsh in his compilation is worth a ethical lapses. Also, the evaluation of the Burger look. He suggests, for ex- scenario has no clear con- Court, which he says gave ample, the use of legisla- nection to the legal issues those who cared about the tive remedies like retrac- raised in the book or the First Amendment "little tion statutes and statutes case law, which, in fact, they could feel positive of limitations and the use suggests that broadcasting about." Such evaluations of judicial controls over presents few unique libel of the Burger Court were the unwieldy discovery problems. common during the mid- process. The lattenconsi- Labunski's lengthy dis- 1970s. By the end of the tutes a tremendous burden cussion of broadcasting decade, however, most on libel defendants. also adds to the books or- journalists and legal schol- A major premise of this ganizational problems. ars had concluded that the book, and its most obvious Labunski waits far too Burger Court was not, in flaw, is Labunski's conten- long—for more than a —

Book Reviews 197

hundred pages—before World War II experience War assumptions about letting the reader know of Germany on post-war film content, and finally where the book is headed German filmmaking. the New German Cinema, and what arguments Kaes specifically ad- which arose in the mid- are being made. dresses the problems faced 1970s. The response of the The strength of this book by German filmmakers in German people to frank is its core, the discussion their attempts to come to filmic treatment of the of the theoretical and prac- grips with residual guilt Nazi era is further deline- tical rationales for the crea- and fear stemming from ated by analysis of the tion and expansion of the the experience of Hitler German television pre- actual malice defense and the holocaust. This miere of the American against libel suits. The guilt and fear, as Kaes mini-series "Holocaust" weakness of this book is points out, has been in 1979. This historical that Labunski wanders too largely hidden within discussion is interestingly far from that core. German society, but has written and well-re- tended to result in self-im- searched.

. . . Cathy Packer posed repression of film Kaes's account is not per- University of North Carolina content until this collective fect, however. As an Eng- "amnesia" was challenged lish adaptation of a Ger- in the New German Cin- man book Deutschland- ema in the 1970s. The ma- bilder: Die Wiederkehr der jority of Kaes's text con- Geschichte als Film—From FROM HITLER TO HEIMAT: sists of analysis of five im- Hitler to Heimat sometimes HISTORY THE RETURN OF portant German films in refers to aspects of German AS FILM. this vein, produced in the culture and history that By Anton Kaes. 1970s and 1980s. These are may be unfamiliar to the • Harvard University Press Hans Jurgen Syberberg's average non-German •1989,272 pp. Hitler, a Film from Germany reader. Further, the book is • $25. Cloth (1977), Rainer Werner sometimes a bit disjointed. Fassbinder's The Marriage The author occasionally in- FROM HITLER TO Heimat of Maria Braun (1978), terjects discussions that, is a significant work of Alexander Kluge's The Pa- although well-developed scholarship in film history triot (1979),Helma Sanders- and interesting, are quite that might be viewed as a Brahms's Germany, Pale tangential. "sequel" to Siegfried Mother (1980), and Edgar The reader may be disap- Kracauer's 1947 work. Reitz's Heimat (1984). pointed that few photo- From Caligari to Hitler: A These are films that have graphs from the films dis- Psychological History of the "challenged the existing cussed are provided: only German Film. While amnesia as well as the re- one per chapter, each from Kracauer studied aspects pression of the past." a different film. On the of German film prior to Discussion of these films positive side, however, an World War II, Kaes con- is preceded by a synopsis extensive note section centrates on post-war Ger- of German film history af- guides the reader to mate- man cinema. Kracauer's ter the war. The author rials for further study. The work, for all its shortcom- identifies several periods author also suggests ings, remains the most fa- of post-war German film: sources for obtaining cop- miliar text documenting the period of denazifica- ies of the major films dis- the political, social, and tion immediately after the cussed. cultural changes in Ger- war, which was followed From Hitler to Heimat will many leading to the estab- by an attempt to forget the prove to be a useful ad- lishment of a Nazi state as past during the Cold War, junct to German cinema reflected in German film. the Young German Film studies as an able analysis The present work exam- movement of the 1960s, of treatment of the Ger- ines the effects of the which challenged Cold man World War II experi- —

198 AJ /Summer 1990

ence within post-war Ger- masses and the extent to ain." A censor forced one man film. which its lifting in nine- Russian playwright to teenth-century Europe change almost the entire

. . . Steven Phipps came after the ruling plot of a play because, Indiana-Purdue University classes were satisfied that among other transgres-

at Fort Wayne the means of information sions, it included "inde- would be in safely middle- cent criticism of costume class hands. Otherwise balls." Mozart's The Magic Goldstein, a professor of Flute was banned in Aus- political science at tria "on the grounds that POLITICAL CENSORSHIP Oakland University, tends its favorable OF THE ARTS AND THE depiction of a to skimp on the analysis. noble brotherhood based PRESS IN NINETEENTH- His strength is in his com- on virtue rather than birth CENTURY EUROPE. pilations of anecdotes and amounted to revolutionary By Robert Justin Goldstein. quotations. He has propaganda." French films • St. Martin's Press scoured all the right were restricted from men- •1989.256 pp. sources on nineteenth-cen- tioning the Dreyfus affair • $35, Cloth tury European newspapers from 1899 to 1950. for the most telling and In many ways this cen- ONE OF THE challenges lively material on press sorship failed. Laws were of teaching journalism his- controls. The Spanish dic- evaded by the appoint- tory these days is that the tator General Ramon ment of special editors units in our courses keep Narvaez is quoted, for ex- whose sole duty was to sit expanding. In his new ample, suggesting that "it out jail terms, by renaming book. Political Censorship of is not enough to confiscate banned newspapers the Arts and the Press in papers; to finish with bad {Pravda appeared under Nineteenth-Century Europe, newspapers you must kill eight different names in Robert Justin Goldstein all the journalists." Karl Russia before 1914), and has given a healthy shove Marx makes the now by the use of "Aesopian to the boundaries of our ironic argument that "a language." (A discussion unit on government con- free press is the omnipres- of a classroom with all the trols. First he takes us be- ent open eye of the spirit windows shut might, for yond our parochial con- of the people." example, serve as a sly centration on events in the However, the most origi- way of attacking the politi- United States and Fredrick nal chapters of Goldstein's cal situation in Russia in Siebert's England—a jour- book, at least from the per- 1901.) Ideas and opinions ney, I would argue, we are spective of a journalism managed to spread. Old going to have to make historian, are his discus- regimes eventually more and more frequently sions of political controls crumbled. if we are to present a co- on drawings, plays, operas On the other hand, many herent picture of the his- and films. In most Euro- voices were stilled, many tory of journalism. Then pean countries, censorship messages tempered. Goldstein demands that of these forms of commu- "What matters is not what we open our ears to the nication—more visual and the censor does to what I cries of non-journalists therefore perhaps more ac- have written," said Tolstoy,

the caricaturists, play- cessible to the unedu- "but to what I might have wrights, librettists, and cated—long outlived prior written." The cost may filmmakers who also restraints on newspapers. have been artistic as much served in the struggle for "Caricatures," Goldstein as political. "Censorship freedom of expression. writes, "were subjected to controls," Goldstein ar- The book emphasizes an prior censorship for all or gues, "largely explain the important point: the extent part of the nineteenth cen- general lack of realistic to which censorship was tury in every major Euro- drama and opera in nine- motivated by fear of the pean country except Brit- teenth-century Europe, as Book Reviews 199

well as the similarly ano- people and military offi- ing it of distorting the dyne quality of most cers who were used to tell- news, and transferred works of journalism and ing people what to do, not them into regular infantry caricature before 1870." As to reading "bad" news units. The young lieuten- late as 1937 in Britain, the written by mere corporals ant, George W. Cornell, president of the Board of and privates. survived, joined the Asso- Film Censors could say, Press freedom is only ciated Press after the war, "We may take pride in ob- one aspect of Zumwalt's and became, in time, the serving that there is not a entertaining history of the AP's much-honored reli- single film showing in reporting, writing, and gion writer. London today which deals production of this famous Cornell's name is only with any of the burning newspaper in its many dif- one of a long list of people questions of the day." ferent editions. His ac- who went from the Stars Despite recent changes in count is not a dry, institu- and Stripes to eminent po- the world, our unit on tional outline, replete with sitions in American jour- government controls re- statistics, but for the most nalism. Perhaps no one tains its relevance. The part a collection of stories quite matched the distinc- battle for free discussion of that are sometimes comic, tions of a Stripes editor

flammable question has sometimes sad, and some- ft-om World War I, Harold not entirely ended—not in times even heroic. Ross, the founding editor Eastern Europe, not in Zumwalt is probably bet- of the New Yorker maga-

Britain, not in the America ter qualified to tell this tale zine, but World War II and of Ronald Reagan and than anyone, for he served the years beyond supplied

George Bush. And it is on various editions of the cartoonist Bill Mauldin, interesting that this book Stars and Stripes from 1944 who has won two Pulitzer was printed for St. Mar- to 1955 and was the man- Prizes, television commen- tin's Press in, of all places, aging editor of several edi- tator Andy Rooney, news- the People's Republic of tions of the paper. Thus paper editor and publisher China. many of his anecdotes are Creed Black, Otto Friedrich of events experienced first of Time, William R. Frye of

. . . Mitchell Stephens hand or told him by people the Christian Science Moni- New York University he knew rather than culled tor, Louis Rukeyser of Wa/Z from old memoirs. Street YJeek, and Peter Zumwalt served only on Lisagore of television European editions, and news—to select only a few this book is thereby fo- of the many hundreds of THE STARS AND STRIPES: cused on the Stars and names. Zumwalt supplies THE EARLY YEARS. Stripes in the European them all, incidentally, in a By Ken Zumwalt. theater, which is where the handy appendix. • Eakin Press paper flourished best, any- There are some minor •1989,295 pp. way. Its counterpart in the flaws. The famous German •$16.95, Cloth Pacific, the Daily Pacifican, bomber, the JU-88, is iden- suffered the fate that al- tified as a fighter, and THE FREE PRESS and the ways hangs over a news- Zumwalt unaccountably professional military are paper whose staff mem- uses an expression that natural opponents, even bers are under military was a redundant no-no when both are run by discipline. Despite the among seasoned soldiers: people born in the land of support of the army's "G.I. Issue." For the unini- the free and the home of chief. General George C. tiated, that would mean the brave. This history of Marshall, for the concept "Government Issue Issue." the Stars and Stripes in of press freedom, the army On a larger scale, it is World War II and after is fired its entire twenty-two- important to remember thus a story of recurrent man staff, including its of- that the book is an anecdo- conflict between news ficer in charge, after accus- tal rather than scholarly a —

200 AJ /Summer 1990

treatment of its subject. knowledged by many as Browne examines the ef- Therefore it would be wise the "Indiana Jones" of in- fects of the workplace and to suspect that some of the ternational broadcasting offers insight on the role strange and amusing inci- scholarship. More than culture and cultural dents that its author recon- one of us, in travels groups play in forming a structs from someone abroad, has learned that "national character" else's accounts may be Dr. Browne has just visited through various systems subject to the "improving" this or that broadcast facil- of broadcasting. In the first work of distant memory. ity, just interviewed the country offered for exami- Nevertheless, the Stars and staff, and investigated cur- nation, he describes how Stripes is a helpful and of- rent policies and attitudes. French preoccupation with ten diverting contribution This volume adds to the "proper" language and the to the history of a contra- author's extensive field ef- promotion of French cul- dictory time—when a sec- forts since it draws on per- ture colors all else done in tion of the press often had sonal contacts and inter- that system. Dutch broad- to struggle to preserve its views in a variety of locales, casting maintains strong freedom from some of the as well as his extensive ties to certain "pillar" leaders in the military earlier published research. groups, while German struggle against totalitari- The book was written to television standards are anism. As Pogo put it, aid understanding of currently coming under "We have met the enemy, broadcasting by consider- fire because of their sex and they is us." ing five fundamental fac- role stereotyping—for in- tors and their manner of stance, presenting a view

. . . Edward A. Nickerson influence in the experience of housewives as always University of Delaware of six nations. The factors bending over backwards geography, demography/ to please their grumpy linguistics, economy, cul- husbands. Soviet enter- ture, and politics—interact tainment programming COMPARING BROADCAST in varying degrees, and operates, of course, under Browne catalogues the na- different ideological stan- SYSTEMS: THE EXPERI- ture of each of the com- dards, with a recurring ENCES OF SIX INDUSTRI- mon denominators in a emphasis on the progres- ALIZED NATIONS. prelude to dealing with sive nature of socialism By Donald R. Browne. each nation. Under "geog- and the need to present • Iowa State University Press raphy," for example, he positive role models or •1989,447 pp. considers the role of popu- "heroes" reflecting that • $39.95. Cloth lation distribution and lo- philosophy. Japanese pro- cation, plus the attitudes gramming is remarkably THESE ARE fascinating held concerning national similar to the U.S.'s except times for anyone wishing unity versus regional iden- in broadcast journalism, in to speculate on the effects tity among members of the which it tends to shy away of political change on population. Economic fac- from confrontation. international broadcasting. tors and industrialization In a concluding section For this reason alone. Com- are considered within the Browne laments the worri- paring Broadcast Systems context of a field requiring some prospect that some provides an excellent re- some degree of expense. elements of the public in view of developments for Browne describes how many countries, especially the historical explorer— economic philosophy and the poor segments of soci- comparative point of de- levels of prosperity have ety, might be deprived of parture for future travels helped to dictate progress, the material they previ- and a superior job of sum- but, at the same time, he ously enjoyed. The author marizing the trek to date. points out that some poor ends with "A Final Word And who better to serve as nations have achieved a on Behalf of History," in guide? Don Browne is ac- moderate level of success. which he points to a num- Book Reviews 201

ber of examples showing furnish the war." Milton hundred thousand in cir- that the history of broad- notes dutifully that the pu- culation in one week and casting is Ukely to repeat tative cable to Richard forty editions per day itself in many ways. For Harding Davis and were not unknown. this reason alone, this Frederic Remington is not Milton explains that book is instructive. susceptible to documen- whether or not the war tary proof. was "created" is likely be-

. . . Michael D. Murray The author then reprises side the point since once Univ. of Missouri-St Louis the birth of "the journal- underway it fit the journalism that acts" as the spiri- istic yellow age like a kid- tual descendent of the skin glove does a hand. In "Yellow Kid," a street-ur- an age when reporters in- chin character in the popu- filtrated burglary rings, THE YELLOW KIDS: FOR- lar cartoon "Hogan's Al- and exposed corruption EIGN CORRESPONDENTS ley." The "yellow kids" and cruelty in prisons and IN THE HEYDAY who worked for Pulitzer's mental institutions, the OF YELLOW JOURNALISM. New York World and war provided an exotic lo- By Joyce Milton. Hearst's New York Journal cale for an opera bouffe • Harper and Row were, by and large, the military production. While hustling, hard-drinking yellow reporters some- •1989,412 pp. figures that times were stock • $22.95, Cloth bravura some comme- correspondents only posed dia dell'arte figures in a "YELLOW" REPORTING, as in later wars. Richard low vaudeville, they also that late nineteenth-cen- Harding Davis, Murat faced great danger, con- tury journalistic Zeitgeist, Halstead, Sylvester stant deadlines, disease, periodically fascinates his- (Harry) Scovel, George and famine. (Milton notes torians like a comer traffic Rea, Stephen Crane, Cora the thankless espionage accident mesmerizes Taylor, James Creelman, work performed by corre- school children on sum- Nellie Bly, Arthur Brisbane, spondents for the U.S. mer vacation. Joyce and Clarke Musgrave Navy.) Milton's The Yellow Kids emerge as the mostly ag- Although The Yellow Kids provides a delightful, in- nostic prodigal sons of introduces a cast of at least formative account of jour- staid Protestant ministers. two or three score, Milton nalistic bravado and Milton's book is well re- concentrates on the careers skulduggery in the hal- searched (she relies on the of Pulitzer, Hearst, Davis, cyon days of Hearst and papers of a half dozen li- Brisbane, Crane, and Cora Pulitzer. In the center ring, braries and archives) and Taylor, Crane's lover and a of course, resides the tragi- is written with the wit, sce- retired brothel proprietor comedy that posed as his- nic construction, and pac- who later became a pio- tory: the Spanish-Ameri- ing of an Agatha Christie neering war correspon- can War, precipitated by or Dorothy Sayers mys- dent). However, the au- the sinking of the Maine. tery. The 1890s were a pe- thor casts the biggest spot- Co-author of the contro- riod of tremendous change light on little-known versial 1983 book The in the newspaper industry. Harry Scovel, a roistering Rosenberg File: A Search for Immigrant classes flooded engineer turned World re- the Truth, Milton begins by eastern seaboard cities and porter who may or may dusting off the old chest- a new, less complex, more not have slapped the face nut (popularized by Orson sensational newspaper fol- of U.S. Fifth Army Gen. Welles in Citizen Kane), lowed. Rising expenses William R. Shaffer during that William Randolph combined with new tech- a transfer-of-power cere- Hearst ordered the Span- nologies only fueled the mony in Santiago after the ish-American War C.O.D.: competition for tens of war. "Please remain. You fur- thousands of new readers. The Yellow Kids is not air- nish the pictures, and I'll Indeed, a surge of four tight scholarship. Milton 202 AJ/Summer 1990

sometimes expands char- in Mark Twain's small tion from popular to elite acters when she should Mississippi River towns. icon constitutes the first of contract them, and blurs Both the readers of The Ad- three essays in this book. some themes and issues ventures of Huckleberry Finn The second essay applies when she should focus and the fictional viewers a similar analysis to opera them. For instance, she ne- of the ruffians' perform- and other music. While glects to place the yellow ances recognized opera was accessible to war correspondents in any Shakespearean references large audiences through- firm historical context; the and analogies. Nineteenth out the century, popular impact that Civil War re- century American per- performers could augment porting had on the report- formers widely quoted the original scores with ers covering the Spanish- from Shakespeare's work, patriotic tunes such as American War is not dis- expecting their audiences "Yankee Doodle" and cussed. Too, Milton only to be familiar with the "Hail Columbia." Simi- partially explores the bard's plays, which were larly, art museums were McKinley administration's widely quoted and paro- eclectic, collecting the fin- efforts to ensure patriotic died. est paintings as well as ar- reporting of the war and, With the Huck Finn ex- tifacts of natural history. conceptually, she is vague ample, Lawrence W. Levine's third essay em- on the larger meaning of Levine begins his opening ploys some social history. the experiences she relates. essay on the nineteenth The separation of high and If a little weak in focus century division of Ameri- low art became so perva- and theoretical develop- can culture into high and sive that planners of Cen- ment. The Yellow Kids is low culture. Shakespeare's tral Park even debated nonetheless essential read- plays, Levine writes, "had whether to allow a certain ing for press scholars and meaning to a nation that class of visitors out of fear historians. Although tar- placed the individual at that certain groups could geted at a diverse audi- the center of the universe not appreciate its beauty. ence, academicians will and personalized the large Hierarchical categories find the book well indexed questions of the day." applied to culture on the with adequate reference While Shakespeare blos- eve of the twentieth cen- notes and a good bibliog- somed in theaters from tury came from racial and raphy. New England to the small- social distinctions. "'High- est frontier town, the bard's brow,' first used in the

. . . John F. Neville popularity provided no as- 1880s to describe intellec- University of Minnesota surance of reverence. Such tual or aesthetic superior- parodies as "Milius ity, and lowbrow,' first Sneezer," "Roamy-E-Owe used shortly after 1900 to and Julie-Ate," "Hamlet mean someone or some- and Egglet," as well as se- thing neither 'highly intel- HIGHBROW/LOWBROW: rious Shakespearean pro- lectual' nor 'aesthetically THE EMERGENCE OF ductions, often shared the refined,' were derived CULTURAL HIERARCHY stage with magicians, from the phrenological IN AMERICA. dancers, singers, acrobats, terms 'highbrowed' and By Lawrence W. Levine. minstrels, and comics. By lowbrowed,' which were • Harvard University Press the end of the century, prominently featured in

•1988.306 pp. however, an artificial divi- the nineteenth-century • $25, Cloth sion removed Shakespeare practice of determining ra- from everyday discussion cial types and intelligence TWO ROGUES, passing to the province of elites. by measuring cranial themselves off to Huck Common folk were no shapes and capacities." In Finn as a duke and a king, longer expected to enjoy this Darwinian age, low raise money by perform- serious art. Levine's analy- brows were associated ing Shakespearean scenes sis of Shakespeare's transi- with apes, and the increas- —

Book Reviews 203

ing size of one's brow indi- LA PRENSA: THE systems and stifled every cated greater intelligence. REPUBLIC OF PAPER. attempt by La Prensa to their hypocrisy. Among racial groups, By Jaime Chamorro Cardenal. expose Caucasians had the high- Joshua Muravchik ana- • Freedom House est brows. lyzes Sandinista political •1989,206 pp. In his prologue, Levine motives and concludes • $22.95, Cloth; $9.95, Paper says he began raising that the bulk of the U.S. foreign press corps failed questions about cultural NEWS COVERAGE OF THE hierarchy after hearing to report them impartially SANDINISTA REVOLUTION. scholars of popular culture from July 1978 to July 1980. include disclaimers about By Joshua Muravchik. In other words, reporters how their subjects aren't • American Enterprise Insti- were duped by Commu- serious artists. In his epi- tute for Public Policy nists who threatened our logue, he sees "a growing •1988,128 pp. national security when cultural eclecticism and •$21.75, Cloth; $9.75, Paper they assumed power on flexibility" that will again 19 July 1979. integrate the levels of art. TWO RECENT BOOKS are Muravchik, a resident For example, the same per- supposed to help us scholar at the institute, is son can be interested in understand the role of the part of a network that in- rock, classical, and press during the Sandin- cludes Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, rhythm-and-blues music. ista revolution. One glori- Richard N. Perle, Ben J. Levine's subject and the fies the efforts of the Nica- Wattenberg, and others evidence are so broad that raguan newspaper. La who frequently find the contrary evidence could be Prensa and bitterly attacks news media to be permis- introduced for some issues the Sandinista program. sive when describing left- and time periods. Levine The other is a scathing wing political movements. helps such a case by lack- analysis of U.S. newspaper Much of Chamorro's ing a clear chronology coverage. book is an all-out effort to evidence to support his Jaime Chamorro Cardenal ridicule the Sandinistas, argument about the early tells of the struggle by La but one of its historical nineteenth century could Prensa editors to fight the contributions is his view of come from the 1860s, for brutality of the Somoza why part of his family example. Nevertheless, his dictatorship and later the split from the Sandinista case about the emerging harassment of the Sandin- Front. This includes his cultural hierarchy remains istas. Chamorro, the son of sister-in-law Violeta, the strongly buttressed. At the La Prensa' s founder and new president of Nicara- same time, Levine's analy- the brother of Pedro gua. The other half of his sis cries out for political Jaoquin Chamorro, Jr. (as- family, those supporting and social perspectives. sassinated by Somoza's the Sandinistas, would What economic, political, agent thugs in 1978), has violently disagree with his intellectual, social, and spent thirty years at the disregard of their contri- cultural forces contributed paper, including the last butions and the effects of to this emerging hierar- six as editor-in-chief. the U.S.-sponsored Contra chy? Although these ques- Chamorro contends that war on Nicaraguan soci- tions await subsequent Nicaraguans suffered ety. Nevertheless, he uses analyses, Levine has pro- equally under Somoza's first-person references vided provocative ideas National Guard and the throughout to make a and a valuable place to Sandinistas' political and compelling argument to start. military establishment. He those unfamiliar with the fully condemns the Ortega history of U.S. involve-

. . .William E. Huntzicker brothers and their Nicara- ment in the region. It University of Minnesota guan allies, claiming they should be added that lied about their intention Chamorro's critics have to establish democratic contended that he received 204 AJ /Summer 1990

assistance in preparing his that many of the important quality and fairness of manuscript from U.S. in- personalities are related to coverage, the following telligence agents. To date each other or have known publications might be this has not been docu- each other for years. This helpful. My contention is mented, but the reader diminishes the spectacle of that it was easy in the should be aware of the an East-West conflict and 1980s to get the idea some- controversy. allows the uniqueness of how (television news, Muravchik's tidy wrap- the Nicaraguan revolution Ronald Reagan, ill-in- up from the right wing to emerge. Fierce feelings formed friends) that the contains many long quota- of nationalism and anti- Sandinistas were cold- tions from news articles, imperialism are felt by blooded. Red Commtmists editorials, and opinion most citizens—Chamorro bent on the conquest of pieces, which are valuable makes this clear. Those Central America. It was for anyone wishing to ana- North Americans who more difficult to learn of lyze the performance of trumpeted the Contra the odd mixture of Ca- top foreign correspondents cause were ignorant of tholicism, socialism and and commentators. In his this, or tried to hide it. capitalism that makes up interpretation of these se- Muravchik complains that the exotic drink "Sandin- lected quotes, he indicts U.S. correspondents over- ismo." Every stir of the some well-known report- rated the Sandinistas, fail- straw produces a different, ers and thinkers. Unlike ing to understand that the unpredictable taste but it's Chamorro's book, this one "true nature" of "Sandin- hardly fatal to the U.S. sys- is not indexed. ismo" (the spirit and goals tem. One thing is for cer- Students examining me- of the revolution) was to tain: Ortega's Nicaragua dia coverage of the create a Marxist-Leninist was not intended to be a Sandinista years (1981 to (Communist) state. mirror of Castro's Cuba. present) obviously need to Critics on the left pro- Once the lies are dis- put books (and reviews) tested through the nine carded, the press analysis like these in context. The years of the Contra war can begin. quality of La Prensa's jour- that the same journalists A mix of references then: nalism has been evaluated and commentators did not —Nicaragua v. USA, the 27 most thoroughly in several seriously question the June 1986 judgment of the publications by John S. "true nature" of the U.S. World Court—^the Interna- Nichols of Pennsylvania agenda (to destroy the tional Court of Justice in State University, nation- Sandinistas because their the Hague—details the ally recognized for his ex- economic and political military and paramilitary pertise. Of importance model might prove to be activities in and against here is how La Prensa be- popular elsewhere in Cen- Nicaragua. The U.S. was came mythicized as a sym- tral America). The critics found in breach of interna- bol of a free and impartial say these journalists tional law, violating the press while actually it was cheated the Nicaraguan sovereignty of Nicaragua no less partisan than the government of hard- by armed attacks and Sandinista-controUed earned credit for creating other actions designed to newspapers and distorted significant social reforms, coerce and intimidate the or ignored the news with exercising moderation de- people. ease. The major mistake by spite the CIA-sponsored —Nicaragua: Revolution in those on either flank is to atrocities and winning a the Family, by Shirley assume that the function battle in the World Court Christian (Random House, of journalism is the same against the Reagan Ad- 1985). Christian takes the everywhere—and that a ministration. Apparently reader from the fall of certain model must be fol- the journalists pleased no Somoza to the 1984 elec- lowed. one, not necessarily a good tions. Formerly a reporter The key to understand- sign. with the Miami Herald and ing Nicaragua is to realize In order to judge the later the New York Times, Book Reviews 205

Christian is extremely offers a history of the area of peak immigration, critical of the Sandinistas. and a guide to the U.S. 1877-1906, but most died Her book contains fasci- search for a Central quickly. The average life nating descriptions of the American policy. This is span was ten years. A few Sandinista takeover and is also a personal account of became important voices an excellent source for ba- how the Iran/Contra scan- in their community, at- sic information about the dal unfolded, from the tracted significant reader- key players even if one Costa Rican angle, includ- ship, and experienced long disagrees with its tone and ing U.S. efforts to develop lives until the tide of im- interpretations. a "southern front" in Costa migration slowed in the —Nicaragua Divided: La Rica against the Sandinis- 1920s and English-speaking Prensa and the Chamorro tas. The full story of gun- descendents began to out- Legacy, by Patricia Taylor running, drug shipments number the foreign born. Edmisten (University of and the LaPenca bombing Arlow W. Anderson has West Rorida Press, 199C). (the 1984 killing of several made the Norwegian- The best treatment of journalists) remains to be American press and poli- Pedro Joaquin Chamorro's told, however. tics his life work. Now as lifelong battle against the Warning: if using the emeritus professor of his- Somozas, his relationships Chamorro and Muravchik tory from the University of with family members, and books for reference, use Wisconsin at Oshkosh, he his newspaper philosophy. them carefully and com- has published his second Well balanced when deal- bine with other sources. history of this press. His ing with the Sandinistas Their propaganda quotient first. The Immigrant Takes and the effects of the U.S.- is high. His Stand (Norwegian- sponsored Contra war. American Historical Asso-

Based on intimate inter- . . . Michael Emery ciation, 1953), covered the views with Chamorro fam- California State University, period from 1847 to 1872. ily members. Northridge The new book. Rough —At War in Nicaragua, by Road to Glory, covers a con- E. Bradford Bums (Harper tentious era in American and Row, 1987). Burns, a life, as Anderson observes, UCLA Latin American but these immigrant edi- Studies professor, charts ROUGH ROAD TO GLORY: tors held fast to their belief the U.S. obsession with THE NORWEGIAN-AMERI- in the potential success of Nicaragua across fourteen CAN PRESS SPEAKS OUT the American democratic or more invasions and the "experiment." They at- ON PUBLIC AFFAIRS, Contra War. tempted to elevate their 1875-1925. —On Trial: Reagan 's YJar readers' thoughts, to en- By Arlow W. Anderson. Against Nicaragua, edited lighten and stimulate po- • The Balch Institute Press, by Merlene Dixon (Synthe- litical action and concerns. sis Press, 1985). Dixon's Associated University Presses Norwegians and their book reprints testimony •1989,272 pp. newspapers in America given at the Permanent • $38.50, Cloth favored the Republican People's Tribunal in Brus- party, says Anderson, but sels in 1984, including long THE NORWEGIAN- they did endorse some personal statements from American press was a third-party candidates, Nicaraguans and observ- public forum for the eight and editorial opinion was ers. Gives insight not hundred thousand Norwe- far from monolithic. As found in newspapers. gians who settled in the Anderson shows in his — VJar and Peace in Central United States from mid- discussions of political America, by Frank McNeil nineteenth century on- campaigns, international (Charles Scribner's Sons, ward. About five hundred affairs, economic and trade 1988). The former U.S. different newspaper titles issues, and reform legisla- Ambassador to Costa Rica appeared during the era tion, the Norwegian- 206 AJ /Summer 1990_

American opinion drawn gether these many strands non-fiction—have been an from about thirty newspa- and began to characterize important means of rein- pers ranged from tradi- and distinguish more stating white male patriar- tional Republicanism to clearly the main lines of chal values in American socialism and included thought from that of the culture. In their narratives views of Democrats, the fringes. For a reader not of Vietnam, Jeffords ar- Farmer-Labor party, and well-versed in Norwegian- gues, the media have revi- Progressives as well as Americana, there are prob- talized traditional values special interests on tem- lems in keeping track of that were seriously chal- perance and Norwegian the many editors and lenged by the second wave cultural preservation. newspapers and their cen- of feminism, the civil rights There was general enthusi- tral features as they are re- and antiwar movements, asm for Norwegian inde- ferred to in a variety of and government endorse- pendence from Sweden in specific issues. Anderson ment of civil rights and af- 1905, but differing views tries to be helpful in a brief firmative action for women on the form of government summation in the intro- and minorities in the 1950s, preferred. There was gen- ductory chapter and with 1960s, and 1970s. These eral support for temper- data on each paper in the revisionist narratives, she ance but no enthusiasm for appendix. argues, have superseded prohibition, and there was The book certainly adds the critical interpretations eventual support for to the growing knowledge that pervaded popular cul- woman suffrage. about Norwegian-Ameri- ture during the Vietnam On social and legislative cans and their political, so- War. issues regarding native cial and cultural concerns. A work in the decon- Americans, African- It will provide other re- structionist tradition of lit- Americans, Asian-Ameri- searchers with a helpful erary criticism. The Remas- cans, and women, these background from which to culinization of America ana- editors expressed a range pursue case studies or lyzes non-fiction journalis- of views from sentimental- cross-group thematic in- tic and oral history ac- ity toward native Ameri- vestigations of these is- counts of Vietnam and cans and sympathy for the sues. Richard Nixon's memoir. builders of the transconti- No More Vietnams, as well nental railroad, to clear . . . Marion T. Marzolf as popular films such as prejudice toward Jews, University of Michigan the Rambo movies. Full Irish, and Italians and little Metal Jacket, and The Deer- concern about women's hunter, and fiction includ- rights. They deliberated ing Bobbie Ann Mason's In over the questions of na- Country. Although most of THE REMASCULINIZATION tivism and loyalty in war- the text is devoted to film, AMERICA: time, over immigration OF GENDER Jeffords makes no distinc- quotas and tolerance of AND THE VIETNAM WAR. tion among the forms in foreign-language speak- By Susan Jeffords. which the accounts ap- ing, and over the merits of • Indiana University Press pear. She.does this because the melting pot versus cul- •1989,240 pp. one of her arguments is tural pluralism. •$35, Cloth; $12.50, Paper that the Vietnam narrative The book's strength is in itself—perhaps intention- its presentation of this SUSAN JEFFORDS'S book ally—confuses fact and fic- large overview on several is a feminist study of tion and claims that "what important issues, and in popular literature, film, was taken for a fact in the the lucid contextual his- and non-fiction about (outside) World has an en- torical detail offered by American involvement in tirely different meaning" Anderson. The reader the war in Vietnam. It ar- in the separate culture of wishes for a concluding gues that accounts of Viet- Vietnam. chapter that pulled to- nam—whether fiction or The remasculinization of — Book Reviews 207

the American culture is, in jectivity isn't even an issue tant writers who have pro- Jeffords's terms, the "rene- for discussion. All the duced a substantial body gotiation and regeneration work, regardless of genre, of literary nonfiction in the of the interests, values, is seen as contributing to last thirty years: Gay and projects of patriarchy" the project of the remas- Talese, Tom Wolfe, John in American society. Re- culinization of American McPhee, Joan Didion, and masculinization in the culture. From the tradi- Norman Mailer. Vietnam literature takes tional perspective on jour- Her chapter on Talese is place through the ideal- nalism as neutral truth- best, perhaps because she ized "masculine point of telling, Jeffords's interpre- was able to interview him. view." In the Vietnam nar- tation of journalism as just Lounsberry finds a domi- rative, the reader or one more subjective narra- nant image in almost all of viewer is drawn from the tive will be jolting, making Talese's writing. "One of realm of the outside critic her feminist analysis of the strongest themes in so familiar in 1960s and that narrative particularly Talese's work is his focus 1970s American culture difficult to accept. Even for on generational legacies," into the point of view of those for whom objectivity she writes. "Whether writ- the participant in the war, is not an article of faith, ing of bridge builders, ce- given the participant's Jeffords's interpretation is lebrities, the Mafia, sexual unique definition of fact unrelentingly feminist. It pioneers, or The New York who is the enemy, for ex- acknowledges no alterna- Times, Talese tends to be ample. The reader is com- tive readings and treats no drawn obsessively toward pelled to focus on the texts that tell a different the parent-child relation." means of war rather than story about Vietnam. Nev- Each of the other writers on the questionable ends ertheless, Jeffords's view has been driven by similar the war sought to achieve. of this work should not be themes, she says. With The narratives celebrate dismissed lightly if one Wolfe, it is the "vision of how hard and bravely the seeks to understand social an American Jeremiah," soldier fought under espe- relations between men and that is, one who complains cially difficult circum- women at the end of the about the decay and disas- stances, in which the en- twentieth century. ter he sees around him and emy was indistinguishable attempts to join social criti-

from the ally and the . . . Carolyn Stewart Dyer cism with spiritual re- American government was University of Iowa newal. unwilling to win. McPhee's work, she In the masculine point of writes, has been obses- view, Jeffords argues, the sively concerned with white male soldier is por- circles and levels: "Circles THE ART OF FACT: CON- trayed as the victim of the and spheres, the primary ARTISTS OF war and the government's TEMPORARY form, are in McPhee's no-win policy. Through NONFICTION. writing from beginning to male bonding that crosses By Barbara Lounsberry. end." She connects his the boundaries of race and • Greenwood Press writing to that of Emerson class and continues into •1990,232 pp. and Thoreau. Lounsberry post-war civilian life, and • $39.95, Cloth correctly predicts that through the elimination of McPhee will turn his atten- women from the realm in BARBARA Lounsberry, an tion next to the sea—he which men are self-suffi- English professor at the has recently completed a cient, the victimized male University of Northern book on the U.S. Merchant is ultimately triumphant in Iowa, brings serious liter- Marine. the Vietnam narrative. ary criticism, which she Didion's fascination with In Jeffords's treatment of describes as "largely for- light produces her artistic journalistic accounts along malist in cast," to bear on vision. "Didion craves the with film and fiction, ob- the works of five impor- white light of truth, yet 208 AJ /Summer 1990

finds 'truth' most often the books she examines THE ELECTRONIC MEDIA flickering and insubstan- were written before 1980, AND THE TRANSFORMA- tial, a lambent light, a so her book focuses more TION OF LAW. 'shimmer' hard to hold. on New Journalists than By M. Ethan Katsh. Like Emily Dickinson, she on "contemporary" writers. • Oxford University Press locates 'truth' obliquely, in Lounsberry goes looking •1989,347 the slippage or breakage, for the psychological and pp. • $38, Cloth between the lines and over thematic dynamics in liter- the border." ary nonfiction, which In Mailer's nonfiction strikes me as a noble pur- COMPUTERS ARE irre- Lounsberry concentrates suit. Particularly in the versibly changing the na- on his use of metaphor cases of Didion and Talese, ture and practice of law and suggests that his Lounsberry draws star- much as the printing press choice of nonfiction sub- tling connections between did centuries ago, M. jects follows a pattern the lives of the writers and Ethan Katsh contends in from birth (Advertisements their words. Relating his engaging book. The For Myself) through a rite Wolfe's work to the Bible, Electronic Media and the of passage {Armies of the Jonathan Edwards, and Transformation of Law. In Night) to death (Execu- the Great Awakening may the process, as the notion tioner's Song,). seem ludicrous at first, a of precedent erodes and Eventually this constant kind of English-professor non-legal dispute proce- repetition of themes be- knee-jerk reaction to a text. dures flourish. First

comes reductionist. Have But it also elevates Wolfe Amendment protections such important and crea- from his status as "pop so- will need to be reconceptu- tive writers been thinking ciologist" to the pantheon alized as will specific areas of nothing other than these of letters—something he of media law, including single themes as they claimed for himself when privacy, copyright, and scribbled for thirty years? I he compared Bonfire of the obscenity. asked McPhee what he Vanities to the serialized Katsh, professor of legal thought of Lounsberry's novels of Charles Dickens. studies at the University of thesis that circles have Many of Lounsberry's in- Massachusetts in Amherst, played a central role in his sights have the power of writes persuasively about work. McPhee said it was discovery and revelation. the inevitable transforma- a case of a scholar thinking Literary nonfiction repre- tion of law that is already she knows more about sents a fertile field for criti- beginning to occur as elec- these words than the writer cism, formal or otherwise. tronic media, primarily himself. There are circles As always, when critics computers, become com-

in his work, and it is an in- are dealing with living monplace in Western soci- teresting observation, but writers, their observations ety. Technologically, com-

it does not necessarily help are often strengthened by puters differ from other us understand McPhee's actual contact with the au- forms of communication, works. To do that, you thors and careful attention he says, because they can have to closely examine to their biographies, as store, retrieve, reproduce, his structures and relate demonstrated in this book revise, and transmit in- his subjects to his life. To by the strong chapters on credible amounts of infor- understand Wolfe, you Talese and Didion. mation almost instantane- have to understand some- ously.

thing about his ability as a . . . Norman Sims These observations are reporter. Neither gets University of Massachusetts certainly not original, but mentioned in this book. Katsh shows how the tech- Lounsberry can also be nology is already making faulted for ignoring what the legal concept of prece- these authors have done in dent, for example, un- the last decade. Most of workable because of an Book Reviews 209

overabundance of infor- would change the law, editors and publishers of mation. He also argues specifically in terms of newspapers and maga- that the technology will what messages would be zines; their counterparts in hinder governments from considered as admissible radio and television; edito- restricting the flow of elec- evidence in court. rial cartoonists; photojour- tronic information, making In his historical synthe- nalists; and columnists/ attempts at prior restraint sis, Katsh also seems to see commentators. or obscenity prosecutions technological changes in Volume editor Joseph ineffectual. communication occurring McKerns is a respected Katsh tries to ground his in a vacuum, without ac- journalism historian, well predictions in comparative knowledging social, eco- grounded in the field. In historical analysis, but nomic, and political factors the introduction he ex- these parts of the book suf- that undoubtedly also in- plains clearly and persua- fer, perhaps unavoidably, fluenced the development sively the rationale for from superficiality. Not a of law. choosing individuals in historian by training, he Despite these short- the collection. The inclu- relies on a wide-ranging comings. The Electronic sion of fifty women and selection of scholarship Media and the Transforma- thirty minority/ethnic from various disciplines as tion of Law is provocative journalists, for example, he undertakes the mam- and entertaining, though represents a conscious ef- moth task of showing how of limited scholarly value fort to represent the very technological changes in to journalism historians. rich and diverse heritage communication have af- of journalism. In addition, fected the nature of law . . . Linda Lawson some living persons are and society throughout Indiana University included, with a bias here history. Beginning with toward broadcast media preliterate societies and because of the relative their oral tradition, Katsh newness of radio and tele- discusses how the intro- vision. BIOGRAPHICAL duction of writing fostered Most of the entries are DICTIONARY OF a more hierarchical form well-crafted, tightly writ- AMERICAN JOURNALISM. of law. The printing press, ten accounts, whether of on the other hand, brought By Joseph P. McKerns. major figures like Joseph equality, stability and pre- • Greenwood Press Pulitzer, Frederick dictability to the law. The •1989,834 pp. Douglass, Marguerite electronic media, Katsh • $95, Cloth Higgins, and Walter speculates, will radically Cronkite, or of lesser- destabilize the legal sys- THIS BIOGRAPHICAL known contributors to the tem built around the print dictionary from Green- field, like the revolution- model. wood Press is another of ary-era radicals John and Regrettably, Katsh skips that publisher's useful vol- Elizabeth Hunter Holt or completely the arrival of umes in the fields of jour- the nineteenth-century electrical technology in nalism and mass commu- general agent of the West- communication and its ef- nications. Covering almost ern Associ'ated Press who fect on the law. He doesn't five hundred individuals helped combine it with the discuss, for instance, how in nearly eight hundred New York AP, William the telegraph or the tele- pages, this alphabetically Henry Smith. Of necessity phone affected the law or arranged collection offers in a volume like this, the the legal profession. Tele- convenient snapshots of entries provide an over- graphic and electrical significant journalists in view, rather than thorough trade journals in the nine- American history from analysis. Many of these teenth century often car- 1690 to the present. The authors manage, however, ried articles about how term journalist here in- to convey the facts with these new technologies cludes writers/reporters; flair; many entries go far 210 AJ /Summer 1990

beyond being "who's ume with its highly con- who" Ustings and provide densed entries, relatively context to make the facts complete bibliographies meaningful. can do much to help sat- Besides McKerns, a di- isfy a reader's hunger for verse group of 131 writers fuller information and un- contributed to the volume. derstanding. Many are specialists who It's tempting with a vol- have invested years in the ume like this to light on study of their subjects (e.g. the omissions (yes, I've

Roger Yarrington on Isaiah made a list of people I Thomas, Nancy Roberts on wish had been included, Dorothy Day, Maurine like Adela Rogers St. John, Beasley on Lorena Hickok, Otis Chandler, Patricia McKerns himself on Ben- Carbine, Edgar Snow, and jamin Perley Poo re). Even Anna Louise Strong. And those not widely known as why not Ted Turner?). But experts on specific indi- that seems both facile and viduals, however, gener- unfair. The tough assign- ally write with under- ment for the editor of a standing of and apprecia- volume like this is decid- tion for their subjects and ing who shall remain in, their contributions to and given the real limits associ- significance for journalism ated with publishing costs. in the United States. In that regard, a real The format for each entry negative of this volume is is one that has become the the chokingly high cost norm for volumes like this, ($95!) which will keep it including, for example, the out of the personal librar- Dictionary of American Bi- ies of many who would ography and the Dictionary find it a handy reference. It of Literary Biography. Each deserves to be part of uni- entry frames the person's versity library reference life chronologically at the collections, however. outset by indicating dates

of birth and, where appli- . . . Terry Hynes cable, death; summarizes California State University, in the first paragraph the Fullerton person's most significant contributions to the field; recounts chronologically major developments and events in the individual's life; and lists references, autobiographical ones followed by biographical ones. The quality of the source lists is uneven in this volume. Some entries include all biographies available on their subjects, while others omit available biographies or omit recent ones. In this sort of a vol-

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DEPARTMENTS ARTICLES •214« RESEARCH NOTES • Reconsidering James Carey On Carey's Attempt to Conceptualize Pop Culture as Ritual Technology As a Form of Culture. •275« Carolyn Marvin 216 BOOK REVIEWS Review Essay: Oppositionalizing Carey Current Research On Carey's Critique of Monopolies of Power in the History of Reading and Monopolies of Knowledge. Jerilyn S. Mclntyre 227 The Carolingians the Written Word and Culture, Communication, and Carey On Carey's Quest for a Moral Discourse Black Press, U.S.A. in Communication Studies. Michael Schudson 233 The Color of the Sky

a for Culture Reporting Technology As Totem On Americans' Use of High Technology the Counterculture As a Model for Social Order. James W. Carey 242 A Legislative History of the Communications Act of 1934 Bibliography of Works by James W. Carey Journalism: Books, Articles, and Reviews, 1960-1990. State the Art of Compiled with the help of Barbara Buckley 252

FCC: The Ups and Downs Historiographical Essay of Radio-TV Regulation Telling of Story •287- the Story The Importance of Narrative llieory INDEX for the Study of Journalism History. Jack Lule 259 EDITOR EDITORIAL PURPOSE. Anyone who wishes to re-

John J. Pauly American Journalism publishes view books for American Tulsa articles, research notes, book Journalism, or to propose a ASSOCIATE EDITORS reviews, and correspondence book for review, should con- Pamela A. Brown dealing with the history of tact Professor Nancy Roberts, Rider College journalism. Such contribu- Book Review Editor, American Gary Whitby tions may focus on social, Journalism, School of Journal- Spring Hill College economic, intellectual, politi- ism and Mass Communica- BOOK REVIEW EDITOR cal, or legal issues. American tion, University of Minnesota, Nancy Roberts Journalism also welcomes ar- Minneapolis, Minnesota Minnesota ticles that treat the history of 55455. DESIGN communication in general; the American Journalism is pro- Sharon M.W. Bass history of broadcasting, ad- duced on a Macintosh com- Kansas vertising, and public relations; puter, using Microsoft Word ADVERTISING the history of media outside and Pagemaker software. Au- Alf Pratte the United States; and theo- thors of manuscripts accepted Brigham Young retical issues in the literature for publication are encour- ASSISTANT EDITOR or methods of media history. aged, but not required, to Barbara Buckley submit their work on a DOS- Tulsa SUBMISSIONS. All articles, based or Macintosh disk. FORMER EDITORS research notes, and corre- Wm. David Sloan spondence should be sent to ADVERTISING. Information Alabama Professor John Pauly, Editor, on advertising rates and Gary Whitby American Journalism, Faculty placements is available from Spring Hill College of Communication, Univer- Professor Alf Pratte, Adver- sity of Tulsa, 600 S. College tising Manager, American AMERICAN JOURNALISM Avenue, Tulsa, Oklahoma Journalism, Department of HISTORIANS 74104. Authors should send Communications, Brigham ASSOCIATION four copies of manuscripts Young University, Provo, submitted for publication as Utah 84602. PRESIDENT articles. American Journalism Maurine Beasley follows the style require- SUBSCRIPTIONS. American Maryland ments of The Chicago Manual Journalism (ISSN 0882-1127) VICE-PRESIDENT of Style. The maximum length is published quarterly by the Leomard Teel for most manuscripts is American Journalism Histori- Georgia State twenty-five pages, not includ- ans Association, at the Uni- SECRETARY ing notes and tables. versity of Tulsa. Subscriptions Donald Avery All submissions are blind to American Journalism cost Southern Mississippi refereed by three readers, and $25 a year, $10 for students, BOARD OF DIRECTORS the review process typically and include a one-year mem- Perry Ashley takes about three months. bership in AJHA. Subscrip- South Carolina Manuscripts will be returned tions mailed outside the Roy Atwood only if the author has includ- United States cost $25 for sur- Idaho ed a self-addressed stamped face mail, $30 for air mail. For Elaine Berland envelope. further information, please Webster Research notes are typically contact the Editor. Lester Carson three- to six-page manu- Florida scripts, written without for- COPYRIGHT. © American Edward CaudUl mal documentation. Such Journalism Historians Asso- Tennessee notes, which are not blind ciation, 1990. Articles in Barbara Qoud refereed, may include reports American Journalism may be Nevada-Las Vegas of research in progress, dis- photocopied for fair use in Carol Sue Humphrey cussions of methodology, an- teaching, research, criticism, Oklahoma Baptist notations on new archival and news reporting, in accor- Alf Pratte sources, commentaries on is- dance with Sections 107 and Brigham Young sues in journalism history, or 108 of the U.S. Copyright Nancy Roberts suggestions for future re- Law. For all other purposes, Minnesota search. Authors who wish to users must obtain permission contribute research notes are from the Editor. invited to query the editor. REFEREES. Thanks to the following editorial board members, who have recently read manuscripts for FROM THE EDITOR American Journalism. FOR ALL JAMES CAREY'S influence on mass com- Dave Anderson curiously Northern Colorado munication studies, his work remains

Warren Barnard underread . It is easy, of course, to detect the influence Indiana State of specific essays. His essay on "A Cultural Approach Ralph Barney to Communication" helped define a whole domain of Brigham Young study. His essay on "The Problem of Journalism His- Sherilyn C. Bennion Humboldt State tory" continues to agitate that field. But students of Dave Berkman communication have not studied his work with the VJiscons in-Milwaukee same care that they regularly devote to the work of Margaret Blanchard social theorists suchas Anthony Giddens, Raymond North Carolina Kent Brecheen-Kirkton Williams, Clifford Gerrtz, Richard Rorty, or Jurgen California State-Northridge Habermas. Karen Brown The reasons for this benign neglect are probably South Florida several. For all his grace as a writer, Carey is better Gary Burns known as a speaker par excellence. Carey's work also Northern Illinois Lucy CasweU resists easy appropriation for the cause of the day. It Ohio State is not the sort of writing that readily wins invitations Alfred Comebise from Congressional investigating committees, grants Northern Colorado from national foundations, or center stage at a protest Pat Daley New Hampshire rally. No entourage trails Carey at conventions, for he Ralph Engelman promises no ready-made style of academic identity Long Island for would-be disciples. William Hvmtzicker Most importantly, Carey remains underread be- Minnesota cause his has appeared in scattered and idio- Ernest Hynds work Georgia syncratic venues. He is a self-admitted essayist, rather Steve Jones than an author of books. By their nature, essays arrive Tulsa without the bluster of publicity. They surprise us in Samuel Kennedy III a moment of quiet conviviality, then depart. And our Syracuse Albert Kreiling attention turns elsewhere. Johnson C. Smith By this special issue, American Journalism hopes to Richard Lentz inspire a more systematic reading of Carey's work. Arizona State The occasion for this issue is the recent publication of Louis Liebovich Communication As Culture. I asked three respected Illinois Zena Beth McGlashan communication historians—Carolyn Marvin, Jerilyn Butte, Montana Mclntyre, and Michael Schudson—to write review Joseph McKems essays on Carey's book. Professor Carey agreed to Ohio State respond and to let American Journalism publish a bib- Sharon Murphy Marquette liography of his work as well. Barbara Reed Ideally, this issue will invite a sustained discussion Rutgers of Carey's work. For Carey, who devoutly believes in Thomas Schwartz the political power of conversation, that would be a Ohio State Michael Sherer worthy result indeed. Nebraska-Omaha -J.P. Steve Sumner Tulsa s

RESEARCH NOTES •

POP CULTURE AS RITUAL Audie Murphy. He instructions for an im- watched The Sands of Iwo pending defensive action. THE APPEARANCE of Jima with his girlfriend, "I don't want anyone John Wayne and other Castiglia. going in there thinking Hollywood fantasies in "The Marine Corps he's going to play John two Vietnam War memoirs hymn was playing in the Wayne," his leader said. reveals the importance of background," Kovic writes, John Wayne's image later cultural content in the "as we sat glued to our personified Caputo's own mass media and popular seats, humming the hymn feelings during a "delir- myth. Ron Kovic in Bom together and watching ium of violence" in com- on the Fourth of July Sergeant Stryker, played by bat. "I was John Wayne in (McGraw-Hill, 1976) and John Wayne, charge up the 'Sands of Iwo Jima.' I was Phillip Caputo in A Rumor hill and get killed just be- Aldo Ray in 'Battle Cry.' of War (Holt, Rinehart and fore he reached the top. No, I was a young, some- Winston, 1977) evoke John And then they showed the what immature officer Wayne's name and image men raising the flag on flying on an overdose of to symbolize their own Iwo Jima with the marines' adrenalin because I had self-image as well as no- hymn still playing, and just won a close-quarters tions of heroism and disil- Castiglia and I cried in our fight without suffering a lusionment. seats. I loved the song so single casualty."

These Vietnam memoirs much, and every time I Disillusionment set in dramatize the importance heard it I would think of when war failed to meas- of James Carey's message John Wayne and the brave ure up to its Hollywood that scholars should take men who raised the flag on image. For Caputo, it came

seriously the cultural con- Iwo Jima that day. I would when he saw an eighteen- tent of the mass media. think of them and cry." or nineteen-year-old en- Carey's ritual model ap- John Wayne became a emy soldier lying in a pool plies not only to news but hero to Kovic and his of his own blood, feeling also to popular culture, friends, who reenacted intense pain, and surely whose nostalgic images movie plots and created knowing that death was persist even when they new ones with their Mattel near. "A modern, high-ve- seem to have outlived machine guns and green locity bullet strikes with their usefulness. Recent plastic soldiers. Marine tremendous impact. No trends in the content of Corps recruiters at his high tidy holes as in the movies. both entertainment and school reinforced Kovic' The two in his belly were

politics make Carey's mes- image. "And as I shook small—each about the size sage all the more impera- their hands and stared up of a dime—^but I could tive. into their eyes," Kovic says, have put my fist into the

Both Kovic and Caputo "I couldn't help but feel I exit wounds in his back." blame Hollywood for their was shaking hands with Kovic returned from the optimism and their expec- John Wayne and Audie war paralyzed from the tations for war. Kovic, who Murphy." waist down. "Yes," he enlisted in the Marines Caputo's platoon leader writes, "I gave my dead hoping to become a hero, "fit the Hollywood image dick for John Wayne and spent his childhood Satur- of a Marine sergeant so Howdy Doody, for day afternoons at the mov- perfectly that he seemed a Castiglia and Sparky the ies watching prehistoric case of life imitating art." barber. Nobody ever told

monsters and war movies John Wayne's name ap- me I was going to come featuring John Wayne and peared as Caputo received back from this war without a penis. But I am back Historians wallowed in myths and symbols. The and my head is screaming detail, he wrote, while the Gulf crisis provides yet an- now and I don't know nation needed new myths other demonstration of the what to do." to acknowledge cultural mass media's power and Feeling psychological diversity and to restrain the dangers of people's pain, Caputo dreams of violence while replacing dependence upon it. the mutilated bodies of old views of manifest des- Within hotirs, the presi- men in his platoon and re- tiny and universalistic dent mobilized troops, lives his feeir. "And this moralism. Calling myth while news coverage and unreasoning fear qioickly "mankind's substitute for national polls demon- produced the sensation I instinct," McNeill con- strated (or built) support. had often had in action: of tended that the nation The manipulation of watching myself in a would be unable to take symbols in this increas- movie. Although I have coherent public action in ingly media-dependent had a decade to think the absence of believable political environment and about it, I am still unable myths. the demise of moral values to explain why I woke up The massive and rapid in both popular culture in that condition." buildup of U.S. troops in and political rhetoric de- Hollywood provided the Persian Gulf in 1990, mand the attention of seri- both Kovic and Caputo however, belied the notion ous scholarship. The study with idealized images of that American self-percep- of commvmication as cul- war that only intensified tion as world hero had ture provides an environ- their subsequent disillu- self-destructed. American ment in which to take up sionment. Nothing in the forces quickly took the such work. culture prepared them for lead with Arabs in sup- dealing with pain, only porting roles; the old stere- . . . VJilliam E. Huntzicker with victory. otypes of white superiority University of Minnesota In our new symbolic re- and dark-skinned wards ality, American purity and reappeared, although tem- uniqueness have been pered by a desperate effort shattered. Yet a ubiquitous to build moral and finan- nostalgia for a return of cial support worldwide. lost power and innocence President Bush's rationale has become a recurring came primarily in negative theme in popular culture. terms: to stop aggression. For a time, Vietnam re- No one defended U.S. in- placed the American fron- volvement as a struggle tier as the stage on which for democracy, only for our national mythic play is the right to determine the performed. Rambo returns price of oil, to "kick some to win; Robin Williams to ass," and to protect our demonstrate our good in- "way of life." Few defined tentions; and Tom Cruise the Gulf crisis as a struggle (in Kovic's story) to show over the sovereignty of that war is hell, despite the kings. And everyone seem- best of intentions ed to ignore the presumed In the fall 1982 issue of Vietnam lesson that world Foreign Affairs, historian conflicts have a history William H. McNeill called that cannot be reversed by for the creation of new na- military power alone. tional myths to compensate Memoirs by Vietnam vet- for the disillusionment erans like Kovic and that resulted from Vietnam Caputo have shown the and Watergate. importance of national RECONSIDERING JAMES CAREY HOW MANY RITUALS DOES IT TAKE TO MAKE AN ARTIFACT?

Carolyn Marvin

Leopards break into the temple and drink the sacrificial

chalices dry; this occurs repeatedly, again and again: finally it can he reckoned beforehand and becomes part of the ceremony. — Franz Kafka, The Great Wall of China

WHENJAMES CAREY FORMULATED the distinction between ritual and transmission more than a decade ago in order to interrogate the direction of scholarly thought about communication, it could have been said that he became one of the leopards in the temple, and that as a result, the look of the ceremony changed.^ Along with other students and critics of culture contemplating a sinrdlar range of problems, Carey struck a resonant chord in a congregation dissatisfied with the liturgy. Over the years, his provocative distinction has continued to capture the imagination and energy of students and scholars seeking ways to formulate unfolding intuitions about what to pay attention to and why. Today the leopards are part of the ceremony. We have embraced what Joe Turow, quoting Clifford Geertz, calls the

Carolyn Marvin is "rise of the interpretive tum."^ There are audiences, journals, associate profes- and scholars eager to take up the cultural perspective Carey sor of communica- called for. This is an important achievement in our field. Its action at the Annen- berg School for knowledgement, appropriately symbolized in the publication of Communication at Carey's essays spanning that period of transformation, provides the University of Pennsylvania. She an opportunity briefly to replenish and drink again from the is the author of chalice of that originating provocation. When Old Tech- nologies Were 1. James Carey, "A Cultural Approach to Communication," Communication 2 iVevir (Oxford, 1988) (December 1975): 1-22, reprinted in Carey, Communication As Culture (Boston: and currently is at Unwin Hyman, 1989), 13-36. work on a study 2. Joseph Turow, "Media Industries, Media Consequences: Rethinking Mass of American flag ritual. Communication," in Communication Yearbook 13, ed. James A. Anderson (Newbury HiUs, Calif.: Sage, 1990), 478. In person and in print, Carey has always been the most generous of teachers. As one who has felt that gift deeply, and in the spirit of that original challenge, I shall suggest that Carey's initial distinction could also be drawn in an arena where it has had less development and attention. This is the arena of technology, entering the field as a fashionable subject area during the last decade in the guise of "new technologies," where it took over (though this was not its exclusive presentation) some of the very behavioral and functional perspectives Carey had questioned. What I wish to argue is that Carey's notion of communication as ritual, or cultural code, should be applied to technology, and not oppositionally contrasted to it. Though Carey is too subtle a thinker to dichotomize good-communication and bad-technology, there are aspects of his writing that do seem to point in that direction, and about which some stirring up of the waters may provide a useful clarification of his work. Carey argued that applying a transmission view to communication obscured it as a human and cultural exchange by overlay- ing an alternative analysis of how technically constructed message features such as sp)eed, reach, volume, and efficiency could be used to control citizens and workers more or less well.^ We should consider whether framing technology in the vocabulary of transmission conceptually dehydrates social life, to use Victor Turner's phrase, in a comparable way. By a "transmission" notion of technology I mean the view that technological forms irresistibly structure symbolic space in the vocabulary of speed, size, and control, that technology's primary effect is to distance us from one another, and that technology is of a different substance than culture. It reflects it; it may or may not determine it; but it is not it. An alternative "ritual" frame extending both the logic and spirit of Carey's original distinction might question these primary assumptions about technology, broaden the range of artifacts and practices commonly thought of in connection with communicative exchange, and in particular exannine the up-close, performative aspects of technological practice. It would elaborate for a specific domain of practices Mary Douglas's dictum that consumption, broadly defined to mean every facet of our cultural appropriation of goods, "is a ritual process whose primary function is to make sense of the inchoate flux of events.""* In fairness, the frame I mean is a frame that Carey himself has touched on over the years. Things, he says, quoting Kenneth Burke, are the way we talk about ourselves, and artifacts are products of human action on the world. But as I read Carey, technology is for the most part anti-ritual and its meanings more pathological than not. While I suspect Carey may not be per-

3. For a classic analysis of this kind, see Ithiel de Sola Pool, "Tracking the Flow of Information," Science, 12 August 1983, 609-13. 4. Mary Douglas and Baron Isherwood, The World of Goods: Towards an Anthro- pology of Consumption (New York: W.W. Norton, 1979), 65. 218 AJ/Fall 1990

suaded to extend his ritual view in precisely the way I am suggesting, and that he will not lack for subtle and eloquent ar-

guments to the contrary, I hope to engage him nonetheless. Carey has never explicitly limited the transmission view of communication that he wished to problematise to what is technological, though he argues that the metaphor of communication as transmission is characteristic of industrial cultures. In- dustrial cultures are technologized in their very name, of course,

and it is hard to know what could make communication transmission-like, if not technology. That observation must be tempered by the recognition that we define technology in peculiarly tribal ways. The best known of these definitions lean heavily on efficiency, rationality, instrumentality, method, and replication. These are one-dimensional, totalizing definitions of the kind Carey has warned against in treating communication itself. As a discursive writer and a critic of neat, exclusionary systematizing beloved by the academy, Carey has consistently objected to behaviorist, functionalist, and critical models too reified and for- malistic to capture the complexity of human experience. We might similarly question the assumption that similar artifacts serve the same purposes in all societies, and indeed, in all social exchanges within any one society. We have learned that such assumptions about speech and myth are treacherous.^ They are equally treacherous about technology. What we might propose instead is Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's observation, sounding not unlike James Carey, that "men and women make order in their selves by first creating and then interacting with the material world."^ Perhaps the least controversial and most serviceable definition of technology is also the simplest. Technology is material culture: artifacts. This is a useful definition if it is admitted, as it generally now is, that artifacts have no cultural existence except within a symbolic milieu that generates, explains, and sustains them.^ That symbolic setting could be a factory in which artifacts are a focus and a medium for human relationships accomplished around the moment of production, a museum or art gallery in which artifacts perform as memory objects or are deliberately distanced from customary contexts in order to notice certain things about them, or a wedding shower in which artifacts are

5. Dell Hymes, "The Anthropology of Communication," in Human Communica- tion Theory, ed. Frank E. X. Dance, flMew York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1%7), 1-39; G.S. Kirk, Myth: Its Meaning and Function in Ancient and Other Cultures (New York: Cambridge, 1970). 6. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Eugene Rochberg-Halton, The Meaning of Things: Domestic Symbols and the Sc// (New York: Cambridge, 1981), 16. 7. One exemplciry instance of the current crop of definitions: Wiebe Bijker and his colleagues include objects, activities or processes, and knowledge as essential components of a notion of technology, which they argue cannot be fruitfully defined with greater precision. See Wiebe E. Bijker, Thomas P. Hughes, Trevor Pinch, eds. The Social Construction of Technological Systems: New Directions in the Sociology and History of Technology (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1987), 3^. Marvin 219

given the role of gifts. The boundaries of technological definition tell us less about what technology is than what it is that people want to debate about. Invariably, the topic of this debate is the social relations called into question by a particular (indeed, every) system of artifacts. Definitions of technology thus lead away from artifacts to focus on social relationships. The boundaries of technological definition and debate reflect prejudices and predisp)ositions—^not analytic precision, but culture. Carey's own treatment of technology is polemically distinctive. Carey recognizes two general classes of technology. One, by omission, contains artifacts that do not concern him. Technology is what Carey associates with communication-as-transmission.

If I understand him right, communication at a distance made possible by modem, industrial, shiny, male-identified for the most part, capital-intensive forms of "high" technology for the purpose of control ("the more important manufactures," according to a 1909 Webster's Dictionary definition®) is the kind of communication that is undesirable. By extension, it furnishes the kind of society that may be undesirable as well. It cannot be objected that a technology or society so characterized is arbitrary and partial in its rendering of the world, since the notion of the legitimacy of culturally idiosyncratic frames is what motivates cultural analysis to begin with. There is pres- ently a surge of concern about technologies or societies using technologies that seem to undermine the conditions of cultural diversity for other groups by structuring ever more controlled and rationalized environments. This position has substantial moral appeal, but also seriousanalyticdifficul ties. Animportant but rarely undertaken task of such a critique is to specify what counts as acceptable change and transformation among cultures in contact, and for that matter, among classes, groups, and persons within a "single" culture. Another task is justifying the categories we have constructed to describe cultural diversity and the views we may hold about their significance and value outside any cultural frame but our own, and finally, explaining how observers socialized in a particular cultural tradition and history can have valid knowledge of cultures, thoughts, and feelings outside that frame.' These are, of course, the kinds of objections typically raised in response to the "intefpretive turn," which its critics charge has told us a lot more about ourselves as interpreters than about culture.

8. Quoted by Langdon Winner in Autonomous Technology: Technics-Out-of- Control As a Theme in Political Thought (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1977), 8. 9. For a viseful discussion of both sides of this argument, see Richard A. Sh weder, "Anthropology's Romantic Rebellion Against the Enlightenment, or There's More to Thinking Than Reason and Evidence," and Melford E. Spiro, "Some Reflections on Ciiltural Determinism and Relativism with Special Reference to

Emotion and Reason," both in Culture Theory: Essays on Mind, Self, and Emotion ed. Richard A. Sh weder and Robert A. LeVine (New York: Cambridge, 1984), 27-66, 323-46. 220 AJ/Fall 1990

But in the matter of technology Carey is no cultural relativist. His positioning of mass media and transportation as high-tech destroyers of community makes him a cultural positivist for whom transmissive technology is what is not original oral communication. The result is that distillate "effects" in mediated and face-to-face communication (which is mediated by language, costume, cosmetics, and all the other apparatuses of personal exchange) are community and culture determining. Distal artifacts, extending the operations of the body across space, threaten communities undisciplined by the constraints of face-to-face interaction. These are dislodged from their "natural" centers by the irresistible pull of distant groups through the agency of distance-controlling artifacts. Technology is problematic because "it" constitutes the suspect mechanism that inter- feres with what Suzuki calls the "direct, immediate and total confrontation of human identities."^" The debatable assumption here, besides the belief that people always treat one another better close up and worse at a distance, is that distance-controlling technology is not routinely filtered, structured, interpreted, or molded through close-up customs and meanings. Technology is a problematic in Carey's analysis partly because community, as he has used the term, remains an uncertain social condition. Whatever might be the elastic vitality of communities, their ebb and flow in communication, remains in doubt, explorable but unexplored, since the implication of a critique of distance-controlling artifacts is that communities cease to be authentic or moral or manageable when their boundaries enlarge. This resistance to contact and transformation, and the related lack of a dynamic to explain whether and how there could be boundary changes and symbolic shifts of a non-pathological type, suggests a view of culture as product rather than process, and is puzzling, at least to me. It was John Dewey, after all, whose notion of society as communication is basic to Carey's theoretical posture, who argued for the transformative possibilities of communication. Dewey, of course, was alarmed by the inability of the great community created by transport and mass media to achieve the conditions for such communication. His point of reference was the New England village (artifactually symbolized by its covered bridge, its steepled church, and its wooden fences) and its ritual town meeting. We need not restrain our admiration for those things to notice that this community was racially exclusive, ethnically homogeneous and unwel- coming, and unwilling to offer women the vote. These elements are too far from a historically altered sense (some of it achieved with the help of distal printed discussion, since racism can be a very face-to-face prejudice) of what is necessary for the demo-

10. For a useful discussion of identity and oiltural performance, see Victor Turner, Fmm Ritual to Theatre: The Human Seriousness of Play (New York: Perfornung Arts Publications, 1982), 102-23. — Marvin 221

cratic spirit to flourish for us to idealize it as any but a nostalgic alternative to a society that takes cultural diversity up close more seriously, if not without pain. Carey's criteria for evaluating the worthiness of technologically various communities are unclear because the lost communities he admires—Dewey's New England, traditional Ireland, classical Greece—were themselves enriched by v^iters, travel- ers, and other citizens comfortable with symbolic distance. Distance is in fact essential to symbolic action, since symbols are displaced from what is symbolized. Can distal technologies enhance community? Is orality not so fragile? Can it be that speech and technique serve different purposes in different settings that must be established encounter by encounter? Social exchanges are simultaneously local and distant, personal and collective, past and present, space- and time-binding. Distance- controlling media need to be analyzed with due regard for local features of symbolic exchange. Nor is it clear that distant meanings chiefly govern and elaborate technological practices. To speak simply of technology, or distal technology, as perilous to community may obscure in a reifying metaphor (the kind Carey rejects in descriptions of communication) intricate and complex sequences and hierarchies of social practice, and elaborate networks of relations among actors, including bonds and oppositions of interest and friendship that should provide rich fields of inquiry for students of communication. We must entertain the possibility of Gemeinschaft at every point in the Gesellschaft, and look for it. Can, for example, Carey's distal-proximal model help us understand Henry Adams's perception of the electric dynamo?

Adams spoke of it as "a symbol of infinity . . . hebegantofeelthe forty-foot dynamo as a moral force, much as the early Christians felt the Cross Before the end, one began to pray to it." No cultural analyst could resist the suggestion that symbols and rituals of the sacred migrate from content to content or that feelings of communion and participation are projected on things as well as gods, animals, and persons. This is not to deny the less than salutary aspects of human uses of technology with respect to other persons and the planet itself, but it is to argue that "features" of technology are found in human notions about technology rather than in structures issuing independently from artifacts, and these notions complicate rather than simplify analysis. Consider also that anthropology has struggled over at least two contradictory meanings of the term ritual. One meaning calls to mind occasions and acts in which there is an intensifica- tion of the social structure. Ritual occurs, according to Arnold van Gennep, to whom we owe the notion of rites de passage, in moments of transformative possibility, danger, and suspense in the presence, that is, of an implied p)eril to the social structure which may or may not be resolved by a return to the ancien re- 222 AJ/Fall 1990

gime. Rituals of this kind, says Victor Turner, are "occasions not given over to technological routine."" But there is surely technological non-routine wherever subliniity and terror focus on artifacts. This is what moon landings are about, atomic bomb blasts, and wedding rings. An alternative sense of ritual comes by way of Sir Edmund Leach through Emile Ehirkheim and Clyde Kluckhohn, among others, and refers to routinized and non-special acts, familiar and comfortable activities whose reassuring presence tells their practitioners they are at home in their culture. Such rituals are not specially marked and communicate the prevailing social values and rules of the community, reflecting Peter Berger's description of human society as "essentially and inevitably externalizing activity ... an edifice of externalized and objecti- vated meanings, always intending a meaningful totality."^^ Whereas ritual in the first, or strong, sense seeks to stabilize

change and contain crisis, it has ways of accommodating and us-

ing it. This is Kafka's point in the vignette of the leopards in the temple. The second sense, however, describes a world where change is absent and unwelcome at worst, unaccounted for at best. It is in this second weak sense of ritual, through a variety of small but significant social acts, that Carey presents his prototype example of newspaper reading-and-writing for analysis. Carey's choice is illuminating because of the newspaper's place in a cultural chain of events that is identified by its unseverable links to two technologies firmly affixed to a transmission mentalite—printing and transportation. The daily newspaper cannot be in the reader's hands without the delivery truck, the roads on which it travels, the printing satellite, the rocket that launches it, the reporters who make use not only of roads, telephones, and laptops, but pencils and notebooks. It requires a standardized technique for transforming and conveying language—the alphabet, and years of regimented training in its use. Newspaper reading is socially embedded in other technologically saturated settings as well—the house on Sunday, the subway ride to work, the automatic coffeemaker, and all the complex family, neighbor, stranger, gender, and class relations in which all these artifacts are also implicated, and through which their meaning is constituted. Newspaper reading cannot do without the artifact in a thousand forms patterned and textured in complex and meaningful ways among citizens in complementary, competing, and overlapping networks of association. Not only must ritual have techniques and objects (Can we imagine a king without a throne, a judge without a bench, a professor without a chair? Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi asks), but ritual

11. Turner, From Ritual to Theatre:, 79. 12. Peter Berger, The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion (New York: Anchor, 1969), 27. Marvin 223

cannot do without control, authority, or hierarchy, which Carey presents as the distinguishing mark of transmissive technology. Carey has also described ritually framed communication as "the construction and maintenance of an ordered, meaningful cultural world that can serve as a control and container for human action." The traditional sense of ritual as the performance of a closely controlled sequence of acts or words thus embodies the notion of conformity to an authorized order. Nothing about the ritualized representation of shared beliefs is incompatible with the struggle, sometimes muted, sometimes more open, for control of those representations and the people arrayed about them. Whatever is involved in stabilizing or challenging meaning in a culture involves control. This is not because we have too little imagination to see anything but control as the paramount fact of social life. It is because at every level of social life, to paraphrase Foucault, the problem of control is fundamentally a problem of meaning: what reality will be, how resources of meaning shall be allocated and invested, which symbols belong together and which may be torn apart, and (always) by whom. Nor is the celebration of tradition less controlling for operating in a temporal rather than a spatial frame, as Eric Hobsbawm and his colleagues have demonstrated about those traditions we call modern, and as anyone who has ever lived in a small town might attest.^^ Hannah Arendt makes this point and argues implicitly, in my view, for technology-as-ritual by asserting that cultural stabili- zation requires both reification, or the transformation of the intangible into the tangibility of things, and remembrance. To put it another way, remembrance, which we commonly recognize as a ritual process, and reification, which we do not, are necessary to make the cultural world real and reliable.^* Analytically, it seems difficult to separate communication as transmission from communication as ritual on the basis of the categories of control or preservation. If the term ritual suggests a cultural frame, a compelling explanation for social reality patterned and collectively attended to and maintained in ways that may include many forms of struggle and negotiation in communicative acts that manifest and create culture, then technology is a term for a very large ritual domain of communicative culture, and the metaphor of transmission is too restrictive a way of thinking not only about communication, but about technology as well. Technological practice is a social process of the same kind that communication is. In both, elements of symbolic systems are manipulated through material objects and networks of personal

13. Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, eds.. The Invention of Tradition (New York: Cambridge, 1983). 14. Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1958), 94-96. 224 AJ /Fall 1990

and collective relations to make meanings. This is not to say that anyone anytime has unlimited power with respect to the operation of technology or the interpretation of technologically produced or embodied symbols, but only that specific artifactual expressions and arrangements do embody and signify groups located in temporal or spatial circumstances in which power, prestige, purity, and honor are always scarce resources, and that culture and history are made as such arrangements change. Uncautiously used, the term technology becomes a misleading shorthand to homogenize and reduce the multi-leveled polyva- lent relationships of people. Nor is this an argument against critical distance and in favor of apologias for mass culture and its ideology of consumer capitalism, but only in favor of phenome- nal and cultural complexity, and enough patience to discover it. How would technology look different if we thought of it as ritually embodying constitutive and regulative rules of social formation, as coding particular dimensions of the conversation about who we are and what we stand for? From a strong or weak ritual perspective, technology has but one dramatic role. That is to facilitate, organize, and otherwise mediate and provision human relationships, to elaborate the significance of communicative relationships, and to provide opportunities and codes for maneuvering and manipulating those relationships. Conven- tional attempts to distinguish technological from other kinds of social practice by designating functional utility as its distinctive purp>ose fail to the extent that such descriptions have meaning only with reference to prior, which is to say, historically and culturally fashioned notions of the world and human relationships, and of what rationality and efficiency might mean. As Marshall Sahlins writes, utility is not a quality of the object but a significance of the objective qualities.^^ The point recalls the instructive arbitrariness of Martin Heidegger's claim in The Question Concerning Technology that the nature of a river is less violated by a wooden footbridge than a steam-powered turbine.^^ This can only be true if the "nature" of the river is energy, let us say, and not boundary. But perhaps the nature of the river is to separate, which essence a footbridge profoundly violates by connecting banks, whereas a turbine is harmonious because it faithfully translates the river's energetic nature. The river cannot be consulted in any case. Only man's notion of the nature of the river, the footbridge, and the turbine can be negotiated among men. The same is true of artifacts which are interpreted both in creation and application, but not identi- cally in every exchange. There is no technology that does not place those arranged

15. Marshall Sahlins, Culture and Practical Reason (Chicago: University of Chi- cago Press, 1976), 169. 16. Martin Heidegger, The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays, trans.William Lovitt (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1977), 16. Marvin 225

around it in social relations to one another, and there is thus no uncommunicative technology or technological practice. Con- sider the car door slammed in anger, as much a "function" of a car as the transportational possibilities that facilitate other kinds of communicative relationships. Consider the expressive drama of driving. In a car culture, how could it be otherwise? The expansive phrase "technology and culture" labels a kind of inquiry that places artifacts in a cultural context but holds on to the assumption that artifacts are inserted in culture, and of a different substance than culture is. In Western history, art and technology were once the same concept, reflected in a single term, but then divided. Art retained the association with culture.^^ Technology remains culture no less, and a fully elastic dimension of it. Tools are messages about their users across time and space. Artifacts are the signs that go ahead of us even into the entirely symbolic palimpsest of outer space, where there is nothing to control with the technology available to us, just as the communicative appearance of the earliest surviving human tools on our own planet signifies the chronological beginning of civilization. I would connect technology to ritualized communication by making more explicit the concreteness of the connection between bodies and technology. Technology is that aspect of culture we handle with our bodies, as Marx and McLuhan both recognized. Further, it could be argued that the action and interaction of bodies is the paradigmatic heart of oral culture. According to this perspective, what is most characteristic of oral culture is not that its medium is language, a notion that survives as a legacy of structuralist ideas about mind, but the body in all its expressive manifestations, including speech. Oral culture cannot go away so long as human beings have visually, factually, and aurally perceptible, and perceiving, bodies. We have sometimes regarded technology as "opposed" to the body, and it may certainly be interpreted that way in a particular system of meaning, but technology is never not integrally connected to the body, and this may be one of the most interesting things to understand about it. The link between symbolizing minds and symbolically loaded artifacts is through bodies in any case. Shoshana Zuboff makes this explicit in her arresting and useful definitionof technology as intelligence applied to the problem of the body, and in her notion of "acting-with" and "acting-on" technologies, which characterize the body's relationship to the technology.^® We can add for the purpose of conducting social

17. In the same way that technology was considered an art, art has been considered a technology. See Miriam Levin, "The Wedding of Art and Science in Late Eighteenth Century France," Journal of Eighteenth-Century Life 7 (May 1982): 54-73. 18. Shoshana Zuboff, /n the Age of the Smart Machine: The Future of Work and Power (New York: Basic, 1988), 22. 226 AJ/Fall 1990

relations that have significance with respect to other bodies that are present and absent. To offer a very modest example, how the television set is arranged in the home—in what room and in what position with respect to the bodies that will gather around it—helps signal what families wish to say about themselves to each other and to visitors. Such local practices are richly expressive to those who observe them. These concerns aside, Carey has served us all, students and colleagues, and the field as a whole, in these published essays, which faithfully reflect both the medium and the message of his writing. His is the discursive art, conversation consciously opposed to a style of social science writing that fetishizes dead language stripped of the power of the personal body-based communication that speech is, in favor of a dep>ersonalized, disem- bodied language that removes it from the individual body at the heart of perception and experience on the grounds that linguistic subjectivity is to be distrusted and its metaphorical resources avoided. We have learned a great deal from Carey's critical gaze at how mass media and other messages are connected to deeper structures of social life. I would not ask him to shift his gaze, and like others, will look forward to more descriptions of the view. But if we are to realize some of the implications of his sturdiest pronouncements about the ritual features of all human action in

the world, I think there is a still unexplored and rewarding world of technological practice, pervasive in modern lives, to be seen up close and in ritual terms. Not that I think the explication of this world is Jim Carey's job. I do think his ideas will help make it possible. OPPOSITIONALIZING CAREY James Carey's Search for an Ethic for Communication Studies

Jerilyn S. Mclntyre

THIS COLLECTION OF ESSAYS, written over a span of a generation, reminds us how long and how compellingly James Carey has been a voice arguing for an alternative view of the role and significance of the mass media in our society. The litany of Carey's contributions to our field has been recited many times before: by taking an anthropological, cultural approach to the study of communication, he has challenged sharply some of the long-standing traditions and assumptions of communication research and has articulated a position for communication scholars within American cultural studies. For communication historians, he has also raised questions about the elitist, institutional orientation of journalism history, and he has provided a conceptual bridge to recent developments in social, cultural, and intellectual history. Yet, despite all that Carey has admittedly contributed in the above ways, to this point, his work has been assimilated into the tradition of American communication history and communication studies without our directly confronting the inherently radical statement he makes about other approaches to the study of communication, and especially about their epistemology, • • • • • their politics, and their ethics. Jerilyn S. Mclntyre is vice-president To communication research generally, his challenge is both for academic af- epistemological and ontological. Carey contests the assump- fairs and profes- tions and accepted priorities of some of the major directions in sor of comnfiunlc9- tion at the Univer- communication research—notably the effects tradition and sity of Utafi. As in- administrative research. In "Overcoming Resistance to Cultural terim president of Studies," he even asserts that "the central tradition of effects that university during the sum- research has been a failure on its own terms."^ The effects mer of 1991, she is tradition, he contends, is based on objectivist assumptions about the first woman president in the the nature of reality and the forces that act individuals on and school's 141 -year history. 1. James Carey, Communication As Culture (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1989), 91-92. 228 AJ/Fall 1990

y shape individual action—assumptions defined through behaviorism and functionalism. Carey suggests instead that reality should be conceived of in "expressivist" terms, as a product of human language and communication practices. The purpose of communication research should therefore not be to predict or identify consequences. It should be to diagnose and understand the multitude of texts that humans produce; in Carey's words, to "enlarge the human conversation by understanding what others are saying."^ The dichotomy between objectivist and expressivist interpretations is developed at length in his discussion of transmission and ritual models, where he distinguishes between communication as, on the one hand, representational—transporting information, or extending control through the distribution of information—and, on the other hand, as interactive—creating and confirming the social process. Arguing for a "ritual" view of communication, Carey takes the position that knowledge and meaning, and even reality, are created through shared belief and the building of consensus—through discourse, not the dissemi- / nation of objective "news" or "facts." Although Carey is not the first or the only scholar to have espoused these ideas, his ritual model introduced a non-objectivist, interactive view of human communication to our field, and articulated the need to understand journalistic texts as among the many ways that humans create meaning. That conception of journalistic texts is, in turn, at the heart of Carey's contribution to communication history, where his chief challenge has been to the traditional narrative we have told ourselves and our students. A recent issue of the Journal of American History devoted to the study of "memory" in American history provides a framework within which to assess that contribution. History, JAH editor David Thelen noted, is a form of memory, through which past experiences are reconstructed and reconstituted in a way that shapes and influences a culture's "core identities."^ What Carey has done is to hold up to question the journalistic profession's memory of itself, and, with that, its "core identity," including its implicit faith in an historical "idea of progress," and its focus on the major individuals and institutions who are presumed to have contributed to the growth and progress of the mass media in society. Suggesting the need to consider something other than what he called the Whig view of history and its progressive model of our society and its institu- jltions, he posits a more complex interaction between the media

'' and the public. Carej^s conception of public communication encompasses all of the forms of expression that create meaning and community.

2. Carey, Communication As Culture, 62. 3. David Thelen, "Memory and American History," Journal of American History 75 (March 1989): 1117-20. —

Mclntyre 229

Journalism is but one text among many. In making this point, Carey underlines the importance of situating journalistic conventions and practices within the context of all of the other cultural forms out of which public discourse and public culture emerge. Further, he emphasizes that what we find in those texts '^ is not simply "information" or "data"—grist for influencing and informing the public—^but the symbolic dialogue that creates and sustains knowledge and ways of knowing in a culture. His attention to the multiplicity of texts and the multivocality of culture links him, and links the field of communication history, with some of the most stimulating work currently being done in "mainstream" history among cultural and intellectual historians, particularly in studies of literacy, reading, and popu- / lar culture. His emphasis on the cultural meaning and symbolic import of technologies and technological change also mirrors ideas developed by historians investigating the symbolic status or symbol-generating capacities of technology. By far the most resonant of the themes from mainstream history, however, is one that shares Carey's conception of modes of thought as symbolic processes through which the social order is confirmed and maintained. That conception evokes the meaning in the word mentalites, a term defined by cultural historian " Robert Damton as not merely what people thought but how they thought—^how they construed the world, mvested it with meaning, and infused it with emotion?^ ^SnotKer" writer characterizes mentalites provocatively as "'what was 'thinkable' in a human collective at a given moment in time."^ Our culture's mentalites—what is thinkable or knowable at this moment in time—is at the crux of Carey's critique of Ameri- can communication history and communication research. See- ing the role of communication as creating or confirming "what is thinkable," he raises to the level of discussion and debate questions about the impact of technology and technological change on the mentalites of our culture. He thus makes those concerns the central problematics of communication studies. Those are, for example, the problematics of interest to Carey and John J. Quirk in "The History of the Future," in their distinction between information and knowledge. They claim that knowledge is more than simply the distribution of information it is a way of conceiving Ihe^world. Thus, when they suggest the need to be mindful of the impact that new technologies have on ways of thinking, on language, on human action, their apprehension is shaped by their conviction that new technologies can become monopolies of knowledge, controlled by

4. Robert Darnton, The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History (New York: Basic, 1984), 3. 5. Frank Manuel, quoted in William Gilmore, Reading Becomes a Necessity of Life: Material and Cultural Life in Rural New England, 1 780-1 835 (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1989), 7. 230 AJ/Fall 1990

the new priests of social science, higher education and research: When one speaks, let us say, of the monopoly of religious knowledge, of the institutional church, one is not referring to the control of particles of information. Instead, one is referring to control of their entire system of thought, or paradigm, that determines what it is that can be religiously factual, that determines what the standards are for assessing the truth of any elucidation of these facts, and that defines what it is that can be accounted for as knowledge. Modem computer enthusiasts may be willing to share their data with anybody. What they are not willing to relinquish as readily is the entire technocratic world view that determines what qualifies as an acceptable or valuable fact. What they monopolize is not the body of data itself but the approved, certified, sanctioned, official mode of thought—^indeed the definition of what it means to be reasonable.* The fear of Carey and Quirk is that, because the "approved, certified, sanctioned, official mode of thought" derives from the activities of life as they are p)ortrayed, represented, and expressed in a society's forms of public discourse, changes in the technology of that discourse can significantly affect or even transform what is collectively "thinkable" in a culture. This is not the cause-effect argument of the transmission model of communication; it is a more organic sense of subtle shifts in patterns of belief, ways of knowing, ways of perceiving. A commercially based, technocratic worldview thus shapes the definition of culture generally, and of scholarship (as well as other kinds of thinking) specifically. The practical and political consequences of the relationship between such a worldview and our ways of thinking are troubling. The problem, however, is not with commercialization per se, or technology per se, since both of these can be forces for good in our society. It is with the un- questioning assumption that these are inevitabilities—i.e., that Jtechnology is inevitably equated with progress, and economic gruwthinevitably creates a better life. To the contrary, commercialization can become a control that reduces the variety of content available as part of the public dialogue, or it may distort that content, or restrict access to less popular forms of expression or alternative arguments. There may also be technological or economic barriers to the sharing of knowledge, requiring that a price must be paid for access, in the form of either having to own a piece of the technology of knowledge distribution or having to be trained in its use. Even more fundamentally, the depth and breadth of what is knowable in our culture can be constricted because our commercially based public communication system

6. Carey, Communication As Culture, 194. Mclntyre 231

increasingly dictates that content should be abbreviated or specialized—fragmented rather than comprehensive, trivial rather than thoughtful. Phrased this way, such concerns may still focus our attention too much on consequences of technological change and commercialization. That is not my intention, because the force of Carey's ideas is diminished if they are regarded only as a plea to look for evidence of cultural consequences of our media rather than other kinds. Their thrust is also blunted if they are treated simply as an "alternative perspective" on an agreed-upon set of cultural practices and priorities when they are, in fact, an essentially radical critique of those practices and priorities. The question is then, what does the intertwining of technological forms and media content portend for us culturally? What does it portend for our ways of knowing; for our ability to dissect, reconstruct, and assimilate information; for our own adaptability to other ways of knowing or thinking? The application of this line of questions to scholarly modes of thought identifies other issues of power, status, and control. The fundamental methodological claim Carey advances is that all intellectual fields are ideologies. Thus, he calls us to examine the

i deologies i mplicit m the transrnission model or thelSnctionalist approachJo^mng_research and assessing the impact of our conimuriication^systems. Further, he tries to make us realize that the~cohceptual boundaries of what he calls the transnnission model not only inhibit scholarly understanding of the subtle interactions between technologicaLcbanges and puj?lic discourse, but they also impxjse limits on "what is thinkable" politically and economically. Carey's stance is clear and consistent: monopolies of knowledge control ways of knowing and participating in the public discourse essential to the formation of political community and culture. They also account for the dominance of the functionalist approach as the paradigm for undertaking and interpreting research—a paradigm that I would argue sustains, and is sustained by, the econon-iic and technocratic imperatives driving other major cultural institutions in twentieth century American society as well. (Anyone who doubts this has never sat in on university discussions of technology transfer policies and practices.) The transmission model, in other words, dominates broader social assumptions about communication and does much to shape popular, scholarly, and governmental responses to technological innovation, and to conunercialization and economic consolidation of our system of mass communication. It is ironic that, in critiques of Carey's arguments, he and those who have been influenced by his ideas have been asked to "take the next step" and "operationalize" his model of communication—a term derived from the very research paradigm he is asking us to set aside. It could be said, however, that the task of 232 AJ/Fall 1990

getting our field to question that paradigm and its premises is already daunting enough. Be that as it may, what is Carey's major contribution to communication research and communication history? I would arguejhat his cultural approach or ritual model is an ethic of commumcation study in which the first step is to acknowledge the political and cultural implications of the interrelationships among technology, power and the control of information, and their impact on "ways of thinking" in our culture. Pointing out the connection between cultural ways of thinking or ways of knowing and forms of expression, he asks us to see texts as windows on social action as well as forms of expression controlled by authority—monopolies of knowledge created by monopolies of power. He is asking us to change our own worldview—our way of conceiving the problem at hand. Until we can, there is no next step. CULTURE, COMMUNICATION, AND CAREY On the Relation of Technology and Culture in James Carey's Thought

Michael Schudson

AS BEST AS I CAN RECALL, I met James Carey's students before I met James Carey. This seems to me fitting: Carey has been above all else a teacher. A teacher, according to a wonderful essay by the late Bartlett Giamatti, is someone who chooses. A teacher chooses and so organizes choices for students. That is what Carey has done as the intellectual leader of the communication program at the Uni- versity of Illinois for the past two decades. He is not for the most part an original scholar in a "research" mode. While he has done research on the telegraph and its reception, that work, it seems to me, has never come to fruition. As in the concluding essay in Communication As Culture, it is a set of provocative suggestions for research more than a disciplined pursuit of the research itself. Instead, Carey's work— is one of gathering thinkers and ideas , from various quarters ^philosophy (John Dewey, Richard Rorty ), anthropology (Clifford Geertz), sociology (Robert Park, Emile Durkheim, George Herbert Mead), literary studies (Raymond Williams), the history of science (Thomas Kuhn), American Michael Schudson studies (Leo Marx, Henry Nash Smith)—and demonstrating is ptx>fessor in the Department of their relevance for the study of communication. It is as though he Communication were putting together an all-star communications seminar, and the Depart- inviting players from any of the academic teams, so long as they ment of Sociology are stand-outs at their positions. He thus brings into the center at the University of California, San of communication studies the set of voices he feels we need to Diego. He is the hear. He borrows, he synthesizes, he organizes without simpli- author of Discov- ering the News fying, he keeps up an insistent awareness of irony and complex- (1978), Advertis- ity in a sonorous prose without tripping or stumbling or losing ing, the Uneasy a sense of direction. He is a definer of fields, an organizer of Persuas/on (1984), and editor, with inquiry, traffic a helicopter flying over the academic study of Chandra Mukerji, communication and identifying which way the traffic is moving of Rethinldng and where there are bottlenecks and why. Popular Culture (1991). As a teacher, Carey has inspired students after his own heart. 234 AJ/Fall 1990

scholars more likely to be serious and even inspiring teachers rather than researchers. Conning from a different academic tradition, I had some trouble recognizing this at first—that some of his finest students would themselves be not "serious scholars"

in the vein I expect in the best Ph.D.s but dedicated teachers in the tradition of Carey himself, definers of fields and editors of journals and encouragers of yet further explorations of communication as a symbolic process of representing and creating reality. Carey's influence is easy to see but difficult to define precisely because he offers no blueprint. This is frequently the case in qualitative social research. Historians have found a way around this through a relatively rigid subdivision of their subject by nation and period and an insistence on the discipline of archival sources. Every history doctoral student must produce a dissertation that burrows deeply into some library or libraries and rouses a librarian, curator, or archivist to disturb some stack of books or papers no one has looked at for decades, if ever. Communication as a field is not so neatly organized to channel relationships between teachers and their graduate students. Carey's students do not necessarily work on his subjects. For a James Carey, the merit of the work is inseparable from the style in which it is conveyed—and teaching style, while it can in fact be done, can scarcely be codified. This is not to suggest that Carey's thought is reducible to his style—it is much more than the lovely turns of phrase, more than the sometimes too-lingering appreciation of someone else's turn of phrase. What Carey offers is an approach to the study of communication, in particular the study of journalism, so radically at odds with the usual practice in schools of communication and journalism that one wonders he has not been drummed out of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Com- munication (let alone elected its president). His essays are perhaps as notable for what they do not quote and do not cite as for what they do. George Gerbner kindly praises this book on its back cover, but there's not a reference to Gerbner here. Nor to Wilbur Schramm, an even more striking omission when you see that Carey is here articulating a whole field—as did Schramm in his own day and in his own, incompatible, way. Incompatible, not just different. Carey does not quote or cite other "communication scholars" except in rare moments. His citations come from an invisible college of liberal philosophers and social scientists one would more likely find reviewed in the New York Review of Books (or writing for it) than on the ordinary syllabus in a mass communication course. Those he chooses are more than anything else seeking to define a moral discourse appropriate for modern society, not a social science discourse fit for inquiry into communication industries. That is what makes Carey's project incompatible with that of most other builders of —

Schudson 235

social scientific institutions. They have sought science as an escape from moral discourse; Carey has a healthy skepticism for science and seeks to reconstitute a moral discourse. There is no real meeting ground here, so Carey does not marshal his facts and figures up against Schramm's or Gerbner's or Paul Lazarsfeld's or Ithiel de Sola Pool's or Herbert Schiller's. He is promoting sensibility, not research; his tastes, not his findings. But that is too cavalier a way to put it. The other way is to repeat what I said at the outset: he is seeking to teach. In doing so, he pursues not science but a relationship to an audience usually a living one. Six of the eight essays in this volume first appeared in edited collections—and it is safe to assume that most or all of them were responses to a request for a paper. Carey obviously talks with the authors, living and dead, he admires—but when he puts these conversations on paper, it is almost always in the context of a living conversation with students and colleagues. The quest for a moral discourse in communication studies can be described in another way. Sociologist Alan Wolfe has written recently of the sociologist's versus the political scientist's and economist's views of society, and he has argued that each presents an alternative rhetoric.^ Political scientists offer the state as salve to human needs, economists the market, and sociologists civil society. But the sociological vision, which Wolfe champions, does more than this: it argues that civil society constitutes human needs and desires to a large extent, a vision that economists and political scientists (especially the former) do not comprehend. For Wolfe and, in his view, for sociology rightly understood, moral obligation is "a socially constructed practice negotiated between learning agents capable of growth on the one hand and a culture capable of change on the other." It is to sociologists and the social constitution of meaning systems and moral intuitions that Carey is most likely to turn, particularly to the famous Chicago School. If Wolfe offers one frame for understanding Carey's moral vision, Robert Bellah and colleagues offer another in Habits of the Hearth If Wolfe's is a polemic against economists, Bellah's is a polemic against the self-actuating individualism that economists (but not only economists) celebrate, the individualistic tradition of American marketplace democracy. While on one reading Bellah's can be seen as a particularly dispiriting vision of American society, it does suggest that the dominating "discourse" of individualism is not unchallenged, that many Ameri- cans who operate within the world of individualist ethics where the prior reality of the individual over society is assumed also

1. Alan Wolfe, Whose Keeper? Social Science and Moral Obligation (Berkeley: Uni- versity of California Press, 1989). 2. Robert Bellah et al.. Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life (Uruversity of California Press, 1985). .

236 AJ/Fall 1990

speak various "second languages" of communitarian ethics. They cite the bibhcal and civic republican traditions in particular. In the republican tradition, for instance, citizens are moved by civic virtue, not just self-interest. Within communication studies, Carey can be seen as a spokesmen for all that these second languages represent, a champion especially for the discursive space in which these languages can find expression. Now, this may be asking too much of a communication professor—^reconstituting on a better and broader base the discourse of modern society and modern social inquiry. But, I think Carey would be likely to ask, who better than someone who studies the news media? Who better than someone who has thought seriously about Harold Innis and Marshal McLuhan and the constitution of the self by systems of communication? In his important 1967 Antioch Review essay on Innis and McLuhan, which I wish had been reprinted in his book, Carey sides with Innis over McLuhan as a theorist of communication on three grounds.^ First, the focus of Innis is on the impact of communications technology on social organization while McLuhan emphasizes the impact of the media on "sensory" organization. Carey finds that Innis's claims are altogether more plausible and that, indeed, much of the evidence McLuhan gathers to suggest that new media reorganize the human senses can better be read to show that new media help reshape social organizations in certain predictable directions. Second, Innis is less deterministic than McLuhan, much more able to recognize the great amount of play any medium provides. Innis's case is that different media produce either a time-binding or space- binding bias to social organization; but to say they produce a "bias" is not to say that the bias will necessarily work itself out. Too many other factors come into account to make this claim. Third, Innis has a kind of backward-looking moral vision: he approves of oral culture and its bias toward preserving values and traditions. McLuhan, in contrast, was a forward-looking technocrat; that is, one who saw new technologies not providing a moral order but replacing any requirement for moral consid-

eration. "For McLuhan, . . . modern technology obviates the necessity of raising moral problems and of struggling with moral dilemmas." For Carey, McLuhan thereby subverted the Innis legacy, turned it on its head, and abandoned altogether the raison d'etre of the human sciences. Carey finds McLuhan's position finally anti-human: "One cannot help being overwhelmed by its awful vulgarity, by its disconnection from whatever sources of joy, happiness, and tragedy remain in this world." McLuhan is not only a positivist (of a very bizarre breed) but one who finds in positivism a substitute for moral inquiry.

3. James W. Carey, "Harold Adams Innis and Marshall McLiohan," Antioch Review 27 (Spring 1967): 5-37 Schudson 237

There is a lot to ponder here and many of the themes of Carey's later work are anticipated. With one notable exception,

I think. Neither Innis nor McLuhan have a concept of culture. When Carey contrasts them, he contrasts a historical sociologist who studies the impact of technology on social and economic organization to a psychological prophet, who pronounces, sometimes brilliantly, on the impact of technology on mind and self. Carey notes that for Innis the impact of technology on mind and self is a minor theme and for McLuhan the impact of technology on social organization is a minor theme, but nowhere does either thinker—or Carey—provide some way to connect these themes. Carey would not, in fact, find the missing concept for half a dozen years. It rattled around in his beloved Dewey and the Chicago School, but it was chiefly articulated and came to take on an intellectual life of its own only when Clifford Geertz in his 1973 Interpretation of Cultures advanced his version of it beyond the seminars of the anthropologists,* while Raymond Williams

and Stuart Hall promoted their version of it, notably in a 1973 conference in London that Carey attended. From these materials, Carey was able to build within American communication studies a platform for a cultural approach to the field. This volume is the best single place to find that viewpoint within communication studies articulated. It includes an impor-

tant sampling of Carey's thought, and it gives an opportunity to think through a body of work that, until now, has only appeared in scattered publications strewn through the fields of communication, journalism, American studies, and general criticism. The first four essays constitute a definition of the field of

communication as Carey would like to see it, cultural studies as he has come to build it in the United States within communication. The first essay, an extended meditation on John Dewey, develops the central distinction between a "transmission" model i/" and a "ritual" model of communication. This is thamost concise and compelling statemejit of Carey's quarrel with conventional

communication research that, to this day, takes the "transmis-

sion" rriodenor granted, i ne second essay is a reflection on Cliltord Ueertz andwhat a communication scholar should find of interest in this multifaceted anthropologist. Carey is in a way to communication what Geertz is to anthropology—a sage, a mentor who urges colleagues not to be bamboozled by one reductionist snare or another but to keep always in mind what human beings are about—meaning-making, symbol-using, conversing creatures. The third essay takes up a confrontation between Walter Lippmann and John Dewey, Lippmann here seen as entranced by a scientific model in which the task of the press is representa-

4. Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic, 1973). 238 AJ/Fall 1990

tional accuracy while Dewey champions a view of the press as part of an ongoing democratic conversation. Lippmann is the advocate of the eye, Dewey of the ear—and, as we should expect by now, Carey, like Innis, is on the side of the ear. This section concludes with a 1986 essay on the American pragmatic tradition represented by Dewey and more recently by Richard Rorty, and it shows, as the earlier papers did not, an explicit willingness in Carey to own his own Americanness (despite his attraction to some European thinkers, notably the Birmingham school of cultural studies) and a willingness, in a changing field of communication studies, to see dangers of rigidity to his academic left as well as his Lazarsfeldian right. While he continues to attack

mainstream communication research (he calls it "intellectually stagnant"), he insists, against some of his cultural studies colleagues and the know-nothings who take any use of statistics to be prima fade reactionary, that students "articulate with, engage, and build upon the effects tradition we have inherited." He takes as puerile the view that the difference between "administrative" and "critical" research is a difference between supporting or criticizing the status quo. While he rejects Durkheimian functionalism as insensitive to relations of power and to social contradictions, he is equally critical of left-wing versions of cultural studies that would "reduce culture to ideology, social conflict to class conflict, consent to compliance, action to reproduction, or communication to coercion."

I think he is absolutely correct in all these judgments. I hope he may yet have more to say on this. My own sense is that cultural studies or critical studies in its academic incarnations today has reached a point of institutionalization that brings with it great opportunities but also great dangers. The dangers are that it will grow more inbred and speak increasingly in dialects of a semi-private and only semi-coherent sort. It does not yet equal much of the behaviorist tradition in mechanical mindless- ness, but it threatens to rival behaviorism in smugness. The second quartet of essays includes two that criticize what Carey, borrowing from Leo Marx, calls the "rhetoric of the electronic sublime," one that is an extended portrait of the thought of Harold Innis, and a final discussion of the telegraph, the only essay in the volume that is directly a contribution to the history of a communication technology (rather than intellectual history, criticism, or intellectual biography). The disjunction between the two sets of essays is imjx)rtant. The trick for Carey is to find inspiration for communication as a field in the technological determinism or near-determinism of Innis and McLuhan that places communication at the center of the study of human society, while distancing himself from any view that makes the role of technology in human affairs completely amenable to causal or functional analysis. That is, a technology (like the telegraph) is not just a cause with effects or Schudson 239

a pulley with functions but a cultural creation that people ^,/^^ interpret as they use it. The "culture" of cultural studies, a la Carey, is hard to pin down. Is "culture"—conventionally and unconventionally understood "texts"—the subject of study? Or is a "cultural" orientation emphasized in an approach to any variety of subjects? And if it is a "cultural" orientation, does this mean some form of post-structuralism that conceives social life as a set of texts, readings, and interpretations? That is one version. Or a view that emphasizes the power of ideology, recognizing power relations in the world and culture as a form and field of politics? That is a second version, one heavily but not exclusively Marxist. Or some anthropologically inspired notion of the complex interplay of systems of symbols and systems of social relations? That is yet a third, distinct version. As I see it, all three versions coexist in cultural studies and communication. All three are at odds with the scientific pretensions of traditional behaviorism. In Carey's own work, there is a willingness to listen to version 1 —but with little patience for theory-spinning removed from social practice. There is clearly some involvement with version 2—but with no allegiance to the priority of class as an ontological category. For one thing, nations—both the Irish and the American—mean too much to Carey, and Marxist cultural studies has nothing useful to say about nationalism or national identity. For another, Carey's ear is just too acute, picking up echoes not only of class or privilege but of religion, region, schooling, psyche, and rhetorical situation in the ideas he examines. And he is, after all, a respecter of ideas and intellect; ideas worthy of consideration are never ultimately merely covers for power. Version 3 is more congenial to Carey, but even here, he seems more an interpreter of Clifford Geertz than a user; when he uses cultural theory, it tends to come from a fourth, theoretically underdeveloped terrain: American studies and the "myth and symbol" school. The "niyth and symbol" school refers to the work of Henry Nash Smith^teo Marx, Alan Trachtenberg, and ofRers in the American studies movement, and was labeled as such by Bruce Kuklick in his 1972 critique of that school.^ Critical attack notwithstanding, Carey has borrowed from this school not only one of his central subjects—the response of American culture to technology and industrialism—^but the school's seriousness about ideas, a devotional attention to key works (for the American studies scholars, Hawthorne, Melville, and Twain; above all, for Carey, a set of thinkers less concentrated in a single time and place—the Canadians Innis and McLuhan, the Ameri- cans Dewey and Geertz), and a respect for complexity and, as we

5. Bruce Kuklick, "Myth and Symbol in American Studies," American Quarterly 24 (October 1972): 435-50. 240 AJ/Fall 1990

say today, the "multivocality" or "dialogism" of texts. While Carey's perspective authorizes academic attention to popular culture, his own sensibility is not altogether ecumenical about cultural forms. The part of popular culture he attends to most persistently—the news—is centrally concerned in defining and shaping political action, and that is why he cares about it. He is not deeply interested in popular entertainment or resistant life styles that fail to engage articulately in dialog. His interest in Geertz is not that Geertz explicates the Balinese cockfight or that someone else might try the same approach with cricket or baseball but that Geertz provides an unusually powerful refuta- tion of behaviorist models of social research. Carey does not sort out the differences among these views of culture. I do not think he need do so. They are overlapping, not contradictory. Less happily, he does not sort out the relationship of these concepts of culture to the role of technology in society. The disjunction between the two sets of essays in this book is never really overcome—and let me make a suggestion about why. The essays on technology are too firmly rooted in the work of Harold Innis and others who did not understand culture. They are full of interesting commentary about the cultural response to technology, but in that formulation (as in the telegraph essay), all the weight is on the telegraph and the cultural responses seem its pawns. The ways in which the use of the telegraph itself was culturally conditioned gets no exploration here at all. This is not just a matter of who owned and who used the telegraph but of how those owners and users (and others) conceived, imagined the technology they were learning to manage. Yes, as Carey emphasizes, the telegraph eliminated the

distinction between transportation and communication; yes, it enabled the standardization of time zones and a reconceptualization of time. But this was never (as Carey knows but does not in this essay adequately conceptualize) the telegraph as a technology in itself; this was the telegraph as an economic asset in use in a particular culture with an unusual geography with a use for railroads, a passion for exploitation, and an impatience about [/ speech. To take one small example: did "telegraphic" language develop in the same way in European uses of the telegraph? Or was the efficiency of telegraphic style something American culture was particularly prone to invent? Carey, like many others, observes that the telegraph brought into existence the lean style Ernest Hemingway "learned as a correspondent." It is not so simple as that. I have read reports from Washington in New York and Chicago newspapers fifty and seventy-five years after the first newspaper use of the telegraph, and that language remains by today's standards formal and florid. If the telegraph encouraged a leaner style, it did nothing to assure its use. Mark Twain's invention of the vernacular in prose fiction may have been just Schudson 241

as or more important a driving force to cultural change as the telegraph, in this respect. This is not to deny that some technologies have some logics of their own that give some direction to social and cultural change. It is to suggest that a proper understanding of culture will urge us not to believe in any such thing as technology-in-itself. Technology-in-use is organized by geography, by economics, by politics—and also by cultural presuppositions. It seems to me that is the lesson that part 1 of Carey's book offers Part 2, and that part 2 did not assimilate. What remains, in the end, is a body of thinking about technology, about culture, and most vitally and persuasively about other thinkers who write on technology and society and culture. This book offers only a portion of Carey's work—the most im- p)ortant missing element is his thinking on journalism and the news. That work could provide the core of the next book of Carey essays, a book I would expect to be as wonderfully graceful and as deeply engaged in the ongoing conversation of a democratic society as is this one. TECHNOLOGY AS A TOTEM FOR CULTURE And a Defense of the Oral Tradition

James W. Carey

EVERY WRITER NEEDS, AND usually desires, a critic: Some- one to correct and complete his work via attentive reading of the text, nuanced understanding of both the said and unsaid, and a generous regard for the sheer struggle to get it right. What one usually acquires, however, are critics trained by Evelyn Wood, speed readers whose eyes never stop on a parenthetical expression or qualifying phrase and who never understand that a critic is less an opponent than a collaborator in discourse. I have been

rather more fortunate than I deserve in acquiring the three critics represented here, and, when one adds to them David Nord's careful, though firmly opposed, essay in Journalism History, I feel multiply blessed.^ The issues raised by Professors Schudson, Marvin, Mclntyre, and Nord, taken together, require an extended essay or even a short book for anything like the close analysis their thoughtful and sometimes telling comments deserve. While generosity and real collaboration demand nothing less, I must in this limited space restrict myself to a brief, abstract, and somewhat theoretical commentary on the relation of technology and culture. This is the issue Schudson and Marvin find most in need of revision and on which they expend some good-natured but forceful

badgering. I will not, then, treat the issues raised by Mclntyre James W. Carey is dean of the College and Nord, which relate most directly to journalism history. That of Communica- I will save for a subsequent essay. Nor will I, though it often tions at the Uni- divides strategically and morally from critics, treat the versity of Illinois. me my While on leave relationship, implicit in my essays, between teaching, research, during the spring and, in my case, administration. Professor Schudson's com- of 1991, he was visiting scholar in ments on teaching and research leave me less than comfortable. the Poynter Insti- For the last twenty years I have been an administrator who tute for Media Studies at St. Pe- " tersburg, Florida. 1. David Paul Nord, "A Plea for Journalism History, Journalism History 15 (Spring 1988): 8-15. —

simultaneously teaches and writes and, as a result, the essays in Communication As Culture are often a deflected meditation on the concrete practices of the academy. The keywords of the book culture, communication, technology, community, time, and space— were thought through, first of all, in relation to the troubles characteristic of university life, and the style of scholarship therein reflects an attempt to hook up useful teaching and scholarship with the black arts of administration.

Professor Schudson is correct that Communication As Culture breaks in half and there is an uneasy tension, never adequately faced, between the two portions of the book. Part 1 is a group of essays on cultural theory; part 2 is a group of essays on various problems in the analysis of communication technology. The two sections are related not as theory and application but as point and counterpoint, as two halves of a somewhat discordant conversation I carry on with myself. This disjunction and tension comes about because I have been unable to seamlessly integrate the terms that dominate the two sections, culture and technology, and, to my knowledge, neither has anyone else. When I started to write about these problems, the terms technology and culture occupied the position in my thought that base and super- structure took up in another tradition: the relation between the forces of production and the thing produced. Of all the metaphors with which we describe modem society—the consumer society, post-industrial, late capitalist, the society of the spectacle—the technological society, freed of the some of the conno- tations suggested by Jacques EUul, best captures the drift and direction of contemporary life. Thus, the essays seek to overcome, albeit hesitantly and clumsily, the opposition between technology and culture. As a result, I can find no useful distinction between "technology in itself" and "technology in use," though I am not blind to the unintended consequences of technology. Whatever defects remain in the resulting analysis do not derive from the legacy of Harold Innis, "who did not understand culture." Innis remains, or so I stubbornly believe, the single greatest student of communications on this continent, and my essays aim to develop the cultural theory, centered in technology, implicit in his work. Professor Schudson notes of my work that "all the weight is on the technology and the cultural responses seem its pawn." But this, again, is to draw the very distinction between technology and culture I wish to deny: that the world can be divided into technological actions and cultural responses. Similarly, it makes no sense to sp)eak of how the "telegraph was culturally conditioned," as if the world is made up of unconditioned material artifacts and cultural conditioners. Let me try to straighten out the technology-culture relation via a series of indirect and flanking moves that I hope speak to the concerns of my critics. 244 AJ/Fall 1990

Among the many valued legacies from the work of the French anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss is his long struggle to overcome the traditional distinction between nature and culture. Against the view that nature stands whole and complete outside of language, that we speak a language transparent to nature, that we speak the language nature intended us to speak, Levi-Strauss argued that nature was, at the least, doubly articulated. First, nature was an inscribed system of meanings formed out of binary oppositions. In every act of apprehension nature was ingested into culture because nature had to be articulated through a code, a code that was never the only one possible or useful. Once articulated into a code—once animals, for example, were arrayed via some system of meaning into hierarchy and given totemic representation—natural objects become not just things of the world but things to think with. Thus, the model of the relations among animals could become a secondary model of the relations between human societies: totemic representation of clans served as a model of society. The distinction between nature and culture is, therefore, always latent in customary

attitudes and behavior but it is a principal of language, not of the world. There is no way for us to get beneath or outside of language, to encounter an unmediated real. In effacing, then, the line between nature and culture, Levi-Strauss simultaneously

effaced all the other dualisms that grew out of it: the distinction between the subjective and the objective, the self and the other, truth and opinion, the real and the fantastical. This is the line of attack, now quite common, which I appropriated in cultural studies to, as Schudson correctly points out, overcome the behaviorist model of social research, and, also, to overcome the standard model for the writing of journalism history. When I began writing, the phrase "technology and culture" had displaced the phrase "nature and culture" because the built and constituted environment had taken over from the natural one as the situs within which we live our lives. However, the opposition of technology and culture continued the older disposition at the core of modem thinking. That is, technology was assimilated to the mental pole once occupied by nature; technology was the site of the real, the true, the other, the natural, and the objective. On this view, technology was not created but discovered; it was found lying artlessly about in the bosom of nature, encased in a series of geological deposits uncovered in a routine of excavating the natural. Thus one excavation, one discovery, begat another so that technologies emerged in the order of nature intended them to be discovered. And, in turn, human history was conceived as a long series of technological discoveries: the age of iron or bronze or the neotechnic and pale- otechnic eras, or the industrial age and the electronic age. The entire human story was written off the metaphor of technology thereby effectively treating, as Lewis Mumford never tired of Carey 245

pointing out, all our haphazard achievements in language, art religion, moral regulation, and governance as so many epiphe- nomena. A lovely phrase of William James, one that anticipates Levi- Strauss, condenses in an image a more useful relation of technology and culture. In speaking of nature James said, the trail of the serpent is overall and the serpent is us. What is left of nature is what we have decided to leave; there is virtually no reach of nature unmarked by, untraced by the human mind. Technology is, to twist a phrase of Ernest Cassirer, the place of the mind in nature or, better, the place of human practices in nature. In short, just as there is no nature here and culture there as walled off categories, there is no technology here and culture there, no meaningful sense of technology in itself and technology in use. Technology is thoroughly cultural from the outset. The mind of Levi-Strauss's primitives acted by detaching objects from the place of their found occurrence, bringing them forward and attaching a meaning to them. So, distinctions among animals, distinctions between day and night, land and water, male and female—what wecan still call, ala Mary Douglas, natural symbols however culturally coded—were fixated with a meaning that could then become a secondary modelling system. We of a presumably more advanced tribe think less by manipulating the surface features of the world, though we do a lot of that, and more by layering the environment with abstractions (simulated systems of digitized meaning, for example). We also have become more adept at penetrating into the body of nature and coercing it to behave in accord with our abstractions. We have created then a secondary shell, inside nature, which constitutes our environment. This built environment both shields us from and coerces the natural. However, this activity is thoroughly cultural and not some means of getting in touch with our real, that is, natural selves. Technology is cultural, then, in a number of distinct senses. First, technology is a creation and therefore an expression of »^ human purposes. It embodies concrete lifeways and anticipates that which it pretends to mirror. In this sense technology is a symbol o/(it represents how the world works) and a symbol /or (it coerces the world into working in terms of the representation). Second, once constituted technology must be propitiated. In his Hero with a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell compares the modem dilemma with that of primitive peoples: For the prinutive hunting peoples of those remotest human millenniums when the saber-tooth tiger, the mammoth and the lesser presences of the animal kingdom were the primary manifestations of what was alien—the source at the once of danger and of sustenance—the great human problem was to become linked psychologically to the task of sharing 246 AJ/Fall 1990

the wilderness with these beings. An unconscious identification took place, and this was finally rendered conscious in the half human, half animal fig-

ures of the totem-ancestors . . . through acts of literal imitation ... an effective annihilation of the human ego was accomplished and society achieved a cohe- sive organization.^ We are not spared, in a technological age, from the need to annihilate the ego, to merge it into its environment. To twist some unlikely lines of Marshall McLuhan, if people in earlier ages quelled their terror by putting on animal strait jackets, we unconsciously do the same thing vis a vis the machine. As humans ritually and psychologically got into animal skins so we have already gone much of the distance toward assuming and propagating the behavior mechanisms of the machines that both menace and sustain us. Kenneth Burke observed during the New York electrical blackout that if it continued for long humans would pray for electricity as others prayed for rain. And, in moments of massive technological breakdowns, such as the Challenger explosion, there is always a predictable search for human error. How can the machines, on which we have staked our lives, fail us? The rituals of theory themselves are ways of propitiating technology. If human imagination operates mainly by a process of analogy, a "seeing-as" comprehension of the less intelligible by the more (the universe is a hogan, the world a wedding) the main source of modem analogy (the brain is a computer) is technology itself. Nowhere is this more vivid than in the subject Carolyn Marvin mentions, the human body. That body is no longer seen as the expression of divine purpose or the site of an individual soul but as a scientific field and a Utopian fantasy. By analogy, the body has been understood as a particular kind of machine. This understanding is not merely a symbol or metaphor of the body but a symbol and metaphor for the body. The effort to harness the "human motor" has transformed our understanding of work, society, and modernity itself. As Anson Rabinbach's The Human Motor demonstrates, the motorized view of the body gave rise to a particular scientific Utopia: the vision of society without fatigue, arrest, or wearing out.^ Alas, our bodies consistently disappoint us as we seek in technology an antidote to our anxiety of limits. It is this integral view of the technology/culture couplet that the essays in Communication As Culture slowly discover and embody. There is no notion of technological determinism here for that view requires an argument from an independent to a

2. Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1949), 390. 3. Anson Rabinbach, The Human Motor: Energy, Fatigue, and the Origins of Modernity (New York: Basic, 1990). Carey 247

dependent variable. Rather, it is a view that characterizes technological artifacts, at least in a provisional and hypothetical way, as homunculi: concrete embodiments of human purposes, social relations, and forms of organization. To view technology as homunculus suggests that certain technologies or certain artifacts imaginatively constitute, express, and compress into themselves the dominant features of the surrounding social world. A homunculus is a society writ small. It is also the human person

writ small insofar as it serves not merely as a template for producing social relations but a template for producing human nature as well. This is not, as mentioned, a question of determination or causality, at least in any normal sense. There is absolutely no suggestion that the computer or the printing press or the telegraph causes or determines the essential features of society or human nature. But they do not, to use Raymond Williams's rewriting of the notion of determination, merely set limits or create pressures. When technology functions as a master symbol, it operates not as an external and causal force but as a blueprint: something that makes phenomena intelligible and through that intelligibility sets forth the conditions for its secondary reproduction. Once adopted as fact and symbol, as a model of and instrument for, it works its independent will not by virtue of its causality but by virtue of its intelligibility or textuality: its ability to realize an aesthetically pleasing, politically regnant, socially powerful order of things. For Durkheim the totem served as a homunculus; for Marx it was the commodity. My argument has been that for the modem p)eriod technology as a gross complex (mechanics, electronics) or as particular artifacts (printing press, computer), better suits the purpose of analysis. But it must be technology seen less a s a physicalcQntrivanceifianasajcultural performance: more on the model of a theatre that contains and shapes our interaction than a natural force acting upon us from the outside. David Bolter catches something of that cultural performance in his notion of a defining technology: A defining technology develops links, metaphorical or otherwise, with a culture's science, philosophy, or literature; it is always available to serve as a metaphor, example, model or symbol. A defining technology resembles a magnifying glass, which collects and focuses seemingly disparate ideas in a culture into one bright, sometimes piercing ray. Technology does not call forth major cultural changes by itself, but it does bring ideas into a new focus be explaining or exemplifying them in new ways to large audiences.*

4. David Bolter, Turing's Man: Western Culture in the Computer Age (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984), 11. —

248 AJ/Fall 1990

Henry Adams's image of the dynamo, a condensation symbol of a whole array of power technologies, better served as homunculus for the late nineteenth century. Power technology effected the very displacements—the removal of time, place and vision that laid thegroundworkfor the creation of commodities. But information technology, by the time of the Grundrisse and Capital, had already begun its displacement of power technology as the

homunculus of industrial civilization. This was the argument I applied to the telegraph in the book: the separation of communication from transportation and their reintegration through a switched circuit provided the model of social organization for the 1840s onward. Today, power machines are no longer agents on their own, subject only to direct human intervention; now they must submit to the hegemony of the computer that coordinates their effects. And that is why Bolter says that: As a calculating machine, a machine that controls machines, the computer does occupy a special place in our cultural landscape. It is the technology that

more than any other defines our age. . . . For us today, the computer constantly threatens to break out of the tiny corner of human affairs (scientific measurement pT^*"/:I and business accounting) that it was built to occupy, J^ to contribute instead to a general redefinition of ^ ^ certain basic relationships: the relationship of science to technology, of knowledge to technical power, and, in the broadest sense, of mankind to the world of nature.^ There is one last matter to be treated. Professor Marvin is disturbed by a note of romanticism in my essays particularly when I follow Harold Innis and John Dewey and valorize the voice and the oral tradition, the community and public life. She

is gentle and generous in voicing this frequent charge and that I much appreciate. She is right in one sense. I am no believer in an unconditional notion of technological progress, and the essays on the electronic revolution, the rhetoric of the electrical sublime, and the history of the future attempt to demonstrate why. Lbelieve that^]]3odal^hapge,ii\cludingj£iJmQlQgic^l^ange, involves genujne^gaing and losses. Nothing is costless. The spread of literacy, while a spectacular achievement, meant that certain capacities had to atrophy and valuable experience was lost. Like all pragmatists, I cannot shake a somewhat tragic view of life: that the biggest technological disappointment is a technological prayer answered. Technology cannot reconcile conflicting interests and values. No matter how intelligent and humane our choices there are, William James insists, "real losses and real losers." We live in a dangerous and adventurous and serious world, James goes on to say, and "the very seriousness we

5. Bolter, Turing's Man, 8-9. —

Carey

attribute to life means that ineluctable noes and losses form part

of it, there are genuine sacrifices and that something perma- nently drastic and bitter always remains at the bottom of the cup."^ James's tragic sense is not only central to pragmatism, but

it provides an illuminating perspective from wWch to survey the problems and predicaments of people.

Thus, I believe that the technological reorganization of life in the' moaem world mvolves.genuj^^^imandiQSse.s, andTsuch lossps^p ahhrgyjat^ln phrasf^s like the "'loss of community" andTEHe "'decay of democracy." It is not that we lost something we once had but that we have been robbed of the illusion that we will

ever have it. The losses are continuously disguised by cultural " work, by phrases like technological progress" and "cultural _lag/' Art and literature, theory and practice are often attempts to scorch over the past, to rob it of a possible order of value, to render older lifeways in the town and village not merely archaic but destitute. Our entire life, propelled by technological culture, has been an attempt to escape the constraints of the proximate. The achieved view of the small town as the unrelieved seat of barrenness and bigotry, class conflict and exploitation, is just that: an achieved cultural construction. The creation of a modem and national society required a burning over of an agricultural society and the small town credo that justified it. Just as the emergence of the postmodern depends on the iconoclastic destruction of the modem in all its forms, the emergence of the modem and progressive era relied upon the denigration of that

phase of history that immediately preceded it. Americans are, of course, congenital creators of community, cities on a hill, who

then promptly try to figure a way to get out of town . 1 echnology, in the cultural sense I have been characterizing it, is the vehicle by which this never successful transcendence is carried through. We never quite transcend time and space for we run into our limits: diurnal animals need, for a significant px)rtion of each day, a safe and protected place. Nonetheless, we have chosen at every point the national over the local, the distant over the proximate, the private over the public, and the bureaucratic over the communal. ^~~-^-^ But that aside, there is a deeper reason fo«.valorizi^)the oral, ^^ ^' public, and communal, and using those notions^tcTcntique the printing press, the computer, and the information society. One frequently hears expressions such as "the problem is not the technology but the uses to which we put it" or "it is not the technology but the values which govern it." Such phrases reproduce the image of natural technology and artificial culture. But again, this assumes we are dealing with two separate things technology here and culture there. The phrases assume there is

6. As dted by Sidney Hook, Pragmatism and the Tragic Sense of Life (New York: Basic, 1974), 5. 250 AJ/Fall 1990

some archimedean point outside of technology by which technology can be critiqued, or controlled or subject to some order of purposes. But there is no such archimedean point. We can think of technology only within the massive assumptions of modern thought. To think values, to even use the word, is to be within such assumptions. Modern moral striving, as George Grant has put it, the striving to create free and equal human beings, leads inevitably back to a trust in the expansion of that very technology we are attempting to judge.^ The development of modem society required the criticism of all older standards of human excellence. The social has at its heart the overcoming of chance, and that overcoming leads us to judge every situation as solvable in terms of technology. In other words, we have available to us no

ethicsor values or morals or purposes with which to j udge technology because our noHpns of value, morality, and purpose havebeen forged in the same cultural[container with the technol- ""o^^Technology and value are merely two sides oT the same C5ih, which is why phrases like "journalism ethics" or "technological values" seem an oxymoron and why Alsadair Maclntyre characterizes the entire modern period as "after virtue."^ While this is generally true, it is particularly true in the United

I States, for we are the only society that has no history of its own ' from before the age of progress. We are a nation created out of modem technology and we define ourselves in its image. That, in a way, is our tragedy but one we cannot easily accept. Innis's emphasis on the oral tradition, the need for a bias of time (and a form of communication appropriate to it) to offset the bias of space, was an attempt to hold on to and rejuvenate the only tradition older than the mechanics available to us, namely the republican tradition. The oral and republican tradition proves

almost impossible to understand any longer for it is a tradition that predates the modem technological world. Our attempts to think outside of the technical complex take less the form of romantic nostalgia than of futurism. But the future always turns out to be a site where all "cultural lags" have disappeared and all notions of value and purpose have been absorbed into the monotechnical system of electronics. The oral tradition is not simply a group of people sitting around chatting one another up but a homunculus for an entire way of life that if institutionalized might provide some means of offsetting the bias of modem technology. The point is not to eliminate technology (no one wants that) but to contain or balance off its bias via an alternative principle and form of communication. The plea for time, for the oral tradition, for virtue is certainly a slim reed on which to hang much hope. But it is about all we have to contain the technology that is, in

7. George Grant, Technology and Empire (Toronto: House of Anansi, 1969), 31-34. 8. Alasdair Maclntyre, After Virtue (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981). 251 Carey - ^

hidden source of energy the life de Tocqueville's words, "the below the surfaces of princTpk'the ultimate current running our lives. BIBLIOGRAPHY OF WORKS BY JAMES W. CAREY Books, Articles, and Reviews, 1 960-1 990

Compiled with the help of Barbara Buckley

1960 "Advertising: An Institutional Approach." In The Role of Adver- tising, edited by Charles H, Sandage and Vernon Fryburger,

3-17. Homewood, 111.: Richard D. Irwin, 1960.

1961 Review of The Powerful Consumer, by George Katona. Journalism Quarterly 38 (Spring 1961): 243-44.

1962 Review of Studies in Public Communication, edited by Edward C. Uliassi. Journalism Quarterly 39 (Winter 1962): 104-5.

1964 "Some Personality Correlates of Persuasibility ." In Toward Scien-

tific Marketing, edited by Stephen A. Greyser, 30-43. Chicago: American Marketing Association, 1964. (Reprinted in Con- sumer Behavior and the Behavioral Sciences, edited by Stewart Henderson Britt, 462-63. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1966.)

"An Ethnic Backlash?" Commonweal 81 (16 October 1964): 91-93.

1966 "Variations in Negro/White Television Preferences." Journal of Broadcasting 10 (Summer 1966): 199-212.

With Rita James Simon. "The Phantom Racist." Trans-action 4

(November 1966): 5-1 1 . (Reprinted in Campus Power Struggle, edited by Howard S. Becker, 10-19. Chicago: Aldine, 1970.)

1967 "Harold Adams Innis and Marshall McLuhan." Antioch Review 27 (Spring 1967): 5-39. (Reprinted in many journals and anthologies, including McLuhan: Pro and Con, edited by Raymond Rosenthal. New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1968.) "Generations and American Society." In America Now, edited by 1968 John G. Kirk, 293-305. New York: Atheneum, 1968.

Review of The Committee, by Walter Goodman. In Commonweal 88 (17 May 1968): 275-76.

"The Communications Revolution and the Professional 1969 Communicator." Sociological Review Monograph, no. 13 (Janu- ary 1969): 23-38.

Review of Thirty Plays Hath November, by Walter Kerr. In Journal- ism Quarterly 46 (Winter 1%9): 844-45.

With John J. Quirk, "The Mythos of the Electronic Revolution," 1970 Parts 1, 2. American Scholar 39 (Spring, Summer 1970): 219^1, 395-424.

"Marshall McLuhan." World Book Encyclopedia. 1970, 1988.

Review of Dwight MacDonald on Movies, by Dwight MacDonald. In Journalism Quarterly 47 (Spring 1970): 181-82.

Review of The Movies as Medium, edited by Lewis Jacobs. Jou rnal- 1971 ism Quarterly 48 (Summer 1971): 373-74.

Review of Mass Media and the National Experience: Essays in Communications History, edited by Ronald T. Farrar and John D. Stevens. Journalism Quarterly 48 (Winter 1971): 774-75.

The Politics of the Electronic Revolution. Urbana: Institute of 1972 Communications Research, University of Illinois, 1972.

Review of On Culture and Communication, by Richard Hoggart, 1973 and Beyond Babel: New Directions in Communications, by Brenda Maddox. Commonweal 98 (16 March 1973): 42^3.

"Criticism of the Press. " In Education for Newspaper Journalists in the Seventies and Beyond, 257-79. Washington, D.C.: American Newspaper Publishers Association Foundation, 1973.

With John J. Quirk, "The History of the Future." Communication Technology and Social Policy, edited by George Gerbner, Larry P. Gross, and William H. Melody, 485-503. New York: John Wiley, 1973.

"TheProblemofJoumalismHistory."/oMrnfl/ismHfsfon/l (Spring 1974 1974): 3-5, 27. 254 AJ/Fall 1990

"Journalism and Criticism: The Case of an Undeveloped Profession/' Review of Politics 36 (April 1974): 227-49.

Review of The People's Films: A Political History of U.S. Government Motion Pictures, by Richard Dyer MacCann, and Nonfiction fi/m, by Richard MeranBarsam. /ournfl/ism QuarterlySl (Sum- mer 1974): 355-56.

With Albert L. Kreiling. "Popular Culture and Uses and Gratifi- cations: Notes Toward an Accommodation." In The Uses of Mass Communications, edited by Jay G. Blumler and Elihu Katz, 225-48. Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage, 1974.

1975 "Communication and Culture" (Review essay on The Interpreta- tion of Culture, by Clifford Geertz). Communication Research 2 (April 1975): 173-91.

"Canadian Communication Theory: Extensions and Interpreta- tions of Harold Innis." In Studies in Canadian Communications, edited by Gertrude Joch Robinson and Donald F. Theall, 27-59. Montreal: McGill University Programme in Commu- nications, 1975.

"A Cultural Approach to Communication." Communication 2 (December 1975): 1-22.

1976 "But Who Will Criticize the Critics?" Journalism Studies Review 1 (Summer 1976): 7-11.

1977 "Mass Communication Research and Cultural Studies: An American View." In Mass Communication and Society, edited by James Curran, Michael Gurevitch, and Janet Woollacott, 409-25. London: Edward Arnold, 1977; Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage, 1979.

Review of Existential Journalism, by John C. Merrill. Journalism Quarterly 54 (Autumn 1977): 627-29.

Review of Film: The Democratic Art, by Garth Jowett. Journal of Communication 27 (Summer 1977): 223-25.

1978 "Concentration and Diversity in the News Media: An American View." In The Mass Media in Germany and the United States,

edited by J. Herbert Altschull and Paula C. Pearce, 31-39. Bloomington: Institute for German Studies, Indiana Univer- sity, 1978.

Editor, with Paul Hirsch. Special issue on "Communication and Culture: Humanistic Models in Research." Communication Re- search 5 (July 1978). Carey Bibliography 255

"Social Theory and Communication Theory." Communication Research 5 (July 1978): 357-68.

"The Ambiguity of Policy Research." Journal ofCommunication 28 (Spring 1978): 114-19. (Reprinted in Mass Communication Re- view Yearbook, vol. 1, edited by G. Cleveland Wilhoit and Harold de Bock, 706-11. Beveriy Hills, Calif.: Sage, 1980.)

"A Plea for the University Tradition." Journalism Quarterly 55 (Winter 1978): 846-55. (Reprinted in Journalism Studies Review, July 1979, and Carleton Journalism Review, Summer 1980.)

"The Politics of Popular Culture: A Case Study." Journal of 1979 Communication Inquiry 4 (Winter 1979): 3-32.

"Foreword." In Social Theories of the Press, by Hanno Hardt, 9-14. Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage, 1979.

Review of Mass Communication and Society (Open University Course, DE 353). Media, Culture and Society 1 (April 1979): 313-18.

"Graduate Education in Mass Communication." Communication Education 28 (September 1979): 282-93.

Review of Big Story: How the American Press and Television Re- ported and Interpreted the Crisis of Tet 1968 in Vietnam and Washington, by Peter Braestrup. American Historical Review 84 (April 1979): 594-95.

"Comments on the Weaver-Gray Pap)er." In Mass Communica- 1980 tion Review Yearbook, vol. 1, edited by G. Cleveland Wilhoit and Harold de Bock, 152-55. Beveriy Hills, Calif.: Sage, 1980.

"Changing Communications Technology and the Nature of the Audience." Journal of Advertising 9 (Summer 1980): 3-9, 43.

With Clifford Christians, "The Logic of Qualitative Research." In Research Methods in Mass Communications, edited by Guido Stempel and Bruce Westley, 342-62. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1980.

"International Communications: The Impact of the Mass Me- dia." In International Communication in a Multi-Faceted World, Proceedings of Midwest Regional Conference for Senior

Fulbright Scholars, 7-16. Urbana, 111.: 1980. (Reprinted in Representative American Speeches, 1980-1981, edited by Owen Peterson, 95-110. New York: H.W. Wilson, 1981.) 256 AJ/Fall 1990

"McLuhan and Mumford : The Roots of Modem Media Analysis." Journal of Communication 30 (Spring 1980): 162-78.

Review of Teaching as a Conserving Activity, by Neil Postman. Educational Communication and Technology 28 (Winter 1980): 294-95.

"The Computer As Change Agent: An Essay." Journalism Quarterly 57 (Winter 1980): 678-80.

1981 "Culture, Geography, and Communications: The Work of Harold Innis in an American Context." In Culture, Communi- cation and Dependency, edited by William H. Melody, Liora Salter, and Paul Heyer, 73-91. Norwood, N.J.: Ablex, 1981.

1982 "Review Essay: The Discovery of Objectivity" (Review of Dis- covering the News, by Michael Schudson). American Journal of Sociology S7 (March 1982): 1182-88.

"Mass Media: The Critical View." In Communication Yearbook 5, edited by Michael Burgoon, 18-33. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction, 1982.

1983 "Technology and Ideology: The Case of the Telegraph." Pros- pects 8 (1983): 303-25.

"The Origins of the Radical Discourse on Cultural Studies in the United States." Journal of Communication 33 (Summer 1983): 311-13.

"High Speed Communication in an Unstable World." Chronicle of Higher Education, 27 July 1983, 48.

1984 "High Tech and High Ed." Illinois Issues, March 1984, 22-29.

1985 "The Paradox of the Book." Library Trends 33 (Spring 1985): 103-13.

"Tutting the World at Peril': A Conversation with James W. Carey," Journalism History 12 (Summer 1985): 38-53.

"Overcoming Resistance to Cultural Studies," In Mass Commu- nication Review Yearbook, vol. 5, edited by Michael Gurevitch and Mark R. Levy, 27-40. Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage, 1985.

1986 "The Dark Continent of American Journalism." In Reading the News, edited by Robert Karl Manoff and Michael Schudson, 146-96. New York: Pantheon, 1986. Carey Bibliography 257

"An Essay: Technology, Culture and Democracy: Lessons from the French." Journalism Quarterly 63 (Winter 1986): 855-58.

"Journalists Just Leave: The Ethics of an Anomalous Profes- sion." In Ethics and the Media, edited by Maile-Gene Sagen, 5-19. Iowa City: Iowa Humanities Board, 1986.

"Walter Benjamin, Marshall McLuhan, and the Emergence of 1987 Visual Society." Prospects 11 (1987): 29-38.

"High Technology and Higher Education." In Technological Change and the Transformation of America, edited by Steven E. Goldberg and Charles R. Strain, 183-98. Carbondale, 111.: Southern Illinois University Press, 1987.

"The Press and the Public Discourse." CenterMagazine 20 (March- April 1987): 4-32.

"Will the Center Hold?" Mass Communication Review Yearbook, vol. 6, edited by Michael Gurevitch and Mark R. Levy, 26-30. Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage, 1987.

"The Demagogue as Rabblesoother." Review of Reagan's Amer- ica: Innocents at Home, by Garry Wills. Illinois Issues, July 1987, 21-23. (Reprinted as "Reagan and the Mythology of the American Childhood." In These Times, 19 August-1 Septem- ber 1987, 18-19.

Review of Politics of Letters, by Richard Ohmann. Los Angeles Times, 28 June 1987, 8.

Editor, Media, Myths, and Narratives: Television and the Press. 1988 Beverly Hills: Sage, 1988.

"Editor's Introduction: Taking Culture Seriously." In Media, Myths, and Narratives: Television and the Press, 8-18. Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage, 1988.

Communication As Culture. Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1989. 1989

"Humanities are Central to Doctoral Studies." ASJMC Insights, February 1989, 2-5.

"Presidential Election 1988: The Degradation of Democratic Discourse." Illinois Issues, January 1989, 16-18.

"Harold Innis (1894-1952)." In International Encyclopedia of Com- munications, vol. 2, edited by Erik Barnouw, et. al., 320-21. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989. 258 AJ/Fall 1990

"Commentary: Communications and the Progressives." Critical Studies in Mass Communications 6 (September 1989): 764-82.

Review of ProfScam: Professors and the Demise ofHigher Education,

by Charles J. Sykes. In Journalism Educator AA: (Autumn 1989): 48-53.

1990 With Julian L. Simon. "The Churches' Responsibility to Teach the Value of Life: A Surprising Dialogue Between Catholic and Jew." In Population Matters: People, Resources, Environ- ment, and Immigration, by Julian L. Simon, 239-52. New Brun- swick, N.J.: Transaction Books, 1990.

"The Language of Technology: Talk, Text and Template As Metaphors for Communication." In Communication and the

Culture of Technology, edited by Martin J. Medhurst, Alberto Gonzalez, and Tarla Rai Peterson, 19-39. Pullman: Washing- ton State University Press, 1990.

"Technology As a Totem for QuMnre,"American Journalism 7 (Fall 1990): 242-51.

"Bibliography of Works by James W. Carey: Books, Articles, and Reviews, 1%0-1990." American Journalism 7 (Fall 1990): 252-58. Historiographical Essay TELLING THE STORY OF STORY Journalism History and Narrative Theory

Jack Lule

The Story of Evolution tells us how, quite as there was a time when the geological and biological processes of Earth went on wholly devoid of human Story, so the conditions that at present "comprehend" the human animal will eliminate the creatures whose Stories seek to "comprehend" them, hence things will again proceed sans Story. — Kenneth Burke, Attitudes Toward History

BURKE SUGGESTS THAT HUMAN time is characterized by human story, that an essential part of being human is telling the story of being human. For now, there is much to tell. Humans struggle to comprehend, through story, conditions ominous as dark clouds, conditions that humans have made. Blackly, Burke predicts that human story will fail to comprehend and once again the Earth, once again unnamed, will go on without story. Such are the issues taken up by contemporary narrative theory. Primarily an interdisciplinary enterprise drawing upon scholarship in philosophy, literature, anthropology, and linguistics—as well as history—narrative theory, at its most basic, is concerned with the form and content of the story. At its broadest, it investigates the extent to the story is an which Jack Lule is an as- essential aspect of being human. sistant professor For historians, the term "narrative" has been a contentious of journalism at Lehigh University site. Long used for the traditional, story-telling method favored with a specializa- by many historians, the narrative model was challenged in past tion in media criticism. He taught decades by the more scientific methods of social history. The Greviousiy at the turn though to narrative theory is more than a re-adoption of niversity of narrative form.^ Most often, narrative theory implies work on Tulsa. His research interests include interpretation the- 1 . See Lawrence Stone's interpretation of the return to narrative as "old history" ory and interna- in "The Revival of Narrative: Reflections on a New Old History," The Past and tional mass media. the Present (Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1981), 74-96; and see Mark 260 AJ/Fall 1990

"the particular characteristics, resources, conventions, or structures of historiographical narration."^ Journalism historians—even those most quantitatively inclined—thus have some stakes in this story. Although in many ways narrative theory has confirmed the nature and process of historical inquiry, it has also challenged some established ways of thinking about history. Narrative theory can inform understanding of the primary material that journalism historians work with, such as diaries, letters, news accounts, even economic data. And it can inform understanding of historians' essays and books—themselves narratives. The purpose of this essay is to review some important works in modem narrative theory.^ In particular, the essay will attempt to identify those asp)ects of narrative theory with implications for study and practice in journalism history. Traditionally, review essays proceed chronologically, tracing the development of thought in a discipline. Yet because only portionsof the development of narrative theory relate to journalism history, a chronology would have to abide matters of limited importance to the field.* Thus, rather than trace the development of thinking on narrative, this essay will isolate in that literature four themes of

Phillips's critique of Stone's position, "The Revival of Narrative: Thoughts on a Current Historiographical Debate," UniTxrsity of Toronto Quarterly 53 (Winter 1983-84): 149-65. 2. Phillips, "Revival of Narrative," 149. 3. The works reviewed here are: Michel de Certeau, The Writing of History, trans. Tom Conley (New York: Columbia Uruversity Press, 1978); Albert Cook, History/Writing (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988); Arthur C. Danto, Narration and Knowledge (New York: Colimibia University Press, 1985); Clifford Geertz "Blurred Genres: The Refiguration of Social Thought," in Local Knowledge: Further Essays in Interpretixx Anthropology (New York: Basic, 1983), 19-35; E)ominick LaCapra, History and Criticism (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Univer- sity Press, 1985); Donald E. PoUcinghome, Narrative Knowing and the Human Sciences (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1988); Paul Ricoeur, Time andNarrative, vols. 1-2, trans. Kathleen McLaughlin and David Pellauer (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984, 1985); Paiil Veyne, Writing History: Essay on Epistemology, trans. Mina Moore-Rinvolucri (Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1984); and Hayden White, Metahistory: The Historical Imagina- tion in Nineteenth-Century Europe (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973); Tropics of Discourse: Essays in Cultural Criticism (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978); and The Content of the Form: Narrative Discourse and Historical Representation (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987). This review includes authors and works whose primary focus is narrative and history. Thus, although surely worthy of attention, the wide-ranging work of authors such as Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, and others have not been included. 4. For a discussion on the development of narrative theory, see Wallace Martin, Recent Theories of Narrative (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986), and Paul Rabinow and William M. Sullivan, "The Interpretive Turn: Emergence of an Approach," in Interpretive Social Science: A Reader, ed. Rabinow and Sullivan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979), 1-21. A representative collection of accessible essays in narrative theory can be found in W.J.T. Mitchell, ed.. On Narrative (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981). Lule 261

particular relevance to journalism historians—the character of historical events, the relation of story and plot, the nature of explanation, and the bond between time and narrative. Those themes stand as important components of narrative theory but achieve even greater prominence in the context of journalism history.

THE HISTORICAL EVENT What do historians really fabricate when they "make history" ? What are they "working on" ? What do they produce? Interrupting their erudite perambulations around the rooms of the National Archives, for a moment they detach themselves from the monumental studies that will place them among their peers, and walking out into the street, they ask, "What in God's name is this business? What about the bizarre relations I am keeping with current society and, through the intermediary of my technical activities, with death" ?5 With these evocative words, Michel de Certeau announces a primary theme of The Writing ofHistory: History is a labor of and against death. Betraying its French origins, the book is a kind of lyrical, hermeneutic historiography; it attempts to understand how history has been understood .^Certeau is possessed by the past; he studies men and women of the past who studied the past. And yet he works amidst life, in the present. Historiogra- phy, for him, thus embraces loss and yet "denies loss by appro- priating to the present the privilege of recapitulating the past as a form of knowledge. A labor of death and a labor against death."^ Certeau proceeds in this labor by organizing previous theories of history into four sections—productions of place, productions of time, systems of Freudian psychology, and systems of meaning—and analyzing how they have come to grips with the past. A primary finding: Historians' conceptions of the past are intimately tied, he shows, to their conceptions ofevents. Certeau's comprehensive rethinking of the nature of events thus becomes basic to his study. Events, he says, are not discrete and precise happenings. They are projections of the historian; indeed, events "belong" as much to the historian as to history. While not engaged in an abstract argument over whether events occur in real time, Certeau nevertheless wants to emphasize how events have come to be

5. Certeau, Writing of History, 56. 6. Composed while Certeau divided his time between the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in France and the University of California, The Writing of History reflects methodological interests of U.S. historiography and the philosophical emphases of the French. 7. Certeau, Writing of History, 5. AJ/Fall 1990

selected and recorded, how they have been described and—especially—how they come to have meaning. Throughout "the writing of history," he finds that events really are a matter of method. "The event is that which must delimit, if there is to be intelligibility," he says. Allowing the historian to confine and define study, "the event is the means thanks to which disorder is turned into order. The event does not explain, but permits an intelligibility."® What is the relationship between method and event? Certeau attempts to show, with varying degrees of success, that historians' conception and use of events are a function of ideology. Religious history in the seventeenth century, the ethnography of Jean de Lery, Freud's Moses and Monotheism—all are shown to be a result of influences from culture, religion, politics, historical training, language. The order, intelligibility, and meaning that historians derive from events are seen as political definitions, ideological demarcations. Like Certeau, Dominick LaCapra is concerned with the relationship between ideology and the historian's conception of events and methods. In History and Criticism, his goal is to critique the dominant, documentary approach to history and to offer a narrative perspective, concentrating especially on reflex- ive and self-critical aspects of modem rhetorical and literary theory. LaCapra's larger aim is to encourage a critical historiography that takes up the cause of the oppressed.' He begins with a brief but insightful critique of the documentary model of research in which "the historical imagination is limited to plausibly filling gaps in the record, and 'throwing new light' on a phenomenon requires the discovery of hitherto unknown information." He argues that historians make "a fetish of archival research, attempting to discover some 'unjustly neglected' fact, figure, or phenomenon, and dreaming of a 'thesis' to which his or her proper name may be attached."^" In this archival fetish, LaCapra recognizes the historian's quest for scientific status. And he suggests that this quest proceeds at the expense of a narrative approach: Until recently, historians looking to the social sciences for guidance might denigrate the role of narrative in history and emphasize the need to subject "data" to analysis, hypothesis-formation, and model- building in the interest of elaborating valid explana-

8. Certeau, Writing of History, 96. 9. LaCapra, History and Criticism, 80. 10. LaCapra, History and Criticism, 18, 21. Similarly, Hayden White writes, "Moreover, as history has become increasingly professionalized and specialized, the ordinary historian, wrapped up in the search for the elusive document that will establish him as em authority in a narrowly defined field, has had little time to inform himself of the latest developments in the more remote fields of art and science." Tropics of Discourse, 28. Lule 263

tions of historical phenomena. If the "artistic" side of history entered the picture at all, it would be through the narrow gate of a rather perfunctory idea of "good style" in writing that was accessible to the proverbial "generally educated person."" LaCapra does not advocate discarding the documentary approach. He asks instead, "How may the necessary components of a documentary model without which historiography would be unrecognizable be conjoined with rhetorical features?"^^ His provisional answer is a new reading and interpretation of documents already studied. This new reading would be undertaken with a more sophisticated sense of documents as events. "Rarely," he says, "do historians see significant texts as important events in their own right that pose complex problems in interpretation and have intricate relations to other events and to various pertinent contexts." He charges that historians "ignore the textual dimensions of documents"—that is, "the manner in which documents 'process' or rework material in ways intimately bound up with larger sociocultural and political processes." Studying documents as events, he says, would subject them to comprehensive social and ideological scrutiny—as well as a kind of rhetorical scrutiny that questions just "how texts do what they do."^^ An expanded, narrative perspective on documents and events would bring about other changes in the writing of history, LaCapra states. The less political and increasingly methodological documentary approach spawned research "of little significance or even diversionary both for the oppressed in society and for those attempting to develop a critical historiography."^* Critical self-reflection, he says, should bring about a recommit- ment to the peoples and events whose stories have not been told. LaCapra also hopes that a narrative approach might loosen the constricted language of history "that avoids or represses significant aspects of an exchange with the past, including the role of 'internally dialogized' styles in history that involve self- questioning, humor, stylization, irony, parody, and self-parody." Always his emphasis is on dialogue and persuasion. "Within this context, a 'conversation' with the past involves the historian in argument and even polemic—both with others and within the self—over approaches to understanding that are bound up with institutional and political issues."^^ Ultimately, LaCapra, like other narrative theorists, is hoping for flexibility, room to maneuver. He seeks a dialogue with a dominant, ungenerous spirit, found sometimes in journalism

11. LaCapra, History and Criticism, 117. 12. LaCapra, History and Criticism, 35. 13. LaCapra, History and Criticism, 38. 14. LaCapra, History and Criticism, 80. 15. LaCapra, History and Criticism, 119, 36. AJ/Fall 1990

history, that "requires the ostracism or castigation of those historians who do not subscribe to the one true way of practicing history."^^

THE STORY AND THE PLOT Perhaps no one has done more to explore the implications of narrative for history than Hayden WWte. In numerous essays and books. White has put forth a complex and challenging approach to understanding history through narrative. He is perhaps best known for the development of what he has called tropological analysis, the study of history through rhetorical tropes—metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, and irony. The tropes are "strategies of historical interpretation."^'' They serve a structural function in the writing of history. In telling a story. White says, an historian is guided, at times unknowingly, by the form and function—^"the content of the form"—of particular tropes.^^ This poetics of historiography White has called "metahistory," and much of his work has introduced, elaborated upon, and displayed his scheme. In developing that scheme. White has made some fundamental assumptions of interest to journalism historians. A key assumption throughout much of his work: White rejects distinctions between history and fiction based on "the real." Breaking down barriers in place since Aristotle, White argues that similarities between history and fiction override distinctions based on history's grounding in "true facts." He demands a reconsid- eration of history in terms of fiction. What unites history and fiction? Narrative. White considers history as brethren to fiction because of likeness in narrative form and content. His oft-cited definition reveals his intention: The historical work, he says, is "a verbal structure in the form of a narrative prose discourse."^^ This assumption has large implications for the writing of history. Contrary to historians who posit that they discover or find a story through rigorous, methodical interrogation of events in the historical record. White argues that no set of historical events can in themselves constitute a story. Historians, like novelists, make stories. "The events are made into a story by the suppression or subordination of certain of them and the highlighting of others, by characterizations, motific repetition, vari-

16. LaCapra, History and Criticism, 137. Hayden White too notes "a sort of conditioned response among historians which has led to a resistance throughout the entire profession to almost any kind of critical self-analysis." Tropics of Discourse, 28.

17. White, Metahistory, xi. 18. A full discussion of White's theory of tropes is not possible here. A useful introduction can be found in White, Metahistory, 1-42, and White, Tropics of Dis- course, 1-25 and 197-217. 19. White, Metahistory, ix; also 2. Lule 265

ation of tone and point of view, alternative descriptive strategies, and the like—in short, all of the techniques that we would normally expect to find in the emplotment of a novel or play."^" A second and related assumption embedded in White's work offers useful but difficult distinctions between plot and story. For White, plot is a sequence of happenings, the chronicle of events that the historian finds and selects, using all the rigor and method espoused by the documentary school. Story, however, is structure and form; plots are shaped into stories of a certain kind . Using the same plot, one historian might construct a tragedy, another a comedy. The decision is not objective, methodological, but creative, literary. The historian "progressively identifies the kind of story he is telling—comedy, tragedy, romance, epic, or satire, as the case might be."^^ Else- where, White has written, "Narrative becomes a problem only when we wish to give to real events theform of story. It is because real events do not offer themselves as stories that their narrativ- ization is so difficult."^ Distinctions between story and plot thus are key for White. They offer a means for comparing history and fiction. They supply the foundation for his metahistory. And they allow him to find a balance between the unruly events of life and the deep structure he finds in history. But distinctions can also be hazy; the two are intimately related: "There can be no story without a plot by which to make of it a story of a particular kind."^ And the distinction. White admits, challenges traditional approaches: "The 'historical method'—as the classic historiographers of the nineteenth century understood the term—consisted of a willingness to go to the archives without any preconceptions whatsoever, to study the documents found there, and then to write a story about the events attested by the documents."^* White's thesis does affirm the necessity of archival research. The events—the plots—of historical records are not produced from the historians' imaginations but must be unearthed by and derived from research. But White provides an alternative perspective on the writing of history. The story is created and constructed by the historian; and in an important way the story prefigures the material. "What the historian must bring to his

20. White, Tropics of Discourse, 84. Paul Ricoevir also has written of the "kinship" between history and fiction that would extend even into the field of criticism in which "historiography and literary criticism are both called upon and are invited together to form a grand narratology." Time and Narrative 2:156-57. 21. White, Tropics of Discourse, 59. 22. Hayden White, "The Value of Narrativity in the Representation of Reality," in On Narrative, 4; also see Hayden White, "The Question of Narrative in Contemporary Historical Theory," History and Theory 23 (February 1984): 1-33. 23. White, Tropics of Discourse, 62. 24. White, Metahistory, 141. .

266 AJ/Fall 1990

consideration of the record," he says, "are general notions of the kinds of stories that might be found there."^ A less structural approach to narrative is offered by the French historian Paul Veyne. Like White, Veyne assigns particular significance to plot as a sequence of events. Unlike White, Veyne wants nothing to do with overarching tropical subtleties and distinctions. Indeed, in Writing History, Veyne suggests that the aim of history is only and merely the understanding of particular plots. And there is nothing mysterious about the process. Facts "have a natural organization that the historian finds ready-made," Veyne says, and the "effort of historical work consists precisely in discovering that organization."^^ Historians, Veyne says, must give themselves over to plot. Facts can be collected but "the fact is nothing without its plot." Explanations can be provided but "explanation is nothing but the way in which the account is arranged in a comprehensible plot." Simply, Veyne says, "the historian explains plots."^^ What method does the historian use to find these ready-made plots? Veyne wants to be provocative. "History has no method," he claims. "In order to understand the past, it is sufficient to view it with the same eyes we use to understand the world around us or the life of a foreign people." In fact, Veyne says, the method of history "has made no progress since Herodotus or Thucydides" and "the first concern of philosophers who profess to follow a historical methodology is, when they become historians, to return to the evidence of common sense."^* Veyne perhaps is disingenuous. Discovering a ready-made plot is no easy matter, he acknowledges; the historian must find organization—plot—in the messy matter of human lives. Plot is "a very human and not very 'scientific' mixture of material causes, aims, and chances—a slice of life, in short."^' Veyne offers no shortcuts, no hidden tropical structures, no methodological pretensions. He strives to rob strangeness from the historian's task, to remind historians they are privileged and burdened with work in a "real, concrete world, peopled with things, animals and men, in which men do and will, but do not do all they will."^° Ultimately, Veyne wants to provoke the historian into grappling with the rich plot that is life.

THE NATURE OF EXPLANATION A fundamental question in the philosophy of history has been whether explanations in history can be compared to those in the natural sciences. In 1945, Carl G. Hempel proposed that explana-

25. White, Tropics of Discourse, 60. 26. Veyne, Writing History, 31 27. Veyne, Writing History, 33, 87-88. 28. Veyne, Writing History, 105-7. 29. Veyne, Writing History, 32. 30. Veyne, Writing History, 105. Lule 267

tions—in history as well as the natural sciences—presuppose "covering laws" and that ultimately the hun\anities would find unity with science.^^ But only a decade or so after Hempel's influential article, the philosophy of science itself was transformed by two books, N.R. Hanson's Patterns of Discovery and Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions^^ With these books, science was portrayed in terms usually associated with the humanities, terms of understanding and interpretation. Historical explanation again was in flux. And in 1960, working in the same tradition as Hanson and Kuhn, the philosopher Arthur Danto published the article "Narrative Sentences," which eventually led to the book Analytical Philosophy of History, one of the early attempts to use narrative to explain explanation in history .^^ Danto, in Narration and Knowledge, has recently updated and reworked his thinking. Narrative still is essential. "Narration exemplifies one of the basic ways in which we represent the world," he says. "The language of beginnings and endings, of turning f)oints and crises and climaxes, is complicated with this mode of representation to so great a degree that our image of our own lives must be deeply narrational."^^ For Danto then, narrative and explanation are firmly en- twined; indeed, he says, narrative already is "a form of explanation." Danto's goal is to explore why. He finds explanation inherent in the nature of "narrative sentences." These are sentences that "make essential reference to events later in time than the events they are about;" that is, "sentences the truth of which entails that at least two time-separated events have happjened."^ For example, "Washington became first president of the United States," entails not only the advent of Washington but also the advent of at least another president. Another example: "In 1743, the author of the Declaration of Independence was bom," describes the birth of Jefferson in light of subsequent events. Verbs such as "began," "preceded," "provoked," and "gave rise to" ensure a narrative sentence. Danto is interested in these sentences because he feels explanations are built into the very language that historians use. Often these sentences offer explanations of change: "The description makes an implicit reference to a past state of the subject of

31. Carl G. Hempel, "The Function of General Laws in History," in Theories of History, ed. Patrick Gardiner (Glencoe, 111.: Free Press, 1959), 344-55. 32. N.R. Hanson, Patterns of Discovery (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1958); Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 2d ed. (Oiicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970). 33. Analytical Philosophy of History was revised and republished as Arthur C. Danto, Narration and Knowledge G^ew York: Columbia Uruversity Press, 1985). 34. Danto, Narration and Knowledge, xiii.

35. Danto, Narration and Knowledge, 201, xii, 293; for a full discussion of narrative sentences see 143-Sl. 268 AJ/Fall 1990

change."^^ For example, "The article is finished" implies an earlier state when the article was not finished. He draws a number of implications from these insights. First, he says it is a "misguided lament" for historians to complain they cannot know events as a witness might have. 'Tor the whole point of history is not to know about actions as witnesses might, but as historians do, in connection with later events and as parts of temporal wholes."^^ Second, he says that narrative sentences provide support for the argument that the definitive explanation of the past is not to be forthcoming—"because earlier events will continue to receive differing descriptions through the relations in which they stand to events later in time than themselves."^* The future is open and thus so is the past. Albert Cook also takes up the question of explanation in history. History/Writing focuses on individual historiographers from a variety of cultures, including Thucydides, Machiavelli, Burckhardt, and Michelet, as well as scriptural and philosophical historians. Cook's theme is stated laboriously in the introduction: "What the commanding historians of the past, remote and recent, have written constitutes a set of texts, of multiply coded verbal constructs that seem in certain ways to exceed the demands of the claim to validity by means initially of veracity to evidence and then to a sense behind all the evidence so concate- nated."^' What Cook wants to say is that major works of history make up a kind of literature. These works claim explanation and validity not only by their use of evidence but by their acceptance as part of that literature. As Kuhn showed so well, research is a process of negotiation, a subjective enterprise of interaction among researchers. From this perspective. Cook argues that explanation in history operates under two "constraints." The first constraint is the ever-present difficulty of inquiry. The historian must gather evidence and then use this evidence to explain actions of the past.*° For example, Thucydides must uncover and gather information from a variety of sources to set down an account of the Pe- lop>onnesian War. The second constraint is more subtle. The historian. Cook says, must write within the context of other histories as well as the genre and canon of history.*^ Thucydides,

36. Danto, Narration and Knowledge, 233. 37. Danto, Narration and Knowledge, 183. 38. Danto, Narration and Knowledge, 340. 39. Cook, History/Writing, 1. 40. Cook, History/Writing, 16.

41. Cook, HistoryI'Writing, 1, 16. Michel de Certeau echoes this thought. He sees the writing of history as "the product of a place." He asks: "What is a 'valued

work' in history? It is a work recognized as such by peers, a work that can be situated within an operative set, a work that represen ts some progress in respect to the current status of historical 'objects' and methods, and one that, bound to Lule 269

with some exasperation, must separate myth from reality in Herodotus and also deal with discrepancies among the accounts of himself, Herodotus, and Homer. Throughout his historiography. Cook shows how these constraints paradoxically enable the historian to construct explanations in history. Like Ricoeur, whose views are discussed below. Cook finds explanation always to be tied to temf)oral considerations. The historian works not only to present a temporal sequence of events but to be part of a temporal sequence of historians writing about these events.*^ Much of Clifford Geertz's work too has focused on the problems of explanation. In Local Knowledge, Geertz returns to themes set forth so eloquently in his important work. The Interpretation of Cultures, themes of particular significance for journalism historians; his goal is "an attempt somehow to understand how it is we understand understandings not our own."*^ The opening essay, "Blurred Genres," especially can aid those contemplating the role of narrative theory in journalism history. In this essay, Geertz explores the relationship between the humanities and social sciences. Indeed, as his title indicates, he questions the divisions between and within the two. He finds that "something is happening to the way we think about the way we think" and that, more specifically, the nature of explanation is undergoing change. "Many social scientists have turned away from a laws and instances ideal of explanation toward a cases and interpretation one," he writes, "looking less for the sort of thing that connects planets and pendulums and more for the sort that connects chrysanthemums and swords."** Freed from "dreams of social physics—covering laws, unified science, operationalism, and all that," the social scientists turn, hats in hands, to the humanities.*^ What the social scientists find, Geertz suggests, are the humanities turning, hats in hands, to one another. All this turning is of the greatest significance to Geertz. He finds most interesting not where the ferment will end but what it may mean. And what it may mean, he says, is a challenge to traditional social science and its obsession with theories, data, laws, and brute facts. He sees instead "the refiguration of social thought" and "a sea change not so much of what knowledge is but of what it is we want to know."*^ Finally, Geertz seems to be reconsidering Dilthey's age-old distinction between understanding and explanation. He strives the milieu in which it has been elaborated, in turn makes new research possible." Certeau, Writing of History, 64. 42. Cook, History/Writing, 204. 43. Geertz, "Blurred Genres," 5; also see Qifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic, 1973), 3-30. 44. Geertz, "Blurred Genres," 20, 19. 45. Geertz, "Blurred Genres," 23. 46. Geertz, "Blurred Genres," 34. 270 AJ/Fall 1990

toward a time when "explanation comes to be regarded as a

matter of connecting action to sense," when explanation is understanding.*''

TIME AND NARRATIVE Intimately connected to the study of history as narrative is an understanding of time. Time, after all, provides meaning and movement to history, narrative, and the experience of life itself. Donald E. Polkinghome, In Narrative Knowing and the Human Sciences, brings the perspective of a psychologist to the study of human existence and narrative. His primary concern is to offer narrative as a research alternative to social science designs. He shows that much research—clinical life histories, organizational case consultations, studies in corporate culture, psychoanalytic biographies—are founded upon narrative. In showing the practicality of narrative research, concentrating especially on history, literature, and psychology, Polkinghorne's larger aims are to locate narrative as an integral aspect of being human.*^ His study of history and narrative esp)ecially develops this theme. He provides a basic, if overly simple, discussion of the tides that have moved history in this century, including the influence of Dilthey's work in hermeneutics, the "covering law" debate, the challenge of French historiography, and finally the insights of narrative discourse, focusing specifically on the work of the philosopher Paul Ricoeur. Polkinghorne's contribution to the literature on narrative is to add support from psychology for Ricoeur's insights into narrative and the human experience of time. "Ricoeur has deepened the examination of narrative and, instead of simply considering

narrative as a special historical explanatory mode, has found it to be a life form that has functioned as part of human existence to configure experience into a unified process."*^ As Polkinghome demonstrates, Ricoeur's work is assuming great prominence in narrative theory. Working primarily in phenomenological hermeneutics, Ricoeur is concerned with the convergence of time, experience, and interpretation. In Time and Narrative, Ricoeur uses the varied forms of narrative—mythic, historical, and fictional—to explore this convergence. His main thesis is of great interest to historians: "Time becomes human time to the extent that it is organized after the manner of a narrative; narrative, in turn, is meaningful to the extent that it portrays the features of temporal experience."^" Those familiar with Ricoeur's previous works in interpreta-

47. Geertz, "Blurred Genres," 34. 48. Polkinghome, Narrative Knowing and the Human Sciences, 125-55. 49. Polkinghome, Narrative Knowing and the Human Sciences, 69. 50. Ricoeur, Time and Narrative 1 :3. Volume 1 is devoted to the temporal experience of historical narrative. Volume 2, while most concerned with fiction, still is of interest as it draws numerous comparisons and distinctions between fictional and historical narratives. Lule 271

tion theory will recognize his scholarly modus operandi. After introducing his subject, Ricoeur reviews hundreds of major and minor works on the topic. He finds some strength in each work but also locates the unanswered questions that his own work will try to comprehend. A Ricoeur book is a generous, if exhaust- ing, feat of scholarship. Time and Narrative begins with an exploration of plot. Al- though Ricoeur considers the work of numerous historians, including White, Veyne, and Cook, his primary thrust is much broader: Ricoeur sees in plot the reconfiguration of human time. He confronts Aristotle's distinction between mythos—usually thought of as the plot, the set of events in a story—and mimesis— the imitation or representation of an action. By the third chapter of volume 1, Ricoeur has reinterpreted Aristotle, joined mythos and mimesis, and distinguished three senses of mimesis: 1) the preunderstanding writers and readers have of the order of action; 2) the transformation—or emplotment—of events into a composition; 3) the person's experience as his or her preunderstanding meets his or her understanding of the composition.^^ Historians' conceptions of plot, Ricoeur notes, often center on only the second sense of mimesis. He wants to broaden and extend the notion of plot. Ricoeur expends the effort because eventually he finds in plot a key to life. Plot is one of the important ways humans give order and meaning to experience in time. "I see in the plots we invent," he says, "the privileged means by which we reconfigure our confused, unformed, and at the limit mute temporal experience."^^ Plots in historical narratives, it appears, have an exceedingly complex relationship with time because they are a part of the historical past, the historian's present, and ultimately the reader's future. To further explore how plots can do this, Ricoeur studies the relationship between time and events—the stuff of plots. Like Paul Veyne, Ricoeur believes the historical event must be not only what happens but what can be narrated; an event is an element of a plot. Yet through his complex notion of plot, Ricoeur recognizes events across all three senses of mimesis, "to all the levels and their various functions."^^ First, events in some ways exist before the plot; they are probable, prefigured in advance. Ricoeur accepts the notion, put

51. Ricoeur, Time and Narrative 1:45-51; also see 1:52-87. This third sense of mimesis is similar to notions of "the appropriation of the text world" ex- pounded in Ricoeur's theory of hermeneutic interpretation. See Paul Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory (Fort Worth: Texas Christian Uiuversity Press, 1976); also see Paul Ricoeur, "The Model of the Text: Meaningful Action Considered as a Text," in Rabinow and Sullivan, Interpretive Social Science, 73-101. 52. Ricoeur, Time and Narrative l:xi. 53. Ricoeur, Time and Narrative 1:217. Ricoeur limits his discussion here to plots in historical narratives. The various "metamorphoses" of the plot in fictional narratives are analyzed in Time and Narrative 2:7-28. 272 AJ/Fall 1990

forth most forcefully by Hayden White, that historians approach the past with a preunderstanding of an available repertoire of plots and events. Second, events are part of the composition; this is the traditional perspective on events—they provide a sequence of happenings in narrative. Third, events are understood by readers and spectators in a moment that unites all three levels; readers experience what Aristotle called metabole. "An event, once again, is not only what contributes to the unfolding of a plot but what gives it the dramatic form of a change in fortune," Ricoeur concludes.^ This almost obsessively complex definition of events was necessary to Ricoeur so that the concept could withstand the weight of his analysis. "The notion of event had to lose its usual qualities of brevity and suddenness," he says, "in order to measure up to the discordances and ruptures that punctuate the life of economic, social, and ideological structures of an individual society."^^ Through such sophisticated conceptions of plots and events, Ricoeur explores the experience of time through narrative—or more specifically, the relation between the time of narrative and the time of phenomenological experience. His larger motives are to recast and reinvigorate the place of narrative and in some ways restore the dignity and status of the "maker of plots."^^ Historians share in this restored status in Ricoeur's work. Like all writers, the historian performs the remarkable: The historian brings order to chaos, concordance to discordance, and gives meaning to that which had none. The giver of meaning, the maker of plots, Ricoeur says, can "make the intelligible spring from the accidental, the universal from the singular, the necessary or probable from the episodic."^^

THE STORY OF STORY The works reviewed here attest to the importance of narrative theory for work in history. Through specific themes, such as the historical event, the story and plot, the nature of explanation, and time and narrative, the historian can find a new perspective on matters often left assumed or unexamined. Work in narrative has particular implications for journalism

historians. Clearly, it provides an alternative approach to our subject, especially focusing our attention on the way in which narrative strategies and conventions shape interpretations of journalistic events. For example, why have certain events, such as the Zenger trial, attained such status in our literature? Narra-

54. Ricoeur, Time and Narrative 1:224-25. 55. Ricoeur, Time and Narrative 1 :230. 56. Even in the turbulent world of modem fiction, Ricoeur says, "the narrative function can still be metamorphosed, but not so as to die. For we have no idea

of what a cultiire would be where no one any longer knew what it meant to narrate things." Time and Narrative 2:28. 57. Ricoeur, Time and Narrative 1:41. Lule 273

tive theory suggests that events are not discrete happenings but constructions and projections of historians, and that events such as the Zenger trial are used by historians to construct larger stories, such as the development of U.S. press freedom. Further, narrative theory argues that such stories prefigure the material and are brought to the record by historians. The stories thus unavoidably structure and guide the selection and handling of material. Too, narrative theory suggests that those stories are often built upon the work of other journalism historians. For example, the developmental or Whig interpretation of journalism history can be seen as one story that long structured work in the field. Journalism historians can also benefit from narrative focus upon the form—as well as the content—of their own writing. In some way, this echoes the traditional question surrounding narrative in history: What is the appropriate form in which to do history? Narrative theory, however, recognizes convention, canon, form, and structure in all forms of historical writing. Perhaps within the ongoing discussion over research methods in journalism history, attention also can be paid to the methods by which this research attains written form. "New questions demand not only new methods, but new forms of expression," writes Mark Phillips. "It is possible that these will arise without an apparent programme, but innovation is most likely to occur when historians have a self-conscious concern with the relationship between their methods and their 'mode of writing.'"^* Another implication: Narrative theory can remind journalism historians of the breadth and depth of their subject. Humans make sense of the world through story, as work in narrative affirms, and an important part of making sense of the world each day has been the news. Although certainly the news cannot be looked to for dependable, veridical accounts of social life, the news tells stories that offer insights into writers, editors, institutions, cultures, and eras. Narrative theory can also demonstrate to journalism historians their peculiar relationship with time. Journalism's lust for the present, the new, has been displayed each day in the pages of the press. Long after, journalism historians come to those pages, that present, bringing with them another dimension of time. And this time has its own experience. From our present, we view their present; we label a report inaccurate; we see part of a larger body of work; we see an exemplar of an era; we see distinct patterns of coverage. We can do all this because we have time. The two experiences of time—the supercharged now of the news and the steady, studied present of the historian—provide part of the tension and power of work in journalism history.

58. Phillips, "Revival of Narrative," 162. 274 AJ/Fall 1990

And, even more broadly, narrative theory provides a sense of the essentiality of that work. More than any other, the historian is charged with chronicling human story. And much of the story still goes untold. The weak and defeated especially, who had not the power or place to leave a trace, need their story told if the story is to continue. More than any other, the historian is charged by narrative theory with asking questions long unasked, com- prehending matters long forgotten, telling stories as yet untold. According to Ricoeur, "We tell stories because in the last analysis human lives need and merit being narrated. This remark takes on its full force when we refer to the necessity to save the history of the defeated and the lost. The whole history of suffering cries out for vengeance and calls for narrative.'^^ As the human story evolves, as humans grapple with conditions of human making, they may find the ability to comprehend these conditions through story. Perhaps through narrative, through telling the story, historians can ensure that the Earth will not have to go on without story.

59. Ricoeur, Time and Narrative 1 :75. BOOK REVIEWS

CURRENT RESEARCH have not been the same cial control by Michael IN THE HISTORY since. Katz and others. Allied OF READING Allied with this theoreti- with the history of educa- John Nerone cal challenge to intellectual tion was the history of lit- history more po- eracy. University of Illinois was one litical. Intellectual histori- Historians of literacy be- ans had usually studied gan with the simple em- A COUPLE OF decades "refined" thought: the pirical question of the ex- ago, the sub-discipline of works of the great writers tent of literacy. By consult- intellectual history encoun- and thinkers. But this im- ing legal docimients and tered two massive ob- plied that "ordinary" petitions, they calculated stacles, two sets of ques- people—the "inarticulate," what percentage of the tions that threatened to as they came to be called population could sign undermine its legitimacy. in the sixties—^had no cul- their own names, and by One came from an empiri- ture, or worse, had culture correlating this informa- cal impulse: for a genera- only insofar as they read tion with class, gender, tion, intellectual historians and appreciated Whitman, and occupation, they con- had comfortably general- James, Dewey, and others. structed a rough sketch of ized about ideas (which Intellectual historians were the (changing) segment of supposedly had some exis- challenged to abandon the society that had uses for tence of their own, divorced great books and consult literacy. Inevitably, though, from whatever uses they the culture of the people, questions were raised were put to) and the con- the culture of the market- about the connections be- texts that impinged on place, and local and re- tween literacy and status, them—climates of opinion, gional ethnic and racial mobility, and power; re- national characters, and so cultures. search began to call into forth. This language had a Several new approaches question the assumption comfortable fuzziness appeared at this intersec- that the acquisition of liter- about it, but critics saw that tion of intellectual and so- acy had a necessary corre- it lacked rigor. cial history. One was the lation with individual mo- Beginning in the sixties history of education, con- bility, modernization, and but climaxing only in the ceived broadly as the his- political democracy. In eighties, then, historians tory of cultural transmis- some cases, it was argued traded in their old terms sion in the work of the late that the expansion of liter- for new ones that were Lawrence Cremin, under- acy was tied more closely situated more tightly in stood as a technique of so- to the expansion of state theory: ideology, hegemony, discourse, and the like, Books Reviewed in This Essay terms that are fuzzy not KNOWLEDGE IS POWER: THE DIFFUSION OF IN- because they abjure rigor FORMATION IN EARLY AMERICA, 1 700-1 865. By but because they are con- Richard D. Brown. Oxford University Press, 1989. 384 pp. $39.95, tested. Historians were Cloth. forced to grapple with the READING BECOMES A NECESSITY OF LIFE: MATE- grounding of ideas in con- RIAL AND CULTURAL LIFE IN RURAL NEW ENG- texts that were not them- LAND, 1780-1835. By William J. Gilmore. University of Ten- selves intellectual: social nessee Press, 1989. 568 pp. $49.95, Cloth. structure, productive ac- LITERACY AND POPULAR CULTURE: ENGLAND tivities, and, most frighten- 1750-1914. By David Vincent. Cambridge University Press, ingly, language. Things 1989. 376 pp. $49.50. Cloth. 276 AJ/Fall 1990

authority. Questions of the Anglo-American world and writing were prac- power—Whose power? at the time of the early- tised ."(xi) This is to say How does literacy em- nineteenth-century crea- that the meaning of liter- power?—have come to the tion of a particular com- acy is rooted in its uses fore in the study of the his- munications environment, and is not an autonomous tory of literacy, as in the one characterized by gen- effect of the technology of study of culture generally. eral literacy, an abundant reading and writing. He These issues assume supply of printed material, therefore chooses six areas quite different aspects at and the development of of activity to discuss: fam- the macro and micro levels. extensive (rather than in- ily, education, work, the On the macro level, the tensive) styles of reading. natural world, the imagi- crucial questions involve Economically, this coin- nation, and politics, and networks of production cided with the transporta- devotes a chapter to each. and distribution, national tion revolution, the expan- In each chapter, Vincent policies, and long-term sion of market transac- starts with a piece of con- trends like industrializa- tions, and the beginning of ventional wisdom and

tion; on the micro level, the the industrial revolution; then calls it into question. questions concern the ways politically, it coincided In the chapter on educa- in which discrete readers with the "democratic revo- tion, for instance, he be- and communities of read- lutions": in the U.S., the gins by challenging the ers use specific texts. rise of Jacksonian politics; notion that massive state-

In this essay I review and in England, Chartism. sponsored education was three recent books that This conjuncture of revolu- primarily responsible for study literacy in different tionary changes is com- the spread of literacy but complementary ways. pared explicitly or implic- among the working class. David Vincent's Literacy itly in all three books to He suggests instead that and Popular Culture: Eng- the late-twentieth-century "the foundation for the land, 1750-1914 explores development of electronic eventual victory [of liter- the century and a half in communications with its acy] was laid not in the which literacy became uni- accompanying second in- schoolroom but in the versal in England, with a dustrial revolution. Also working-class family." (54) special concern for its implied in each work is an Implied is a critique of two place in the lives of the attitude toward techno- relatively simple moral working class. Richard logical determinance in narratives about the Brown's Knowledge Is communications history. spread of literacy: one, Power: The Diffusion of In- Vincent's Literacy and that it empowered the formation in Early America, Popular Culture uses as its people and equipped them 1700-1865 takes a similarly empirical base literacy sta- for democracy; the other,

broad point of view, deal- tistics derived from signa- that it was a tool of social ing with an entire nation tures on marriage certifi- control. In Vincent's subse- for a century and a half. cates. From this ground- quent discussion of school- Finally, William Gilmore's ing, Vincent constructs a ing, literacy emerges as a Reading Becomes a Necessity chronology of the spread function of a long-stand- of Life: Material and Cultural of literacy; but this is just a ing contest over the con- Life in Rural New England, starting point, for the trol of education between 1780-1835 takes a more meaning of this chronol- working

The same approach is ap- clubs and parties. Eventu- sion, however, he grapples parent in other areas of ac- ally, the working-class briefly with Hoggart, ar- tivities. In the workplace, press, lacking organiza- guing that he has pre- workers and managers, or- tional support, yielded to sented the development of ganized labor and capital, the forces of commerciali- the working-class culture competed for control, with zation, until, with the whose demise Hoggart each invoking literate and Harmsworth (Northcliffe) anatomized and attributed oral practices as the situ- papers, "news [became] to the forces of commer- ation warranted. In his simply a means of keeping cialization. analysis here, Vincent the advertisements apart." If Vincent calls to mind challenges two simple ar- (253) the first generation of guments: one, that literacy Ultimately, underlying British cultural studies, was a precondition for in- all of the contradictions Gilmore is reminiscent of dustrialization; the other, and ironies that Vincent that branch of the French that industrialization oc- calls attention to is an Annales tradition that glo- curred at the expense of overarching movement ried in intensive local popular literacy. Again, from heterogeneity to in- studies. Reading Gilmore's the technology of the writ- coherence. The long view book is like reading ten word was coded by is one of the atomization Emmanuel LeRoy Ladurie's different groups in differ- of working-class families Montaillou in the intensity ent ways for different pur- and communities into in- of its focus, as well as in poses; again, the emphasis dividuals in the workplace, the way the author teases is on the uses of literacy. the marketplace, and poli- meaning out of material Vincent's comments in tics; the long trend is an life. Indeed, Gilmore bor- each area of activity are increasing separation be- rows some of the tech- rich in detail and interpre- tween all of these areas of niques and vocabulary of tation. Occasionally, the activity. This history was the Annalistes, especially narrative takes unexpected not determined by "liter- the concept of mentalite. turns. In the discussion of acy" or by "commerciali- He also develops some family, Vincent examines zation," neither of which concepts of his own, the the importance of the has autonomous existence, most remarkable being penny post in maintaining but by concrete interests "habitat." Gilmore charac- ties across distances, not- working through the state, terizes habitat as a ing that cheap postage was the churches, businesses, "middle-level" concept of much greater benefit to and the schools. that integrates social, eco- the middle than the work- Literacy and Popular Cul- nomic, and cultural fac- ing class, but also had the ture should be read as a tors. He defines it specifi- unintentional effect of pro- complement to three of the cally as a "living situation," ducing the Valentine's key works in the tradition leaving in this definition Day card, the Christmas of British cultural studies: "a historically accurate card, and the postcard, E. P. Thompson's The Mak- degree of ambiguity." which became popular ing of the English Working (137-38) More specifically, among working-class Class (Gollancz , 1963), he identifies five distinct families. His discussion of Raymond Williams's The habitats in the rural New politics includes rich com- Long Revolution (Chatto England region he studies, mentary on the press, in and Windus, 1961), and based on physical environ- which he notes that, in Richard Hoggart's The ment, location within the Chartism, the press flour- Uses of Literacy (Chatto and transportation network, ished while organization Windus, 1957). (3f these predominant occupation, lagged, partly due to un- books, Vincent seems wealth, market penetra- equal state intervention: covertly engaged with tion, literacy, and mentalite. the government tolerated Williams and Thompson, The five habitats he names printed dissent, but vigor- whom he cites but does "fortunate village," "fortu- ously opposed "seditious" not discuss; in his conclu- nate farmstead," "self-suf- —

278 AJ/Fall 1990

ficient hamlet," "self-suffi- Yet this analysis leaves a does invoke familiar cient farmstead," and few questions unasked. events: the religious reviv- "hard- scrabble." Gilmore One that occurred to me als of the early nineteenth contends that the experi- involved consciousness century, the contests be- ence of reading was strong- and experience. One won- tween Federalists and ly inflected by habitat. ders, for instance, whether Jeffersonians, and the War Habitat was not the only people conceived of them- of 1812 are all cited. And, factor affecting literacy. In- selves as living in a "self- though he does not base deed, throughout the sufficient hamlet?" Did his analysis on a narrative, book, Gilmore refuses to they develop "habitat con- and rather seems to em- reduce his analysis to a sciousness"? In general, it phasize the timeless and single level; continually, is not clear from Gilmore's the generalizable, he does he gives lists of factors account which factors posit a fundamental rather than arguing for the were experienced by resi- change occurring within salience of one particular dents of the Upper Valley this period. This change is factor. Thus, in addition to as significant, nor is it one from scarcity to abim- habitat, he notes the im- clear how consciousness dance in print culture. By portance of occupation, in- fits into Gilmore's sche- the end of the period un- come, gender, and stage of mata. der study, people in spe- life—a too frequently ig- One factor that seems to cific habitats were supple- nored consideration. At have been salient at the menting their (intensive) every point he is careful to level of consciousness is reading of the old steady- integrate the social and the artisanal status. This factor sellers with newer material cultural. cut across lines of habitat, that they read extensively At key moments, Gilmore and Gilmore notes arti- —travel books, novels, captures with exceptional sanal families as anomalies and the like. (Here it is un- clarity a past in its con- in his discussions of the fortunate that probate rec- creteness. His description reading habits of different ords—Gilmore's primary of the intensive reading of habitats. Might not class source for library informa- "hard scrabble" families is in the sense of a shared tion—contained so little one such moment, as is his position in the productive information about news- reconstruction of seasonal process and not in the paper readership.) cycles in rural cultural life. sense of income level (as Oddly, the mood of the

His explanations of specific Gilmore uses it in table 7- Upper Valley in this new mentalites—the importance 1, page 246)—^have been as era of abundance was not of the notion of "mending" salient a factor as habitat? upbeat. Instead, Gilmore's to New Englanders, for in- Much of Gilmore's analy- study ends on a sad note, stance, and his discussion sis is static. While he is at- with local residents ex- of the emerging "spirit of tentive to change in gen- pressing a sense of disap- fact"—also stand out. At eral, and while his work pointment at the failure of other points he presents does have an overarching their region to blossom information with a thor- narrative, in the sections into the new world. oughness that could only where he discusses factors Richard D. Brown's be achieved after years of like occupation and habi- Knowledge Is Power ends on concentration on a specific tat his categories seem to a more optimistic note. area. His maps and charts stand still in time. This is Brown's title immediately of the changing social ge- perhaps a wise choice, calls to mind two thinkers: ography of the region are since adding the element Francis Bacon, whose in- models for future studies. of change over time would fluence he acknowledges, In the end, Gilmore gives complicate an already and Michel Foucault. It us a complex, nuanced ac- complex discussion; but quickly becomes clear to count of the emergence of some readers will find the reader that Brown is the world's first truly liter- themselves yearning for a exploring the way indi- ate rural society. chain of events. Gilmore viduals acquired knowl- — —

Book Reviews 279

edge as a way of acquiring and hierarchy, a world in lonial culture had. The dis- power—Bacon's notion which knowledge is read- appearance of one kind of rather than the way power ily available and, one sup- hierarchy signalled also and knowledge are con- poses, power as well. In the appearance of another, structed together in dis- the world of abundant one that might not appear courses—Foucault's. print, social homogeneity in consumers' accounts Brown seems to view has been shattered, along like diaries—but might knowledge as a given, and with the habits of consen- have to be inferred from power as one of its proper- sus and deference, and a the supply-side—networks ties. But his story is not so public sphere has emerged of production and distri- simple, as we shall see. to displace the old order of bution, genres of litera- Brown's method is to privileged personal politi- ture, recurring motifs, the read diaries and decipher cal communication. professionalization of from them local networks The world of print did knowledge. Brown's excel- of communication. The not benefit everyone in the lent account of Bacon's diaries he chooses are of- same way, however. In- spiritual grandchildren ten familiar and always deed, in Brown's most awaits a counterpart. rich in detail—those of compelling chapter, he These three books, and Samuel Sewall in colonial discusses the dimension of the trend in intellectual

Boston, William Byrd II in gender and the persistence history, social history, and colonial Virginia, John of the notion of a woman's the history of communica- Adams during the Revolu- sphere. He notes that this tions that they represent, tion, Fanny Kemble in the idea of a realm of special should find a wide reader- antebellum South. He power for women was a ship among scholars of

finds in every instance that two-edged sword: it both journalism. They take aim sources of information enhanced their status in at a target that journalism were dependent on posi- home and church and historians too often ignore tion in society in terms of eliminated them from poli- —the public or the market status, occupation, and tics and the marketplace. or the audience for the gender. His discussions of In the world of print, it printed word. In Gilmore's specific situations will also steered women away from careful conclusions and be familiar to specialists: worldly matter and into a Vincent's unexpected con- his New England re- continent of sentiment and tradictions and Brown's sembles David Hall's, his piety. In this case, print thoughtful portraits are

Virginia Rhys Isaacs' s, and disempowered too: the lessons of significance for his antebellum South reader of sentimental fic- historians of the press. Elizabeth Fox-Genovese's. tion did not belong in the Ultimately, all three This material is supple- world of government. books call into question mented with a couple of The experience of women simple versions of the past. chapters on information alerts us to the continued Most obviously, they reject diffusion—one on port cit- operation of power in the a notion of linear progress, ies, one on "contagious world of abundant print. in which ignorance is diffusion" with crisis And, while Brown is not gradually dispelled over news—that draw on wider unaware of this problem, time by information tech- sources. he devotes rather little at- nologies. All of the social

Throughout, Brown finds tention to it. What emerged worlds described in these the expansion of print was not just a flood of books are real worlds, not communication creating a printed material, but a just the childhood stages constantly enlarging area popular culture in print, of modernity. Similarly, all of choice. At the end of his complete with sets of aes- three books call into ques- study—1865—he finds a thetic, moral, and social tion simple notions of society where abundance values. This culture em- technological determinism. and choice have displaced powered some and disem- The printed word was not older systems of privilege powered others, just as co- a single entity, but assumed —

280 AJ/Fall 1990

different aspects when THECAROUNGIANSAND ord." She demonstrates employed in different THE WRITTEN WORD. convincingly how central different people. ways by By Rosamund McKitterick. writing and literacy were While all these books are to many aspects of Caro- • Cambridge University Press attentive to the specific lingian culture. •1989,296 pp. characteristics of print cul- The evidence available to •$54.50, Cloth; $17.95, Paper ture in the contexts de- her would not satisfy a picted, all are also careful historian of popular jour- not to attribute autono- THE GAP SEPARATING nalism. Nor, to be honest, mous causality to print. nineteenth-century Amer- is she entirely persuasive Finally, all three books ica, with its widespread when she maintains that give us reason to doubt the literacy and populist press, literacy was not limited to image of the age of reading from Carolingian society in an "elite" during these found in books like Neil the eighth and ninth cen- centuries. By her very own Postman's Amusing Our- turies, is a wide one. This definition, the non-elite selves to Death. While liter- is as true of the methodol- consisted of wealthy, pow- acy spread in the nine- ogy of scholars who study erful "nobles." Yet Caro- teenth century, it did not these respective periods as lingian scholars must deal produce a golden age of it is of the contents of their with probabilities rather independent rational read- written documents. Yet as than likelihoods, and ers who attended publicly Rosamund McKitterick within these limitations it to long and complex argu- makes clear in The Caro- is difficult to conceive of ments. The literate public lingians and the Written anyone doing a better job of the nineteenth century Word, a meticulously of reconstruction than was segmented along lines crafted work of scholar- McKitterick. She takes the of class, occupation, gen- ship, the ties binding the available evidence—char- der, race, and habitat; they two cultures are not insig- ters, laws, monastic rec- read for self-interest as nificant. ords, poetry, manuscripts, well as public interest, and Literacy is a prominent administrative documents their reading material was feature of both, a given for —and shows how they more likely a chapbook or nineteenth-century Amer- add up to a literacy perva- a romance than a speech of ica, a problematic for the sive on many social levels. Daniel Webster. Some remote Carolingian world. Quantitatively such evi- especially newspaper edi- Indirectly McKitterick dence is thin. Structurally tors—fantasized in print pulls the two together. She it is convincing because of about a public of Enlight- demonstrates how the its breadth and variety. enment men, and occa- Carolingians linked the The fascination of this sionally historians are previous Latin-based Ro- book for a historian of tempted to posit such a man world with the later modern journalism will public. The temptation medieval period, when likely rest as much on its should be resisted; the fan- Western European culture incidental pleasures as on tasy should instead be in- seemed to revive as if from the validity of McKitterick's terrogated for the interests a deep sleep. Henri Pirenne conclusions. She casts a it concealed. and other eminent histori- spotlight on many aspects ans have argued for a de- of Carolingian society: the cline of the written word economics of the book during these centuries. trade, readership, the McKitterick, a self-pro- ways in which government claimed maximalist, uses made use of literacy in a the limited evidence avail- world vastly less complex able to trace an evolution- than our own, the interac- ary pattern in the eighth tion between religion and and ninth centuries, from secular life in generating "memory to written rec- texts. There were no Book Reviews 281

Pulitzers or Northcliffes lights include a summary ing away from black me- visible in the eighth and of the rise and fall of the dia, according to the ob- ninth centuries. But ob- National Leader, a national servations of whites; and scure monks in communi- weekly launched in 1982, he concludes with the ties like St. Gall, near Lake the same year as USA To- quote, "Without the black Constance, and scribes and day. One of the better biog- press, the black man notaries in urban centers raphies is that of Susan L. would not know who he like Zurich are closer to our Taylor. She visited Essence is," a regretable comment, own time than we might on magazine in 1971 trying to unredeemed by the fact the face of it be prepared sell her cosmetics line, and that it was made by a to concede. was hired as a part-time black. The passage on beauty writer. Within a whether the press should

. . . Joel H. Weiner decade she had become be called "black, Negro, or City College of New York editor-in-chief of a finan- colored" was outdated in cially successful, socially the first edition. conscious publication Mercifully the chapter aimed at black women. ends and Wolseley gains quick sketches surer footing in his survey THE BLACK PRESS, U.S.A. The make this book a good source for of history. A glaring omis- By Roland E. Wolseley. those with limited knowl- sion is the failure to incor- • Iowa State University Press edge of the black press, and porate the findings of •1989, 416 2d ed. pp., for those who want to learn Henry Lewis Suggs's im- •$39.95, Cloth; Paper $19.95, more about important in- portant work. The Black dividuals and publications. Press in the South, 1865- ROLAND WOLSELEY has But there are major prob- 1979. Wolseley's sweeping produced fifteen chapters lems with Wolseley' s vol- approach touches on ma- of important information ume. jor papers, but an under- on the black press and its The first problem is the standing of the press editors in the second edi- truly unfortunate tone of would be enhanced by tion of The Black Press, the front matter and first combining comments on U.S.A. Unfortunately the chapter. In the foreword, the regional press and lo- book is sixteen chapters. Wolseley's former student, cal papers. Suggs's research After a very rough start, Robert E. Johnson, now provides such information. in which he agonizes over executive editor of Jet Another shortcoming is the question of a white man magazine, takes the blame the author's segregating of writing about the black for the lack of a black au- female journalists. A sec- press, Wolseley recovers thor writing the compre- tion on the early years of with a concise look at the hensive work on the black the press concludes with a history of the press, the press. (The statement is passage on female journal- press today, short biogra- reprinted from the first ists of the period. A chap- phies of important journal- edition.) In the preface ter on modem journalists ists and journalism educa- Wolseley brings up con- provides thirty-eight pages tors, and comments on the cerns about his perspective of brief biographies fol- quality and futvire of the and attempts, unsuccess- lowed by eleven pages on press. fully, to counter critics. 'Today's Female Journal- The new edition follows Things further fall apart ists." Even a discussion of the format of its 1971 pre- in chapter 1, which con- available books on journal- decessor with most chapter tains a number of chauvin- ists omits publications on names unchanged. Almost istic or outdated sections. women, notably Alfreda 100 additional pages pro- Wolseley vaguely suggests Duster's fine work on her vide updated information that the existence of the mother, Ida B. Wells- and more illustrations. The 167-year-old black press Bamett. quality of the illustrations must be established; he Finally the exploration of is greatly improved. High- claims that blacks are turn- the press's current and fu- 282 AJ /Fall 1990

ture state seems mired in correspondent have not re- undertakes throughout the past concerns about mili- ceived the kind of thor- book to define and deline- tancy and integration, as ough investigation and as- ate Crane's "typological opposed to addressing re- sessment that would prop- imagination," that is. cent factors such as the erly place the man and his Crane's tendency to cap- availability of desktop work within the context of ture and depict society's publishing, and the growth journalism history. Pub- broad types rather than in community journalism, lished research on Crane's particular individuals. In as well as potential links journalism has primarily his introduction he states: with other minorities, par- come from literary critics "Crane's formative years ticularly the Latino press. and scholars who usually as a reporter could only Only a few sentences dis- consider Crane's journal- have reinforced whatever cuss these matters. ism as a small part of an native disposition he had The underlying, discom- overall study of his writ- for nosing out all manner forting aspect of this book ing. Such is the case with of typicalities—in the pag- is that it is like a white ap- The Color of the Sky. eant of American life." proaching a black at a Although this book by And that is one way he cocktail party. Conversa- David Halliburton of Stan- uses the journalism: to tionally the white inquires ford's Department of Eng- demonstrate Crane's use about the black's position lish promises to look at of types to interpret and background. On the Crane's complete writings, American society. surface all is casual and including the "newswrit- On the other hand, well-meaning, but the di- ing," only a small amount Halliburton, like other lit- rectness of questions re- of Crane's journalism is erary historians and critics veals that the white is re- given more than a mention. before him, accepts as a ally asking: Who are you? Among the pieces dis- given that Crane was a Do you deserve to be here cussed are some of Crane's "reporter," a claim that at with us? Are you worth better known articles: 'The least needs some qualifica- considering? Broken-Down Van" and tion if not reassessment. Wolseley seeks to answer 'The 'Tenderloin' As It Many of Halliburton's similar questions about the Really Is," both of which comments and observa- black press. At worst the Halliburton calls "studies tions indicate that Crane's effort fumbles. At best he in local color," and "An journalism often had a provides a concise volume Experiment in Misery," quality that separated it about an important form "An Experiment in Lux- from much of mainstream of American journalism. ury," "Stephen Crane's journalism. Those who Own Story," "Men in the would argue that Crane's

. . . Karen F. Brown Storm," and several of the journalism should be University of South Florida Cuban dispatches. But treated as literary journal- Halliburton's concerns are ism, as it has been defined not with the quality or over the past decade, will kind of journalism Crane find strands of support THE COLOR OF THE SKY: practiced; his contentions here. Halliburton perceives A STUDY OF STEPHEN and conclusion relate to in Crane's journalism pat- CRANE Crane the writer. Crane terns of meaning that re- the literary giant. veal a subjective cultural By David Halliburton. When Halliburton does interpretation central to lit- • Cambridge University Press consider Crane's journal- erary journalism. •1989,336 pp. ism, he uses the articles Halliburton's reference • $37.50, Paper that nicely fit the patterns to "a melange of streetwise that he identifies in descriptiveness, dramatic STEPHEN CRANE'S jour- Crane's writing, whether miniatures, and mood-in- nalism and his experience fiction or nonfiction. For ducing changes of pace" in as a reporter and foreign example, Halliburton Crane's newspaper articles. Book Reviews 283

his contention that Crane's drawer, he saw a sitcom a complete history from writing depicts the "human character wearing a simi- these shards; on the other condition," his acknowl- lar tie-dye. Nor was that hand, they excavate what edgment that several of the the only evidence of a fas- may be a rather typical journalistic sketches "lay cination with the expres- passage from joy and de- stronger claim to narrative sive style of twenty years light in the energy and interest" while showing ago. But Goldstein took se- exuberance of the sixties "Crane's instinct for story- riously the lesson of the sensibility, to doubt and telling" all suggest a liter- current vogue of recuper- disgust over its commer- ary journalistic connection. ating hippie culture, in- cialization and commodifi- But these connections are cluding couture, into a cation. It ends finally, if not explored. brand new mythology. If predictably, in cynicism, The Color of the Sky is television characters now when Goldstein goes to must reading for anyone wear tie-dyes, why not re- the Algonquin Hotel to interested in Crane the cycle some of his own ar- rap with the Fish about writer. Those interested in ticles and columns? revolution and life at the the cultural history of the In 1%6 Goldstein had barricades. Country Joe late nineteenth centiory will taken his masters degree apparently snickers, before also find much of merit in in journalism straight to going off to brush his Halliburton's discussion. the rock 'n' roll beat at the teeth, 'There isn't going to But those looking for an Village Voice, where he is be any revolution. Let's be interpretation of Crane's now a senior editor. His realistic." journalism would be better book, the fifth in Unwin Goldstein characterizes off looking to previous Hyman's Media and Popu- the subtext of these dis- studies (by R.W. Stallman, lar Culture series, collects patches as "the struggle Bernard Weinstein, and (after only minor editing) for subjectivity"; he sees Alan Trachtenberg, for ex- over two dozen of his them as examples of his ample) until a more thor- pieces, primarily from the own experiments with the ough and definitive study Village Voice. The first set forms and premises of is published. features music, looking at New Journalism, or at

Mick Jagger, Tiny Tim, least one version of it. He

. . . Thomas B. Connery Ravi Shankar, and others suggests in the introduc- University of St. Thomas who lived or tried to live tion that the point of the in the music world. Some experiment was to allow of the most effective pieces for direct communication here center on the lesser of reader and writer, with REPOFTTING THE knowns, the followers and full interplay of subjectivi- COUNTERCULTURE. amateurs. The opening se- ties; he claims to lack Tom lection, for example, pro- Wolfe's ability to maintain By Richard Goldstein. files a fourteen-year-old a tone of detached amuse- • Unwin Hyman would-be Brian Jones, ment. These pieces may •1989,173 pp. proud of his $8.95 hound's- not be personal enough, •$34.95, Cloth; $14.95, Paper tooth hip-hugging bell bot- however. They substitute toms, which make him hip irony for intense prob- IN HIS INTRODUCTION look "hung." Two other ing of pain or anger, his to this collection of vi- sections (labelled "The own or others'. His sugges- gnettes about music and Mystique" and "The Mad- tion that the Voice engaged cultural politics circa ness," respectively) deal in little editing twenty 1966-70, Richard Goldstein with various sixties cul- years ago seems insuffi- begins with a comment on tural phenomena and cient defense of his accep- the afterlife of sixties' arti- hauntingly brief eruptions tance of sass and surface facts. On the same day he of political passion and cleverness, punctuated by had stuffed an old tie-

where Goldstein stood A LEGISLATIVE HISTORY lack the patience or com- while researching those ar- OFTHE COMMUNICATIONS petence for library re- ticles the about mutual ex- ACT OF 1934. search. The essays are well ploitation and cooperation written and clear, Edited by Max Paglin. though of pop personalities and the authors, all trained in • Oxford University Press reporters. One column the law, define 'legislative •1990,981pp. alxjut Toronto hippies history" narrowly. That is, • mocks the broadcast re- $95, Clotti they consider court prece- porter who ordered a local dent and public debate hippie to undress and TO CELEBRATE THE fifti- and not the private man- dress again for benefit of eth anniversary of the uevering that made the act cameramen. But this piece Communications Act, the ineffectual. Put differently, fails to mention where the Golden Jubilee Commis- only the law library was author was; the "I" is miss- sion on Telecommunica- visited. Recent work by ing. And while no one can tions and the Federal historians, including stud- fault Goldstein for his poli- Communications Bar As- ies by Philip Rosen and tics, the issue may be sociation sponsored this Robert W. McChesney, is whether he uses the Vase- collection of essay and not consulted. line he brought to the 1968 original documents on the Nevertheless, A Legisla- Democratic Convention 1934 statute. tive History is well worth not only to protect himself The work includes essays owning or having nearby from tear gas but also from by Glen O. Robinson, a in the college or depart- his own unexamined as- former FCC Comissioner mental library. sumptions and status. Ad- and professor of law at the mitting that his psyche de- University of Virginia, on . . . James L. Baughman mands distance and the the origins of radio regula- University of Wisconsin safety of a press card is tion; Kenneth A. Cox, different from examining another former commis- that mindset. sioner, and William J. Furthermore, it is not Byrnes, on the act's com- JOURNALISM: STATE clear how (or why) these mon-carrier provisions; J. OF stories might resonate for Roger Wollenberg on the THE ART. readers who grew up ei- statute's public interest By Jim Willis. ther before or after the six- clause; and Ronald A. • Greenwood ties. On the other hand, Cass, professor of law at •1989,224 pp. the book successfully Boston University, on the •$45, Cloth; $14.95, Paper evokes the era for readers Commission's original au- of Goldstein's generation. thority. These analyses are And the introduction followed by reproductions PROFESSOR WILLIS, co- raises a number of proof the Roper Report, which ordinator of the news-edi- vocative and significant is- recommended the law. torial program at Ball State sues about the theory and Senate and House commit- University, tells us in a practice of New Journal- tee hearings and reports, preface that he has written ism and about continuing and floor debates on the a book that introduces struggles to resist com- legislation. journalism students and modification, depersonal- Anyone who has had to journalists to research in ization, and homogeniza- track down the congres- the field done in the 1980s. tion. sional deliberations of And, he says, it also intro- 1934 will find A Legislative duces journalistic re-

. . . Linda Steiner History a very welcome searchers and practitioners Rutgers University reference. It should prove to each other. The first ob- especially valuable to jective comes off well, but

those students who wish it is less certain that num-

to study the legislation but ber two quite makes it, or Book Reviews 285

ever will, for that matter. Plain: The Context of Jour- way, the notion that the Meanwhile, his book is nalistic Research," restat- gap exists. both usefiil and sobering. ing the issues dividing The prologue and epi- What he has done is re- journalism research and logue are a sobering open- ally a simple proposition, educators on one side and ing and closing for the one of those Why didn't I the journalism profession book, reminding us of the think of that? book ideas. on the other. The docu- unsettled debate about It organizes some two mented fact that not many academic research in a hundred research studies journalists read scholarly professional discipline. If published during the last publications should come you want to avoid being decade, chiefly from the as no surprise. A research depressed, you may want pages of Journalism Quar- journal is a research jour- to skip the debate and terly and the Newspaper Re- nal is a research journal. read only chapters 1 search Journal, and summa- The studies are narrow, through 8. rizes the findings in eight but JQ, for example, is de-

chapters. They include such signed as an academic . . . Wallace B. Eberhard topics as 'The Journalist smorgasbord of refereed University of Georgia According to Research," manuscripts, not to be read "Polling and Precision like a Tom Clancy novel or Journalism," "Advertising Editor and Publisher. It's in the 1980s," and "Elec- difficult to understand why FCC: THE UPS AND tronic Publishing and we must continue to worry DOWNS OF RADIO-TV Other to name about whether or not re- Wonders," REGULATION. half the titles. The organi- search studies are useful. By William B. Ray. zation of the material is Nothing is so useful as a • Iowa State University Press logical and the writing is good theory or a stimulat- clear, as clear as one can be ing piece of research, even •1990,214 pp. in summarizing longer if the usefulness is only in • $24.95, Cloth studies. A large body of the mind of some readers. research on journalism has Willis's epilogue collects THE HISTORY OF broad- come and gone in the last short essays by journal casting regulation in the

ten years, and it tells us editors and others about United States has been more than a little about the the state of journalism re- quite tumultuous at times. threads that make up the search, plus a Willis sur- At the center of events has fabric of U.S. journalism. vey, all grouped under the been the Federal Commu- Willis has created a book title, "Researchers, Jour- nications Commission, es- with built-in utility. nalists and the Feud." The tablished under the Com- Whether it merits class journalism educators re- munications Act of 1934 to adoption will be a tough mind us that at least some succeed the Federal Radio call. Do you want a stu- published research is "use- Commission and charged dent to get the benefit of ful" and that journalism with regulating broadcast- reading a complete study, researchers are often ening for the "public interest, or does the overview pro- gaged in research for prac- convenience and neces- vided by Willis suffice? titioners. The split person- sity." And, do we want to feed ality of journalism educa- Since most members of students (or ourselves) a tors (David Weaver says the commission have been diet limited to JQ and we fall into four types) lets political appointees of NRJ7 This approach ex- us know there are gaps presidents who knew cludes studies published within academe, as well as nothing about communica- elsewhere that may illumi- a gap between academe tions law, the commission- nate research from the pe- and practitioners. Willis's ers' interpretations of the riod. survey of 350 editors and regulations, and particu- Willis's prologue gives executives reinforces, in a larly of the concept of us "The Fiver and The thoughtful and specific "public interest," have left 286 AJ/Fall 1990

something to be desired. cluding an interesting dis- His book is a useful addi- During some administra- cussion of a 1982 FCC de- tion to the history of tions the FCC has per- cision involving evangelist broadcasting regulation formed well, owing to the Jim Bakker. The remain- and an insightful guide to outstanding leadership of der, "Political Clout," 'The the workings of a govern- chairpersons such as FCC and Congress," and ment regulatory agency. Newton Minow, Dean the final chapter, "The

Burch, and Richard Wiley. Reagan Commission: A . . . Philip J. Lane More often, however, National Disgrace," are California State University, political favoritism has concerned with the politi- Fresno marred the image of the cal influence of presidents commission. In fact, during and members of Congress the Reagan administration, on the workings of the the FCC literally aban- FCC. doned the public interest Each of the chapters in- guidelines in favor of a cludes discussions of sev- "free marketplace" concept eral case histories related and deregulation. to the subject matter, some In his book, William Ray no more than a page long, relates many incidents in a few eight or nine pages the history of broadcasting long. The case studies will regulation in which cor- be familiar to anyone who ruption, political maneu- knows the history of vering, and indecision ad- broadcasting regulation, versely affected the rulings and many of the sources of the commission. As will be readily recogniz- chief of the Complaints able. However, the most and Compliance Division valuable features of Ray's of the FCC for seventeen work are his analyses and years, Ray approaches this criticism of the cases and study as an authoritative his inclusion of previously insider with access to in- unpublished facts regard- formation not previously ing FCC decisions and de- available. Before joining cision making, based on the FCC in 1%1, Ray his personal experiences as worked as a broadcast an FCC staff member. For journalist for thirty years, example, Ray tells of sev- part of that time as news eral instances where the director for NBC's mid- FCC commissioners voted western division. against the recommenda- Ray divides his book into tions of the hearing exam- eight chapters that reflect iners even when the evi- the areas of his concern. dence was overwhelm- Three chapters deal with ingly on the side of the ex- specific issues in regula- aminers. The onus was tion: "News Ehstortion," then placed on the staff "The FCC V. Obscene/In- counsel to write a rationale decent Language," and for the decision. "The Fairness Doctrine." Ray's book is well-writ- Two others, "The Radio ten and readable. He treats Medicine Men" and 'The this serious subject with a Radio Preachers," are basi- sense of humor, except, cally early radio history, perhaps, when discussing with a few exceptions, in- the Reagan commission. .

INDEX

VOLUME? MCINTYRE, Jerilyn S. BIRKHEAD, Douglas. "Oppositionalizing 'Truth Versus Good (1990) Carey," 227^2. Description," 4-6.

MARVIN, Carolyn. BLACKWOOD, Roy E. ARTICLES "Reconsidering James "Great Walls: Barriers BEASLEY, Maurine H. Carey," 216-26. to Doing Research in People's Republic "Women In Journalism: the of China," 6-9. Contributors to Male MITCHELL, Catherine C. Experience or Voices of "The Place of Biography William E. Feminine Expression?" in the History of News HUNTZICKER, Culture As Ritual," (historiographical essay), Women," 23-32. "Pop 39-54. 214-15. MITCHELL, Catherine C. HYNDS, Ernest C. BROMLEY, John C. "Scholarship on Women "Peabody Collection "Richard Harding Davis Working in Journalism" at the University and the Boer War," 12-22. (bibliography), 33-38. of Georgia," 74-76. CAREY, James W. NERONE, John. LEWENSTEIN, Bruce V. 'Technology As a Totem the "Current Research in Fusion: 242-51. "Covering Cold for Culture," History of Reading" (re- Cornell University's Cold view essay), 275-80. 9-11. CAREY, James W. Fusion Archive," "Bibliography of Works RAPP, Dean. by James W. Carey: BOOKS REVIEWED "'Such Things Can Only Books, Articles, and Re- ALTHOLZ, Josef L. Happen in America': Religious Press in Brit- views, 1%0-1990" (bibli- The British Press Response to ography), 252-58. ain, 1760-1900. Rev. by 148-63. the Scopes Trial," Phyllis Zagano, 136. GODFREY, Donald G. "CBS World News REED, Barbara Straus. ANDERSON, Ariow W. "Unity, Not Absorption: Roundup: Setting the Rough Road to Glory: The Robert Lyon and the As- Stage for the Next Half Norwegian-American Press monean," 77-95. Century," 164-72. Speaks Out on Public Af- fairs, 1875-1925. Rev. by GRIFRN, Michael. SCHUDSON, Michael. Marion T. Marzolf, 205-6. "Film, Television, and "Culture, Communica- 233-41 Visual Communication" tion, and Carey," BACKSCHEIDER, Paula. (review essay), 173-78. Daniel Defoe: His Life. STREITMATTER, Rodger. Rev. by Gary L. Whitby, LIST, Karen. 'Theodore Roosevelt: 180-81. "Journalism History Text- Public Relations Pioneer," books and Their Uses" 96-113. BAKER, Russell. (review essay), 114-18. The Good Times. Rev. by RESEARCH NOTES Edward A. Nickerson, LULE,Jack. BAYLEN, J.O. 59-60. 'Telling the Story of "An Anglo-American Story" (historiographical Press Conflict: The Titanic BATTESTIN, Martin C. essay), 259-74. Disaster," 144-^7. With a stylometric 288 AJ/Fall 1990

analysis by Michael G. CHARTIER, Roger, ed., Broadcast News: Who Farringdon. New Essays and Lydia B. Cochrane, Owns the First Amend- by Henry Fielding: His trans. The Culture of Print: ment? Rev. by Michael D. Contributions to the Power and the Uses of Murray, 60-62. Craftsman (1734-1739; Print in Early Modern and Other Early Journal- Europe. Rev. by David DONOVAN, Hedley. ism. Rev. by James D. Paul Nord, 182-84. Right Times, Right Places: Startt, 184-85. Forty Years of Journalism, COHEN, Jeremy. Not Counting My Paper BODDY, WiUiam. Congress Shall Make No Route. Rev. by Louis Fifties Television: The Law: Oliver Wendell Liebovich, 129-30. Industry and Its Critics. Holmes, the First Amend- See Griffin, 173-78. ment, and Judicial Decision DOUGLAS, Melvyn, and Making. Rev. by Sherilyn Tom Arthur. See You at BORDWELL, David. Cox Bennion, 55-56. the Movies: The Autobiog- Making Meaning: Inference raphy of Melvyn Douglas. and Rhetoric in the Inter- COMSTOCK, George. Rev. by Kevin Jack pretation of Cinema. See The Evolution of American Hagopian, 187-89. Griffin, 173-78. Television. See Griffin, 173-78. FAULK, Odie B. and BRANDON, Henry. Laura E. Frank W. Special Relationships: A DARNTON, Robert, and Maybom: A Man Who Foreign Correspondent's Daniel Roche, eds. Revo- Made a Difference. Rev. by Memoirs from Roosevelt lution in Print: The Press Elsie S. Hebert, 68-69. to Reagan. Rev. by John in France, 1775-1800. Rev. Vivian, 190-91. by Robert Craig, 119-21. nSKE, John. Television Culture. See BROWN, Richard D. DAVIS, Linda H. Griffin, 173-78. Knowledge Is Power: The Onward and Upward: A Diffusion of Information in Biography of Katharine S. FOLKERTS, Jean, and Early America, 1700-1865. White. Rev. by Sherilyn Dwight Teeter. Voices of a See Nerone, 275-80. Cox Bennion, 189-90. Nation: A History of Media in the United States. See BROWNE, Donald R. DIAMOND, Edwin, and List, 114-18. Comparing Broadcast Sys- Stephen Bates. The Spot: tems: The Experiences of The Rise of Political Adver- GARRISON, Dee. Six Industrialized Nations. tising on Television. Re- Mary Heaton Vorse: The Rev. by Michael D. vised ed. Rev. by John Y. Life of an American Insur- Murray, 200-201. McGinnis, 65-66. gent. Rev. by Nancy Roberts, 57-59. LYNES, Barbara Buhler. DICKEN-GARCIA, Hazel. Stieglitz O'Keefe, and the Journalistic Standards in GILMORE, William J. Critics, 1916-1929. Rev. by Nineteenth-Century Amer- Reading Becomes a Neces- Michael Bugeja, 178-79. ica. Rev. by John Nerone, sity of Life: Material and 193-95. Cultural Life in Rural New CARDENAL, Jaime England, 1780-1835. See Chamorro. La Prensa: DOHERTY, Thomas. Nerone, 275-80. The Republic of Paper. Rev. Teenagers and Teenpics: by Michael Emery, 203-5. The Juvenilization of GOLDSTEIN, Richard. American Movies in the Reporting the Countercul- CHANG, Wan Ho. 1950s. Rev. by Steven ture. Rev. by Linda Mass Media in China: The Phipps, 138-39. Steiner, 283-84. History and the Future. Rev. by Jonas Bjork, DONAHUE, Hugh Carter. GOLDSTEIN, Robert 186-87. The Battle to Control Justin. Political Censorship Index 289

of the Arts and the Press in KAES, Anton. Them. Rev. by Paul Nineteenth-Century Eu- From Hitler to Heimat: The Ashdown, 56-57. rope. Rev. by Mitchell Return of History As Film. Stephens, 198-99. Rev. by Steven Phipps, MARCHALONIS, Shirley. 197-98. The Worlds of LucyLarcom, GOLDSTEIN, Tom. 1824-1893. Rev. by Terry Killing the Messenger: 100 KATSH, M. Ethan. Hynes, 126-29. Years of Media Criticism. The Electronic Media and Rev. by Jean Ward, 140. the Transformation of Law. MAYO, Louise A. Rev. by Linda Lawson, The Ambivalent Image: GRIFFITH, Sally Foreman. 20&-9. Nineteenth-Century Amer- Home Town News: William ica's Perception of the few. Allen White and the Em- KING, S. Cari. Rev. by Zena Beth poria Gazette. Rev. by The Photographic Impres- McGlashan, 62-63. Norman Sims, 124-25. sionists of Spain. Rev. by Michael Griffin, 131-32. MCKI'lTHKICK, Rosamund. HALLIBURTON, David. The Carolingians and the The Color of the Sky: A LABUNSKI, Richard. Written Word. Rev. by Study of Stephen Crane. Libel and the First Amend- Joel H. Weiner, 280-81. Rev. by Thomas B. ment: Legal History and Connery, 282-83. Practice in Print and MERRILL, John C. Broadcasting. Rev. by The Dialectic in Journal- HARMON, Steven W. Cathy Packer, 195-97. ism. Rev. by Jack Lule, The St. Josephs-Blatt, 13^38. 1896-1919. Rev. by James LEVINE, Lawrence W. M.Berquist, 130-31. Highbrow/Lowbrow: The MICKELSON, Sig. Emergence of Cultural From Whistle Stop to HILMES, Michele. Hierarchy in America. Sound Bite: Four Decades Hollywood and Broadcast- Rev. by William E. of Politics and Television. ing: From Radio to Cable. Huntzicker, 202-3. Rev. by James L. See Griffin, 173-78. Baughman, 63-64. LOUNSBERRY, Barbara. HUNT, William R. The Art of Fact: Contempo- MICKELSON, Sig, and Body Love: The Amazing rary Artists of Nonfiction. Elena Teran, eds. Career of Bernarr Rev. by Norman Sims, The First Amendment— Macfadden. Rev. by Sam 207-8. The Challenge of New G. Riley, 193. Technology. Rev. by LULL, James, ed. Thomas A. Schwartz, JACKSON, Carlton. World Families Watch Tele- 135-36. Hattie: The Life of Hattie vision. See Griffin, 1 7^-78. McDaniel. Rev. by Kevin MICKOLUS, Edward F., Jack Hagopian, 187-89. MCKERNS, Joseph P. Todd Sandler, and Jean Biographical Dictionary of M. Murdock. International JEFFORDS, Susan. American Journalism. Rev. Terrorism in the 1980s: A The Remasculinization of by Terry Hynes, 209-10. Chronology of Events. Rev. America: Gender and the by Robert G. Picard, Vietnam War. Rev. by MACKERRAS, Colin. 64-65. Carolyn Stewart Dyer, Western Images of China. 206-7. Rev. by Edwin Emery, MIDGLEY, Leslie. 139-40. How Many Words Do You JOWETT, Garth, and Want? An Insider's Stories James M. Linton. Movies MAHARIDGE, Dale, and of Print and Television As Mass Communication. Michael Williamson. Journalism. Rev. by See Griffin, 173-78. And Their Children After Daniel W. Pfaff, 182. 290 AJ/Fall 1990

MILTON, Joyce. Age of Revolution: Jean SOLEY, Lawrence C. The Yellow Kids: Foreign Luzac's "Gazette de Radio Warfare: OSS and Correspondents in the Hey- Leyde." Rev. by Joel CIA Subversive Propa- day of Yellow Journalism. Wiener, 121-22. ganda. Rev. by Louis Rev. by John F. Neville, Liebovich, 123-24. 201-2. RAY, William B. FCC: The Ups and Downs STARTT, James, and MURAVCHIK, Joshua. of Radio-TV Regulation. William David Sloan. Coverage the Historical in News of Rev. by Philip J. Lane, Methods Mass Sandinista Revolution. 285-86. Communication. Rev. by Rev. by Michael Emery, Edwin Emery, 66-67. 203-5. SALERNO, Salvatore. Red November, Black No- STEPHENS, Mitchell. MURPHY, Cliona. vember: Culture and Com- A History of News: From The Women's Suffrage munity in the Industrial the Drum to the Satellite. Movement and Irish Soci- See List, 114-18. Workers of the World. Rev. ety in the Early Twentieth by Lauren Kessler, 138. Century. Rev. by Carol STOUGHTON, Judith. Proud Donkey Schaer- Sue Humphrey, 132-33. SCHLESINGER, Carl, ed. of beek: Ade Bethune, Catholic The Biography of Ottmar NEKOLA, Charlotte and Worker Artist. Rev. by Mergenthaler, Inventor of Paula Rabinowitz, eds. Mel Piehl, 67-68. the Linotype. Rev. by Nina Foreword Toni by Lerman, 185-86. Morrison. Writing Red: TAYLOR, Ella. An Anthology of Prime-Time Families: Tele- SCHUCHMAN, John S. American Women Writers, vision Culture in Postwar Hollywood Speaks: Deaf- 1930-1940. Rev. by America. See Griffin, ness and the Film Enter- Nancy Roberts, 57-59. 173-78. tainment Industry. Rev. by Maureen Nemecek, NOSTWICH,T.D.,ed. J. VINCENT, David. 179-80. Theodore Dreiser's "Heard Literacy and Popular Cul- Corridors": Articles ture: England 1750-1914. in the SIGNORIELLI, Nancy, and and Related Writings. Rev. See Nerone, 275-80. George Gerbner, comp. by Edward A. Nickerson, Violence and Terror in the 125-26. WAGNER, Lilya. Media: Annotated Mass An Women War Correspon- Bibliography. Rev. by CCONNER, Alan, ed. dents of World War IL Robert G. Picard, 64-65. Raymond Williams on Tele- Rev. by Maurine Beasley, vision. See Griffin, 173-78. 11&-19. SLOAN, William David, PACKER, Cathy. James B. Stovall, and WILLIS, Jim. James D. Startt, eds. The Freedom of Expression in Journalism: State of the Media in America: His- the American Military—A A Art. Rev. byWallace B. Communication Modeling tory. See List, 114-18. Eberhard, 284-85. Analysis. Rev. by Jeremy Cohen, 133-35. SMITH, Craig R. WOLSELEY, Roland E. Freedom of Expression and The Black Press, U.S.A. 2d PAGLIN, Max, ed. Partisan Politics. Rev. by ed. Rev. by Karen F. Ogles, 122-23. A Legislative History of the Robert M. Brown, 281-82. Communications Act of 1934. Rev. by James L. SMITH, Ted. J. Ill ZUMWALT, Ken. Baughman, 284. Propaganda: A Pluralistic The Stars and Stripes: Perspective. Rev. by The Early Years. Rev. by POPKIN, Jeremy D. Paulette D. Kilmer, Edward A. Nickerson, News and Politics in the 191-93. 199-200.

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