A Closer Mirror Barbara Tuchman

NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES • VOLUME 1 NUMBER 2 • MARCH/APRIL 1980 Humanities Barbara Tuchman . . . A Closer Mirror by CATHARINE R. STIMPSON

In October, I read A Distant Mirror because I had once sat up to finish The Guns of August, published seventeen years before. My copy of A Distant Mirror was a loan from a friend , a musicologist, who had been given it by another friend, a heart surgeon. I even read passages aloud with a nine-year-old boy who was having trouble with sentence structure in his English class. He responded enthusiastically to the nar­ rative, to the tales of youthful kings and squabbling uncles, but he also liked the writ­ ing's moving vivacity and pictorial skill. In November, I interviewed Barbara Tuchman because she is to be a lefferson Lec­ turer, the first woman to be so.1 Many people write books that become a part of public con­ sciousness and that a jumbled variety of readers buy, pass around, and recall. Few give formal speeches on prestigious occasions that seek to define elements of consciousness as well. In­ deed, a commonplace of modern cultural criti­ cism is the difficulty, even the arid impossibil­ ity, of speaking both to large audiences and about complex questions scrupulously. A belief in that commonplace haunts the humanities, forcing a false dichotomy between a “democratic” or an "elite" enterprise. Discourse is inflamed and the justification for the funding of specific projects becomes anxious and over- zealous. Tuchman's career embodies and defies both half-truths "I am," Tuchman says, "interested in what Illustration by Allan Carroll happens in reality." Her acts of attention are cultivated—she prefers that the teaching of his­ tory include literature and art. They are also demanding. She once wrote about China, "As are important, and innovative. and place. Responding to the concrete, she en­ always, the foreigner feels inadequate to pene­ Tuchman's self-assigned concern is "com­ livens single human beings as well. In a judi­ trate the reality."2 A Distant Mirror exacted municating history." She calls herself a "writer cious summary of her achievements, after The seven years of toil. Neatly, firmly, Tuchman dis­ whose subject is history." Eloquent about the Proud Tower, Martin Duberman once said: tinguishes two ways in which we can articulate necessity of eloquence, she cheerfully admits to . . .in our age of collectivization and the substance of the past: the "academic" histo­ being "very fond of the beauties and rhythms of system-building . . . Mrs. Tuchman is able rian, whose responsibility is "to discover, to the English language," which she unknowingly to suggest some of (the) . . . complexity and analyze, to make known" the patterns of the helped to teach that nine-year-old schoolboy. chaos of historical procedure largely lacking worlds behind us; and the "writers of history," She mourns a lack of self-consciousness about in the work of . . . pseudo-scientists. What whose responsibility is to communicate it. language in modern scholarship, a "dissertation they exclude, she evokes: those ir­ Others also divide up historians and see a style" that has corroded elegance and that re­ regularities of personality and incident gap between the groups. In 1978, Lawrence flects a search for a narrow originality that has which are in historical events an echo of our Stone reviewed A Distant Mirror. He criticized "stifled a passion for the subject" even as it has own untidy lives.4 Tuchman's judgment and analytic grasp, and sought to detail it. Tuchman grieves for the violation of the respected her descriptive talents, an assessment Like nature, real style abhors a vacuum. dignity, decency, and security of the individual. Tuchman labels "schizophrenic." Sardonically, Perhaps like nature, style in itself animates a Some of her most compelling passages tell of he separated the historians who win Pulitzer sense of the significant. Tuchman's literary the abuses the powerful impose upon the less Prizes, as Tuchman has done, from those who prowess, her novelist's command of "suspense powerful—marauding mercenaries upon help­ gain “the final accolade of the profession, and story," is inseparable from explicit ideas less villages. Tuchman is neither radical nor nomination as president of the American His­ about history and implicit commitments to cer­ blandly idealistic. In a sharp essay on Henry torical Association."3 For Stone, the first group tain humanistic values. She is a witness to Kissinger's memoirs, she declared that morality might be solid and interesting, but the second quirks and accidents, to the bite and pull of time could not guide international relations.5 Still, she prizes the vulnerable, valuable, imperfect, struction. Her title The Proud Tower comes from active human presence. Edgar Allen Poe's lushly apocalyptic poem "The In this issue... Tuchman's organization of the particular City in the Sea": into narrative signifies her conviction that nar­ While from a proud tower in the town 1 Barbara Tuchman . . . A Closer Mir­ rative is "the spine of history." She states Death looks gigantically down. ror by Catharine R. Stimpson baldly, "History in sequence is the way life is She believes that our contemporary institutions lived." She places us in a world of cause and are "disintegrating." "Uncomfortable," we ex­ 3 The Jefferson Lecture effect, of action and consequence. Her sense of press ourselves with a vocabulary dependent form shapes her use of sources and of evidence. upon the prefix "dis." We are discontented, dis­ Revising America: Symposium at 4 Outlining her research for A Distant Mirror, she turbed. NEH cites a debt to historians whom Marc Bloch has Tuchman offers some defenses against our Frances FitzGerald— with John Blas- influenced, but she then praises the chronicles general messiness and our particular malaise. singame, Joseph Featherstone, Dan that professional medievalists now find "un­ Stubbornly capable of visions of order, we can Lacy and Kathryn Kish Sklar fashionable." She writes: also enter into social contracts. Her review of 8 Deadlines for Grant Applications . . .for a sense of period and its attitudes I Kissinger endorses obedience to "the rules we found them indispensable. Furthermore, have worked out for the social order," without 9 NEH PLANS AND PROJECTS their form is narrative, and so is mine. which "society slides back into anarchy . . . as Good Writing = Good Thinking in As humanists catalogue the ways in which dangerous for the right wing as for the left." We the Bay Area Writing Project we have tried to find sequence and order in our have the humanities. She defines them, con­ Documenting Black Women's History lives, they often juxtapose two patterns. One is cisely if conventionally, as "education in the A Rural Heritage evolutionary, progressive, a sense that events disciplines that deal with civilizing art." They Belgium Today develop in time towards an admirable and hap­ can help us become better-informed, even pily necessary end. In the second, history is a "wiser" citizens. This is particularly true of his­ 14 The Humanities and Television: The process in which elements mingle and remingle, tory, the discipline that gives us our pro­ Message and the Medium in which events both change and repeat them­ genitors, a knowledge of human behavior, an Scholars and Filmmakers by Jay Ruby selves in time. awareness of causal and social relations. Odyssey and The American Short Story Tuchman believes in the possibility of prog­ Finally, Tuchman seems to advocate a by Arthur Unger ress. She notes the reduction in the number of dialectical response to despair. "We may A Guide to the NEH Media Program the underprivileged in the Western democra­ really," she says with some disapproval, "de­ by Steve Rabin cies. However, she also asserts that "human spise our own species too much at this point." behavior" has not, and does not, change. The She dislikes the kind of thing represented by Dustjackets— Philosophy by David 18 last passage of A Distant Mirror pictures a fallen Naked Lunch, William Burroughs' autobiog­ Coder castle. It has seen "cycles of human endeavor raphy, drug hallucination, hyperbolic fantasy, 2 0 The State of the States and failure, order and disorder, greatness and and report from his domain of reality. She Socrates at Bellevue by Barbara Del- decline. Its ruins remain on the hilltop in wants to remind us now of some of the "fine man Wolfson Picardy, silent observers as history's wheel wonderful, brave, beneficial aspects of the An Introduction to State Programs by turns." Tuchman interprets her allusion to the human record," like our journey to the moon. B.J. Stiles metaphor of fortune's wheel as "an unspoken The same spirit of resolve marks Tuchman's denial of history as a straight line progressing attempts to mediate between the two ap­ 26 Recent NEH Grant Awards towards greater liberty and wisdom.” She proaches to history that she describes. She be­ doubts certain nineteenth-century ideas. She lieves that one person, a Francis Parkman, can 26 Letters to the Editor finds history an enormous drama, but neither a integrate art and scholarship, but even if most divine nor a human comedy about salvation. historians are not omnicompetent, there need About the Authors 28 Tuchman denies that wars and violence, not be "hostility and jealousy" between diver­ generals and armies, catastrophes and bands of gent schools. Their members can show good FOR INFORMATION ABOUT scorched earth have enthralled her imagination. will and good faith towards one another. She SUBSCRIPTIONS SEE PAGE 27 "It's not so," she says decisively. Her 1971 book stresses that academic historians have treated about Stilwell was about a military man, and her well, particularly in person. the American experience in China. She writes Yet, Tuchman, a well-mannered woman of about war because it is "a human activity, the strong opinions, says what she thinks. "I have most frequently practiced activity there is apart nothing to lose," she notes. She knows that her from agriculture." Still, her work is resonant popularity, her sales, the fact that readers stop Humanities with the probability of doom, the reality of de­ her in department stores to praise a new ac­ a bimonthly review published by the National Endowment for the Humanities Chairman: Joseph D. Duffey Director of Public Affairs: Barry D. Wanger Editor: Judith Chayes Neiman Editorial Board: Harold Cannon, Geoffrey Marshall, Judith Chayes Neiman, B.J. Stiles, Armen Tashdi- nian, Barry D. Wanger Editorial Assistant: Linda Blanken Production Manager: Robert Stock Librarian: Jeanette Coletti Designed by Maria Josephy Schoolman

The opinions and conclusions expressed ii. Humanities are those of the authors and do not neces­ sarily reflect Endowment policy. Material appearing in Humanities may be freely reproduced although the editor would appreciate notice and copies for the En­ dowment's reference. Use of funds for printing this publication has been approved by the Office of Man­ agement and Budget. Send address changes and re­ quests for subscriptions to the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. 20402. Subscription price, $7 per 6 issues. (USPS 521-090) Other communications should be addressed to: Editor, Humanities, National Endowment for the Humanities, Mail Stop 204, Washington, D.C. 20506. Telephone: 202/724-1840. ISSN 0018-7526. The Black Prince. Effigy in Canterbury Cathedral from A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century. II, t *

Coucy-le-Chateau (from Androuet Du Cereau, 1648). An illustration from A Distant Mirror by Barbara W. Tuchman, published by Knopf. complishment, can provoke some academic professions, she has escaped the job discrimina­ velopment. Tuchman has given us all a quick­ concern. She believes that she bothers some tion academic women suffer. She correctly ened public consciousness with which to play. professional historians because, having no comments that women— an Eileen Power, a Ph.D., she calls the degree into question. Cecil Woodham-Smith— have found a home in 1. I spoke to Tuchman at her home in New York After she took a B.A. in 1933, she was a history. She has been a fortunate fugitive from City on November 20, 1979. Her quotations in this journalist, not a graduate student. Though she at least two of the burdens the professional piece are from that meeting, unless otherwise noted. began at Swarthmore, she transferred to woman must often carry. 2. Notes From China (New York: Collier Books, 1972), p. 16. Radcliffe, because the Swarthmore sorority sys­ However, like some of the great female re­ 3. "Tuchman's Terrible Century," New York Re­ tem of the period would not accept a Jew. She formers of the nineteenth and early twentieth view of Books, XXV, 14 (September 28, 1978), p. 3. claims that she was “too shy" to be a journalist, centuries, she has chosen to reject a life of con­ 4. "Three Historians," The Uncompleted Past that she is “happier" in libraries, but she ap­ spicuous consumption and to become a produc­ (New York: Random House, 1969), p. 69. preciates journalism because it taught her to tive member of society. She also has actively 5. "Self-Portrait," New York Times Book Review write succinctly, against the pressures of a supported some, but not all, feminist causes, a (November 11, 1979), p. 36. deadline. She also thinks that academics resent pattern that other women of her culture and the commercial success she has earned, even generation might act out as well. For example, Books by Barbara W. Tuchman though their own books are neither designed, she suggests that admitting women to West The Lost British Policy: Britain and Spain Since nor written, for her market. Point serves an artificial, false, and undesirable 1700 (1938)./Bible and Sword: England and Pales­ If Tuchman is correct, she blamelessly has form of equality. She claims that there have tine from the Bronze Age to Balfour (1956).IThe violated two norms that regulate most academic been "some advantages in being a woman." Zimmerman Telegram (1958).IThe Guns of August humanists today, not simply the historians. She War has been 'largely a male thing," a theory (1962).IThe Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World has not struggled through a rite of passage to­ that women on the assembly line in an aircraft Before the War, 189011914 (1966).IStilwell and the wards a set of credentials that function as a factory or battlefield rape victims might refine. American Experience in China, 1911-45 (1971)./ membership badge in a profession that too A mixture of attitudes also characterizes Notes from China (1972).IA Distant Mirror: The often conflates the academic and the intellec­ Tuchman's response to the new scholarship Calamitous Fourteenth Century (1978). tual, the university and the life of the mind. Nor about women. Searching for a woman subject has she abandoned her more than average since she began to write history, she finds The Jefferson Lecture wealth. She has not obeyed a quiet code that queens and female rulers too atypical. She instructs humanists to be content with the sub­ wants something fresh, the spring of an original Barbara Tuchman will deliver the ninth Jef­ stitution of moral and intellectual influence, of plan, which the work of nineteenth-century ferson Lecture in Washington, D.C., on April 24 sorts, for affluence. In addition, as Tuchman American women might provide. She likes the at 8 p.m. Entitled "Mankind's Better Moments," admits candidly and modestly, some of her idea of that work because it seems essential. the lecture will be delivered again in London on money is from a comfortable background. She is She seems to dislike self-pity and too excessive April 30. aware of the economic pressures of humanists a construction of women as victims. The Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities, es­ less privileged than she; of the strains of the I hope that Tuchman settles on a woman, or tablished by NEH in 1972, is the highest honor current job market and of student interest in vo­ women, about whom to write; that the new the federal government confers for distin­ cational and "directly useful" subjects. She scholarship about women does engage her guished intellectual achievement outside the wonders how America can use and reward curiosity and energies. Reading A Distant Mir­ field of science. humanists outside of the academy. ror, I wondered about the fate of the prostitutes The purpose of The Jefferson Lecture is to Despite these personal virtues, Tuchman's with whom the knights and squires "indulged focus national attention on the humanities and success may rankle because she has not needed themselves" on the sinfully foolish European to honor individual excellence of thought and it to live, to support a family, to buy bread and crusade that ended in the bloody defeat at work. In the Jeffersonian tradition, the lecture sneakers for demanding children, while other Nicopolis. Tuchman says that we have no in­ demonstrates the usefulness of the central con­ humanists cannot sell their goods, no matter formation about them, but one can imagine only cerns of the humanities to understanding our how laudable they are, no matter how strict and good if Tuchman were to tell the public what lives and our society. pure their methodologies might be, and no mat­ that means— for history, for men and women, Nominations for The Jefferson Lecture are ter how stringent their financial circumstances. and for our sense of human suffering. received each year by the Chairman of the Na­ Clearly, some of the quarrels about Tuchman's However, if Tuchman were to do nothing tional Endowment for the Humanities from career are scholarly. Lawrence Stone's ques­ more than she has done, to instruct many of us learned and professional societies, national and tions about her anchoring of the fourteenth cen­ about the sweep and richness of history at a his­ international organizations, and from individu­ tury in the sea of time are legitimate. However, torical moment when the past is either the ob­ als. The final selection is made by the National directly or indirectly, some of the controversy ject of a sacralizing nostalgia or subject to a Council on the Humanities. about Tuchman is really about the role of the mental taboo, she would deserve our praise. Previous Jefferson Lecturers were Lionel humanist in the modern labor force and market She does more, of course. Her example warns Trilling, Erik Erikson, Robert Penn Warren, Paul which recognizes learning and education in jag­ us against binary thinking, against a rigid Freund, John Hope Franklin, Saul Bellow, ged, uneven ways. polarization that depicts humanists as members C. Vann Woodward, and Edward Shils. The lec­ Tuchman has also been frank about the fact of two groups — accurate, pioneering scholars tureship carries an award and a stipend of that private money, the ability to hire domestic or partially accurate, dependent writers—who $10,000 which the Endowment provides. All as­ help, has enabled her to avoid the private grind, must distrust each other. Tuchman enlivens sociated expenses which may not be supported the domestic chores, that most women in the their mutual concern — our peculiar species. by appropriated funds are covered by private humanities confront. Free as well from the need Others will tell us that we ought to consider cer­ contributions. to please the masters of the hiring halls of the tain categories of analysis, other theories of de­ Symposium photographs by Ricardo Thomas rne FitzGerald Frances able people might have come to some mutual mutual some to come "reason­ have ­ though might Com as people issouri able solutions, M simplistic the imply from — s” lem b ro "p cuss a best, at is, publisher the process, wards. adoption educational their what for dictate material virtually espe­ proper states, is committees, larger es­ the school in education cially the Various organized reflect an to of tablishment. products thinking their current tailoring demand, modification. behavior or change the in and now themselves, perceive Americans understanding if only they had been able to find find to able been had they that only if ways understanding in ar— W Vietnam the to ise prom ac­ that tomes "incredibly impersonal are textbooks passionless, today's dull"— one, no fend textbook middleman. the hapless in lost or made are fortunes Since social for tool a as ahis- history essentially see are They entalist," torical. Fundam or sive genera­ future of values tions. the mold to efforts form that: she have movies,” astonishment, or others her to songs as rock somewhat of found, lyrics textbooks e "th Using used past. of recent study her began FITZGERALD FRANCES not take secondary-school (or even college) college) even (or do scholars deter­ most secondary-school in But . are . role take . they not content significant their a occasionally mining have and to permitted textbooks, velop” publishers— the bother not does which country damning: most the was table." negotiating the for shape right the a In motivation. nor conflict neither knowledge in­ turn, in that, values current reflect to tory how of investigation journalistic a as textbooks hn i wiig hm Te d nt ae a make not do They them. have they writing when in even hand not a seriously— textbooks e­ "d help do aca­ scholars the is True, that and community. often— demic very not anyway or dis­ they history," of theory disaster "natural ahrn o hsoin, dctr ad Endowment and educators historians, of gathering — participants other the of remarks edited the clude in earlier and symposium practice of reading textbooks in their field, and and field, their in textbooks reading of practice n nwppratce bu what about articles newspaper and of aie h pit md by made points the marize hr i n ra cek n h i elcua uality qu al tellectu in the on check real no is there a o te olg txs te lpe tm be­ gains time approach an elapsed or idea the by an moment texts, usually the proceeds college tween new it the as that of texts; way is a school on the into consequence textbooks One reviews basis. journal regular academic no tf mmes t smoim ed t h National the at held symposium a at members staff burning.” ihn prorte te usi of rt appears . truth f bottom o the pursuit near the here ew rities som rio p lishing dis­ the continue to readers our to invitation an with oet t ece te col et my e fif­ be may the texts and more. or school years the community teen reaches it academic moment the in currency ly slow ely extrem down trickles scholarship d nt: hn rne FtGrl adesd a addressed FitzGerald Frances When note: Ed. eiwd n feunl ctd n ainl magazine national in cited frequently and reviewed his­ the traced she Humanities, the for Endowment etok. h euti ta n h c eofp b­ pu f o le sca the on that is result The textbooks. cussion. P ost ost P textbooks, history of study Revised, remarkable America her of tory te etok eae" n wa the what and debate," textbook "the New Yorker Yorker New e n t f accuracy—of school o o h c s f o — y c a r u c c a l a u t c fa e th en ev r o • Written by committee and designed to of­ to designed and committee by Written • For this particular audience, one indictment indictment one audience, particular this For history-on- rite w publishers Textbook • "Progres­ whether reformers, Textbook • his­ revising time, over change Textbooks • There is perhaps only one group left in the the in left group one only perhaps is There t em aporae for appropriate seems It ecie a "a at dooia book- ideological pant "ram as describes rils Hr ok a be widely been has book Her articles. hc frt perd s series a as appeared first which ohrcneunei that is consequence nother A America Revised. Revised. America Ms. Ms. Humanities Humanities

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any single ethnic group—and they include all all include they group—and ethnic writes single one any whatever to history. key is American about Indians to fair more read I as pathetic, However, sym Indians. the more include Indians. to of likely certainly treatment were their in They par­ job better a historians, doing earlier the whether of account many in or all. fairly, at treat treat to to cases difficult historians most the for population. been group has American Indian the American of The deal to diversity trying the in with difficulty had always observe have you rians if greatly changed have books any hnl o diversity. on handle a some­ explain to honestly one them allow might treating equitably and Perhaps groups. ethnic be to And history. Indian or im­ of culture not am Indian knowledge of I their knowledge writers, their by modern pressed more and them were century, nineteenth the in those ticularly or textbooks that surprising not is It age. ern ra­ of treatment their in historians of movement school students, and might also be a way to get get to way elementary a be and also might school and high ex­ students, American school both the to of nature perience the about real thing Histo­ period. hundred-year two a over them mod­ the into move we as conflict acknowledge not is rein. free publisher author The the differ­ grant to focus. several consumers. going the of displease groups to selecting ent likely has is in choice historian problem Any The incredible textbook. a an not-write would cial and cultural diversity and our unwillingness to to unwillingness our and diversity cultural and cial writing, the about learned she's that all gether several are There textbooks. the of critique a is do. to trying what was exactly she out on that said Ifigure was to it them en" tried I "am as reread I amens saying When fewer articles page. myself every found FitzGerald's virtually I Frances spring, read last first I When to get into, would not do it. He or she simply simply she or He it. do not would into, get to textbooks. of marketing the and production the not am I but historians; of criticisms deserved that any historian who knew what he was about about was he what knew who historian any that to­ brings FitzGerald Ms. cases all in that sure ON BLASSINGAME JOHN The laboring classes are much larger than than larger much are classes laboring The And I question as I read Ms. FitzGerald's FitzGerald's Ms. read I as question I And Ms. FitzGerald discusses the back and forth forth and back the discusses FitzGerald Ms. The system she describes is so complicated complicated so is describes she system The The major focus of her treatment, it seems, seems, it treatment, her of focus major The or Blassingame )ohrt As a historian, I am impressed by the way KATHRYN KISH SKLAR she has made us see that the general public, in what I call "the United States of amnesia," I want to examine the positive and negative doesn't really know that our ideas about the components that Frances FitzGerald sees as she past do indeed change over time. Seeing "Our looks at history textbook writing and at all of Town” when one is twenty years old is different American history. On the basis of those positive from seeing "Our Town" when one is forty and negative aspects can we anticipate some fu­ years old. Similarly, looking at the American ture action? past after living through the events of the sixties The value of FitzGerald's work is that it has changes one's perceptions of the past: issues of placed us in time. Historians really believe that grace, issues of minorities, issues of ethnicity, understanding where one stands in the course conflict—basic changes and shifts in the culture of events matters enormously. certainly get recorded in our collective sense of But at least among American historians, we that past. have relatively little understanding of how our FitzGerald reflects, too, on the tremendous products are reaching the masses. How history impact of the Civil Rights Movement and the reaches large numbers of people is not some­ Vietnam War on American intellectual life and thing our profession is as fully aware of as it particularly the work of historians. In one sense should be; although we are all eager to see how or another, it is definitely an age of revisionism: our own individual solution in that marketplace revisionism in terms of scope and method, revi­ works out. sionism in terms of attitudes towards America Ms. FitzGerald allows us to see how what is and the American past. positive and what is negative in history Perhaps all of us are writing autobiography textbook writing and distribution work to­ when we do our scholarship. The work that is gether. The positive aspect is its capacity for coming out of the academy now about America Kathryn Kish Sklar change. Our textbooks have not been unrespon­ reflects the America of a post-imperial culture sive to the changes in American society. This view of history—something that can by, among other things, the scope and content FitzGerald's best example of positive ca­ provide us, our culture, and society with a and who is included in "us." Who are "we" pacity for change is the treatment of black capacity for developing the individual as well as when we say, "we Americans?" is one of the Americans subsequent to the Civil Rights a capacity for developing social vision—is the awkward questions that lay buried far too long. movement. Not only black Americans entered high potential FitzGerald sees in history. The diversity, the ferment, the confusion textbooks at this point, but also white ethnic The negative aspect can be seen as the other that FitzGerald traces in the realm of history groups and there is a total change in outlook. side of the positive: a highly politicized arena in which shows up predictably enough in the This positive dimension of change has limits which people have, as they see it, a lot to gain writing of textbooks is all there, and is some­ however. Women, for instance, do not enter the and lose by what values they communicate. thing we should realize. In some ways, as a history textbooks, have not yet entered the his­ FitzGerald accepts this as a fact of life, friend of mine who is currently an unemployed tory textbooks; books change selectively. which is prudent, and sees the textbooks as na­ historian says, "It is a great time to be a histo­ Another positive aspect, which one might tional history, actively filled with values that are rian if you can get a job." The social history, in call structural, is the decentralization that she inspirational rather than factual. But this na­ particular, is so lively. There are so many new finds. There are at present four hundred pub­ tional or mythic purpose of textbooks combined perspectives that it will have to shape the way lishing companies, forty of which are big com­ with the highly politicized set of conditions we deal with the past and with children. panies. But four hundred companies producing under which they are produced is nega'tive, As an educator and a veteran of many of textbooks seems to me to be a very positive serious, and calls for action. the curriculum projects of the sixties, I'm heart­ sign, a very decentralized system of production. What can we do about the politicized and ened at the debate that I think will come on the The problem is, as FitzGerald shows, that all of mythic components that remain in our text­ heels of this book. In many respects, we are due these companies are interested in the same books? I believe that it is time for the American for a time of inquiry into what we should be market. The potential for this decentralized Historical Association to accept responsibility teaching. How should we proceed with these structure to yield more diversity than it has in for what is being done in this area and set up changes in perspective? What do they mean for fact done is there. some responsible agency. The American His­ our children? The third positive feature is more recent. torical Association's Teaching Division is offi­ I am delighted to see FitzGerald's criticism FitzGerald has called it the "inquiry method.'' cially responsible and could expand its activity of publishing and the publishing industry. I This is a method, rather than a cultural or a in this dimension of history. would be even more harsh. In public policy structural tradition, a newly invented strategy terms, there is a parallel here with what is hap­ for teaching history upon which we can build pening to television. One of the real barriers to for the future. JOSEPH FEATHERSTONE getting more diverse, experimental work in the Here I would like to pay tribute to a histo­ schools is simply the scale and the scope of the rian who invented that method, or at least was I read Frances FitzGerald's book from many kind of thinking that has to go on in the pub­ the first one aggressively to design books and points of view. As a journalist, interested in get­ lishing industry. A television program that only try to sell history in this way. She is Mary Shel­ ting other journalists to see education as a win­ a million people watch is considered a big "fail­ don Barnes, who produced a book in 1885 called dow on American life, I'm dazzled by how ure." Something of that same kind of situation Studies in General History which was forty per­ much she has done to make the ongoing con­ prevails now in the textbook industry. cent source material. Her big point— that one versation in the textbooks about American his­ We have to think of ways to subsidize and can only teach history by teaching primary tory a real window on the changes that hap­ encourage more varied, more small scale, more sources— is that the student, in order to under­ pened to American culture in the sixties. That is local experimenting. Although history is in rich stand the past, has to confront the past directly not simply a narrow point about education and ferment, it is also in confusion. I don't believe with a document from the past. teaching history in the schools. At the first level any group of historians or citizens or whomever A quote from Mary Sheldon Barnes' work this book is trying to make sense of our collec­ one could collect today would be able, in fact, to reminds us that history is quite special, differ­ tive experience of the 1960s and how that fashion for you and for me and for our children ent from other disciplines. changed us, changed our lives, changed the a clear-cut policy on exactly the shape history The study of history demands serious work. way we look at America—in many complex should take in the schools. - Like mathematics it involves logic. Like ways. It is amazing that such a dusty dull sub­ Also I would be more critical of the acad­ language it demands analysis and fine dis­ ject as old textbooks could be made to do this. emy and the universities and the neglect of crimination of terms. Like science it calls for One of the things that this window on our­ schools and textbooks on the part of historians exact observation. Like law it needs cool, selves and our lives—by a mind educated in the and social scientists. It is a major scandal that well-balanced judgment. Beyond all these it fifties trying to make sense of the experience of the textbooks are not reviewed regularly in requires the hardest, fullest use of the sym­ the sixties—shows is that in many ways, and leading scholarly journals. That, to me, is a dis­ pathetic imagination. In fact, no study is not simply in the field of history, this is an age gusting situation. more difficult, none calls more completely of revisionism. Many old certainties are being To some extent, the need for proceeding in on all the mental powers, none affords the revised. We are not particularly sure in private an experimental and small-scale way is under­ mind more generous play. or in public life what certainties remain. lined by the shambles in the universities in the discussions of liberal arts and the directions in American life in the late twentieth century. So which they should go. There is no clear lead­ when a school board chooses this American his­ ership in the universities. One small part of our tory because of its treatment of Reconstruction problem is that the universities themselves are and not another, it is in effect saying, "this is now victims of an age of specialized scholar­ our view of race in the United States in the ship, indeed "Mandarin” scholarship, and are 1970s." unequipped, to say the least, to address them­ If this is true of scholarly histories, written selves to larger issues about what educated men with no conscious motive save the discovery of and women should know. truth, how much more is it true of history The subject of why textbooks are dull is in­ textbooks? The full text of von Ranke's state­ triguing. Why are they so dull? Why is it that ment is rarely quoted. It says, these "camel" committees prepare impersonal You have reckoned that history ought to strange texts which speak with impersonal, judge the past and to instruct the contem­ abstract voices? Where are the voices, the val­ porary world as to the future. The present ues, the spoken words—the history with a attempt does not yield to that high office. It human face and human voice? It is heartbreak­ will merely tell how it actually happened. ing that our splendidly rich history becomes, in But that high office—to judge the past and an astonishing feat, as dull as it is in the instruct the contemporary world as to the textbooks. future—is precisely what is demanded of text­ I applaud FitzGerald's comments about the books. They are instruments by which those really decisive lack of interest in children's. who control the present attempt to shape the thinking. In general, this lack of interest in chil­ future by impressing children with a desired dren's minds, this feeling that, "Well, it just is a perception of the past. general lack of interest," is a very serious prob­ loseph (/ay) featherstone These purposes are not necessarily ignoble. lem. I connect that and what FitzGerald talks the time and the more I've studied the matter, We hope, for example, to help open the way to about as the "natural disaster approach to his­ the more pernicious it seems. The present a fuller and more equal participation of women torical events." In this approach, things just schism between university and academic schol­ in American life in the future by deliberately sort of happen and then people respond to arship on the one hand, and the world of the emphasizing the contribution of women to them. I connect it with what I see as a fifties and school, on the other, is very much a part of this America's past. We hope to produce a future middle sixties determinism which is also re­ false doctrine. society less burdened with racial and ethnic flected in much of the scholarship that pro­ I hope that whatever directions we move in prejudice by deliberately emphasizing the past duced these textbooks. from this wonderful, small, but very revealing contributions of minorities, and by showing as There is a muted economic and sociological window on American life, we will talk as evil past abuses inflicted upon them. In an ear­ determinism in the texts where things "just though teachers and children were makers of lier day we sought to produce future genera­ happen." People don't make their own mean­ meaning and actors in their own behalf— tions of idealistic patriots by deliberately ings or act in their own behalf. Abstract socio­ thinking beings; and that we don't fall into the idealizing the character of the founders of the logical concepts drive the history behind them. old American habit of believing that whatever it Republic as portrayed for our youth. Also interesting is the fact that this kind of is that we mandate will be translated automati­ But the textbooks are only instruments in a determinism, this sense that people are ba­ cally into the minds of the children. Fortu­ much larger process. Ms. FitzGerald has made sically passive victims of larger social forces, nately, human nature and the schools don't them the center of her study for understandable also applies to children and teachers in the work that way. reasons. It is comparatively easy to study the schools. FitzGerald is correct in that the major Any projects that result will need to con­ history and social studies textbooks in use groups she defines seem to feel that children go sider, centrally, the issues of support and au­ today, while it would be most difficult to study to school without minds, without a context in tonomy for classroom people. When all around at first hand the whole complex of activities that which they grow, or without perspective on the us we hear the noise of the collapse of what go on in the teaching of these subjects in hun­ country. I think that is quite wrong, as she used to be called the "one best system," that dreds of thousands of classrooms across the does. But she imbibes a little bit of this deter­ would be one important way to begin to make country. And of course an examination of minism when she comes to talking about teach­ sense of this age of revisionism. textbooks is the only practical way to explore ers. There is a sense that teachers are passive the teaching of history in the past. and what comes across in the classroom is only DAN LACY But it is worth asking ourselves the ques­ what the textbooks have to offer. tion that Ms. FitzGerald has asked. Why does This isn't my feeling from talking to teach­ A commonplace of all courses in historiography the juice, the vitality, the idiosyncrasy that she ers. I know there is no conclusive research on is Leopold von Ranke's statement in the preface remarked in nineteenth-century textbooks seem this point. But my sense is that, in fact, the of his History of the Romantic and German Peoples, to have been bleached out of the late twen­ teachers make a good deal out of the text. The that he attempted to tell how it actually hap­ tieth-century textbooks? One reason is the in­ variety of teaching practice dealing with these pened. His specific words— "Wie es eigentlich stitutionalization of the educational establish­ materials is extremely great. gewesen”— were a motto of conventional his­ ment in America, which has created a militant, I underscore this only because a passive torical practice a couple of generations ago. decisive, informed, and organized body of opin­ conception of both teachers and children is So widely accepted was his view that when ion as to what should be in textbooks. perhaps the major theme of our educational his­ Charles Beard gave his 1933 presidential ad­ A second reason, perhaps, is an in­ tory now. By and large, Americans in the dress to the American Historical Association, stitutionalization of academic history which has nineteenth and twentieth centuries have seen "Written History as an Act of Faith," he led the historical profession, by and large, to schools as culture factories. Other metaphors shocked his contemporaries by asserting the view with disdain the teaching of history at the came in as the twentieth century grew old, in impossibility of achieving von Ranke's goal. All junior high school level — and has separated which teachers were passive conduits of educa­ written history, according to Beard, was shaped practicing historians from what goes on at the tional policy. And children, in turn, were pas­ not merely by the past it recounted but by the secondary school level. sive receptors of what it was that we, a wider present in which it was written. Another reason is the greatly increased public, wanted them to learn. Any history written in an era embodies its competition for school textbook adoption. One This conception of how teachers and chil­ mind, its assumptions, its perceptions as surely of the myths of American life today is that a dren operate is totally wrong. It is a grave part as do its novels and poems and plays and its large number of producers of any kind of com­ of the problem in the attempt, so far, to do cur­ art, music, and architecture. The past, in its to­ munication will assure the diversity and high riculum reform. tality, in the fullness of its reality, is forever be­ quality of what is produced. Probably that was Lurking in the background of what Fitz­ yond our reach. We can only create mirrored the case when the BBC had no competition in Gerald calls that "Mandarins'" work, is a sense images of it, shaped by the mirror as well as by Great Britain. The BBC was free to go ahead and that the really best curriculum materials would the past. do very high quality, intellectual programs be, in some way, teacher-proof—that an end- This mirror reflects in particular the divi­ whether the viewers really wanted them or not. run by the scholars with ingenious materials sions and the controversies of the present. A But when vigorous competition from inde­ would get around the basic relationship be­ history of the causes of the Civil War or a his­ pendent television began, "I Love Lucy" tween children and teachers in a classroom. tory of Reconstruction embodies certain views showed up on the BBC screens exactly as it did I found that to be a pernicious doctrine at of the author about the place of blacks in here. The New York Times or the Washington Post 6 can afford to run very high-brow newspapers that was so common in American history or seminar of historians and the more thought­ because they don't really have any competition textbooks of some years back. You won't find ful educationists. The product of their labor as serious morning newspapers in their market. the chauvinism. You won't find the America should not be a complete curriculum, like In days when there was a lot of newspaper always right, the eagle-screaming patriotism of MACOS, or those in the sciences, but a report competition, every newspaper had to sacrifice many early twentieth-century textbooks. This which one hopes would be of such excellence its foreign coverage in order to strengthen its process, though it may not have produced vi­ and worth as to command respect and major in­ astrology, its cooking columns, and its comics. tality and juice, has actually eliminated much fluence among school authorities. A Noah Webster could impose his own that really was bad about textbooks in an earlier However it is done, historians cannot justly idiosyncratic view of American language and day. The offensive material that was eliminated complain of the way history is taught in the spelling because there wasn't any competition from these "inoffensive" books was offensive schools or of the textbooks used until the pro­ for his dictionary and spelling book. Once you and it should have been eliminated. fession itself has made a major effort to better get forty historians producing junior high How then can the teaching of history be them. school textbooks — all of them focused, with improved, and along with it the quality of his­ the precision of network TV going out *o tory textbooks? Not easily. As Ms. FitzGerald FRANCES FITZGERALD prime-time audience on precisely what that points out, American education has a proto­ I don't think for one second, that the difficulties market wants— they are likely to come to very plasmic quality that leaves it without sharply and the terrible choices involved in trying to similar conclusions about what is wanted. defined principles or practices and yet makes it write textbooks can be overestimated. It is an Textbook adoptions are not so much a selec­ very difficult to change. Probably the most ef­ awesome thing to decide, at this moment, what tion of books for their virtues as a process of fective measure would be a greater participation American history should look like, or is. But elimination of books for their vices. What is left of professional historians. One does not have to given this impossible problem, what results is likely to be the book that has offended no one assume that such participation would solve all from it? The next question is what would you rather than the book that has extraordinary vir­ our problems. The past slips through the fingers do about it? I only weasle out of it by saying I'm tues that are, perhaps, novel, idiosyncratic or of scholarly historians as it does through those not a historian. different. I don't mean to suggest that textbook of school teachers, and neither can offer school In trying to think about these questions, I committees don't want good books that are ac­ children assured truth. But there can be little am reminded very much of the first article that I curate, teachable and, they hope, reasonably in­ doubt that the quality of textbooks would bene­ ever did as a journalist for a magazine in New teresting to students. But the danger that is con­ fit from a greater concern by the professional York. The city could not figure out what could fronted is one of offense. historian. be done about what used to be called, "Welfare A lot of money is required to publish a In the thirties the American Historical As­ Island," in the middle of the East River. I re­ textbook at the level that Ms. FitzGerald is sociation was more active than the other profes­ member going from public agency to public writing about. They are not generally single sional societies in its concern for secondary agency, city planning offices to the bank to the books; they are a series. To publish a whole so­ school teaching. In recent years historians have citizens' committee. Because the public official cial studies series covering several grades is an been less effective than the biologists or chem­ would say, "Well, we really want to do some­ investment of one to several million dollars. ists or physicists or mathematicians who used to thing about it but the trouble is we can't, be­ Samuel Johnson wrote that, "The prospect be completely oblivious to secondary school cause of the next guy." And the next guy would of being hanged tomorrow wonderfully concen­ teaching. say, "Well, we're absolutely keen on doing trates a man's mind," just as the prospect of There are many reasons for this. One cer­ something about this, but we really can't be­ losing an investment of two or three million tainly is that National Science Foundation cause of the next guy." Finally I did the thing dollars in a social studies series because it funding for developing new curricula in natural you wouldn't believe, I really wound up going doesn't get adopted intensively concentrates the sciences has been rather abundantly available back to the same person. editorial thinking of a publishing house. A pub­ while nobody has rushed forward with major To a great degree this is also true of the lisher is not willing to gamble on an idiosyncra­ funding for new curricula in American history, textbooks. Obviously, every single group or tic book and finds it necessary to match the perhaps for understandable reasons. person or company is under very great re­ school board's committee with a similar commit­ Precisely because local educational au­ straints from the rest of the world. The problem tee of educators and writers and historians, thorities consider the nature of the history is to figure out if there's any place for leverage; who, it is hoped, will reflect rather precisely the taught and the view of the past it embodies to and if so, where? I think we've been given some sorts of attitudes and choices that are likely to be so crucial an instrument for their shaping of very good ideas about this so far; and I hope be found in the school system. the future, they are highly sensitive to cur­ there will be some in the future. It may seem ignominious for textbook pub­ riculum content. The National Science Founda­ I want to add that something has been done lishers to establish their editorial directives for tion can make grants for the development of about Welfare Island. textbooks on the basis of sedulous inquiry into curricula in mathematics, physics, or chemistry what schools will buy. And yet is it not better with little risk. Biology is more dangerous, with so? Although I've spoken about this process in a watchful eyes focused upon the treatment of JOSEPH DUFFEY somewhat demeaning way, it has eliminated a reproduction and evolution, ready to sound For the second time, Frances FitzGerald has lot of evil from American textbooks. alarms that will provoke bitterly hostile attacks given us a lively, serious, and important book. I You won't find the degradation of women. in the schools and in the Congress. trust this discussion will continue in many ways You won't find the contempt for minorities. You The experience of the National Science during the next few months. And some of us, won't find the abusive treatment of immigrants Foundation when it ventured into cultural an­ when we ride down the East River Drive, will in America from eastern and southern Europe thropology with Man: A Course of Study suggests see Welfare Island and have some hope. the explosive controversies that would attend the financing of a similar curriculum— one that would have to deal with the role of labor unions and of large-scale capitalism in our society, or the Civil War, or the New Deal. The prudence of federal agencies in avoiding this field is understandable. And I must confess I feel discomfort myself at the thought of a federally funded and en­ dorsed course of study in American history that would develop a more or less "official" view of Watergate or Vietnam, or the Cold War or J. Edgar Hoover. But I believe there is a proper role that federal funding could play in focusing scholarly attention on the content and mode of teaching history at the school level. One contribution might be a further study of the whole question of the teaching of Ameri­ can history in the schools that would go beyond Ms. FitzGerald's excellent foundation, which Dan Lacy would in turn provide the basis for a conference Joseph Duffey and Frances FitzGerald

r Deadline in For projects bold face beginning after

DIVISION OF EDUCATION PROGRAMS Elementary and Secondary Education Grants April 1, 1980 October 1980 Higher Education Grants/Individual Institutions (formerly Higher Education Institutional Grants) November 1, 1980 April 1981 Consultant June 15, 1980 October 1980 Pilot April 15, 1980 October 1980 October 1, 1980 April 1981 Implementation (formerly Development) June 15, 1980 January 1981 Higher Education Grants/Regional and National Deadlines (formerly Higher Education Projects Grants) July 1, 1980 January 1981 DIVISION OF FELLOWSHIP PROGRAMS for Fellowships for Independent Study and Research June 2, 1980 January 1981 Fellowships for College Teachers June 2, 1980 January 1981 Grant Summer Seminars for College Teachers Participants April 1, 1980 June 1980 Applications Directors July 1, 1980 June 1981 Fellowships and Stipends for the Professions Seminars for the Professions April 14, 1980 June 1980 Residential Fellowships for College Teachers November 10,1980 September 1981 Summer Stipends October 13, 1980 Summer 1981

DIVISION OF PUBLIC PROGRAMS The three programs in this division, Library Humanities Projects (formerly, Public Library Program), the Media Program, and the Museums and Historical Organizations Program, operate under the same deadlines. July 15, 1980 January 15, 1981

DIVISION OF STATE PROGRAMS Each state group establishes its own guidelines and application deadlines, therefore interested applicants should contact the office in their state. A list of those contacts may be obtained from the Division of State Programs.

DIVISION OF RESEARCH PROGRAMS Research Resources (formerly Collections) June 1, 1980 March 1981 Research Materials Program Editions October 1, 1980 June 1981 Publications May 15, 1980 September 1980 Research Tools and Reference Works October 1, 1980 June 1981 Translations July 1, 1980 March 1981 General Research Program Basic Research April 1, 1980 December 1980 Archaeological Projects October 15, 1980 April 1981 Research Conferences September 15, 1980 December 1980 November 15,1980 March 1981 State, Local, and Regional Studies September 1, 1980 March 1981

DIVISION OF SPECIAL PROGRAMS Program Development/Special Projects July 15, 1980 December 1980 Youth Programs Youthgrants—Preliminary narrative October 15, 1980 May 1981 Application November 15,1980 May 1981 NEH Youth Projects Major Project Grants—Preliminary Proposal December 1, 1980 July 1981 Application January 15, 1981 July 1981 Planning and Pilot Grants April 15, 1980 October 1980

OFFICE OF PLANNING AND POLICY ASSESSMENT Planning and Assessment Studies June 2, 1980 September 1980 September 1, 1980 December 1980 8 GOOD WRITING = GOOD THINKING IN THE BAY AREA WRITING PROJECT At Lake Junior High School on Denver's west the critical success of John Gardner's novel, side, ninth graders ponder famous classical Grendel, which told the Beowulf saga from the paintings reproduced on coasters their teacher dragon's point of view. But whether the V has passed around the room. The walls are cov­ medium is an imaginative exercise, or the old ered with pictures—a Cezanne, a Van Gogh, a fashioned vehicle of a test consisting entirely of clipper ship in full sail, photographs of animals. essay questions, teachers of all subjects are When a timer sounds, the children will have ten breaking down the myth that writing is some­ minutes to write about something they see in thing peculiar to English courses. one of the pictures. The Bay Area model is predicated on a few In Tiburon, California, seventh graders beliefs that seem almost axiomatic. First is the keep math journals. After being introduced to assumption that since the writing problem is the concept of prime numbers, they write en­ everybody's problem, it must be attacked by tries as though explaining prime numbers to a colleges and universities in tandem with the fourth grader. public schools. Good teachers have developed In northern Virginia's Fairfax county, stu­ valuable skills and techniques through trial- dents from seventh through twelfth grade are and-error experiments in their own classrooms. required to write two social studies papers These should be publicized because many every year—an expository essay in the fall and teachers struggle with their students' painful a research paper in the spring. prose unaware that there is a body of research Each of these classroom enterprises is an available to help. outgrowth of the Bay Area Writing Project The program is flexible, another of its (BAWP) in Berkeley, California. This outreach tenets being that there is no "best" way to ap­ has resulted in thousands of schoolchildren proach the subject of writing. Teachers are ex­ across the country learning new writing tech­ posed to an assortment of ideas and techniques niques from teachers who have participated in so they can choose whatever suits them best. regional institutes and seminars coupled with Most of the five-week training workshops, local inservice training programs where teachers to which exemplary English teachers are invited train other teachers to teach writing. as fellows, take place at a college or university; Parents, dissertation supervisors, employ­ outside speakers come in to discuss research ers, college admissions officers, even students findings and to share new ideas, so the teachers themselves, have long complained that young leave the institutes with a variety of techniques people are not taught how to write anymore. to draw upon. The Bay Area Writing Project was launched in Most importantly, the fellows write exten­ 1974 in an effort to affect the deteriorating sively. Project directors agree that many teach­ writing skills of college-bound students. ers' own diffidence and apprehension about The idea of teaching teachers caught on writing are a main cause of students' writing quickly. The first project at the University of difficulties. Teachers shy away from teaching California at Berkeley, a summer institute sup­ writing because they are uneasy with the entire ported jointly by the University and several Bay process. Never having been trained adequately Area schools, has grown into a national net­ themselves, they find it awkward to teach work of fifty-six affiliates stretching from coast writing. "Writing is time-consuming and threat­ to coast and overseas. Each local program may ening," says Donald Galleher, director of the differ from the Berkeley prototype, but all have Northern Virginia Writing Project. "If you're not one goal in common— training teacher-con- familiar with what it's going to do to you emo­ sultants who will work in the schools. tionally, [you'll] stay with the [old] pattern." The ability to write well and clearly is a So at least two afternoons a week, the fel­ fundamental and necessary tool of the humani­ lows meet in small editing groups, read their ties; good writing reflects good thinking. compositions, and feel the sting of criticism as Teachers who gain confidence in their own their peers hand out lumps and bouquets. The skills are bound to teach their students that an peer-editing technique is a model the teachers unexpressed idea is not worth thinking. And if often carry back to their own classrooms. The one writes well, ideas are easily organized. exhilaration that comes with sharpening their Since 1976, the National Endowment for the own writing skills often inspires teachers to Humanities has granted seed money for estab­ write for their own enjoyment. And when magazine lishing new sites at colleges and universities. writing is a natural part of life, it becomes a These institutions generally sponsor not only natural part of teaching. workshops and institutes but inservice teacher The teachers are experimenting and their training programs as well. students are writing more. As they stretch their In order to qualify for an NEH grant of vocabularies, cut out the run-on sentences, and

$15,000, each sponsor must raise another get in the habit of using vivid language, they American Education $15,000 in the local community: after one year, stretch their capacity for new ideas. the project is expected to be self-supporting and The epidemic of bad writing is a bit like bad to generate all its funding locally. weather; everyone deplores it, but no one The principle that informs all BAWP proj­ knows what to do about it. The achievements of ects is the simple but powerful notion that the Bay Area Writing Project testify that some­ teaching writing skills is not the responsibility thing can be done. of English teachers alone. If students are to know and to value lucid writing, writing must Adapated from an article by Peggy Odell Gonder in be central to all coursework, and writing skills American Education. must be taught across the entire curriculum. In social studies classes at Wyco School in Bay Area/National Writing Projectl]ames Gray/Univer­ Adams County, Colorado, students rewrite sity of California-Berkeley/$l,736,000 from NEH out­ Longfellow's poem, "Paul Revere's Ride," as if right funds, gifts and matching funds awarded in 1976

the story were being told by the horse—not over a period of six years/Elementary and Secondary Drawing by Catherine Waters from photographs in such a farfetched exercise when one thinks of Education Grants/Division of Education Programs. 9 DOCUMENTING THE HISTORY OF BLACK WOMEN Gerda Lerner, professor of history at Sarah home of Mary McLeod Bethune (1875-1955), the the cause of civil rights, consumer issues, Lawrence College has said that, "One can't do legendary educator, missonary and social ac­ health, housing and education. justice to black women if they are subsumed tivist who founded the NCNW. The house, part The other collection comprises the records under black history alone. Traditionally, histo­ of an 1876 brick row in Washington's Logan Cir­ of the National Committee on Household Em­ rians turn to the official records and newspapers cle Historic District, is a landmark listed on the ployment, which has worked for the economic to find out about the leaders in a society, their National Register of Historic Places. rights, dignity, and social security of household contributions and influence. The 'leaders' were A conference, entitled "Black Women: An workers since 1964. the ones who were elected to office, who were Historical Perspective," was timed to coincide Black women have left a far-flung written written about in the newspapers. Up through with the museum opening and drew more than legacy. But the materials need to be tracked the nineteenth century, women didn't hold of­ seventy scholars with papers on black women in down and assembled before the substantive fice. It was considered disgraceful for a woman music, the family, the media, and the American work of writing and interpreting their history to have her name in the papers." legal system. can proceed. The Archives for Black Women's Lerner observes, "The traditional method­ To celebrate the formal opening of the History is energetically seeking and collecting ology didn't turn up women of influence . . . museum and archives there was a special these elusive and fragmentary records and is Once you ask the right questions of different exhibit, "Twenty 19th-Century Black Women," eager to counsel any individual or organization materials, however, you see women founding on women well known to the black community about preserving papers and artifacts. orphanages, leading the anti-slavery movement of their time. Considering the burdens of sex Bettye C. Thomas, director of Historical and contributing to social welfare in many ways.” and race under which all struggled, their di­ Development for the NCNW, notes that the Ar­ Despite the attention paid in the last decade verse accomplishments are remarkable. chives keeps a file of scholars currently doing to black history and women's history, the role Most earned college degrees (Anna Julia research in the field, and also maintains refer­ of black women in America remains largely un­ Cooper received a Ph.D. in history from the ence files on the location and status of collec­ chronicled. Except for a few famous names Sorbonne at the age of sixty-seven); many tions in private hands and other repositories. which are the perennial favorites of the textbook waged an unremitting fight against racism. An enormous amount of work yet needs to publishers—Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, a traveling lec­ be done to document and tell the story of black and Mary McLeod Bethune— the vast majority turer for the Antislavery Society of Maine, women in America. There is still no history of of black women who were accomplished writ­ shocked white audiences with her eloquence the black women's club movmeent, or the role ers, educators, evangelists, artists and suf­ and the inescapable fact that a woman and a played by black women in the suffrage move­ fragists are still obscure figures. black could speak so well. Henrietta Vinton ment. The NCNW effort has already yielded a These women have been neglected partly Davis, actress turned activist, was an interna­ rich lode of materials for historians to mine— because the source materials for studying black tional organizer for Marcus Garvey's United and the best may be yet to come. women's history have never been systematically Negro Improvement Association in the 1920s. —Jacqueline Goggin surveyed, nor are they easily accessible. Materials illustrating the history of black Jacqueline Goggin, a graduate student in Afro- The recent opening of two allied institu­ women's organizations from 1895-1955 are on American history at the University of Rochester, is tions in Washington, D.C. was a milestone in permanent exhibit; regular museum programs Assistant Archivist at the National Archives for the efforts to document the history of black will include traveling exhibits, audio-visual pre­ Black Women's History. women in America. The Mary McLeod Bethune sentations and lecture series. The National Archives for Black Women's Memorial Museum, appropriately housed in NCNW— Historical Landmark InterpretationlBettye C. Bethune's former residence, and its sister in­ History, located in a carriage house behind the Thomas/National Council of Negro Women, Inc., stitution, the National Archives for Black museum, is home to two major collections. One Washington, D.C./$26,593 awared in 1977 for one Women's History, are unique; projects of the consists of the records of the NCNW from its year/Museums and Historical Organizations/Division National Council of Negro Women (NCNW), first days in 1935 through the 1970s and in­ of Public Programs. Black Women: An Historical they are the only institutions of their kind. cludes over a thousand photos and such NCNW PerspectwelBettye C. Thomas/National Council of The museum is housed in a building called publications as Aframerican Woman's Journal, Negro Women, Inc., Washington, D.C./$9,992 "Council House," which also served as NCNW Telefact and Black Woman's Voice—rich source awarded in 1979 for one year/General Research/ national headquarters as well as the last official material, documenting the Council's activities in Division of Research Programs.

MARY McLEOD BETHUNE Eleanor Roosevelt and Mary McLeod Bethune. Photographs 1875-1955 from the National Archives for Black Women's History, Washington, D.C. 10 "EAR TO THE GROUND" —A RURAL HERITAGE

In the rolling countryside near Menomonie, Wisconsin, Larry and Lucy Bjork work their dairy farm, which includes 300 acres planted in oats and alfalfa and 60 head of registered Brown Swiss cattle whose pedigree goes back to Larry's grandfather's stock. In their spare time, the Bjorks recently made oral history tapes of oldtime homesteaders, interviewing such local survivors as a prosperous Norwegian dairyman who settled on good land as well as a former farmer who worked the sandy soil until he was forced off his land by drought and depression. Clark and Luci Fowers, who live in the Salt Lake Valley near Odgen, Utah, manage 200 acres of corn and hay and operate a Holstein dairy on land Clark's grandfather bought from the original Mormon pioneers in 1916. The Great Salt Lake has receded one-half mile since 1930, playing havoc with land boundaries and ownership and in their neighborhood the issue of ownership rights is intensely debated. The Fowers have worked on organizing a project for a Three Dimensional Period Map to illustrate the changing use of land in their area, where the percentage of the population who farm has dropped from virtually 100 percent to five percent since 1925. The point of the display is to get residents involved in discussions and choices about land use. The Bjorks and the Fowers are taking the time from their busy lives to participate in a humanities program—the American Farm Proj­ ect headquartered in Marshall, Minnesota, at Southwest State University—funded by NEH and sponsored by the National Farmers Union (NFU), a grassroots organization of some 250,000 farm families. The purpose of the rural humanities project, a major attempt by the En­

dowment to bring the humanities to a non- Photographs from the collection of the Library of Congress traditional, farm audience, enables farmers to "gain a deeper awareness of their heritage and themselves as rural people." At the heart of the project are couples like the Bjorks and the Fowers; there are nearly fifty like them, young men and women primarily dependent on farming for their major source of income, who are raising their own families on farms that have often been in their families for generations. Because of a deep commitment to the im­ provement of rural life and an ability to com­ municate their enthusiasm to others, these couples were selected by local NFU units. Lead­ ership couples come from twenty-three states: the Midwest, the Great Plains and Mountain states, as well as Pennsylvania, Washington, Oregon, Texas and New Mexico. Material on four fundamental themes— land, economics, rural images and rural people — is prepared by humanities scholars and pre­ sented at intensive training sessions where the emphasis is placed on "value oriented" ques­ tions related to the themes. Instruction is also provided on how to do oral history, interpret art and photographic collections, and identify ar­ chitectural styles. The couples, with assistance from a faculty member at a local college, go on to organize programs in their communities—which may be anything from a film showing to a discussion of Willa Cather or John Steinbeck, an issues forum, or an interpretive display at a local li­ brary. In the longstanding tradition of the farm forum, the potential audience goes beyond the 250,000 NFU members to all of rural America. tems involved in those decisions? plow4 and threshing with horsepower. And One theme is universal—an overwhelming In South Hooper, Utah, where the Fowers there are plaints that the spirit of neighborliness inner sense of belonging to the land. As one live, they note that more than half the full-time and the community spirit are gone, vanished farmer put it, "I'm making $15,000 to $20,000 a farmers in their area are over fifty-five. "There with the sewing bees and the days when people year on this place and I'm in debt for my is a lot of industrial development going on," could tell the farm boys from the town boys by machinery. I could sell the whole lot for two Clark Fowers says. "Young couples just don't their bare feet. million dollars, move out and live like a king, want to stay. But we feel there's a better life Despite the nostalgia for the loss of a way but my family's been here for three generations. here. Responsibilities and decisions are not of life that modern technology has buried I love the land and I'm not going." based on the clock. We'll stay up 'til midnight to forever, ties to the land are binding. Wally Concern with rural America and the fate of pull a calf, where the corporate man might wait Peterson, a long time Michigan farmer, notes the family farm is nothing new in farm com­ 'til eight the next morning. By then it could be with approval that enrollment in agricultural munities. What is different here is the attempt too late." schools is increasing. "People are beginning to to encompass these concerns within the frame­ The age-old primeval ties to the land are realize they must take care of the land . . . or work of the humanities, "not just in traditional given voice in Ear to the Ground, a booklet of there won't be any land left to care for." concepts of economics and technology," as Vic­ excerpts from the oral histories each couple "They tell about the famines they used to tor Ray of the NFU notes, "but to train a new collected in their home communities. Instructed have," he says, recalling the harshness of life in generation of young leaders to use the perspec­ to search for grassroots material that could be the old country. "Even then, the kings were ex­ tives of the humanities to think critically about integrated with other humanities programming, porting to get money for jewels. Look at us rural America." Or as Bill and Judy Thompson, what they heard and subsequently transcribed now, we got to export a lot of farm goods to buy a couple in Tucumari, New Mexico, wrote, "It's testifies to the emotional depths of America's the oil we 'need.' It makes you stop and think." time we looked at farm issues in terms of values farm heritage. There are stories of early settle­ Which is exactly what the American Farm rather than technology." ments—Danes in Michigan, Czechs in Iowa, the Project and the leadership couples hope their Can the study of history and literature Dakota Territories in 1892 when "there was no­ fellow farmers will do. — Christopher Deegan bring new insight into the problems besetting body here . . . Oh, south of Britton there was a Mr. Deegan is a Washington Writer. farm communities? Are there moral choices at few people, but there was nobody up here, not stake in public policy that result in mass migra­ a sou l." tion from country to city, loss of land to urban There are stories of prairie fires, of highwa- The American Farm ProjectlW .W. Turgeon/The sprawl and the effect of the energy crisis on ter that threatened to sweep everything away, National Farmers Union, Denver, Colorado/ capital-intensive agriculture? What about the of times when land that now goes for upwards $388,486 beginning in 1977 over a period of well-nigh irresistible pressure on farmers to sell of $1,000 an acre could be had for less than $50 three years/Program Development/Division of their land either for industrial development or if anyone had the money to buy. There are re­ Special Programs. to agribusiness and the competing value sys­ miniscences of walking behind a two-wheeled

IF IT'S BELGIUM TODAY, IT MUST BE APRIL

Americans intrigued by the majesty of kings held in American cities. NEH hoped the sym­ An illustration showing how these projects and queens will have their days in April when posium would stimulate further dialogue be­ may serve both the U.S. and the guest nation is King Baudouin and his Queen come to the tween America and other countries, and that offered by Mark Lewis, a former American United States to open a program of scholarly they also might offer Americans an opportunity Foreign Service officer, who has assisted in symposia, art exhibitions, and theatre perform­ to learn of different ways in which other planning the three previous symposia. "During ances, collectively called Belgium Today. The oc­ societies are grappling with similar problems. Canada Today,” Lewis says, "Americans learned casion is especially auspicious because 1980 The idea evolved into a format which brings first-hand that cultural and emotional differ­ marks the 150th anniversary of Belgian inde­ both experts and the general public into lecture ences between French and English-speaking pendence and the 50th birthday of King halls, museums, theatres, and even to observe Canadians are very large and very real." How­ Baudouin. television programs. Patricia McFate, Deputy ever, he continues, "Americans also saw that Belgium Today is the fourth NEH-NEA- Chairman of NEH says, "In each case, the pub­ among professionals in Canada, there are com­ supported symposium which began barely four lic had the most comprehensive view of these mon interests and problems." Lewis was quite years ago. The first symposium was organized countries ever presented in America." The top­ struck by the fact that leading French-speaking around the idea that artists and intellectuals ics covered by these events range from business and English-speaking literary figures par­ from all walks of a foreign culture might impart and technology to the arts, and, at least in some ticipating in panels here had never met or spo­ to Americans some of their culture's underlying of the panel discussions, a forum may be ken to each other in Canada. "Here they had a values by participating in a series of symposia opened for healing painful national rifts. forum for doing just that," Lewis comments. "It 12 was amazing to see how well they got along, fireworks will herald the presence of a king and how well they established a dialogue over queen, Baudouin and Fabiola. In the following common professional interests." days, the royal couple will proceed across the Canada Today was the first symposium. United States as the King delivers three keynote Sponsored by the Association for Canadian addresses: in Washington he will speak on poli­ Studies in The United States (ACSUS), and tics; in New York, on economics; and in San supported by an NEH grant, it encompassed Francisco, on the arts. more than 30 events, but was seen only in Some highlights of Belgium Today will be: Washington, D.C. It opened January 24, 1977, • The prestigious Solvay Conference on and for 11 weeks, Canadian writers, artists, ac­ pure chemistry, never before held outside of CANADA ademics, filmmakers, poets, television produc­ Belgium, on April 23rd in Washington, D.C. TODAY/ D'AUJOURD'HUI ers, critics and journalists discussed Canadian • An exhibition at the Pierpont Library in culture. During this period, exhibitions of New York of a twelfth-century True Cross rel­ Canadian art were shown at Washington's Phil­ iquary, the Stavelot Triptych, supplemented by lips Gallery and at the Hirshhorn Museum. manuscripts and objects which date from the Americans attending these events ranged ninth to the sixteenth century and are related to from those who knew Canada very well to per­ the True Cross Legend sons knowing virtually nothing at all of Canada. • An exhibit on the founding of the Belgian Afterwards, ACSUS felt that the symposium Nation in 1830, shown at the Library of Con­ had generated such a wide interest in Canada gress, and containing papers from the Library's that it published a bilingual volume, Voices of collection as well as from the collection of the Canada, containing excerpts from lectures and Royal Library of Belgium Their Majesties King panel discussions, and illustrations of art from • An exhibit of rarely displayed Belgian Baudouin and Queen Fabiola. the exhibitions. memorabilia and artifacts from the two World The second symposium, Mexico Today, Wars, including underground newspapers and opened a year and a half later, in September, periodicals, cartoons and posters 1978, and was extended beyond Washington to • Exhibitions of major artists whose works New York and Atlanta, with parts also shown in have rarely been seen outside Belgium six other U.S. cities. Economists and business • An exhibit of larger-than-life marionettes leaders were added to the lists of speakers, and and performances of traditional Belgian the intellectual ferment of the symposia moved marionettes, one of the country's folk arts into classrooms when the Washington consor­ • An exhibition of Belgium's advanced tium of five universities offered an accredited technology, demonstrating, for example, some course based on Mexico Today. of Belgium's innovative methods of promoting A former U.S. Ambassador to Mexico, John auto and air safety Jova, coordinated some of the events as presi­ "I trust that Belgium Today, the examination dent of Meridian House, a Washington, D.C. of contemporary Belgian society and culture . . . nonprofit organization which promotes cultural will further increase understanding and exchange. strengthen the friendship between our two "The symposia are a wonderful instrument peoples," wrote J. Raoul Schoumaker, Bel­ to integrate foreign embassies into American gium's Ambassador to the United States. Traditional marionettes life," Ambassador Jova says. He noted that To which Patricia McFate might answer, from French Belgium. Mexico's ambassador recently traveled to At­ "We feel that the symposia are a reflection of K lanta to attend a ball and make speeches on our mandate to make understandable our own JAPAN TODAY Mexico, a journey he felt was related to Mexico and other cultures." — Anita Mintz Today. "Previously in Atlanta," he said, "there had been no strong program in Latin American Ms. Mintz is a Washington Writer. affairs." And Mark Lewis adds that two U.S. universities based follow-up symposia on the Belgium TodaylBrooke Lappin/Belgian American texts of Mexico Today. Educational Foundation, Inc., New York, New When the Japan symposium opened in the York/$456,198 from NEH outright funds, and spring of 1979, the Today format was like a peb­ gifts and matching funds awarded in 1979 over ble making ever-widening ripples in the water. a period of eighteen months/Special Projects, There were Japan Today presentations in 17 U.S. Division of Special Programs. cities, presentations which were attended by 850,000 persons— an inestimably greater audi­ ence saw related programs on television. Besides arts and industries, symposia fo­ cused on such everyday matters as Japanese cooking and clothing, and one special event bore the inimitable title, "Arrival in the Harbor of a Ship Carrying Kyoto's 20th Anniversary Sister City Gift to Boston, An Artisan's House." “Japan Today," said McFate, "was an effort to explore a country which is separated from ours by thousands of miles, but is our friend in the international community." Americans learned from the symposium that Japanese knowledge of the United States is "far greater than American knowledge of Japan," Lewis said. Today symposia past are prologues to Bel­ gium Today, which will open ceremoniously on April 20 with the sound and lights of Belgian fireworks choreographed to Belgian music, ac­ cording to Janet Solinger, director of the Smith­ sonian Resident Associates Program and Washington coordinator for Belgium Today. Like royal fireworks of Old Europe, these 12th-century True Cross reliquary, the Stavelot Triptych. 13 Scholars and filmmakers business of packaging and need the elements to that most people do have aesthetic expectations “My new conception of the film is based upon fit together without appearing to be too ragged. when they view a film—regardless of its stated the idea that the intellectual and emotional processes which so far have been conceived of as existing inde­ Their products are costly — the average intent. This assumption creates difficulties since pendently of each other—art versus science—and documentary costs $2,000 per finished our most common aesthetic assumption is that forming an antithesis heretofore never united, can be minute—and are justified on the basis of poten­ works of art should be beautiful and emotion­ brought together to form a synthesis on the basis of tial audience. ally evocative. Both expectations are problem­ Cinedialectic, a process that only the cinema can Scholars, on the other hand, are tentative atic when one contemplates a cinema of ideas. achieve. A spectator can be made to feel-and-think and reflective. They seldom have ready an­ We in America are not in a cultural position what he sees on the screen. The scientific formula swers. Often they are not certain of how best to where Roland Barthes' idea of "the pleasure of can be given the emotional quality of a poem. And phrase the question. In the business of pon­ the text" is viable. Therefore, it becomes essen­ whether my ideas on this matter are right or wrong, I dering the imponderable, they prefer to offer tial to alienate audiences from their aesthetic am at present working in this direction/' (From a debatable suggestions and to wait until they expectations if one wishes to produce an intel­ 1930 speech given by Russian filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein have had sufficient time to work out their posi­ lectual cinema. at the Sorbonne in Paris). tion before making definite statements. They Furthermore, the assumption that film, like Eisenstein's quest exemplifies the issue seldom work within imposed time schedules or photographs, "describes everything and ex­ examined in this essay—a problem fundamental deadlines. Their product is almost never as plains nothing” must be overcome. Film's rep­ to cinema's relationship to the world of ideas. costly as film. Sponsors of scholarly work sel­ resentational qualities have for a long time (Throughout this essay the term film or cinema dom expect the scholar to justify the merit of his seduced us into believing that the image and its will stand for both film and television, to avoid or her endeavor with audience figures. referent were identical in meaning and that the awkwardness of repeating both each time.) While the above sketch is superficial and cinematic realism was unmediated actuality or It raises the possibility of deliberately infusing overly general, it has some merit. The two dif­ even reality and therefore somehow truthful. content with a specific meaning. It posits an in­ ferent approaches to the production of knowl­ With the development of the alienating de­ tellectual cinema—a means of scholarly expres­ edge often attract different kinds of people. vices of reflexive cinema (for example, the films sion equal to but separate from the written Collaborations are sometimes made problematic of Dana Hodgdon or the documentary parodies word. on the basis of occupational personality differ­ of Mitchell Block which expose the methods and Eisenstein was neither the first nor the last ences and approaches to work rather than ac­ the motives of their authors) the conventional Marxist to hypothesize that the medium had tual substantive disagreements. Compounding nature of realism becomes increasingly more this potential. From Dziga Vertov to Jean-luc the problem is the fact that filmmakers and apparent. People no longer believe automati­ Godard, filmmakers have tried to create a rev­ scholars know very little about each others' cally everything they see or hear—Watergate olutionary cinema that would present the world worlds and often employ different vocabularies and the advertising industry have aided in that in such a way as to raise the audience's con­ while trying to discuss the same issue. disenchantment. We are beginning to recognize sciousness. Some scholars, particularly an­ Each has a hostile stereotyped image of the the constructed nature of images and the fact thropologists, have, in similar fashion, advo­ other than can be conjured up at time of that they are authored and motivated by some­ cated a visual approach to their disciplines. stress—the scholar as impractical ivory tower- one for some reason—to realize as Paul Byers Neither have met with much success. Why? dwelling elitist and the filmmaker as producer once said, "People, not cameras, take pictures.” The idea of scholars being involved in the of mindless pap for the masses. These Once our naive belief in the realism of the production of films seems on the surface to be stereotypes become convenient rationales when cinema has been demystified and audiences be­ straightforward, even commonsensical. As ad­ collaborative efforts begin to fail. come accustomed to looking for the reasons be­ visor, "academic humanist,” or even full col­ The differences stem from some basic cul­ hind the image, the scholar's role can be in­ laborator, the scholar often has knowledge that tural notions, aspects of our culture which, creased beyond the limitations of writing narra­ can inform and shape a film. The process when explored, can reveal the source of difficul­ tions which tell rather than show; of appearing should be exciting and illuminating, a way to ties. Logically, there are two possible sources: as "expert witnesses”; or as the interminable explore the nature of the medium and to pro­ (1) there is something inherent in the medium "talking head" on those somnambulant early vide fresh perspectives on the structure of which makes it difficult if not impossible to morning television lecture shows. scholarly thought. convey abstract thought; or (2) our culturally The change will not be an easy one since Unfortunately, these ventures seldom have conventional attitudes have made it difficult to our cultural assumptions about film as emo­ this result. In fact, many producers feel that pursue the cinema as a means of scholarly ex­ tional expression and film as the recorder of re­ having "academic humanists” on their produc­ pression. The first causes us prematurely to re­ ality are deep-rooted. Their origins are to be tions is the burden they bear in order to be ject the possibility of a cinema of ideas since it found within folk models of art and science funded by certain agencies—an albatross with a posits an "anti-intellectual" nature for the which pervade our culture and serve as the checkbook—just as some academic colleagues cinema, so I choose to examine the second. basis for the two most prevalent film would never again work on any film, having To begin with, it must be acknowledged theories—Realist and Formative. had one very unpleasant experience. that discussion of the "art" of the film is com­ These strategies, in turn, have their begin­ The disenchantment has substantive causes monplace, as if all film were to be regarded as nings in the basic Western idea of the but it is also the result of social, psychological art. This expectation is unnecessarily restricting. dichotomy which is variously manifested in and economic differences between the two pro­ It is equivalent to confining writing to poetry. pairs like—art and science; mind and body; fessions. People who make films are action- Until such time as we have strong evidence to thought and feeling; cognition and emotion; oriented and production-directed. They are sel­ the contrary, we should assume that film has and objectivity and subjectivity. It produced the dom reflective. They want to get a job done— on the potential for a variety of discourses. opposition of Realist vs. Formative in film time and within the budget. They are in the At the same time it should be understood theory that causes most people to assess films Illustration by John Pack Odyssey and the American Short Story as being understandable as either fiction or as The two men responsible for two of this sea­ ence series ever aired on TV—public or com­ documentary; either as made-up fantasy or as son's most innovative series on PBS are almost mercial: "Nova." real and truthful. as interesting as the programs themselves. The backgrounds of these men differ These culturally conditioned interpretive Michael Ambrosino is executive producer of sharply. Ambrosino studied physics at Syracuse strategies for understanding a film—one which "Odyssey,” a twelve-week anthropology- University, switched to drama and "spent the leads us to make inferences about film as art, as archaeology series produced independently by rest of my life combining those two interests." aesthetic object, and as fictionalized fantasies Public Broadcasting Associates. Robert Geller is He has a B.A. in drama and an M.A. in televi­ designed to amuse us—and the other which executive producer of "The American Short sion. After a short period of work on a Ford causes us to deal with the film as a document of Story II," a series of TV adaptations of classic Foundation closed circuit educational TV grant, reality that should be unbiased, objective, and American stories which is returning this year he-worked on instructional TV with WGBH in truthful are at odds with the contemporary epis- with new episodes after a critically triumphant Boston, started the Eastern Educational Net­ temologies of academic disciplines. Given the season last year. The series is produced inde­ work, then went back into program develop­ alternatives of regarding film as either an ex­ pendently by Learning In Focus. ment at WGBH where he originated "Nova." pression of emotion, feeling, and art (The For­ Ambrosino and Geller are dedicated to Geller earned his B.A. from NYU, his M.A. mative) or as a surrogate for reality (The Realist) public television because of the freedom it offers from Cornell, taught high school English in and the most accurate means for recording real­ them to do quality programming, and both are Mamaroneck, NY, and served as educational di­ ity, it is little wonder that most scholars have in demand for commercial television where the rector of the American Film Institute. He was chosen the printed word to communicate their opportunity for larger audiences—and greater assistant to the dean of Antioch Media programs ideas. compensation—is tempting. from 1971-73 when he conceived "The American Considering these arguments, it should be Last season Geller produced NBC's "Too Short Story," now in its second season. quite clear that the belief that one can simply Far To G o," based upon a series of John Updike The following excerpts are from interviews bring together well-intended and competent stories. It reached approximately 30 million with Ambrosino and Geller in which each spoke filmmakers and scholars and produce a worth­ people (compared to the fewer than five million candidly of his thoughts and feelings about the while and possibly significant film is, at best, who saw any single "American Short Story" on relationship between the humanities and televi­ naive. PBS) and received many favorable reviews. sion; or, as Jay Ruby might put it, how they Although I have assumed a severely critical Ambrosino produced the most successful sci- manage the "text and the context" of their work. position in terms of current practice, I am firmly convinced that a cinema of ideas can and should exist. I am not alone in this interest—both ROBERT GELLER MICHAEL AMBROSINO scholars and producers, such as Michael Am- Q: You have called "The American Short Q: What kind of audience do you anticipate brosino in his new series on anthropology and Story," "people's TV." Why? for "Odyssey" in quantity and quality? archaeology, are striving to create a more work­ A: The stories deal with issues that are not A: I hope we'll get people who are curious able collaborative model. so monumental one can't identify with them. about themselves. People who can see some­ Perhaps the first step in that direction is to The characters are very much people like us and thing and be prepared to take another step, look demystify the means of production of film and all things don't get explained neatly. The stories at people another way, read a book on their scholarship; to make people aware of the con­ don't consume one totally. They are about tiny next trip, examine a new culture, or an ar­ struction of meaning in all mediated forms of events: small decisions like growing up, not the chaeological site. Curious people, aware people. communication; to ask scholars, artists, and large scale of commercial TV where everything I'd love to get between three and five mil­ filmmakers to know what they are doing; to has to be about a boxer who has an incestuous lion to start. And I'd like to move up slowly as mean what they say; and to realize that they are relationship with his mother and so forth. We “Nova" has, building the audience as the responsible for both the text and context of their don't want to be on a scale so large that it repre­ months go on. works. sents mindless escapism. We want it to hurt a Q: Will "Odyssey" ever depend upon tricks Anyone who is seriously interested in ex­ little bit; we want the audience to be involved. and manipulation of material? panding the cinema as a means of scholarly ex­ Q: Some people might say you are can­ A: No. But we hope to have fun. The first pression has a task that is not easy or self- nibalizing one art form to feed another. show is a great detective story. Two of the bet­ evident. We spend many hours perfecting our A: I don't agree. I have as much a desire to ter known archaeologists in the U.S. spend an abilities to reduce experience and thought to the get original things on television as I do to adapt entire summer tracking down whether one or written word but little time or effort is expended material. How do you avoid bastardizing? One the other is right in his views about the origins to visualize thought. person's cannibalizing is another person's bas­ of man in America. One believes that people Most scholars remain content simply to tell tardizing. I've taught literature most of my life must have been here more than 9000 years ago. people what they know. Some are going to have and I write. I guess fidelity depends upon the The other has got to be convinced. We think it's to confront the conundrum of what ideas look staging, the writing, the language, the rhetoric, a marvelous portrait of a giant in his own field. like. Jean-luc Godard once said that there are making the right choices and getting them on I think that learning is a very entertaining films about revolution and revolutionary films the air. But you have to fabricate new charac­ business. But I'm not going to build a great boat and that only the latter were worth considering. ters, new plot. It's a different medium. Reading and sail it from Tahiti to Hawaii. I'm more in­ Too often we make films about ideas. We need squiggles on a page is a very private experience terested in showing the excitement that exists to consider how we might make the film into as opposed to sitting in a room with six other within the material itself. the idea. —Jay Ruby people, eating popcorn, with the telephone Q: Do you feel that TV should be used ringing and noises from the radiator. Once you more for teaching than it is being used now? move a five-page Updike story, which is a vis- A: No, it should be used more for learning. 15 ual essay at best, to this large close-up, clearly I don't see these programs as teaching experi­ you've taken one medium and transmogrified ences; I see them as learning experiences. Tele­ it. But I don't think we've cannibalized the in­ vision is best at allowing people to experience tent of the literature. things, learning through experiencing. Teaching Q: How can you be so certain? is a more difficult process and takes longer. A A: In every case we have two scholars who lot of people are angry when a film 90 minutes know the authors— Hemingway, Fitzgerald, long doesn't cover the areas that a book does. Crane— and who are scholars not dramatists. But a book is an experience that lasts over many We have a good script reader on staff. All this days, that you live with for a period of time. It was built in from the start. takes 10 or 12 hours to read the average book; 58 Q: Having succeeded with "Too Far To Go" minutes for a program is a short time. But on on NBC, why are you back on PBS? the other hand, what film can do is capture the A: After we got through our first three experience that a book cannot—and capture it stories and there was credibility in what,we did, first hand. It's neither more nor less trustwor­ indeed a passion for what we were doing as thy than a book. Robert Geller, Michael Ambrosino well as an entertainment value, we had proved Q: If you had complete freedom—and that we could surround ourselves with very enough money—would you make the whole competent professionals. NEH doesn't „second series original films rather than a mixture? guess your choice of writers, doesn't intrude on A: No. There is stuff that exists which the script. I've done several shows for CBS with should get an airing and which shouldn't be first-rate writers and I've had a tough time duplicated just to feed my ego. And there are going back and telling them that the shows are people who work in fields regularly whose work not going to get done. With NEH that doesn't should be supported. happen once you've established your creden­ I want to build a unit of knowledgeable, ex­ tials. Even if I brought the best of "The Ameri­ perienced, involved producers who are every day can Short Story" to CBS or NBC or ABC, they'd learning more and more about archaeology, ethnog­ say: "Marvelous cachet; how did you get Ron raphy, ethnology and who care about the field. Howard?" Q : Do you find resentment from the My hope is that we can survive in both university-level academic community because worlds. I would love to do one good television this is not being done by them, or they are only series like "Too Far To Go" each year for com­ taking part peripherally? Uncovering the 16th-century Inca empire in Peru. mercial TV. And the rest of my time would be A: They are not taking part only peripher­ spent on public TV. ally. I have nine of the best people in the field I've never said no to a commercial TV work on my board of directors. And on the shows the but you've got to develop your own projects. people we seek knowledge from are the best in The Updike on NBC was a labor of love. But the class. Not necessarily the heads of depart­ we're still hoping to develop a four-parter based ments, the oldest or youngest, or the most radi­ on James Baldwin's "Go Tell It On The Moun­ cal or conservative—but the best from a tain" for PBS. standpoint of television. Those who are the Our company is nonprofit but any residuals most articulate and clever but also those who that come from distribution domestically or are willing to have us on a shoot, who can fly to internationally—the first series was sold to 45 Alaska with us, etc. So we're pretty much in­ foreign countries— are shared: 50 percent to volved with the academic community. NEH, 35 percent here, 15 percent to the Writer's But also, somewhere in our original pro­ Guild. And the 50 percent doesn't go directly to posal to NEH is a statement from the American NEH; it goes to the U.S. Treasury.* Anthropological Association which says in ef­ Q: Would you like to see commercials on fect: "We've been trying to do this for a long Mark Twain, Katherine Ann Porter PBS, as has been suggested, as a way to help time. Thank God, someone is coming along and finance good programming? doing it, because this proposal reads better than A: The only way PBS is going to survive is anything we've been able to come up with." to accept advertising. But tell advertisers that Q. What would make your job as executive they can only have X-number of minutes at the producer easier? beginning or the end. And no creative control. A. There is something that would make the Q: What's the greatest satisfaction in pro­ job of every executive producer in America ducing the series? easier: give us some sense of continuity. A: Knowing that once you get started, . We have been given a great deal of freedom you're not constantly worrying about interfer­ and a great deal of money. But what we have ence. Knowing that, "cannibalized" or not, you not been given is a great deal of continuity. And are dealing with the best written material there is no process in American public broad­ around. casting that allows us to be told that we are Q: Has there been much resentment from going to be in business for three years, say, if the academic community? we do a good job this year. You could plan. A: No. We go occasionally to conferences of We are in contact with almost every major The bigman from "Ongka's Big Moka/" the Modern Language Association and we find archaeological dig and anthropological study a sense of gratitude that it's ["The American that is going on in the world. We must be in the Short Story"] getting kids to read. There may be center of that activity. Basically a production argument about whether we've done well with unit like ours becomes an academy that is de­ a James story, but no one has yet written an ar­ veloping, shaping and learning all the time. ticle in a journal saying: "Turn the bastards out; Q. What would be your most satisfying re­ they're killing literature." sponse from viewers? I think part of it might be that we have ex­ A. If people tell me that they not only perts from the field, performing a function, viewed it and enjoyed it, but that they looked at rather than acting as buffers—ten knowledgeable another human being and realized they had academics who are protective of literature. They never quite seen another person that way; or make sure we haven't merely cannibalized. that they learned something deep and impor­ Q: What would you consider the most satis­ tant about themselves as members of society; or fying response to the series? if they walked into a place where they had A: I would like to have lots of librarians never been before where some ancient culture *Half of the net royalty money is paid back to the U.S. had existed, and felt more in contact with that James Thurber, Ernest Gaines Treasury, up to the maximum amount of the grant. culture— I'd consider those responses satisfy- 16 writing in and saying: "What have you done to ing. I really do not believe that I can teach them. us? Richard Wright sat so comfortably on the What I hope to do is cause them to become shelf for years, and now kids are stealing it from self-learners. These programs are only the our bookshelves." I'd like to see a run on the briefest beginnings. There is great value in libraries. being an under-educated person because you Q: Does that mean finding middle ground still have the whole world to study. between elitism and mass popularity? Q : Would you call "Odyssey" to some ex­ A: "The American Short Story" is not tent the education of Michael Ambrosino? elitist. It could play just as easily on commercial A: It's always the education of Michael television because of the stars in it— Levar Bur­ Ambrosino. When I said there is some value in ton, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Robert Preston, being an under-educated being, I was talking Henry Fonda— people who could get more than about Michael Ambrosino. The most learned five hundred times what they were paid by us. among us is often ignorant about what is going Q: So, do you feel you represent the new on around the corner or in the other person's television, bringing more popular appeal to PBS field. at the same time that you are bringing a more literate appeal to commercial television? Along with their mutual commitment to A: Yes, So far we have succeeded in both quality, Michael Ambrosino and Robert Geller The media program enhances public awareness areas. We succeeded in our first commercial share other attitudes about programming. Both of the humanities through imaginative televi­ venture and we have been asked to do more. If stress the need for continuity which only long- sion and radio productions. Humanities content the standards for PBS are getting so compete- range funding will make possible. And both is of prime concern. tive, what we are doing is going to be much agree that the academic community can and will Because the humanities embrace virtually sought after. The hope would be to hold onto play an important part in their television all aspects of human endeavor, the range of both. The question is whether PBS wants larger ventures— as an invaluable resource for infor­ possible projects is broad. Ideas might include numbers— the more PBS needs larger numbers, mation and ideas and by more direct participa­ comparative cultures, traditions underpinning the better our chances are of giving them what tion in the medium. social, legal or religious institutions, and they need. The more CBS and NBC are willing And millions of television watchers will philosophical analysis of contemporary issues. to accept an audience of a mere twenty five mil­ have their options increased by the addition of Media are the vehicles that serve to elucidate lion as being a success, the better our chances archaelology, anthropology and literature to and interpret the ideas of philosophy, history for producing commercially. their weekly viewing fare— as more TV anten­ and literature. Grants result in scripts and pro­ The standards for excellence can remain nae appear at the top of the ivory towers. ductions demanding the talents of experienced high on commercial TV. but don't have to be — Arthur Unger producers, directors and writers. Active collab­ mindless. If the networks will take ten million oration between production people and fewer people, the numbers game will become American Short Story III Robert Geller/Learning in humanities scholars is expected. far less important. Both our public and commer­ Focus, Inc., New York, New York/$1,350,000 in out­ All media projects are designed for radio, right funds, and gifts and matching funds awarded cial TV productions are based on having some television and/or cable broadcast to national or in 1977/Media Program/Division of Public Programs. respect for the literacy of an audience that regional adult audiences. Radio projects of spe­ perhaps wants to stretch a little more. Odyssey /Michael J. Ambrosino/Public Broadcasting cific local interests that also serve as models are Associates, Inc., Boston, Massachusetts/$1,350,000 in encouraged. The Media Program supports: outright funds, and gifts and matching funds 1. Planning grants for early collaborative awarded in 1977/Media Program/Division of Public Programs. work on new projects particularly in those fields April TV Schedules of the humanities where to date little has been presented to the public; 2. Script development grants for script or Odyssey Rosetta Stone. treatment writing; The 12-program Odyssey series will have a reg­ June 23: The Sakuddei— the impact of social 3. Production grants for single programs, ularly scheduled prime-time Sunday slot on PBS at change on an island off the southwest coast of pilots of a series, or support for a series. 8 p.m., starting Sunday, April 6. Consult your Sumatra, Indonesia. Writers, producers and independent local TV program guide for exact information. American Short Story II filmmakers with fresh ideas for using humani­ April 6: Seeking the First Americans— Clovis and ties resources may apply. Applicants may be af­ pre-Clovis man in North and South America. A total of seventeen short stories by eminent filiated with a nonprofit institution or organiza­ April 13: Mas, The Story of a !Kung Woman— American authors, eight shown for the first tion; or they may form a nonprofit independent studies !Kung Bushman, the largest remaining time, will have been presented between Feb­ group for the express purpose of developing a hunting and gathering tribe of South Africa. ruary 4 and April 28 on PBS. Stories aired be­ specific project, provided they appoint an ac­ April 20: Franz Boas (1858-1942) — impact of the fore Humanities publication date were: The Gol­ countant or lawyer experienced in proper ac­ "father of American anthropology" and the influ­ den Honeymoon, Ring Lardner; Paul's Case, Willa counting procedures as manager of records. ences that shaped his thought. Cather; The Greatest Man in the World, James Applicants with recognized professional April 27: Shipwreck! La Trinidad Valencera — Thurber; Rappaccini's Daughter, Nathaniel Haw­ credits need not apply through a cultural or from a sixteenth-century remnant of the Spanish th o rn e ; The Jilting of Granny Weatherall, production organization. However, their pro­ Armada, archaeologists unearth history. Katherine Anne Porter; The Sky is Gray, Ernest posal must include a notarized statement cer­ May 4: The In cas— three current archaeological G aines; The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg, tifying to the nonprofit intent of their work on digs help to unravel the mystery of the Incas. Mark Twain; Barn Burning, William Faulkner; the specific project. May 11: Ongka’s Big M oka— explores the com­ Bernice Bobs Her Hair, F. Scott Fitzgerald; I'm a Applicants are encouraged to contact En­ plex social life of the Kawelka tribe in the New Fool, Sherwood Anderson; Soldier's Home, Er­ dowment staff at least six weeks before deadline Guinea highlands. nest Hemingway; Almos' a Man, R ich ard with a draft proposal or a letter describing the May 18: Other People's Garbage— three current Wright. project. A staff member will tell you if the idea archaeological digs examine St. Simons Island April 7: Parker Adderson, Philosopher, Am­ fits within the scope of the program and can slave cabins, old mining towns in California and brose Bierce and The Jolly Comer, Henry. James help anticipate questions reviewers and panel­ urban artifacts in Boston. A p ril 14: The Displaced Person, F lan nery ists may raise subsequently. Early staff com­ May 25: Masai Women— an intimate portrait of a O'Connor ment will help to sharpen the formal proposal rich pastoralist society on the borders of Kenya April 21: The Blue Hotel, Stephen Crane and save time, trouble, and expense. and Tanzania. April 28: The Music School, John Updike As in other Endowment programs, media June 2: The Chaco Legacy—unearthing a nine applications go through a competitive peer- hundred year-old civilization in New Mexico The American Short Story is available in two vol­ review process. All media applications are sent shows how a whole people adapts to change. umes published by Dell paperback. Odyssey ma­ to a group of radio, television and film profes­ June 9: Cree Hunters of the Mistassini— north of terial including a 64-page viewer magazine, an sionals as well as humanities scholars. (For Quebec City, present-day Cree Indians' traditions Educator's Guide to the series, and a 65-book other steps in the process, see Humanities, are threatened by industrialization. bibliography on archaeology and anthropology January/February issue). — Steve Rabin June 16: Key to the Land of Silence— the startling is available from Public Broadcasting Associates, Mr. Rabin, an Endowment staff member, directs the insights gained from the 1799 discovery of Egypt's 1256 Soldiers Field Road, Boston, MA 02135. NEH Media Program- . 17 DUSTJACKETS—Philosophy

If there is anything that most philosophers in Not only is this work as likely as not to fends a standard against which ethical norms English-speaking countries have agreed on in have appeared in the journals, but the extent of are to be judged, whether it be utility, God's recent years, it is that philosophers don't build its influence and importance can usually not be will, each man's conscience, or rationality; nor­ systems; they grapple with problems, problems gauged until the controversy and the discussion mative ethics is concerned with stating and de­ so enormously complicated that not only solv­ have been going on for several years. The work fending norms on the basis of accepted or es­ ing them but even getting them stated properly that is most important in philosophy at any tablished standards. Normative ethics tends (which is of :course essential to their solution) given time is therefore not always or even usu­ naturally to be less theoretical than meta-ethics. requires great clarity and precision. ally in book form and rarely is it "hot off the It is true that Rawls's discussion consists Thus, -the dominant view in the last thirty- press." mainly in a statement and a defense of a stan­ five years has been that philosophical problems An important major exception is John dard for determining what distributions of must be attacked piecemeal. The natural me­ Rawls's Theory of Justice (Cambridge: Harvard goods are just; and such discussions clearly be­ dium of publication has, therefore, tended to be University Press, 1971), which had been long- long to meta-ethics. Unlike many meta-ethical the article, not the book. This is changing as awaited when it appeared and which im­ theorists, however, Rawls challenges the nor­ philosophers are coming to see the need to spell mediately generated a controversy that is still mative beliefs accepted by many people. out and defend at length the points of view going on and is likely to continue for decades. The principles of a just society, Rawls ar­ from which they attack problems. Still, even the The theoretical discussion that this book has gues, are those that rational people would best of the books being written do not solve provoked has, from the first, been wide-ranging choose if they were ignorant of any special ad­ problems to the satisfaction of everybody, but and intense. vantages over other people that the choice of rather define them in illuminating and provoca­ Rawls's book serves to illustrate a very im­ one set of principles rather than another might tive ways. portant trend in recent moral philosophy, the give them. This is Rawls's standard. The conse­ Everything written in philosophy is con­ rising interest among philosophers in normative quences of accepting this standard, Rawls be­ troversial. There are no standard works, no de­ ethics as distinct from meta-ethics, which has lieves, are that (1) in the just society there is finitive treatments of subjects, no authoritative dominated discussion in moral philosophy for equality in the distribution of basic rights and studies. The most important work in philos­ most of this century. duties, and (2) if there is inequality in the dis­ ophy, the most influential, the work that de­ Meta-ethics is concerned with questions tribution of wealth and authority, disadvan­ termines the trends of philosophical discussion, like "What is it to have a right or an obliga­ taged members of society receive special com­ is also the most controversial, the most dis­ tion?"; whereas, normative ethics asks by con­ pensation. Many dispute these results and are cussed, the most written about and talked about trast "What specific rights and obligations do in disagreement with Rawls on substantive in the journals and at meetings. people have?" Meta-ethics looks for and de­ moral issues.

Thomas Kuhn—Look Magazine Photo by James T. Hansen What most typifies recent philosophical interest in normative ethics is that while it al­ ways generates meta-ethical discussion of nor­ BIBLIOGRAPHY mative standards, the motivating force behind the discussion is a desire to settle normative Books resulting from NEH-supported projects. questions. Philosophy thus pursued becomes applied philosophy, and this interest in applied BRITTAN JR., GORDON G. Kant's Theory of moral philosophy is one of the striking features Science. Princeton: Princeton University Press, of philosophy today. Perhaps it resulted from 1978. Reconstructs Kant's theory of science the demand heard so often during the 1960s for giving a general account of that theory and of its "relevance." motives and implications. If much recent moral philosophy is applied, DEWEY, JOHN. The Middle Works, 1899-1924. it is also often interdisciplinary in character. Edited by Jo Ann Boydston. Vol. 5, (1908): Medical ethics and bioethics are burgeoning Ethics. Vol. 6, (1910-1911): Essays and "The fields, and the number of philosophers who Problem of Truth." Carbondale: Southern Illinois hold both Ph.D.'s and professional degrees— University Press, 1978. Continuations of the M.D.'s, L.L.B.'s, J.D.'s—is growing, as is the series which consolidate and advance certain number of philosophers-in-residence in hospi­ themes of the Early Works. tals and legislatures. There are other areas of philosophy that ELLENBURG, STEPHEN. Rousseau's Political also tend to be interdisciplinary nowadays. The Philosophy: An Interpretation from Within. philosophy of language is becoming increas­ Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1976. Defends ingly informed by theoretical linguistics, the the thesis that Rousseau's political writings con­ philosophy of mind by psychology, and espe­ tain an indigenous unity despite paradoxes and cially the philosophy of science by the history of apparent contradictions. science. HARTMAN, EDWIN. Substance, Body, and The watershed book in this regard is proba­ Soul: Aristotelian Investigations Princeton: bly Thomas Kuhn's exceptionally controversial Princeton University Press, 1978. Gives a sys­ Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: Uni­ tematic rather than historical exposition and versity of Chicago Press, 1962), which argued critique of Aristotle's metaphysical assumptions that scientific progress is radically discontinu­ philosophical problems is not now so commonly as they illuminate his thought. ous in a way that traditional philosophies of sci­ held in either country. Philosophical analysis ence can neither predict nor explain. now tends to be formal and systematic. JAMES, WILLIAM. The Works of William These traditional philosophies, Kuhn said, While one hesitates to attempt a list of the James. Edited by Frederick Burkhardt; Fredson hold good only as accounts of the growth of sci­ most important figures in Anglo-American Bowers; and Ignas K. Skrupskelis. Cambridge: entific knowledge between radical changes, philosophy today, certainly none still active has Harvard University Press. 1978: Essays in Philos­ which must themselves be accounted for in part produced work more influential or controversial ophy, Pragmatism "and" The Meaning of by historical and sociological factors. The than Harvard's Willard van Orman Quine, Truth. 1979: The Will to Believe. Some Prob­ Structure of Scientific Revolutions is by no means whose book Word and Object (Cambridge, MIT lems of Philosophy. Recent volumes in what is solely responsible for the current interest Press, 1960) and article "Two Dogmas of Em­ intended to be the definitive edition of the among philosophers in the history of science, piricism,", first published in The Philosophical philosopher's published and unpublished writ­ but discussion of Kuhn's work has stimulated as Review, LX (1951), No. 1, are still discussed ings with the exception of his letters. much of this interest as has discussion of any every day. PAULUS VENETUS. Logica Magna, Secunda other book. In these works, Quine challenges the per­ Pars: Tractatus de Veritate et Falsitate Proposi- Many see all these interdisciplinary trends sistent belief that by appealing to the meaning tionis et Tractatus de Significato Propositionis. as a recognition of the sterility of academic phi­ of a sentence we can sometimes determine its Edited by Francesco Del Punta. Translated by losophy when it is practiced in isolation from truth, quite without reference to what happens Marilyn McCord Adams. Oxford: Oxford Univer­ those fields it pretends to criticize. Although it in the world, and always find a uniquely correct sity Press, 1978. Paul of Venice, one of the most may be necessary for those parts of philosophy translation for it in another language. The important logicians of the later Middle Ages, that abut other fields to engage them realisti­ philosophical community is deeply split over wrote his masterpiece, The Logica Magna about cally, philosophy has its own agenda in ancient these issues. 1393. It survives only in a single complete metaphysical and epistemological problems that One should mention finally a renaissance of manuscript and has not been printed since 1559. are connected only remotely with practical and interest in the history of philosophy, which had The present fascicule—the first to appear in a theoretical disciplines outside philosophy. And seemed to many during the heyday of logical work of enormous length to be published by the the agenda is pursued in this country with a positivism and ordinary language analysis valu­ British Academy—is of particular importance vigor that belies any charge of sterility. able only as a source of interesting but colossal today when theories of truth and meaning are a So great is this vigor that dominance in mistakes. Much of the historical work being major interest of philosophers and semanticists. Anglo-American philosophy has passed, during done aims at the understanding of ideas in his­ the last twenty years, from the old country to torical context, but much of it tries to bring past SCHNEEWIND, J.B. Sidgwick's Ethics and the new. The ideas of the late Ludwig Wittgen­ insight to bear on present problems. The best of Victorian Moral Philosophy. Oxford: The Clar­ stein at Cambridge University and J. L. Austin it, apart from the indispensable tasks of editing endon Press, 1977. Provides a history of at Oxford no longer dominate the scene. The and translating classic texts, does both. nineteenth-century moral philosophy as back­ overriding belief that the informal analysis of —David Coder ground for a philosophical study of The Meth­ "ordinary language" is sufficient to solve Mr. Coder is an Endowment staff member. ods of Ethics.

19 STATE OF THE STATES: Socrates at Bellevue

Ed. note: In this issue we begin another regular fea- ture of Humanities, "State of the States." Since it is impossible to encompass all of the diverse programs in each of the fifty states, Puerto Rico and the Dis- trict of Columbia, we will highlight activities that many state programs have in common.

James Harrod's neatly engraved calling card is not, at first glance, particularly noteworthy, Two phone numbers are listed, as is his place of work—Mental Health and Corrections, State Office Building, Augusta, Maine. But his title is 'Humanist-in-Residence." Harrod, a Ph.D. in eligion (his dissertation was on Greek mythol- ogy), is also a published poet who has taught adult education courses in creative writing. In his new role Harrod is a public philos- opher, someone, according to his description, who offers his services to the state. These serv- ices pertain more to general attitudes subsumed under the label "humanistic perspectives," and the structure and values of the family. can be a subtle and sensitive business indeed. less to specific theories from a scholarly arsenal. What are, and what ought to be, the re­ But when the chemistry is right, programs suc­ Harrod has a place in a long tradition en- lationships of family, individual and the state? ceed and sometimes exceed almost everyone's compassing such inimical figures as Alcuin, the How could decision-makers, enmeshed in ad­ expectations. scholar-monk recruited to serve the court of ministration and bureaucratic crisis- The itinerant scholar needs to be a special Charlemagne and the philosophe Diderot, whom management, broaden their horizons? Harrod kind of person, often a showman. Sometimes Catherine the Great consulted about a new Rus­ organized study groups, including a literally. The Minnesota State Commission sian constitution. Harrod's patron is the Maine Philosopher's Lunch held every Friday, which found an American historian— Dr. John Chal- Council for the Humanities. featured a reading of the day—editorial', biblical berg of Normandale Community College in Throughout the country, state humanities passage or poem—linking the humanities and Edina — who did a dazzling theatrical imper­ organizations have enabled scholars to become the department's concerns. He also conducted sonation of the pugnacious oratory of Ignatius workshops, led a major conference on the fam­ Donnelley, the nineteenth-century populist ily and public policy, and worked with a com­ w ho founded the Greenback and Anti- munity group on the script for a psychodrama, Monopoly parties. The Donnelley show was "From Patient to Person." It is no surprise that staged before audiences in rural farm com­ the State of Maine unilaterally rehired him at munities, the point being that some perennial the end of the grant period. farm issues haven't changed much in a hundred Harrod, who was conscious of the historical years. The attendance was heartening; a major­ role of the scholar vis-a-vis the state, did not ity of the audience consisted of men, a rare generally feel like a philosophe. "I often felt like phenomenon in rural areas where, in a kind of a combination human relations consultant and reverse sexism, the humanities (or culture) is community organizer, a VISTA volunteer, para­ relegated to something "the ladies dabble in." chuted from out of the blue into the middle of a How can the state organizations evaluate strange city," he writes. But there were rare, their scholar-in-residence programs which are enriching moments "when a bureaucrat or by nature and design free-form and nebulous? planner speaks eloquently . . . about his need to Joe Stockwell, professor of English at Missis­ "humanist residents" in towns, hospitals, pris­ remain a humanist, or about some aspect of the sippi State University spent part of the summer ons, state and city government agencies, corpo­ human condition [central to] the humanities." of 1978 in Waynesboro, a quiet little town in rations, legislatures, even at a state constitu­ Nearly a score of states have experimented southeastern Mississippi. Stationing himself in tional convention. These experimental pro­ with the concept of humanities scholars-in- the library, he wrote chatty articles for the grams, in an apparently inexhaustible variety of residence, an idea that has proved so fecund weekly paper gently explaining what the study forms, are infusing new life into a concept of that new programs are proliferating rapidly. No of humanities is about, wondering if his pres­ public humanities, largely unattended in hard and fast rules define what the resident ence was even noticed. Later, when asked what American since the demise of the Chatauqua scholars do; the state committees and councils he thought, the Chief of Police delighted the circuit. are meant to be incubators for hatching new humanities committee with his response: "What The tradition of philosopher-in-residence ways to engage the public in humanities issues. is the yardstick for measuring intangibles?" goes back to Socrates, who assumed the role of South Dakota, which prides itself in in­ In some cases the scholar-in-residence gadfly, provoking the citizens of Athens to itiating the first program of its kind in the coun­ question their beliefs, reflect on their ideas, and try, has since 1974 sent forth "Johnny Apple- examine how these values of the spirit affect seed" to small, rural towns for a year or a sum­ their workaday lives. mer. Last year historian Lesta Turchen traveled To make their case scholars-in-residence among the communities of Huron, Redfield, must, like Socrates himself, be walking, talking Mount Vernon, Plankinton, all enthusiastic exemplars of how the humanities can enlarge about writing their own histories, but in need of our lives. A scholar working in California's direction. She wrote a do-it-yourself handbook, pioneer "Humanist-in-the-Schools" program and then conducted workshops and training sums it up: "What I learned was that through sessions. my love of the subject I taught, students took Sometimes the scholar and the community notice . . . For if I cared so deeply about what I have strongly divergent expectations. Local people are likely to want straightforward resolu­ was teaching, perhaps there was value in it." In Aurora, Nebraska, In a program sponsored by the Maine tions to troubling issues, while the resident scholars helped citizens Council for the Humanities, Harrod worked di­ scholar's function is to frame the issues within a document the rectly for the Commissioner for Mental Health discussion of values and historical perspective. community's past, and Corrections. His mandate was to review the And when a modern-day Socrates gets on his resulting in a town department's policies in mental health, retarda­ horse to ride circuit in the hinterlands, estab­ history from which this tion and corrections in view of their effect on lishing any kind of relations with local residents linecut was taken. 20

Jl »\ plays a specific role in a structured environment dangers of being co-opted are very real. where the expectations are clearer. Through the In a proposed code of ethics for human- New York Historical Resources Center at Cor­ ists-in-residence, Maine's James Harrod notes nell, the New York Council for the Humanities that the scholar's professional obligation "to has embarked on an ambitious historian-in- serve devotedly the 'god' of philosophy . . . is residence program which lends scholars to local especially difficult to fulfill in the political arena historical societies to collaborate in creating [or] in a government agency whose function is public programs. The scope of the program is to execute the laws, not debate them." statewide: in tiny Horseheads, an agricultural That imaginary paragon of statecraft, who historian from SUNY Binghamton was the first Rousseau said "thinks like a philospher and acts professional historian to visit the Historical So­ like a king," is not about to appear in the Maine ciety; in Astoria, Queens, an enclave of New woods anymore than in eighteenth-century York City, a scholar from nearby LaGuardia France or fifth-century B.C. Athens. But the Community College helped do a project that in­ English professor Joe Stockwell in Waynesboro scholar-in-residence, who owes allegiance to cluded an analysis of how the venerable Stein­ . . . kudos from a Mississippi Police Chief. "the Socratic daimon by questioning and in­ way Piano factory shaped the character of the quiring in search of the values that make life neighborhood. sional (she is president of Programs in Public worth living," at least reminds the public The goal is to move beyond antiquarianism Philosophy, and has worked in a VA hospital) policymaker that matters of state must also be —the mere collecting of artifacts, Civil War uni­ admits to having been "shocked and surprised perceived as dimensions of the human spirit. forms or nineteenth-century farm implements— and scared" when she first went on rounds with — Barbara Delman Wolfson and reach out to the community with solid in­ the Bellevue staff. Barbara Delman Wolfson is an editor and historian. terpretive programs. Even a brief residency is Holtzman is philosopher-in-residence and valuable, for the academic historian brings not director of a pilot project funded last year by the just his or her technical expertise and a citing New York Council at Bellevue's fifty-bed prison knowledge of the latest monographs, but a within a mental hospital. This year the project larger vision— neither quaint nor sentimental— has expanded to include a mental hospital of what the documents and artifacts reveal. within a prison— Rikers Island, a 6,000- to The spirit of discovery is contagious too in 8,000-inmate jail in New York's East River. the three high schools of the San Mateo Union To a New Yorker, the name "Rikers" is School District where the California Council has synonymous with unsurpassed institutional funded a highly experimental "Humanist in the grimness. The clinical work at Bellevue is Schools" program. A historian led trips to the mainly evaluative, to determine if prisoners can "Splendor of Dresden" exhibit for vocational stand trial, while the patients at Rikers Island education students, often left out of such ex­ already have been sentenced and incarcerated. peditions, so they could apprehend the price­ Not exactly an audience of Athenian citizens, less cultural value of the artisan's work. but the project was designed to deal with One resident humanist said, "I wanted our philosophical problems inherent in the work of students to discover that the humanities— his­ the staff— the psychiatrists, nurses, psycholo­ Philosopher Joan Holtzman at Bellevue tory and philosophy and ethics and the rest— gists, social workers and attendants who ad­ Pandora's box of ethical issues." are not 'elitist' activities but brave attempts by minister a social system in microcosm. our companions, e.g. Shakespeare, to make The philosopher's job is not to teach ethics visible the issues which govern our living." to the staff, but do something akin to "con­ And our dying as well. In a new California sciousness raising" about policy and the deci­ AN INTRODUCTION TO • program, a philosopher will be in residence at sion-making process in which issues assumed STATE PROGRAMS to be purely clinical are seen by the philosopher as value-laden. The most talked-about issue is Baltimore journalist, Charles Trueheart, has de­ the patient's "right to refuse treatment," which scribed and analyzed the current status of state usually is expressed by the refusal to take medi­ humanities committees as follows: cation. In discussing how they determine which patients' "rights" are respected, the staff came It has fallen to the National Endowment to recognize that they do make ethical as well as for the Humanities, in the words of its charter, to foster 'public understanding and appreciation clinical decisions. of the humanities.' And it may be that the En­ Other issues were confidentiality and in­ dowment's state programs in which volunteer formed consent. Seminars given' by Holtzman citizens' groups, composed of a balanced mix of and Bellevue's Director of Forensic Psychiatry humanities scholars and concerned lay people, dealt systematically with these issues, which distribute federal funds for public projects in the had been perceived only randomly before. humanities— represent the fulfillment of that As a result of the project, some internal mandate. procedures have changed, although it came to Today the Endowment's division of state be seen that others, which serve purely admin­ programs commands, by statute, no less than 20 istrative and political needs, are beyond the percent of the total NEH budget— $22 million Like the 19th-century populist Ignatius Donnelley, realm of philosophy, as are many constraints this year .... Under the 1976 legislation which historian John Chalberg takes his show on the gave institutional permanence to the fledgling that make adequate treatment impossible. road. state programs, every state committee is entitled In Hartford, Connecticut, Judd Kahn, an to a minimum of $200,000 annual grant. In prac­ the Center for Neurological Study in San Diego, urban historian, worked in the Assistant City tice, each committee is awarded a good deal which specializes in treatment of ALS (amyo­ Manager's office under a grant from the state more, commonly twice that amount, based in trophic lateral sclerosis), a progressive, ulti­ Humanities Council. Kahn believes the resident part on a state population formula and in part mately fatal disease that wastes the body but scholar must be more than "a kibbitzer on the on the record and promise of its program. The leaves the victim's mind unimpaired. The scho­ sidelines." Yet he found that since the exigen­ state committees are also required to match their lar will work directly with patients as they deal cies of local politics play such a pivotal role in federal grant with local donations, most of them with their illness, not as therapist or counselor, the city bureaucrat's life, as an outsider he par­ 'in kind' contributions of goods and services. but as an instructor guiding them, via readings ticipated less in the processes of government The fifty-two committees — including and discussion about death and dying, in their than he had hoped. Still, his stint has encour­ Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia—are intimate confrontation with terminal illness. aged the Connecticut Council this year to place remarkably autonomous compared to other re­ The prison ward at Bellevue Hospital might a scholar in the state's Office of Policy and cipients of substantial federal funds. They draw seem an unpromising setting for a philoso- Management, an agency similar to the fed­ on residents of their own states for members, pher-in-residence, but these days the practice of eral Office of Management and Budget. The establish their own procedures, elect their own prison psychiatry opens up a Pandora's box of scholar will work directly with issues, while leadership, and hire their own staff. The size ethical problems that cry out for philosophical maintaining a distance from which broad philo­ and scope of the projects they support are also analysis. Joan Holtzman, a seasoned profes- sophical and policy questions can be raised. The matters of their own discretion. 21 Applicants who wish support for projects at Six basic principles guided the initial pro­ at least 5200,000 per fiscal year. he local and state level are subject to the goals gram in each state. 4. Each committee is placed in a formal re­ and guidelines of the program operating within 1. The humanities should be central to all lationship to state government because the state each state. The particular focus and the specific aspects of the committee's program. government has the options of: (a) matching the program guidelines vary substantially from 2. Scholars in the humanities should be in­ Federal grant and appointing half the members state to state. volved centrally in each state committee project. of the committee, or (b) appointing two mem­ The program was initiated in 1970 on an 3. All state committee grants should sup­ bers to the state committee. experimental basis. From the beginning, the port projects dealing with public policy issues. Committees vary considerably in the scope state program involved unpaid citizens in vol­ 4. The committee should have a carefully of their activities, making an average of 61 re­ untary effort to bring the humanities to a wider chosen state theme, central to each project. grants in calendar year 1979 ranging from about public. The first six committees were consti­ 5. Projects should involve the adult, out- 25 regrants (New Hampshire) to more than tuted in three ways: two grants were made to of-school public. 175 (Wisconsin). State committees funded more state arts councils to develop a humanities pro­ 6. The committee objectives should be than 3,200 projects, resulting in about 17,500 gram as a part of their program (Oklahoma and achieved by making grants. separate activities, and the average regrant cost Maine); two were made through the cooperation The 1976 reauthorization legislation had in FY 1979 was about $6,800, with many small of university continuing education divisions four effects on the state program: grants of less than $500, and a few for more (Missouri and Georgia); two were made to 1. Each committee is required to submit a than $50,000 (usually television projects). committees created de nova, which later became plan setting forth its procedures to provide as­ For further information on how to apply for the standard practice (Oregon and Wyoming). surance to the NEH Chairman that the commit­ grants from state programs, contact the office More than 1,100 citizens currently serve on tee is in compliance with the law. located in each state. A list of those offices and state committees. Each committee is comprised 2. Each committee is given the responsibil­ further information about state programs may of people with broad public concerns as well as ity to develop procedures and plans "in such a be obtained by writing to Division of State Pro­ distinguished scholars and teachers in the hu­ manner as will furnish adequate programs in grams, NEH, M.S. 404, 806 15th St., N.W., manities. Committees include farmers, physi­ the humanities." Washington, D.C. 20506. —B. J. Stiles cians, laborers, civic leaders, business people, 3. The Endowment is required to devote at state and local government officials, journalists, least 20 percent of its definite funds to the state Mr. Stiles is Director of the NEH Division of State attorneys, and members of ethnic minorities. program, and each eligible committee is assured Programs. 1

RECENT NEH GRANT AWARDS

exhibit interpreting the art and culture of Tiahua- necticut Indian cultural traditions. PM naco, an empire of South America. PM Franklin K. Toker; Carnegie-Mellon University, Archaeology H ugo G . N u tin i; University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA: $32,000. Supports an archaeological Pittsburgh, PA: $8,580. Supports a study of the struc­ history of the Cathedral of Florence. RO & Anthropology ture, ideology, and historical development of the Walter K. Wait, George J. Gumerman; Southern Il­ Mexican aristocracy. RO linois University, Carbondale, IL: $21,917. Supports Edward Bedno; Field Museum of Natural History, Francisco Pabon; Urayoan Outdoor Museum of Nat­ an archaeological project at Rowe Pueblo in the Chicago, IL: $352,079. Supports permanent exhibit ural History, Santurce, PR: $48,618. Supports public Upper Pecos Valley of New Mexico. RS based on 2,500 artifacts from the Museum's Pacific programming for an outdoor museum designed to Gladys Davidson Weinberg; University of Missouri, Northwest Coast Indian and Alaskan Eskimo ethno­ show changing patterns of plant, animal, and human Columbia, MO: $49,827. Supports a study of glass- graphic materials. PM life in the tropical rainforest of Puerto Rico from pre­ making in ancient Rhodes. RO Paul Ben-Amos; The University Museum, Philadel­ historic times to present. PM Lorraine E. Williams; New Jersey State Museum, phia, PA: $23,232. Supports planning of an exhibi­ Henry S. Robinson; Case Western Reserve Univer­ Trenton, NJ: $11,621. To plan an exhibit on the tion of art and artifacts from the kingdom of Benin, sity, Cleveland, OH: $46,135. Supports interpretation socio-economic and political complexities of the one of the most important West African kingdoms and publication of ten years of archaeological work at manufacture and use since 1600 of "wampum." PM from the 15th century on. PM Temple Hill, Corinth, Greece. RO R.T. Zuidema; University of Illinois, Urbana, IL: Robert G. Breunig; Museum of Northern Arizona, Roger G. Rose; Bernice P. Bishop Museum, Hon­ $7,816. To study art and artifacts of Andean society Flagstaff, AZ. $26,911. Supports exhibit of artifacts olulu, HI: $180,244. Supports major traveling exhibit before the Spanish conquest of 1533. RO excavated in 1975-76 at Walpi Pueblo, a Hopi Indian on Hawaiian culture showing how parts of the an­ village, documenting 300 years of Hopi cultural cient culture have evolved and are incorporated into change. PM modern Hawaiian society. PM P. Bion Griffin; Social Science Research Institute, Jeremy L. Rutter; Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH: Archival University of Hawaii, Honolulu, HI: $18,659. Sup­ $55,281. To interpret and publish results of ar­ ports an oral history of Agta Negrito women hunters, chaeological digs at Lerna, Argolis, Greece. RO a tropical foraging society in the Philippines. RO Mari Lyn Salvador; Maxwell Museum of Anthropol­ John B. Hench; American Antiquarian Society, Wor­ Robert Hamburger; 825 West End Avenue, New ogy, Albuquerque, NM: $20,588. To plan an exhibit cester, MA: $100,000. To translate bibliographic in­ York, NY: $29,308. Supports an oral history of "so­ exploring the role of the ceremonial cycle in the eco­ formation on AAS's collection of books, pamphlets cial outcasts," including former mental patients, dis­ nomic, political and social life of Mexican villages. and broadsides printed between 1640 and 1800 in the abled veterans, and drug addicts, living in single­ PM U.S., Canada, and British West Indies into machine- room occupancy hotels: RS Jeffery H. Schwartz; University of Pittsburgh, readable (MARC) format. RC Mark E. Littman; Hansen Planetarium Space Science Pittsburgh, PA: $17,286. To analyze and interpret Library & Museum, Salt Lake City, UT: $2,910. To human remains recovered in archaeological excava­ print new slides, tapes and production notes in order tions at Carthage. RO to extend the popular program on American Indian Delores Titchywy Sumner; Comanche Tribe of Ok­ Arts—History & Criticism astronomy and mythology. PM lahoma, Lawton, OK: $4,308. To plan a permanent Craig Morris; American Museum of Natural History, exhibit of murals that will depict and interpret Co­ NY: $129,420. Supports traveling interpretive exhibit manche life style and ideology. PM Edward P. Alexander; Division of Museum Studies, of Columbian gold and other artifacts, in the context Edmund K. Swigart; American Indian Archaeologi­ University of Delaware, Newark, DE: $8,302. To pro­ of the culture of the people who produced them and cal Institute, Washington, CT: $18,863. Supports duce a history of the evolution of the museum from the environment in which they lived. PM model Native American studies outreach program: an elite collection to its present development as a Michael E. Moseley; Field Museum of Natural His­ lectures, film discussions, courses, meetings and community institution that serves a broad public. RS tory, Chicago, IL: $29,059. To plan a major traveling lecture-demonstration workshops to interpret Con­ Lorenz Eitner; Stanford University, Stanford, CA: 22 $58,081. Supports a documentary and pictorial his­ $4,384. study paper and printing in Chinese civilization. RO tory of European art, 1770-1850. RO Clark College, Vancouver, WA: $4,761. Bret Waller; The Universtiy of Michigan, Ann Arbor, David A. Feingoid; Institute for the Study of Human College of Mount Saint Vincent, Riverdale, NY: MI: $9,824. To plan a temporary exhibit of objects Issues, Philadelphia, PA: $20,000. To plan a series of $5,497. related to the Crusades during the 12th and 13th cen­ six documentaries on Asian art and culture. PN Cuyahoga Community College, Parma, OH: $4,049. turies, as complement to an international symposium Abraham P. Ho; Chung-Cheng Art Gallery, St. Edmonds Community College, Lynnwood, WA: to be held at the University. PM John's University, Jamaica, NY: $10,000. To plan a $6,156. Heanon M. Wilkins & Constance L. Wilkins; Miami traveling exhibit of representative artifacts of Chinese High Point College, High Point, NC: $5,947. University, Oxford, OH: $32,729. Supports a critical performing arts, personified by the monkey king, Illinois College, Jacksonville, IL: $5,292. edition of the Chronicle of Enrique III by Pedro Sun Wu Kung, dramatized since the 16th century. PM Kirkwood Community College, Cedar Rapids, IA: Lopez de Ayala, a 15th-century account of the reign Laurance P. Hurlburt; 2920 Low Road, Middletown, $4,860. of the Spanish king, Henry III. RE WI: $60,000. Supports a study of Mexican muralists, Loraine County Community College, Elyria, OH: Orozco, Rivera, and Siqueiros, their impact upon this $5,993. country in the 1930s, and upon succeeding genera­ Massachusetts College of Pharmacy, Boston, MA: History—U.S. tions of North American artists. RO $6,134. Brock Jobe; Society for the Preservation of New Medical College of Ohio, Toledo, OH: $6,118. England Antiquities, Boston, MA: $14,805. To com­ Monmouth College, Monmouth, IL: $2,930. plete the study of 17th- and 18th-century furniture in Monmouth College, West Long Branch, NJ: $5,544. George D. Batcheler, Jr.; Carpenters' Company of the Society's collection. RS New Hampshire College, Manchester, NH: $4,498. the City and County of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Thomas M. Messer; The Solomon R. Guggenheim Northeastern Illinois University, Chicago, IL: PA: $62,300. Supports a permanent exhibition to pre­ Musem, NY: $187,654. Supports an exhibit inter­ $6,284. serve, display and interpret to the public the most preting phases in Vasily Kandinsky's painting. PM Northern Montana College, Havre, MT: $4,895. significant documents and artifacts in the collection Kaidi Morgan, age 26; Wilson, WY: $1,900. To study North Texas State University, Denton, TX: $5,522. of the oldest craft guild in America. PM the history and current practices in harpsichord Piedmont Technical Institute, Roxboro, NC: $4,829. Peter Benes; Dublin Seminar for New England making. AY Pittsburg State University, Pittsburg, KS: $5,541. Folklife, Dublin, NH: $26,582. Supports an exhibit Dan Morgenstern; Rutgers University, New Bruns­ Plymouth State College, Plymouth, NY: $3,605. and conference on the folk process of "landscape- wick, NJ: $50,000. To continue development of com­ Quinsigamond Community College, Worcester, MA: naming-making" as it evolved form 1500-1850 and puterized catalog of recorded sound collections of $4,889. was reflected in period maps and landscape repre­ Rutgers Institute of Jazz Studies. RC Saint Joseph College, West Hartford, CT: $5,575. sentations. PM Jack J. Roth; Malone-Gill Productions, Inc., NY: Shaw College at Detroit, Detroit, MI: $4,232. Katharine L. Brown; Stonewall Jackson House, $300,000. To produce 90-minute film examining ori­ Shorter College, North Little Rock, AR: $4,970. Lexington, VA: $6,883. To develop an interpretive gins, nature, and persistence of surrealism. PN Southern University, Baton Rouge, LA: $6,976. program for this historic site. PM Harold E. Samuel; Yale University, New Haven, CT: University of Charleston, Charleston, WV: $4,814. Milton Derber; The University of Illinois, Urbana, $55,481. To process and organize seven major ar­ University of Dubuque, Dubuque, IA: $5,575. IL: $45,921. To study the history of labor and labor chival collections of American music. RC University of Wisconsin, Washington County, West relations in Illinois since World War II. RS Ellen Sharp; Detroit Institute of the Arts, Detroit, Bend, WI: $6,623. Don H. Doyle; Century III Nashville, Nashville, TN: MI: $15,410. To plan an exhibit of graphic arts from Villanova University, Villanova, PA: $4,082. $36,364. Supports a Bicentennial History of West Germany interpreting Northern Renaissance Wittenberg University, Springfield, OH: $4,959. Nashville, focusing on themes of rural migration to Europe and the role that princely collectors have the city, the evolution of race relations, and shifting played in shaping great art collections. PM residential and leadership patterns, 1880-1980. RS Lonn W. Taylor; Museum of New Mexico, Museum History—Non-U.S. Susan C. Faxon; University of New Hampshire, of International Folk Art Unit, Santa Fe, NM: Durham, NH: $70,648. Supports an exhibit on the $71,350. To survey New Mexican furniture from changing perceptions of New Hampshire's White 1660-1940, resulting in a museum exhibit and book Mountain region throughout the 19th century. PM that interprets the cultural diversity of New Mexico. RS Malcolm Call; University of North Carolina Press, Steven Fischler; Film Fund, Inc., New York, NY: Deborah Thompson, 117 Norfolk Street, Bangor, ME: Chapel Hill, NC: $5,204. Supports a 4-volume study $150,000. To produce a 90-minute film on the history $18,427. Supports an architectural history of Bangor, of political and church history in mid-19th-century of anarchism in the United States. PN Maine. RS Ireland, and its political ramifications. RP William G. Guice; University of Southern Missis­ Cynthia Grant Tucker; Memphis State University, Charles H. Fairbanks; Yale University, New Haven, sippi, Hattiesburg, MS: $21,311. Supports a com­ TN: $76,668. Supports an interpretive, traveling CT: $49,967. To study totalitarian regimes by com­ prehensive study of Mississippi before it gained exhibit, with catalog, book, and lecture series, il­ paring the Stalin regime (1948-53) with a traditional statehood. RS luminating the life and work of Mississippi painter, autocracy, the Ottoman Empire under Abdul Hamid James M. Howard, Jr.; Council for Basic Education, Kate Freeman Clark (1875-1957). PM II (1876-1909). RO Washington, DC: $53,932. Supports a commission to John Vinci; The Richard Nickel Committee, Chicago, Charles Geshekter; Mountain Top Films, Cambridge, study the place of history in the schools, the current IL: $15,000. Supports final research for the book MA: $45,000. To develop a 60-minute documentary status of the teaching and learning of history, and to which architectural photographer and historian script about the origins of nationalism in the African recommend improvements. ES Richard Nickel was writing at his death: a study of state of Somalia. PN Daniel Hurley; The Cincinnati Historical Society; the architecture of Adler and Sullivan, a firm which H arvey E. G oldberg; Institute for the Study of Cincinnati, OH: $106,446. Supports an adult educa­ has produced some of the most distinguished Human Issues, Philadelphia, PA: $18,544. Supports tion project designed to draw individuals in six Chicago architects and architecture. RS an oral history on aspects of work and synagogue life neighborhoods into a study of the history of their Bret Waller; The University of Michigan Museum of in the Jewish community of Tripoli, Libya. RO communities. PL Art, Ann Arbor, MI: $3,902. Supports a two-day Leopold H. Haimson; Columbia University, New Stuart B. Kaufman; University of Maryland, College symposium in conjunction with a major loan exhibi­ York, NY: $66,545. To study the social and political Park, MD: $64,911. Supports work to prepare for tion: The Crisis of Impressionism, 1878-1882. PM history of pre-Revolutionary Russia. RO publication 12-15 volumes of the papers of American John Zukowsky; Burnham Library of Architecture, Claudia A. Koonz; College of the Holy Cross, Wor­ Labor Leader, Samuel Gompers; and to edit a com­ The Art Institute of Chicago, IL: $6,425. To plan an cester, MA: $25,830. To study the impact of war and prehensive microfilm edition of his papers. RE interpretive exhibit on Peter Bonnet Wight, American depression on German women and the family be­ Arthur J. Lawton; Georgia Agrirama, Tifton, GA: architect of the late 19th century. PM tween 1914-1945. RO $69,936. Supports research to develop an interpretive Ludwig Lauerhass, Jr.; University of California, Los master plan for this living history museum, high­ Angeles, Latin American Center, CA: $6,879. To lighting many aspects of rural life in Georgia and the Consultant publish volume V of Folk Literature of the South Ameri­ "New South." PM can Indians. RP Richard Lieberman; LaGuardia Community College Stephen G. Loring, age 28, Concord, MA: $2,260. To of the City University of New York, Long Island study vanishing traditional hunting, fishing, and City, NY: $127,442. To develop a program of history The following grants provide for consultant help to educa­ trapping lifestyles on the northern coast of Labrador. packages, discussion groups, and exhibits showing tional institutions in developing a more effective AY the evolution of neighborhoods in Queens, NY. AP humanities program (all grants are EC): Paul C. Mills; Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Edeen Martin; Mid-America Arts Alliance, Kansas Barbara, CA: $11,923. To plan an exhibit on the soci­ City, MO: $178,000. Supports an exhibit on the social Appalachian State University, Boone, NC: $6,050. ety, culture, and history of the era of Carlos III as and musical history of jazz in Kansas City and the Arapahoe Community College, Littleton, CO: part of the "Pacific Bicentennial Era" celebration. PM Southwest. PM $5,928. Douglas Mitchell; University of Chicago Press, IL: Carole E. Merritt; African-American Family History Avila College, Kansas City, MO: $5,305. $6,042. To publish a study of Christianity and social Association, Inc., Atlanta, GA: $45,767. To plan an Bergen Community College, Paramus, NJ: $4,804. tolerance in the Middle Ages. RP exhibit on the history of the black family in Georgia Bryant College, Smithfield, RI: $5,442. LThomas Niehaus; Tulane University, New Orleans, from the colonial period through the present. PM , Cabrini College, Radnor, PA: $6,727. LA: $61,179. To process source materials for the Brenda Milkofsky; Connecticut River Foundation, California State University, Chico, CA: $6,039. study of Latin American history. RC Essex, CT: $7,226. To plan an exhibit that will inter­ Central Michigan University, Mt. Pleasant, MI: T. Tsien; University of Chicago, IL: $24,497. To pret the impact of the Connecticut River on the lives 23 of the lower river valley inhabitants from pre­ Richard Strassberg; Cornell University, Ithaca, NY: and creative traditions of Japan and an auxiliary settlement to the present. PM $86,293. To develop a descriptive guide to the collec­ public program about social change since the material Leslie C. O'Malley; Manlius Historical Society & tions of the Labor-Management Documentation Cen­ was collected in the late 19th century. PM Museum, Manlius, NY: $4,385. Supports seven pre­ ter at Cornell. RC Duncan T. Kinkead; Duke University, Durham, NC: sentations which will form a compact program on the Scott T. Swank; Henry Frances Du Pont Winterthur $8,700. Supports an international conference of His­ family, its history and heritage. PL Museum, Winterthur, DE: $16,185. To plan interpre­ panic scholars on arts, letters, and ceremonial at the Charles L. Perdue, Jr. and Nancy Martin Perdue; tive programs and exhibits at historic sites in Odessa, court of the Spanish Habsburgs. RD National Council for the Traditional Arts, Washing­ Delaware. PM Peter Petschauer; Appalachian State University, ton, DC: $41,191. Supports research and public pro­ Henry Taylor; Box 85, Lincoln, VA: $45,604. To pro­ Boone, NC: $33,616. To develop a core humanities grams on ethnohistory of families displaced by the duce a book about the history of the Loudoun Valley, program for freshmen and sophomores called the establishment of Shenandoah National Park, exam­ a case history of the struggle between agricultural ''United Nations Core Curriculum,'' based on the ining social costs of developments causing human tradition and expanding urbanization. RS idea of projecting a multi-nation organization like the displacement. AD Ray Thornton; Joint Educational Corsortium, Ar- U.N. into the past so that intercultural meetings can Leonard Pitt; California State University at North- kadelphia, AR: $137,730. Supports a series of rural occur in historical settings. EP ridge, Northridge, CA: $100,000. To collect and proc­ studies program to analyze, study and disseminate Kurt Steiner; Stanford University, Stanford, CA: ess records at the Urban Archives Center. RC information about the cultural heritage of the rural $10,000. Supports a conference on tradition and in­ Natalie Robinson; School One, Providence, RI: south and southwestern United States. AP novation in contemporary Austria. RD $66,759. To develop a model American history cur­ Daniel Tyler; Museum of New Mexico. Santa Fe, Judith Van Baron; The Monmouth Museum & Cul­ riculum for New England high schools, based on NM: $19,468. Supports a social history of New tural Center, Lincroft, NJ: $5,902. Supports an local history sources. ES Mexico during the 25 years before it became U.S. ter­ exhibition to explore the impact of Chinese culture Margaret W. Rockwell; The Washington Ear, Inc., ritory. RS on the lifestyles and tastes of the United States. PM Silver Spring, MD: $132,660. To produce ten one- Armando Valdez; Bilingual Broadcasting Founda­ William Voelkle; The Pierpont Morgan Library, NY: hour radio programs on the history of the develop­ tion, Inc., Santa Rosa, CA: $35,000. To produce a $37,232. Supports an exhibit on the culture of the ment of neighborhoods in Washington. PN pilot and develop a series of radio scripts examining later Middle Ages that will include the Stavelot Trip­ Linda W. Rosenzweig & Peter N. Stearns; Car- the Chicano experience. PN tych and manuscripts containing representations of negie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA: $281,831. Linda Van Heuvelen; Western Heritage Center, Bil­ the True Cross Legend.PM To develop a secondary school social history cur­ lings, MT: $7,958. To develop junior high school cur­ riculum, teacher training and implementation. ES riculum materials on Montana's peoples and history. Alfred M. Rotondaro; National Italian American ES Interdisciplinary Foundation, Washington, DC: $41,919. To plan and Bernard Wax; American Jewish Historical Society, develop a national series of symposia on issues im­ Waltham, MA. $26,750: To plan an interpretive portant to Italian Americans. Themes to be explored exhibit on the social history of Boston Jewry (1649- are: the nature of ethnic identity, trends in modern 1979). PM Frank J. Atelsek: American Council on Education, Italian history, education and the Italian American Bruse L. Weston; California State College, California, Washington, DC: $77,259. Supports a statistical sam­ and neighborhood history. AP PA: $1,974. To plan for a regional museum for ple of the nation's colleges and universities to form Jan M. Saltzgaber; Ithaca College, Ithaca, NY: southwestern Pennsylvania. PM the basis for a rapid response survey system used to $86,728. To develop a collection program for a Study Marvin U. Whiting; Southern Women's Archives, gather information for Federal policy and planning Center on the Early Religious Life of Central New Birmingham AL: $30,072. To establish an oral history purposes within the sponsoring institutions. OP York State. RC archive of interviews with older residents of Gee's Patricia M. Broderick; State Library of Pennsylvania. Elisa Sanchez; National Council of La Raza, Wash­ Bend, Alabama, an all-black rural ante-bellum com­ Harrisburg, PA: $95,988. To increase public pro­ ington, DC: $21,815. To plan a film series on the munity. RC gramming in the humanities for adults in the state's Chicano people from 1900 to the present. PN Jack Willis; The Center for Documentary Media, NY: public library system.PL David Sandoval; Emancipation Arts, Inc., Los $400,000. To produce a three-hour color documen­ R.L. Factor; Knox College, Galesburg, IL: $12,000. To Angeles, CA: $229,994. To produce a documentary tary film examining the history and dvelopment of study value presuppositions in scientific text books. on the history and culture of the migrant farm work­ the civil rights movement in the South. PN AV ers of the lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas. PN Emily Herring Wilson; Winston-Salem, NC: $59,446. Mary T. Glynn; Zachor; The Holocaust Resource Martha A. Sandweiss; Amon Carter Museum, Fort Supports an oral and photographic history of older Center, New York, NY: $60,440. To assess secondary Worth, TX: $4,832. To develop a plan for interpretive black women in North Carolina. RS school holocaust curricula and develop curricular re­ programs based on the museum's vast photographic Michael R. Winston & Bernice Johnson Reagon; sources. ES collection of western American history. PM Howard University, Washington, DC: $100,000. Edward A. Gosselin; California State University at Susan K. Schmidt; Southwestern Library Associa­ Supports a national conference of scholars and civil Long Beach, Long Beach, CA: $20,000. To develop a tion, Dallas, TX: $177,982. To develop a model for rights movement activists, and a photo exhibit for course on the concept of modernization. EN public libraries for public programming in oral his­ use in nationwide public programs. AP Joseph A. Gray; Literacy Volunteers of America, tory based on 18 library demonstrations, each de­ Edward W. Wolner; 800 West End Avenue, Apart­ Inc., Syracuse, NY: $180,931. To write and publish signed to improve their communities' understanding ment 15D, New York, NY: $7,100. To study the tech­ adult low-level, humanities reading materials and to of local history through oral history techniques. PL nology, ambition, and development of Chicago develop a handbook to help local libraries, working Eugene Sekaquapiewa; Hopi Organization for Prog­ through an analysis of the city builder, a unique so­ with scholars, to continue this work. PL ress, Inc., Oraibi, AZ: $15,000. To research the his­ cial type in 19th-century Chicago. RS Jeannette Harris; East Texas State University, Com­ tory of a Hopi Indian village, Old Oraibi, the oldest Marlene Wortman & Linda Irene-Greene; Institute merce, TX: $48,808. To improve writing skills of stu­ continuously inhabited village in the U.S. RS for Research in History, NY: $92,798. To develop dents through development of humanities courses Catherine C. Serio; Arkansas Territorial Restoration, course materials for high school American history which will stress the writing process as an integral Department of Natural and Cultural Heritage, Little classes based on women and the law. ES component of humanities instruction. EP Rock, AR: $36,349. Supports development of an au­ Mark Allen Young, age 21; Mason City, IA: $2,400. Gerald Holton; Harvard University, Cambridge, MA: thentic furnishings plan for this group of pre-Civil To study the decline of the railroad system in Iowa. AY $20,000. Supports development of criteria for War structures, and an interpretive master plan illus­ Frank A. Zabrosky; University of Pittsburgh, measuring the social consequences of science. AV trating life during the territorial and early statehood Pennsylvania Ethnic Heritage Studies Center, Meighan Johnson; Tri-County Regional Library, period. PM Pittsburgh, PA: $58,679. Supports a survey and ac­ Rome, GA: $85,734. Supports a 2-year humanities Ned Shank, age 23; Berryville Public Schools, Ber- quisition program for source materials relating to the program utilizing major library resources — ryville, AR: $2,293. Supports an architectural history ethnic heritage of southwestern Pennsylvania. RC television, printed materials, and discussion—to project for use in elementary and secondary schools Jeanne Zeidler; Hampton Recreation Department, provide out-of-school adults with information on in Eureka Springs and Berryville, two 19th-century Hampton, VA: $41,825. To develop new exhibits in­ changing customs and problems from a humanistic Ozark Mountain towns. AY terpreting the permanent historical collections of perspective. PL Bruce T. Sherwood; Hanford Mills Museum, East Hampton's city museum. PM Steven Kemper; Bates College, Lewiston, ME: Meredith, NY: $8,300.,To plan a major exhibit inter­ $20,000. To develop a course entitled “Technologies preting mill history and the interdependence of mill of the Intellect." EN and village. PM Intercultural Studies E. Bruce Kirkham; Ball State University, Muncie, IN: Clement M. Silvestro; Museum of Our National $134,232. Supports a workshop for high school Heritage, Lexington, MA: $750. Supports an exhibit teachers and librarians for improving professional on New England linenmaking, from 1719-1836. PM cooperation and solving mutual problems. ES Don C. Skemer; Burlington County Historical Soci­ Sandy Carroll; Overseas Educaton Fund of the Martin Mueller; Northwestern University, Evanston, ety, Burlington, NY: $635. Supports planning to League of Women Voters, Washington, DC: IL: $298,821. To establish a core humanities cur­ make the Society's research collection more accessi­ $115,942. Supports two-day workshops, in five riculum that presents works of art, literature and ble to the public. RC American communities, about the global inter­ philosophy in an historical context with a focus on Edward Skloot; The 92nd Street Young Men's and relationship of women's roles, problems and values cultural values. ED Young Women's Hebrew Association, New York, despite cultural diversities. AP Thomas Naff; University of Pennsylvania, Office of NY: $50,000. Supports an archival development proj­ David Kamansky; Pacific Asian Museum, Pasadena, Research Administration, Philadelphia, PA: $140,976. ect at the Y, an important community institution. RC CA; $83,320. Supports an exhibit on the everyday life To research and plan a study showing the effective­ 24 ness of using satellite and other telecommunications Providence, RI: $73,000. Supports an automated cultural study of southern West Virginia coal miners media to promote and improve second-language in­ grammatical and stylistic analysis of modern English. from 1922 to present. RS struction and the teaching of foreign cultures in RO Daniel J. Elazar; Center for the Study of Federalism, higher education and to develop appropriate cur­ Susan L. Gallick; S^nta Cruz, CA: $17,893. To edit Temple University, Philadelphia, PA: $9,850. Sup­ riculum materials. EH the Latin ARS Dilatandi Sermones (The Art of Making ports a conference on the conventional roots of the Tabitha Powledge & Ruth MacKlin; The Hastings Speeches) of Richard of Thetford, written in England American political tradition. RD Center Institute of Society, Ethics, and the Life Sci­ about A.D. 1200. RE Ronald M. Peters, Jr.; University of Oklahoma, ences, Hastings-on-Hudson, NY: $52,802. To de­ Richard Jurasek; Earlham College, Richard, IN: Norman, OK: $73,240. Supports a study of the Office velop a television script on the issues of privacy and $197,192. To develop a program to increase foreign of Speakers of the House of Representatives. RO confidentiality in the professions of law, medicine, language use by improving faculty expertise in and journalism. PN foreign language studies. ED Henry John Rutz; Hamilton College, Clinton, NY: Menahem Mansoor; University of Wisconsin- $20,000. To develop a series of courses on technology Madison, Madison, WI: $15,635. To plan an interdis­ State Programs and culture. EN ciplinary, interpretive traveling exhibit on the origins Linda Sharp; The Churchill School, New York, NY: and history of writing from primitive communica­ $58,601. To develop a multi-disciplinary humanities tions on rocks and bones to the invention of the al­ District of Columbia Community Humanities Coun­ program for learning-disabled children, ages 9 to 13. phabet. PM cil, Washington, D.C.: William A. Davis, Jr. and ES T h o m as A . S e b e o k ; Indiana University, Roderick S. French, Project Directors: up to $324,000 S. M ichael Simpson; Bard College, Annandale-on- Bloomington, IN: $75,409. To develop and test an il­ Outright, plus an offer of up to $10,000 Gifts and Hudson, NY: $165,753. To develop a program to in­ lustrated handbook of nonverbal signs used by Matching. SO crease the influence of the humanities on students, American English speakers for teachers of English as and to broaden the interdisciplinary perspective of a foreign language. EH students majoring in the humanities. ED Michael Silverstein; The University of Chicago, Carl S. Smith; Northwestern University, Evanston, Chicago, IL: $8,555. Supports a conference on the The Capital letters at the end of each grant description IL: $19,986. To develop two interdisciplinary courses problems and principles of the making of a dictionary designate the division or office and the program through examining how technological change affected major of Native American languages. RD which the grant was made. aspects of common experience in the United States in Special Programs the 19th and early 20th century. EH AD Special Projects Peter Syverson; National Research Council, National AP Program Development Academy of Sciences, Washington, DC: $65,000. Literature AV Science, Technology and Human Values Supports the survey of all research doctorates AY Youthgrants awarded in U.S. universities. The computerized rec­ AZ Youth Projects ord (over 600,000 doctorates) is used as a research re­ Malcolm Call; University of North Carolina Press, Education Programs source for a wide variety of studies. OP Chapel Hill, NC: $3,038. Supports a literary study of EC Consultants John Terrey; State Board for Community College the tragedies of Chapman in comparison with ED Implementation Education, Olympia, WA: $543,981. Supports a proj­ Shakespeare's. RP EH Higher Education ect to revitalize the humanities through Washington Anne G. Cushing; University of California, Santa EP Pilot State's 27 community colleges. OP Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA: $8,900. Supports a 3-day ES Elementary and Secondary Bernard Towers, William J. Winslade, Norman colloquim to celebrate the centennial of the poet Fellowhip Programs Cousins; University of California-Los Angeles, Los Guillaume Apollinaire's birth. RD — see May/June issue for all Angeles, CA: $202,171. To develop a series of under­ Wendy D. O'Flaherty; Social Science Research 1980 Fellowship Awards * graduate courses that relate the humanities to legal Council, New York, NY: $10,000. Supports a confer­ Planning and Policy Assessment and ethical problems in health care. ED ence on models and metaphors in South Asian OP Planning and Assessment Studies Joy G. Ungerleider; Jewish Museum, New York, NY: folklore. RD Pulic Programs $89,992. To reinstall a permanent exhibit of coins and Peter L. Shillingsburg; Mississippi State University, PL Libraries medals in a multi-disciplinary manner with related Mississippi. MS: $108,050. To edit the works of W.M. PM Museums and Historical Organizations interpretive materials. PM Thackeray. RE PN Media Edmund H. Worthy, Jr.; National Council on the Henry N. Smith; The Mark Twain Edition and The Research Programs Aging, Inc., Washington, DC: $760,907. To expand a Mark Twain Papers, University of California, RC Research Resources series of discussion programs for older Americans in Berkeley, CA: $55,488. To establish accurate texts of RD Conferences NCOA Senior Centers across the country, resulting the works of Mark Twain and to edit his previously RE Editions in additional activities such as oral history, literature, unpublished literary manuscripts, journals, and col­ RL Translations geneology, and local history projects. AP lected correspondence. RE RO Basic Research Sanford G. Thatcher; Princeton University Press, RP Publications Princeton, NJ: $5,000. To publish a commentary on RS State, Local and Regional Studies one of Plutarch's Lives to aid in classical studies. RP RT Tools Ronald L. Wilson; Greater Cincinnati Television State Programs Educational Foundation, Cincinnati, OH: $19,650. To SO Operational Grant plan a two-hour television program comparing Or­ Stephan Kuttner; Institute of Medieval Canon Law, well's world as depicted in 1984 with the realities of University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA: our world in the same year. PN $9,805. Supports the meeting of the Sixth Interna­ tional Congress of Medieval Canon Law. RD Sanford G. Thatcher; Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ: $3,800. To publish a study of ancient Roman property law and its historical consequences; FY 1981 budget RP submission Donald J. McDonald; 2126 E. Valley Road, Santa Barbara, CA: $50,000. Supports a study to define pro­ In the FY 1981 Federal budget submitted to fessional standards and integrity in journalism and to the Congress in January, President Carter has explore the role of the press in a democracy. RO. recommended a total of $164.3 million for the Kenneth F. Schaffner; University of Pittsburgh, National Endowment for the Humanities: Pittsburgh, PA: $51,000. To study several integrated $111.6 million for regular program funds, $27 A. David Barry; University or southwestern topics in the philosophy of medicine. RO Louisiana, Lafayette, LA: $333,953. To establish an million for Challenge Grants, $13.3 million undergraduate, interdisciplinary degree program in for Treasury funds to match private gifts, and North American Francophone Studies, with particu­ $12.3 million for administrative expenses. lar emphasis on the bilingual nature of Louisiana. ED The $164.3 million proposed for next year Garland D. Bills; University of New Mexico, Al­ compares with a total appropriation of $150.1 buquerque, NM: $9,315. Supports a symposium on million available for the current fiscal year Athapaskan comparative linguistics and language Sara Bershtel, Allen Graubard; 7 E. 20th Street, New (FY 1980). planning. RD. York, NY: $35,000. To study the recent revival of Anita Brostoff; Carnegie-Mellon University, Jewish self-identity and its significance as a salient Coming in Humanities May/June Pittsburgh, PA: $151,954. To develop a high school example of the dilemmas of ethnic and religious issue: details on new priorities in writing program designed to improve composition identity in America today. RO the 1981 budget submission. assignments in English and history classes. ES David A. Corbin; 3507 DePauw Place, College Park, W.N. Francis, Henry Kucera; Brown University, MD: $33,000. Supports a comprehensive socio­ 25 EDITORIAL Making History Providence — rather than deliberate editorial The response to her most recent book, A Distant judgment— dictated the happy inclusion of Mirror, suggests that her exploration of "the both Barbara Tuchman and Frances FitzGerald calamitous fourteenth century" has touched a in this issue of Humanities. sympathetic chord in readers whose own Tuchman, having been elected 1980 Jeffer­ moorings have been ravaged by the sweeping son Lecturer a year ago, will give The Jefferson currents of change. Lecture in Washington and London in April. FitzGerald, whose study of history text­ We appreciate the interest and value the opinions of FitzGerald's book, America Revised, was the books has touched off a national debate on the those readers who take time to send us their com­ subject of an NEH-sponsored symposium early nature and purpose of history taught in the ments. Space limitations require that letters pub­ last November when we were considering suit­ schools, "has supplied us," as Michael Kammen lished be subject to abridgment. Letters intended for able topics for the "Dialogue" feature in what observes, "with a tough-minded and eminently publication should be addressed: Letters to the was then our as-yet-unpublished bimonthly re­ readable report . . . that is of paramount impor­ Editor. All letters should be signed and must include view. tance to historians, educators and parents . . . the writer's address and daytime telephone numbers. Both Pulitzer Prize-winning authors have to politicians and journalists, psychologists and taught us something about history. Tuchman, sociologists, members of school boards and civil twice a recipient of the coveted prize for his­ liberties groups." In short, all of us. Popular Culture: "We've lost our way . . . " tory, has eloquently convinced her millions of Each not only has "seen the trees," but has We all are the prisoners of our experience. readers that the past can indeed uncover price­ brilliantly illuminated the forest. No matter how hard we struggle—and the pop­ less clues to the understanding of our own time. • —Judith Chayes Neiman ular culture movement is alive with strugglers— we can't come close to realizing the totality of the imprisonment. As Marshall McLuhan said, "No fish ever defined water." ceived a fresh perspective in our vigorous human beings are and might be. To be useful, What I had hoped would be a brisk debate young nation, a new emphasis. Instead of however, the past which people accept as theirs between Janice Radway and Leslie Owens studies about the rich and powerful, the topics must be as accurate and balanced—as complex proves to be a pair of soliloquies. The hope of the day were "the literature of the poor, the as reality itself. gleams in the titles: her "Is Popular Culture So­ feelings of the child, the philosophy of the The reason why history textbooks seem so cial History? Yes" vs. his "Yes but." Actually street/the meaning of household life." bland is that they are reflective of what a she focuses on the remarkable vogue of gothic I suspect that we've lost our way since pluralistic society wants from the past. Each novels and the reasons for it among young Emerson's time but that he could put us on the group wants its own story included and few housewives, while he focuses on race. A young right track again. want the seamy side of their past displayed. woman writes about young women; a black man Carl Bode, University of Maryland There have been gains insofar as blacks, writes about blackness. The strength of the two women, and other over-denigrated groups are articles lies in the fact that both authors know Organization of American Historians Responds now being given recognition as part of the what they're talking about. The weakness lies in to FitzGerald Symposium American past. But there is still need to look the restricted scope. Frances FitzGerald's work comes at a good critically at the past. Only in that way will the The fields of popular culture are more vast time; we need to discuss the nature and pur­ past serve its purpose of informing Americans than most of us imagine. The subjects we in the pose of American history. Neither the public who they are and how they got to the present. popular culture movement think about and nor the historical profession itself has been clear There is another reason why textbooks need write about aren't distinguished by their about what it means by history. The public be­ to be made not only useful but interesting. If breadth but by their novelty. Some of us have lieves it needs history but is often dismayed to they are not accepted as the true past, the fled from the particularism of the existing aca­ learn that history changes and the "facts" of the people will invent their own past, but a past demic disciplines, among them history and lit­ past are not learned by students; the profession without rigorous analysis and one that will erature. But we find it enticingly easy to de­ has long debated as to whether history is a so­ mislead rather than bring self-understanding. velop a new particularism. It may involve soap cial science or part of the humanities. Historians, and textbook writers must operas or comic books, sports or westerns, body Generally, historians have been mes­ make clear that the past is ever-changing. It is language or bisexuality; it's still special. merized by their colleagues in the social science not a fixed landscape which historians simply I plead for more ambitious studies, above to emphasize the scientific side of history. And uncover or portray. Historians are not Olym­ all extensive studies of the everyday. Perhaps it is true that history can help in understanding pian figures who objectively reconstitute the culture is a seamless web and we ought to cut it social problems by providing perspective and by past; they are human beings interpreting the apart as little as we can. I admit the risk of being calling into question facile problem-solving that past. Hence the meaning of the past changes as charged with superficiality if we undertake ignores the facts of past experience. our concerns and attitudes in the present alter. broad studies, but think the risk should be run. But it is time to emphasize that, above all, The criticism of groups like the OAH ex­ For example, some of us like to work on history is concerned with human experience pressed in the symposium is only one of several popular entertainment. The Journal of Popular and values; it is squarely within the humanities. demands for more action by such groups. The Culture probably prints more articles about it The conclusive proof of its primary concern demand here is for more active concern about than about anything else. For the most part, with values is that no government is prepared history in the schools. Others call for more at­ however, those articles are bits and pieces; they to leave history solely up to historians. All gov­ tention to historic preservation, historical should be far more comprehensive. Frequently ernments find it necessary to control the past of museums, public history, and other historical they float on air because they pay inadequate their people, for it is history that sets and per­ activities outside classrooms, libraries, and ar­ attention to the nature of the persons being en­ petuates a people's values and aspirations.. chives. Still others call for more action on behalf of tertained. We need to pay far more attention Professional historians must insist on in­ freedom for historians. Many come together in pro­ not only to them but to people in general. We volving themselves in what goes into the posals for a code of ethics that will guide the con­ need to know far more about—if you'll allow teaching and writing of history. Their job is to duct of historians and people like educational ad­ the abstraction— the average person. see that the past is studied and analyzed as ob­ ministrators, records keepers, and publishers, who Shouldn't we be doing better both in theory jectively as possible and does not become the affect the work of historians significantly. and in practice? Are we on the right track? mere tool of government—or of ethnic, racial, Such suggestions raise questions about the Ralph Waldo Emerson thought so, in 1837, but gender or economic interests, for that matter. allocation of resources. And the resources he was an incurable optimist. One of his most For history is as important to people as it is to available, money and people, are not large. celebrated lectures, "The American Scholar," government. Without history, people have no Groups like the OAH allocate most of their lim­ has since been hailed as our intellectual Declara­ sense of who they are and where they have ited resources to research. The rationale runs as tion of Independence. Speaking at Harvard in come from; with history, they expand their ex­ follows: all of the work of historians—teaching, August of that year, he asserted that he per- perience and their understanding of what preservation, exhibits—depends on research and 26 should be in harmony with its findings. Thus, which weaves its way through history, of experiences that we must accept on faith: e.g-. the reviews in journals stress the appraisal of course, but does not define it. When the biog­ “The American people in the nineteenth cen­ the products of research, ignore secondary rapher attempts to make one life serve as an or­ tury adopted the founders as their fathers and school textbooks, and reflect a hope that this ganizing device to discuss an entire era emotionally became their children." This may sorting process will assist the textbook writer, conveniently, he drains the life of its meander­ well be true, but I am not yet convinced by an the teacher, and others who need to base their ing, particular authenticity, and writes bad his­ approach which itself, for all Forgie's criticism work on the best research. tory as well. of historians, seems too neat and unrespectful We should do more. We should pay atten­ Professor Malone's achievement as a biog­ of the subject's own vantage point. tion to textbooks and teaching. We should pay rapher cannot solve by example, as Genovese Forgie transforms the Lincoln-Douglas de­ more attention to other historical activities. And suggests, the historical profession's regrettable bate into an encounter rich in mythical/ all of this should be added to, riot substituted tendency to fragment into mutually exclusive psychological significance. We no longer have for, research-related activities which must continue categories, whether of economic, political, or Lincoln the political debater of rhetorical bril- to go forward. To do this, however, the OAH cultural emphasis. The various elements of lance, but rather the arch-psychologist exploit­ needs a substantially larger budget, one that is human life do come together in biography when ing his countrymen's "violent fantasies" and larger than members and subscribers can sup­ a great humanist has the sensitivity to see their "fratricidal emotions," to heap upon poor ply. When thinking about gdals for learned and interrelationship, but they come together Douglas "the responsibility for all their prob­ professional societies, we must also think about uniquely. The historian who wishes to assess lems and then symbolically murdering him." Is the means required to reach them. objectively forces in the making of an age must it not preferable instead to accept what Forgie Carl N. Degler, President, OAH look far beyond individual lives, even great calls Lincoln's "melodramatic interpretation of Richard S. Kirkendall, Executive Secretary, OAH lives. What fine biography offers us is precisely the passing scene" as the eloquent expression of that element of individuality, understood and a rhetorical style pervasive in nineteenth cen­ Ed. noter Some professional historians and historical expressed superbly in the rare instances when tury America; to see rhetoric as rhetoric and associations were sent advance texts of the FitzGerald subject and biographer are well matched. I am politics as politics? Psychological insights, like Symposium. The first reply, received as Humanities happiest with Genovese's eloquent tribute historical insights, are clearly valuable in the went to press, is printed above. when he celebrates the temperamental affinity telling of a life but experience should never be and indeed the moral universe shared by chopped up to suit its purpose. Biography is not Biography-A Different Genre Dumas Malone and Thomas Jefferson. an adjunct of either history or psychology. Biography as a genre often finds itself in a In the next essay, George Forgie mounts his Barbara Haber's fine discussion in that position like that of a woman complimented for own battle against the blurring of lines between same issue of two recent "lives" of Edith "thinking like a m an.",The compliment is biography and history by criticizing the trunca­ Wharton, taking account of the special circum­ heartfelt but unwelcome. Something of this can tion of a life into neat historical periods, as in stances of women in the nineteenth century and be seen in Professor Genovese's* tribute to biog­ the convention of pulling Abraham Lincoln of Wharton's own emotional developments, raphy as history. I share Genovese's assessment through “The Prairie Years," "The War Years" makes us realize how much biography can in­ of Dumas Malone's greatness, but chafe at the and so on. He maintains, and I agree, that a corporate and achieve as a genre when the implication that the essence of his greatness life's progression should be understood from its proper balance is struck. comes of having'produced biography worthy of own vantage point rather than through histori­ Marc Pachter being called great history. The two fields have cal hindsight. But as Forgie goes on his own, Mr. Pachter, Historian, National Portrait Gal­ quite distinct intentions. The biographer is con­ psychological categorizing takes over. Lincoln lery, is the author of Telling Lives: The Biog­ cerned with the unfolding of an individual life, and his generation are forced into psychological rapher's Art. Humanities

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27 About the authors... and television scriptwriter and on-air television ' fessor Blassingame is the author of The Slave Catharine R. critic for Channel 13 (NY). Mr. Unger interviews Community (1972), Oxford University Press, Stimpson, associate the producers of American Short Story II and editor of New Perspectives in Black Studies (1971), professor of English at Odyssey, on Page 15. and co-editor of In Search of America (1972) and Barnard College, is Frances FitzGerald The Autobiographical Writings of Booker T. Wash­ editor of Signs: Journal was a journalist in ington. of Women in Culture and Vietnam after her Joseph (Jay) Feath- Society. Educated at graduation from erstone, historian and Bryn Mawr College Radcliffe College in journalist, is a lecturer and Cambridge and 1962. Winner of the at the Harvard Columbia Universities, Overseas Press Club Graduate School of Professor Stimpson award in 1967, she Education. He is a has been a Fulbright Fellow, an honorary won the Pulitzer Prize contributing editor to Woodrow Wilson Fellow, and a Fellow of the and the National Book the Neiv Republic. His National Humanities Institute at Yale. She Award for her first most recent book is serves on the editorial boards of Women's book, Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and the What Schools Can Do. Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal, Critical In­ Americans in Vietnam (1972). Her second book, Dan Lacy, Senior Vice quiry, and the University of Michigan Press America Revised: History Schoolbooks in the Twen­ President and Execu­ series on "Women and Culture." As a distin­ tieth Century is the topic of our symposium on tive Assistant to the guished contributor to the new scholarship Page 4. President, McGraw- about women, Ms. Stimpson views Barbara John W. Blassingame, Hill, Inc., is the author Tuchman, ninth Jefferson Lecturer in the professor of Afro- of Freedom and Com­ Humanities, through "A Closer Mirror."Page 1. American studies at munications (1961), The Jay W. Ruby, associate Yale University, is Birth of America (1975), professor of an­ editor of The Frederick The Lewis and Clark Ex­ thropology at Temple Douglass Papers, Yale pedition (1974), and University, has been a University Press, The Abolitionists (1978). major contributor to which published the He is a member of the American Library Associ­ scholarship in an­ first of a projected ation and the Council on Foreign Relations. thropology, archaeol­ 14-volume edition in Kathryn Kish Sklar, ogy and film. Editor of November, 1979. Pro- associate professor of Studies in the An­ history at the Univer­ thropology of Visual sity of California, Los Communication, he is In the next issue ... Angeles, is thp author also a member of the Board of Directors for the of many publications Anthropology Film Research Institute, the ROBERT BELLAH, Ford professor of Sociol­ on women in history. Board of Trustees for International Film Semi­ ogy and Comparative Studies, University of Her books include: nars, and of the Advisory Board of the Smith­ California at Berkeley, on comparative cul­ The Education of Women sonian Institute's National Anthropological Film tures • plus unraveling the mysteries of the in the United States, Center. Mr. Ruby analyzes the tensions be­ Middle East • rediscovering China • 1620-1970 (1970), Vic­ tween scholars and filmmakers and hopes for a torian Women and Domestic Life: Mary Todd Lin­ A UNIVERSE OF NEH FELLOWSHIPS new synthesis in which "the text becomes the coln, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Harriet Beecher context." Page 14. individual research • summer sti­ Stowe (1979), and Catharine Beecher, A Study in Arthur Unger is a tele­ pends • summer seminars • fellowships for American Domesticity (1973), which was nomi­ vision critic for the the professions • residential fellowships for nated for the National Book Award in Biog­ Christian Science college teachers raphy. Monitor. A graduate of NEH 1981 BUDGET PRIORITIES • DUST- the University of Mis­ JACKETS on state, local and regional souri School of Jour­ studies • THE STATE OF THE STATES— nalism, Mr. Unger has and more features on NEH plans, projects been entertainment and programs. editor for the New York • plus ALL 1980 NEH FELLOWSHIP Times, Family Circle AWARDS and Ingenue, a film

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