HUMANITIES VOLUME 15/NUMBER 4 EDITOR'S NOTE

The poet Walt Whitman tells us "it has the snap, go, fling of the American atmosphere; it belongs as much to our institutions, fits into them as significantly as our Constitution's laws; is just as important in the sum total of our historic life." The "it" is baseball. If the rhetoric sounds extravagant to the modern ear, many find it nevertheless true. "Baseball is a thousand morality plays," filmmaker Ken Burns tells Endowment Chairman Sheldon Hackney in this issue. For Burns, whose nineteen-hour documentary on Baseball premieres this fall, the game is a mirror of American history, particularly of the long struggle over race. Seven years before Brown v. Board of Education, he points out, it was baseball that grappled with the Sliding into home plate. St. Louis Cardinals versus Brooklyn Dodgers, 1939. issue of race with the arrival of Jackie Robinson. When St. Louis

— Courtesy of Dennis Goldstein Collection. Cardinals players threatened to strike rather than take the field if Robinson were on it, Ford Frick rose majestically as president: "I do not care if half the league strikes. Those who do will encounter quick retribution. All will be suspended, and I don't care if it Humanities wrecks the National League for five years. This is the United States of A bimonthly review published by the America and one citizen has as much right to play as another." National Endowment for the Humanities. Baseball has many such moments, Burns tells us. "You have the ever Chairman: Sheldon Hackney present tension between labor and management, between owners and Director of Communications Policy: players. You have the exclusion of women. You have the question of Gary L. Krull what a hero is, and also what a villain and a fool is... .we convince ourselves over and over again about who we are." In this issue of Humanities we make a brief visit to the nine innings of Editor: Mary Lou Beatty Assistant Editors: Constance Burr Burns's series and to the world of Caribbean and Mexican baseball and Susan Q. Jaffe of ballfields past and present. Ellen Marsh The ballfield of my own childhood is one of those now gone. There is Writer-Editor: AmyLifson a just across the street with the same name, but it is not the blue- Editorial Assistants: Nicole Ashby trimmed pennants-flying wedding cake of a Comiskey Park that I Steven Snodgrass grew up with. When my brothers and I were young, baseball was a voice on the Editorial Board: Marjorie Berlincourt, radio and Comiskey was Valhalla. For most of the season, the voice on George F. Farr, Jr., Guinevere Griest, the box took us to the park and filled our heads with breathstopping Marsha Semmel, James Herbert, play-by-plays. Hating the Yankees, fiercely loyal even when our father Carole Watson told us about Shoeless Joe Jackson and the shame of the 1919 World Marketing Director: Joy Evans Series, we waited for the one day a season when my mother would pack an empty cracker box with homemade sandwiches and my father Design: Crabtree & Jemison, Inc. would take us on the pilgrimage to the South Side to see the Sox play. We would spend the blazing hot afternoon pencilling in the putouts on The opinions expressed in Humanities are those our scorecards, cheering, chanting "Come on, L-u-u-ke" with the rest as of the authors and do not necessarily reflect Endowment policy. Material appearing in this Luke Appling fouled off ball after ball waiting for the right pitch, and publication, except for that already copyrighted, my father would tell us how cheap the Comiskeys were and how losing may be freely reproduced. Please notify the all those would give them fits. In the twilight we would make editor in advance so that appropriate credit can be given. Humanities (ISSN 0018-7526) is pub­ the long trip home, noisy in jubilation, quieter in defeat, back to our lished bimonthly by the National Endowment radio and the rest of the season. I remember seeing Joe DiMaggio once, for the Humanities, 1100 Pennsylvania Avenue, and , but the strongest memory is the heat and the haze N.W., Washington, D.C. 20506. Telephone: 202/606-8435; fax: 202/606-8240. and the hollering of a distant summer afternoon. If baseball is what easily comes to mind on a sunny day, it is not the Second-class postage paid at Washington, D.C., only institution of summer. We visit another, almost as old in American and additional mailing offices. Postmaster: Send address changes to United States tradition, in which the focus has been spiritual and intellectual enrich­ Government Printing Office, Superintendent of ment. The institution is chautauqua, and we look at its modern counter­ Documents, Washington, D.C. 20402. New part in the Midwest and West. The occasion is the beginning of a new subscriptions and renewals: U.S. Government Printing Office, Superintendent of Documents, section of the magazine devoted to state humanities council activities P.O. Box 371954, Pittsburgh, PA 15250-7954. around the country. Annual subscription rate: $13.00 domestic, — Mary Lou Beatty $16.25 foreign. Two years: $26.00, $32.50. For subscription questions or problems, telephone: 202/512-2303; fax: 202/512-2233.

2 JULY/AUGUST 1994 HUMANITIESTHE MAGAZINE OF THE NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES

Page 4 Page 28 Page 24

B aseball Around the Nation Other Features

4 A Conversation with... 28 Chautauqua 24 The 1930s: Prelude to War Filmmaker Ken Burns and NEH In the Great Plains, the theme By Janis Johnson Chairman Sheldon Hackney is the Gilded Age of Twain While shaping public opinion, discuss how baseball mirrors and Crane. newsreels entertained. who we are. 30 State by State 8 The Lineup 39 A Year of One's Own Activities around the country A film history of the game in By Constance Burr sponsored by state humanities nine "innings" will air this fall. Teacher-Scholars forge a councils and foundations. new national climate. 12 A Daughter's Reminiscence 30 Breaking Down Prison Walls Departments "How Hans Became an American"— By Elinor Nauen By David Remund A Native American teaches 23 In Focus Lakota culture to fellow inmates. 13 Baseball and the Meaning By Nicole L. Ashby of America Diana Natalicio: A Voice 32 Paul Laurence Dunbar for the Unheard By Christian K. Messenger "The beauty of play is that we By Therese Nolan can begin again... " Poet Herbert Woodward Martin 35 Noteworthy captures Dunbar's character 18 The Game Endures and cadence. 36 Calendar A Civil War Diary The Humanities Guide 19 The Houses That Baseball Built By John Pastier 38 The Dissertation Paradise lost, paradise not Grants Program quite regained. By Kathleen Mitchell 44 Beisbol in El Norte By Samuel O. Regalado 54 Deadlines Latino ballplayers energize the big leagues.

HUMANITIES 3 A Conversation With KEN BURNS

On BASEBALL

How THE SPORT OF

baseball reflects the American character was the

topic when Chairman Sheldon Hackney’ met recently

with filmmaker Ken Burns, whose new Baseball

series premieres on public television this fall.

4 JULY/AUGUST 1994 Sheldon Hackney: Does the Baseball the good of mankind. His example is Hackney: Americans like—maybe all narrative provide the answer to the the best kind, one of the most com­ human beings like—morality plays. question of what holds us as Ameri­ plete examples of heroism in the Baseball shows you morality plays. cans together? twentieth century. And the story Bums: Baseball is a thousand morality Ken Burns: I don't think in the end baseball offers is a precise mirror of plays. You have ancient heroes com­ that we ever answer that question. I this country's struggle with the ques­ ing back for one last quest. You have think that we seek a kind of dialogue tion of race throughout its long his­ young and potentially limitless talent with ourselves which deepens the tory. That is the primary central ten­ destroyed by greed or corruption or pursuit of that question; so that we are sion. But there are others: You have temptation. You have lives cut short enriched by tilting towards it and the ever present tension between by tragedy. You have those seemingly never really, in fact, attaining it. labor and management, between less fortunate blessed by longevity. But I regard baseball as a bellwether owners and players. You have the You have almost every classic form of of who we are. By studying its past, exclusion of women. You have the Aristotelian poetics play themselves we have a model, a scien­ out on the baseball field. tist would say, to pursue And they do so in a game the larger sense of where which is not like any other we've been, where we are, game. I think we forget to and perhaps where we're say this, but this is why we going. That's what I like are drawn to the game of about baseball. baseball. This is a game without a clock. This is a Hackney: It's really more game where the defense than a metaphor. It's a has the ball. This is a game prism through which you with a rigid set of rules, but see various kinds of Amer­ where every baseball field ican social history. Race is different from every has its roots there. other. That cannot be said Burns: Absolutely. The of a basketball court or a underlying theme of base­ football field; they are all ball would be the story of the same. This is a game— race, which in my opinion § because it has no clock— is the central American ten­ I which could go on forever. sion. Here is this extraordi­ | This is a game where its nary country founded on t best players fail seven the highest ideals that man times out of ten—very Sheldon Hackney had yet put forward—that much like life. And this is a all men are created equal— game that begins in spring and yet it would be four and ends in the fall, which score and five years before we would question of what a hero is, and also has the rhythms of our daily life. And, even start a war to begin to correct the what a villain and a fool is. Baseball most important, a game, unlike any terrible consequences of tolerating replays the complicated story of other, which began with the birth of our slavery. And almost immediately the immigration and assimilation, as republic and has accompanied it all the promise of the Civil War goes astray. wave after wave of immigrant way through. Though we may tilt, in But what is the first large example groups seek real citizenship in the various eras, to another sport for what­ of civil rights, of integration? It is not mastering of . ever reason, baseball remains a reposi­ the military, it is not a lunch counter, Baseball is about the growth of cities tory of our most trusted values and tra­ it is not a city bus, it is not a school. It and the restless migration that has ditions. And powerful emotions. is the integration of our national pas­ characterized our ongoing settle­ For example, we had to design a time by one of the most heroic indi­ ment. You have in baseball a unique scene after Jackie Robinson's poignant viduals I've ever gotten to know. glimpse of popular culture and death that is the cinematic equivalent of Jackie Robinson. In my cinematic advertising and how we convince a highway attenuator— a pile of things experience, he is second only to ourselves over and over again about you can crash into that break your fall Lincoln in the kind of sacrifice he who we are. These are the myths because the emotion of the scene was made for the good of his country. that we build up around ourselves, so strong. There are two or three min­ the myths that have attached them­ utes after his funeral where we allow Hackney: Is he the central hero then, selves to baseball, beginning with you to dry your tears. We put it in there in your view? the fraudulent notion that Abner because we realized we as filmmakers Burns: Yes. Too often we say Jackie Doubleday had anything to do with couldn't go on without a rest. I always Robinson sacrificed for the good of it. This one insecure, almost comic wondered what it was that moved me his race, his people. But I would also story speaks volumes about who we so. As the editing progressed I realized say for the good of his republic, for are as a people. simply that I missed Jackie Robinson, a

HUMANITIES 5 man I never knew. That's the mark of a recognizes. They suffer or strive for Hackney: How do you explain the fact hero, a real hero. I think our national those values. So it may be uncomfort­ that in this very individualistic culture dialogue has so few heroes. able because you have a hard time that is America, the national sport is a believing in those. team sport? Hackney: Increasingly, too, we live in an age of some cynicism, or sophistica­ Burns: We've forgotten to define what B urns: That's one of its essential tion, depending on your point of view. these shared values are. I think the strengths. We celebrate Joe Montana in The heroes are very different now. movement towards multiculturalism football, who makes seventy percent of and diversity is a much needed his passes, and Michael Jordan in bas­ Burns: In my experience, I feel that a response to the tyranny of the "old ketball, who makes seventy percent of pervasive cynicism is one of the great history" of white heroes on white his baskets. But in baseball Babe Ruth, threats to our republic. You see it par­ horses, but what has been put in its the greatest player who's ever picked ticularly in our media where the tradi­ place, is a newer but equally devastat­ up a baseball bat, still only came to bat tional healthy adversarial relationship ing tyranny which permits a kind of once every nine times; even he would between the press and government cultural Bosnia to occur among the has been replaced with something that fail seven times out of ten. That kind of various groups of our diverse culture. truth, the knowledge that you cannot is simplistic and lazy, as well as cyni­ I remember I came across this state­ do it alone, is a lesson which Governor cal. What used to be a celebration of ment by Henry Adams when I was Cuomo—once the ' heroes combined with a tolerance for working on The Civil War that said, number one draft prospect—says in their complexity, is now merely an "There are grave doubts at the huge­ the film is a lesson the Bible, Jeremiah, exercise in bashing just to sell another ness of the land and whether one gov­ has tried to teach us and hasn't been story. It's very short-sighted. The ernment can comprehend the whole." able to but baseball has. The notion of media tend to say someone is either all This was the great nineteenth-century sacrifice, bunt plays, Cuomo says, good or all bad, and when we identify anxiety: that this seaboard collection of "This is giving up yourself for the someone as good, then we devote a former colonies could possibly expand good of the whole." We have a practi­ terrific amount of energy looking to continentally. Well, we could, albeit find that, in fact, they're not so good. with some great difficulty and ten­ cal example of sacrifice, of team spirit, of community participation. Hackney: Right. Which turns people sions. But I wonder now whether we cynical. can comprehend the whole culturally. Hackney: Is that part of the American Hackney: Indeed, that's the way Lin­ story—that community spirit, to sacri­ Bums: Which turns everyone cynical, coln saw the Civil War. It was about fice for others? because we've forgotten to say every­ slavery, but it was also about whether body is complicated. We've forgotten Bums: Well, I think that the American a nation could succeed as a demo­ to select for our heroes. We have to story is a complex coin that has dark cracy, as the hope of the world. have some sort of spiritual evolution and light sides. I think we see this in as a people, and heroes, or legitimate After completing our series on the arena of our centuries-old struggle ones, are our pathfinders. the Civil War, it was an interesting towards racial justice and equality. Yet, All of God's creatures are compli­ process for us, thrashing about for a we have a pernicious racism that per­ cated and interesting, and I think new model to explore and to celebrate sists despite decades of attempts by the Greeks understood this. There is and to pursue this powerful question good people to eradicate it. no hero with­ out tragic flaws Hackney: When or some dark as­ “I think that the American story is a complex coin that has dark and you begin think­ pect. That's what ing of a project, makes them he­ light sides. I think we see this in the arena of our centuries-old struggle do you begin roes, sets the towards racial justice and equality. Yet, we have a pernicious racism that with the visual heroic action in images or do relief. I think persists despite decades of attempts by good people to eradicate it. ” you begin with we've become the narrative obsessed in an or some other almost Puritan sense with painting the of Union. As a people, we look to wars historical concept? scarlet letter A on everyone that we can and presidents and generals to tell our Burns: I first have to feel that it res­ find who has the slightest flaw—which stories; they seem to do a fairly good onates internally in me—it is neither a means all of us. Of course, no one is job and represent for most people visual nor a narrative kind of corre­ without sin. what history means. But it may be pos­ spondence at the outset. I am inter­ Hackney: There's another aspect to sible to look at American history, its ested as a filmmaker in an emotional heroism, I think, and that is that progress, its narrative, its backwaters archaeology of the past, not for the heroes are heroes because they exem­ and eddies, from an entirely different sake of sentiment or romance, but with plify transcendent values of some perspective. It's my thought that a a sense that feeling, real feeling, is the kind. They are honorable and they are much more perfect model to explore glue that holds the events of the past loyal to a set of values that everybody this question of union is baseball. together for people. Before I choose a

6 JULY/AUGUST 1994 The Homestead Grays and the Newark Eagles at , 1942.

|l project I look to see if there may be a We hope that "one and one" eventu­ Combined with a dynamic set of It || common feeling, a feeling that I have ally equals "three" in our films—a new visuals, there are moments when the || 11 in my breast, that I suspect you might relationship between word and pic­ past, for a brief second, comes alive. I It 1| also share and that others might share. ture— and not two. live for those moments. || There has to be a sense of correspon- At the same time this film exploration In the Civil War, Walt Whitman said, ll || dence between the subject and our is going on unfettered, I've begun a "Future years will never know the % own times and concerns. Then, I actu­ purely narrative exploration with the seething hell, the black infernal back- || al ally begin in two separate directions, writer, Geoffrey Ward, working closely ground, the countless minor scenes il || as if my left hand does not know what with my partner on this film, Lynn and interiors of this Secession war, and l| II my right hand is doing. First, I begin a Novick, trying to find the hundreds of it is best they should not. The real war || l| purely visual response, filming what- stories that we might tell. We cast our will never get in the books." I think || ever I feel like in the myriad archives, net terrifically wide. If we ever pub­ what Whitman suspected was the limi- || collecting whatever looks good, with­ lished what we first attempted, it tation of cold type on paper; how no % al out any worry about whether there are would be twice or three times as long as matter how rich the literary imagery, a 11 places in the script that this will illus- what we finally put out—in this case, certain "realness" was lost. What we're || f| trate. In fact, we don't want literal easily forty hours in length—if we suggesting is that if you pursue this l| illustration in our films because that didn't begin to whittle away at that nar­ kind of filmmaking, third-person nar­ 11 sets up a merely one-to-one relation- rative. As we cut, we discover what is ration with a literary sensibility—that || ship between the word and picture. important to us, what has meaning. Continued on page 48

HUMANITIES 7 ST INNING, THE 1840S TO 1900

"Our Game" will tell the story of baseball's rise, in only one generation, from a gentlemen's hobby to a national sport played and watched by millions. In this episode, we meet1 the first baseball magnate, Albert Goodwill Spalding, explore the game's first gambling scandal, see the first attempts by women to play the game in the 1860s, witness the first attempt by ball players to unionize, and learn how the first black professionals were hounded out of the game in the Jim Crow 1880s.

Small-town team,, 1880s. --- Photos from National Baseball Library & Archive

ND INNING, 1900-1910

"Something Like a War" will introduce some of the most extraordinary 2individuals ever to play the game: Ty Cobb, the volatile, brilliant who may have been the greatest ball player of all time, but who was "possessed by the furies"; , the modest farm boy with a fast ball so intimidating hitters sometimes left the batter's box after only two strikes; Christy Mathewson, a college-educated so virtuous he was worshipped by schoolchildren as "the Christian Gentleman"; and John McGraw, the brawling, unstoppable manager of the New York Giants.

Ty Cobb Shoeless Joe Jackson

RD INNING, 1910-1920

3"The Faith of Fifty Million People" will culminate in the Black Sox scandal, in which eight members of the , including the incomparable Shoeless Joe Jackson, "played with the faith of fifty million people," as F. Scott Fitzgerald later wrote, by taking money from gamblers to throw the in 1919.

8 JULY/AUGUST 1994 FILM HISTORY OF THE NATIONAL GAME, BASEBALL WILL A AIR IN NINE "INNINGS” OF APPROXIM ATELY TWO HOURS EACH SPANNING TWO HUNDRED YEARS— FROM THE

LATE 1700S TO THE PRESENT. THE SERIES, WHICH BEGINS

ON PBS ON SEPTEMBER 18, WILL UNVEIL RARE ARCHIVAL

GAME FOOTAGE, PHOTOGRAPHS, INTERVIEWS, AND EARLY

RADIO BROADCASTS. AND AS IN THE CIVIL WAR, THE

VOICES OF THE PAST WILL SPEAK AGAIN.

TH INKING, 1920-1930

"A National Heirloom" will focus 4 largely on Babe Ruth, the Baltimore saloon-keeper's son who became the best- known and best-loved athlete in American history. What Babe Ruth is, a sportswriter said at the time, "comes down, one genera­ tion handing it to the next, as a national heirloom."

Satchel Paige

Babe Ruth

TH INNING, 1930-1940 5 "Shadow Ball" will cover baseball's desper­ ate attempts to survive the Great Depression and Babe Ruth's fading career, while a new genera­ tion of stars, including Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams, is on the rise. This episode will also pre­ sent the parallel world of the Negro Leagues, which thrived in the shadow of the all-white majors. The inning culminates with the greatest showdown in the history of the Negro Leagues: Satchel Paige, arguably the best pitcher ever, against Josh Gibson, "the black Babe Ruth," in the Negro League World Series.

HUMANITIES 9 TH INNING, 1940-1950

"The National Pastime" leads off with the 1941 season, one 6of the most exciting of all time. Joe DiMaggio hits in fifty-six straight games, the longest before or since. Ted Williams becomes the last man to .400. And the Brooklyn Dodgers win their first pennant in twenty years. Then the war intervenes and baseball's best players become soldiers. On their return, the game— and the entire country— are changed forever: Branch Rickey integrates baseball on April 15,1947, when Jackie Robinson takes the field. Baseball finally becomes in fact what it had always claimed to be: America's national pastime.

Jackie Robinson

TH INNING, 1950-1960

"The Capital of Baseball" celebrates the 7heyday of New York City baseball, where for ten straight years a local team always played in the World Series and almost always won. Rare newsreel film and interviews will illuminate some of baseball's memorable moments: The Shot Heard Round The World—Bobby Thomson's off Ralph Branca in 1951... Willie Mays's incredible catch in the 1954 World Series ... Don Larsen's perfect game. 1955 provides the highlight of the episode when the Brooklyn Dodgers, sparked by Jackie Robinson and Roy Campanella, finally win their first World Series, only to be moved by their owner to a new city 3,000 miles away, leaving an empty shell in Flatbush, and an emptier spot in the soul of every Brooklyn fan.

Bobby Thomson being congratulated after his pennant-winning home run, 1951

r Maris

TH INNING, 1960-1970

"A Whole New Ball Game" decade and then leaves the game 8takes place against the back­ at the height of his power because drop of the turbulent 1960s, when of the arthritis that threatens to many question the game's rele­ cripple him. and vance. The episode opens with the the almost win the improbable last inning home run World Series, but are stopped cold by Bill Mazeroski that wins the by the ferociously determined Bob 1960 World Series for the Pitts­ Gibson. Towards the end of the burgh Pirates and signals the decade, the game is radically trans­ beginning of the end of the Yankee formed by the first successful dynasty. breaks Babe attempt by the baseball players to Ruth's record by hitting sixty-one organize into a union and Curt home runs in the 1961 season. Flood's doomed attempt to escape , the shy untouchable the reserve clause. pitcher, dominates most of the

10 JULY/AUGUST 1994 TH INNING, 1970-THE PRESENT

"Home" covers the most recent history of 9baseball and explores the future of the game. Game Six of the 1975 World Series—thought by many to be the greatest game ever played— reawakens a whole country's love for the game. But in the 1980s, the rising influence of television and the coming of free agency, with its enormous salaries and dislocations, threaten that affection. The episode ends with an impressionistic look at some of the achievements on the field in the late 1980s and early 1990s—Kirk Gibson's home run, the first Canadian World Series, and the extraordi­ nary career of —and at the enduring appeal of the game itself.

Excerpted with permission from the WETA " Baseball" newsletter, Vol. 1, No. 1, December 1993.

Produced and directed by Ken Burns, the film is a production of Florentine Films and WETA-TV, Washington, D.C. In addition to funding provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the film has received major support from General Motors Corporation. Other sponsors are the Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and the Public Broadcasting Service. All-Star game, Los Angeles Coliseum, 1959.

OTHER BASEBALL PROJECTS Endowment grants explore baseball's Regional History program of the Divi­ The Ohio Humanities Council spon­ role in American society and human sion of Research Programs. sored programs in Cincinnati on base­ experience. Books written with NEH The Library of Congress is arranging ball in the fall of 1993. W. P. Kinsella, support include: The Tropic of Baseball: and describing the papers and memora­ author of Shoeless Joe, was the Ohio Baseball in the by bilia of choreographer-director Bob Forum's keynote speaker. Other Rob Ruck (Meckler Publishing, West­ Fosse and dancer-actress Gwen Verdon, events featured two former players port: 1991). Ruck received a $3,500 including those relating to the 1955 and an umpire from the Negro Summer Stipend from the Division of Broadway production of . Leagues discussing their exper­ Fellowships and Seminars. The archive is part of the Dance Her­ iences, the history of baseball in itage Coalition, which is cataloging Cincinnati, media coverage from Baseball's Great Experiment: Jackie dance history with support from the 1869, and an exhibition, "Blackball Robinson and His Legacy by Jules Tygiel Preservation Projects program of the Heritage: African Americans and (Oxford University Press, New York: Division of Preservation and Access. Cincinnati Baseball." 1983). Tygiel received a $2,500 Sum­ The exhibition "Healing the Body "An All-Star Night of Baseball with mer Stipend from the Division of Fel­ and Mind: African Americans in Ken Bums" was the centerpiece of the lowships and Seminars. Sports" runs to December 1996 in New Hampshire Humanities Council's Sandlot Seasons: Sport in Black Pitts­ Philadelphia's Afro-American His­ twentieth anniversary celebration on burgh by Rob Ruck (University of Illi­ torical and Cultural Museum, which May 6. Seventeen renowned former nois Press, Urbana and Chicago: 1987). received $88,880 from the Public ballplayers and managers were special Ruck obtained a cosponsored grant of Humanities Projects program of the guests at the screening of Baseball. $16,708 from the State, Local, and Division of Public Programs. — C.B.

HUMANITIES 11 A DAUGHTER'S REMINISCENCE: How Hans Became an American

I’ve been sitting at my desk a lot Mom sat quietly for about twenty scrapping with baby Twinkies— staring at my father. minutes Twins fans who didn’t take to our root­ It’s a picture taken in summer fanning herself with a straw sunhat ing for the enemy. a few months before he died. and beaming Charlie thinks he remembers a He’s looking at me then asked, when does the game game-winning with a wry and knowing begin? Bobby Richardson . — did he know?— Look down there, we said. I only recall the Yanks winning in expression. He looks like a man It was already the second inning but I the 10th who needs a private joke still don’t think she spotted it. and the incredibly intense luxury of to get a proper snapshot. I think she was waiting for the play that lagniappe inning. He’s looking straight at me, by play. even as I sit The familiar radio sounds Daddy stuck with baseball too. in a cold May, a little too tired, so different in the ballpark. Like the voting that made him the Yanks getting beat 4-1 in the 5th proudest as a naturalized citizen by Oakland out on the coast, Daddy wore plaid shorts over his white he quietly exulted a lackluster they’ll-never-catch-up game skinny legs in being able to talk to his kids Rasmussen not getting shellacked and puffed a cigar. about what they liked to talk about just doesn’t have anything He began to like baseball which was sports. What pleasure and neither do the hitters. when he found someone it gave him Gone native in his Arizona retirement who knew less about it than he did. to be able to call Dad is wearing a bolo tie and looks He explained it all to Mom shrunken, frail. (those Sunday calls!— this is later mostly according to his own logic. I liked to kiss him on the top of his after we’d all left home) He had an accountant’s sense of bony head and say, “So, Mattingly’s still leading symmetry in desert mornings. the league” or and the diamond pleased him. “I see where the Yankees aren’t doing The profusion of numbers and their He took all of us to a game only once, too well.” my first, I was ten, richness But tonight there’s an amazing Charlie was eight, Lindsay was twelve impressed him, comeback and the baby was left home. the implication of infinity. another lOth-inning heroic to call We drove all the way from And it was a damn nice summer day. home about South Dakota I think now of those bleachers (“I see where the Yankees are up to Minneapolis old full of stolid going great guns”) to see the Twins play the Yankees Scandinavians though it’s a few second (my team). who never corrected him— basemen later Daddy was a refugee from that would have spoiled their fun. and the serene and splendid Willie Nazi Germany Mom would ask, Where’s that chap Randolph and Mom was English. running off to now? who pulls it out for the team. □ They were grownups And Dad would explain: who’d never seen a game either. He goes home because he has The poem is reprinted by permission. They went nowhere else to go. Elinor Nauen is the editor of Diamonds because he was the father of Are a Girl’s Best Friend: Women Americans My brother and I spent most of the Writers on Baseball (Faber & Faber; and I was a little baseball fanatic. game under the stands 1994.) She lives in New York City.

12 JULY/AUGUST 1994 Gil Hodges oi the Brooklyn Dodgers scores a home run. —Drawings by Andy Jurinko courtesy o/ Gallery Henoch, N. Y.

BASEBALL AND THE MEANING OF AMERICA B Y CHRISTIAN K. MESSENGER

r ASEBALL AND HISTORY seem for walled stadiums, the ball may roll forever. W. P. I almost synonymous by this time in Kinsella knows this in his novel Shoeless Joe, w hich I American history. Yet the ways in became the film Field of Dreams. In this tale, baseball J which baseball and history coincide remains the form you may summon in your imagina­ : and diverge in American culture are tion. As the sport without a clock, baseball frees the [ A various and fascinating. Baseball is imagination for alternative universes, parallel universes, U I the most enduring of the American and a magical realism. J team sports, the one with the richest Yet baseball also has a logic that appears almost New­ historical tradition, the greatest back­ tonian. In baseball, the runner is always safe or out, and log of memory and homegrown mythology. has been through its history. The stability of the game is Baseball's inner diamond is its active history. It's tight, evident as well in its batting statistics, which over that rgeometrical, and where all tallies are made. Yet beyond same period of time differ by one hit or two hits out of the geometry stretches the outfield, where, except ten at bats.

HUMANITIES 13 Beyond baseball's structure and imaginative possibili­ stuff to my own son. I occasionally worried. Were there ties, baseball is individually historical. Baseball's history thousands of little neats without paws, giving up ambu­ begins again every time a batter steps in at home plate. latory status for the sake of the American game? Who Baseball fabricates this home or origin and then sends us knows? But oiling of gloves is family history. It's what a on a journey, which with a little skill (getting on base) father knows and dispenses through love. and a little help from our friends (someone to drive us in) The elders are keepers of the stories, too, which they we do indeed come home again, to tally a run for our pass down in personal testimony to skeptical parties. My team. This run is inscribed in a scorebook and becomes twenty-year-old son, a Ryne Sandberg devotee, has heard the simplest of historical events in baseball. all he needs to know about the Brooklyn Dodgers' Boys of Like most journeys through space and time, baseball Summer from his father, a New Jersey kid in the 1950s. I can be a perilous trip. are menacing, basemen remember my grandfather, who came to America as an try to tag you out, the ball travels faster than you do. immigrant from Germany in 1903, describe Honus Wag­ There are safe places on your journey (the bases) but ner's hands to me as the biggest he had ever seen on often you can't reach them and are turned back in a another human being. Wagner, the all-time Hall of Fame small defeat. The beauty of play is that we can begin , played his last game in 1917. again, next time . "What is it you like about this Time in baseball is measured in generations, not hours. game?" asks Father of Little Boy in E. L. Doctorow's Time is a grandfather recalling for his grandson the Ragtime. "The same thing happens over and over," Little exploits of a Musial or Williams while great-grandfathers Boy replies. This delight in replication is everywhere in might pass down memories of Ruth and Cobb. Some baseball's rhythms. immortals live only in the antique photographs of the men Yet this journey could be full of magical occurrences— who saw them play and have passed on themselves. To everything from the hidden ball trick to three men slid­ call Christy Mathewson still the best right-handed pitcher ing into third base — or as mundane as standing on of all time, when he pitched his last game seventy-eight second base with a lead-off in ninety-five-degree years ago, is a deep nod to history's authority and power. heat and watching three straight hitters run the count to Myth, of course, begins in history, some redolent histor­ three-and-two. That is tedium and that too is history. ical moment that is passed down through the outlets of Another way in which baseball is organically historical folk culture, print media, tradition, centuries, personal is that it is seasonal. Baseball begins with the renewal of testimony— until it takes on the status of myth. the earth in the spring, warms through the rich growing A good case in point would be the recently located film season, and then dies into the late fall with autumn's chill. print of Babe Ruth presumably calling his shot in the 1932 Baseball is also democratic social space. Players guard World Series. Was he saying he had one strike left? Was a green world by working together, yet spaced widely he simply pointing at the pitcher? Or was he doing the apart where individual duties coordinate with group impossible? Baseball mythology knows which explana­ responsibilities. Ballparks recall cattle ranges or farm­ tion it wants: the pre-ordained home run. Yet just as lands; not the least of the outrage against artificial turf important are the rhythms of the game that suggest the and domed stadiums has to do with our instincts that scene's improbability, the game's degree of difficulty. the game's validity has been tampered with and pro­ Baseball's historical records are built on its indomitable faned. The eager response to the new Camden Yards sta­ physical supermen, the consecutive game streaks of and Cal Ripken, Jr., the length of Ruth's home runs and the gargan­ Myth, of course, begins in history, some redolent historical moment that is tuan quality of his appetites, Willie Mays's abandon, Nolan Ryan's cannon passed down through the outlets of folk culture, print media, tradition, of an arm. Such characters and their deeds hearken back as far as the Ameri­ centuries, personal testimony—until it takes on the status of myth. can frontier to half-legendary figures such as Davy Crockett and Mike Fink. Yet vulnerability and tragedy are part of this history as well. Lou Gehrig's dium in Baltimore suggests what we crave from early death and Pete Rose's fall from grace are matched as baseball—a historical green setting within the city's individual tragedies by the great collective American fall harsh history. from grace, the Black Sox scandal of 1919. Baseball is historical because parents and children are Bernard Malamud's The Natural encapsulates all this. the keepers of its memory. Baseball's tools are those of Malamud, trained in high modernism, wedded Arthurian the farmer and rancher but adapted: leather gloves and legend to baseball's more homely lore. When Roy Hobbs wood bats which call to memory a society which used is told to go up and "knock the cover off the ball," he does saddles, plows, hoes, and fence posts. Fathers who don't just that, the ball unravelling to its core while the out­ know how to warn against drugs or to help their chil­ fielder can only retrieve a bunch of fragments. Yet Hobbs dren navigate through the plague of AIDS can lovingly also strikes out and sells out, a sensual man of appetites show them how to hold a bat or how to get that deep who tries to beat time and his own history in a desperate well pocket in a baseball glove. As a boy, my father knew urgency for the early greatness that had been denied him. about neat's-foot oil. That was what you rubbed on your Barry Levinson's film of the novel gets to the Amer­ glove to keep it supple and smooth. I did not know then ican dream yearning in baseball's appeal: Hobbs wins the what it was nor do I know now and to know would be to pennant with a home run, setting off a galactic light show lose its power, but I solemnly passed along a bottle of the and, not incidentally, regains the son he never knew he

14 JULY/AUGUST 1994 A1 Kaline of the , making a catch in deep right field. had. American victories and defeats: the two versions/ same American cities. Such stability and rootedness is visions of The Natural give us both. Baseball can be both probably almost anti-American. In Chicago, for example, mimetic and magical but nothing is truly "natural." where suffering through baseball defeat is a character Baseball is history because of that unbroken line of trait passed down through generations, the last Chicago tradition stretching back to the beginning of the country. World Series champion will soon be entirely a matter of It is astonishing in the age of hypertext and virtual reality written record. One would have to be a pretty spry to realize that from 1903 to 1953—a half century— the eighty-to-ninety-year-old to have attended the last Cubs same sixteen teams played in the World Championship in 1908, the White Sox in 1917.

New York Giant Willie Mays at the Polo Grounds, 1954 World Series. Baseball also touches on the public scars of our century. his realization of Black Sox treachery and shifts from his If this were not so, baseball, however deeply imbued in patrician reserve to a keening for his beloved sport: our family and imagination, would be merely a diversion. Baseball is our history because of its relation to our great "I do damn them," he said. "With a mark I damn social dilemma, the racism and segregation that runs them. I damn Cicotte. I damn Jackson. I damn deep through even the best of our institutions. For the Risberg and Gandil and Williams. And if there be first half of this century, baseball's shame was its segrega­ others I will damn them as well. I will root them out tion; then with the ascent of Jackie Robinson, integration and damn them for eternity. And I damn the filth became its triumph. that corrupted them, the dicers and the high rollers. Baseball can represent inclusion and exclusion. Every They will pay. They will pay in time...." kid remembers being the first kid picked to play, or the last kid, how he hit the home run to win the big game (at Pete Rose had better not apply for earthly reinstatement age eight in the backyard or twelve in Little League or to Greenberg's Mathewson, if he knows what's good for only in his imagination), or, in a more traumatized vein, him. Old Testament prophecy is wedded to baseball's how he wasn't picked to play at all, how much it hurt, how the hurt lingers into adult­ Baseball is our history because of its relation to our great social dilemma, the racism hood. It's a short imaginative step to exclusion because of and segregation that runs deep through even the best of our institutions. For the first race or ethnic background. Our sentimental democratic half of this century, baseball's shame was its segregation/ then with the ascent of sports stories tell us of how the team works everything Jackie Robinson, integration became its triumph. out, the sports equivalent of the Warner Bros, platoon in World War II films. Fall, so deeply American is the moment and so transgres- Our best baseball novelists know varied stories about sive a sin. In 1925, F. Scott Fitzgerald already knew the teams and teammates. For Mark Harris in Bang the Drum negative power of this image when Gatsby says admir­ Slowly, a team comes together as it cares for a dying team­ ingly about Meyer Wolfsheim, the "man who fixed the mate, itself a variant of the Lou Gehrig story. For Philip World Series," that "they can't get him, old sport. He's a Roth in The Great American Novel, the grotesque truth of smart man." Such a judgment says more about Gatsby's exclusion comes clear in his account of Gil Gamesh, the morality than any other single public moment in Fitzger­ greatest rookie pitcher in baseball history, yet twisted and ald's American tragedy. scarred by prejudice. Gamesh is the only Babylonian kid In recent days, one of the more intriguing baseball his- on his block, indeed the only Babylonian kid anywhere. toricizations is the renewed interest in the history of As Gamesh remembers his miserable childhood, "First for women in baseball, beginning with the All-American a few blocks the Irish kids threw rocks at me. Then the Women's League in the 1940s that engendered the film A German kids threw rocks at me. Then the Eye-talian, then League of Their Own. A spate of softball/baseball novels by the colored, then them Mohawk kids.... hell, even the and about women and the game yields fresh insights. In Jew kids threw rocks at me, while they was runnin' away the late Sara Vogan's In Shelly's Leg, a pitcher and catcher from the kids thro win' rocks at them." for a championship softball team vie for the same man So baseball has its counter-histories, its parallel histories with totally different sensibilities which Vogan beauti­ of absurdly humorous teams and players that nonetheless fully evokes through the diamond and its positions: feed into large American stories that aren't very funny at all. But, told through the frame of baseball, we can listen "Get down here," Rita said. She crouched behind to these stories and perhaps learn from them. the plate, her knees splayed as if waiting for the Some poignant baseball novels, such as William pitch. "Things look different from down here." Kennedy's Ironweed or Jerome Charyn's The Seventh Babe, extend the metaphor of being left on base to a permanent Margaret knelt next to Rita, looking out at her chil­ banishment and homelessness. They are searing baseball dren on the pitcher's mound and across the still lessons, both magic and terrible. Then there are the nar­ field. From this angle the field looked more rolling, ratives down back behind the major leagues, the bushes, not as flat as Margaret had always assumed. She the sandlots, the Negro Leagues, which have their own saw hollows accentuated by the dusk light, rises rich history, now joined in fact and fiction by the that looked as if they would lead off into the trees. Caribbean "town of ," the world's greatest home run hitter, Sadaharu Oh, a Chinese-Japanese, the Teammates, friends, and rivals try to see each other's miracle of a , the newness of this life from the field and its contours as cooperation is spring's fresh bright kid, 's Chan Ho Park for posited as rivalling competition. The women have histo­ the Dodgers. ries which the diamond represents. Baseball also approaches apocalyptic moments in its Kinsella has written that baseball is stable and perma­ history and its novelists are not unaware of the potential nent. However our own cultural mosaic has changed, link with even biblical narratives. In Eric Rolfe Green­ baseball has risen to provide us with the stories that berg's The Celebrant, a stunned Christy Mathewson, one of place our national lives in context. Baseball is a human­ baseball's truly Apollonian figures, comes unhinged at istic retelling of our origins which circumvents random

HUMANITIES 17 Baseball is a humanistic retelling of our origins that circumvent random occurrence and stave off our own mortality. With a little luck, we can stay up at the plate forever and the clock will never move.

occurrence and staves off our own mortality. With a Christian K. Messenger is professor of English at the Univer­ little luck, we can stay up at the plate forever and the sity of Illinois at Chicago. He will discuss "Literature and Base­ clock will never move. Our best baseball stories, both ball: A Natural" in September in Galveston, Texas. real and imagined, perform this miracle. As Robert Coover writes in The Universal Baseball Association, "The Galveston College in Texas received $75,000 to support "Base­ game. Life. Could you separate them?" Not in the ball and the Meaning of America" from the Public Humanities diamond-bright art form that baseball is for America. Projects program of the Division of Public Programs. The series Baseball narrative, which possesses time for its own of public programs will run from July to December in ends, not in submission, possesses history itself and Galveston's 1894 Grand Opera House. speaks to every level of our experience. □

THE GAME ENDURES:

N THE MIDST OF William H. Peel enlisted the bloodshed of as a private in the the Civil War, the sport Prairie Rifles at of baseball remained a Okolona, Mississippi, on popular diversion both the 25th of April 1861. N orth and South, as The twenty-three-year- diaries of the time attest. old farmer was elected Captured at the Battle of First Lieutenant at the Gettysburg on 3 July A CIVIL WAR DIARY reorganization of the 1863, 1st Lt. William Company on the 21st of Peel of the Eleventh Mississippi Infantry butt end of the paddle struck him & April 1862. Lt. Peel was severely wounded Regiment was removed with other Con­ consequently left no cut, but his head at the battle of Second Manassas, 29 federate prisoners to Sandusky, Ohio. He must be badly bruised. Leaning on the August 1862, and slightly wounded and describes baseball in the prison yard. shoulders of a couple of his friends, he captured at the battle of Gettysburg, 3 July walked, after a while, to his Block." 1863. Peel was sent to the U. S. A. West's 29 July 1864 Hospital at Baltimore, Maryland on the " ... There came near being a serious 28 August 1864 19th of August 1863. He was then trans­ accident in the yard this evening. There "There has been, for several weeks, a ferred to Fort McHenry at Baltimore on the was a party engaged in a game of base­ challenge pending over one of the base 12th of September 1863 and later to John­ ball. The man at the bat struck with all ball clubs. son's Island in Lake Erie near Sandusky, his might, but missed the ball & the "The Confederate Club challenged Ohio, arriving there on the 30th of Septem­ bat— a very large heavy one—flew out the Southern Club. The game came off ber 1863. While there, he wrote hundreds of of his hands & struck Cap't Fellows, today & created more excitement than pages of notes in his diary before dying of who stood a few feet from him, plump anything has done in the yard for a pneumonia at 11:00 p.m. on the 17th of in the forehead. The Cap't uttered a low long time. There were several hundred February 1865. First Lt. William H. Peel exclamation, threw both hand[s] to his dollars bet on the game by the clubs was buried on Johnson's Island, five rows head, staggered & would have fallen to & outsiders. from the south gate, twenty-eight graves the ground, but was caught by a gentle­ "They played nine innings. The South­ east of west side of graveyard, grave #129. man near him. He lay quite insensible erners beat the Confederates very for several minutes, but bashing his badly: the Rounds standing nineteen — Mississippi Department of Archives and History, head at length revived him. The square, to eleven." □ Jackson, Mississippi.

18 JULY/AUGUST 1994 THEHOUSES THAT BASEBALL BUILT

By JOHN PASTIER

— National Baseball Library & Archive ORE THAN ANY other profes­ They were relatively quick and inex­ ever larger capacities and more diverse sional sport, baseball kindles pensive to build, and they were also uses than just a single sport. At eight- the gentle flames of retrospec­ quick to catch a wayward spark and year intervals, record seating capacities tion, literary impulse, mytholo­ burn to the ground. were registered by Braves Field, Yankee gizing, and nostalgia. The next generation witnessed the Stadium, and Cleveland Stadium, MIt is little wonder that Renaissance emergence of nearly fireproof struc­ which was built in the vain hope of scholar Angelo Bartlett Giamatti, presi­ tures of steel and concrete, accom­ attracting the 1932 Olympic Games to dent of Yale and the National League, modating more fans than their the shores of Lake Erie. The last two sta­ and Major League baseball commis­ predecessors and often cloaked in elab­ diums introduced an impressive new sioner, was so in love with the sport. orate masonry exteriors that resembled character to the building type. They He admired its long-established tradi­ public buildings. Their expense and were monumental gathering places, tions, sense of order and balance, var­ permanence assured that the major- sometimes attracting crowds that num­ ied geometries, and, perhaps above all, league teams that owned them would bered upwards of 80,000, not just for its symbolically pastoral setting. The not casually switch cities after an baseball, but for events such as prize subject of his dissertation was the gar­ unprofitable year or two. The resulting fights, football, track meets, religious den in Renaissance literature, and he fifty-two-year period of total geo­ congresses, and even occasional oper­ often compared ballparks to paradise, a graphic stability seems amazing in ret­ atic spectacles that must have been more satisfying as visual experiences word of Persian origin meaning an rospect, and is unlikely to be repeated. than as musical ones. enclosed garden. Others have likened The parks of 1909-1923, from Phil­ Before Cleveland Stadium, all these these stadiums to shrines and cathe­ adelphia's Shibe park to Ebbets Field facilities had been built by the team drals. In his novel Shoeless Joe, W. P. and , can accurately owners on private land. No team, how­ Kinsella equated the making of a ball be called classics. They were urban ever, could hope to build on such a field with a feat of magic: "If you build buildings formed by local street pat­ scale, particularly during the Great it, he will come." terns, and were usually parts of living Depression. Conceived in part for com­ In the beginning, to borrow a famous neighborhoods, accessible by foot and munal purposes (bringing in the opening line which baseball diehards trolley, where residents or factory Olympics and redeveloping the lake- sometimes render as "in the big workers could see games from their front), and in part to stimulate the local inning," enclosed parks, which were windows or rooftops, and where local economy, it redefined the stadium as a born in Brooklyn in 1862, were a criti­ businesses benefited from their pres­ public and civic building rather than a cal step in the development of Amer­ ence. At their best, they embodied a private one. Team owners were quick to ica's first professional team sport. human-scale grandeur, an intimacy see the economic advantage of larger Within a generation, they had evolved that made spectators virtual partici­ stadiums built with public money, and from simple fenced fields with some pants in the game, and encompassed since then only two major league parks, male spectators sitting on the ground, a combination of architectural polish in Los Angeles and Joe most standing, and the few ladies and engineering functionalism that Robbie Stadium in suburban Miami, seated on movable benches, to turreted could endear them to traditionalists have been built by the team occupying Victorian double-decked carpenters' and modernists alike. it. And even those were built on pub­ extravaganzas. Some were the largest After Ebbets Field, the jewel-box licly owned land donated to the teams. places of public assembly in their city. ballpark gave way to a demand for With public ownership of stadiums, geographic stability was weakened. A team could easily migrate to a more promising market if it didn't have to finance its quarters there. Between 1901 and 1952, no teams moved, but since then, nine teams have changed cities, others have threatened to, and twelve have been added through franchise expansion. At first, some of the pub­ licly built stadiums were used only for baseball, but economics soon dictated that football games be played there too. Football teams had occupied the older parks too, but the shape of the field and seat­ ing had always been tai­ JAc qjams. the fli/tid (jJahid S mw a, bsdwcan th e (BoAJton (pilcpihnA a n d th e (pxiiA bw iqk fivucdeA, lored primarily to the cd tih e d fw iiiy tq ion d v m rn ^jhoundA in (BoAJton, O ciobsJi 1, 1903.

20 JULY/AUGUST 1994 needs of baseball. But in the 1960s, cir­ cular stadiums that favored neither sport, with movable seating sections and uniformly high seating capacities, became standard. Baseball fans soon felt cheated, for these large multipurpose stadiums had none of the character, intimacy, or neighborhood quality of the classic parks. Their seating patterns were not intimate. Often they sat in the midst of suburban parking lots that occupied one hundred acres or more. Even worse, the opening of Houston's Astrodome in 1965 inaugurated a new chapter of baseball history: indoor games. Prompted at first by the enervatingly hot and humid coastal Texas climate, and then by Seattle's rain, Minnesota's cold, and finally the cold and snow of Canada, five roofed stadiums were built to offer fans and players heated and cooled air, artificial grass, and lights even during day games. The best of these may be Toronto's SkyDome, which compen­ sates for poor baseball seating patterns by providing unprecedented luxury in its private suites, club seats, integral hotel, restaurants and bars (all of

which have views of the playing field,) -National Baseball Library & A rchive and, most important, by having a retractable roof that permits outdoor rlja n h e d S ta d iu m woa built in 1923 Jto Ahowca&e (Babe (Ruth. Jh e (polo ^jhoundA games in good weather. (demoliAhed in 196 if) can be Aeen ocaoaa the dioudem tRiveh. By 1970, only six of the sixteen pre- World War II fireproof parks were still in use; or, seen from a different per­ harks back to the pre-Depression era. nearly uniform stadiums of a genera­ spective, only a quarter of the active Baltimore's park is also notable for its tion ago, and their linear seating pat­ parks were old ones. Today the num­ strong integration with the street life terns visually resemble the classic ber is down to three, representing less and physical texture of its city. The parks'. But in three important respects, than eleven percent of the major league ' new home, coyly most of them fall short of the standards inventory: Wrigley Field, Tiger Sta­ named "The Ballpark in Arlington," set seventy and eighty years ago. dium, and Fenway Park, and all of makes liberal use of applied decoration The first is architectural integrity. these are threatened in some degree. in the form of block-letter T's, orna­ Until a few years ago, virtually all base­ (Yankee Stadium is sometimes ments in the shape of Texas, lone stars, ball stadiums were built in the architec­ included in this group, but it was radi­ and longhorn steer heads. It boasts tural and engineering styles of their cally rebuilt in the mid-70s, and is now sixteen shades of green in its paint time. Today the issue is complicated by essentially a modern park.) scheme and a concourse modeled after architectural postmodernism, which is But now, as if to make up for the Chartres cathedral. a simplified, usually unconvincing, and errors of that time, neotraditional parks These postmodern stadiums have sometimes ironic use of older styles. As have come into fashion. In 1992, Balti­ been hailed by their sponsors and the part of that regressive Zeitgeist, most more's Oriole Park at Camden Yards press as combining the best features of of today's neotraditional parks are began a trend that has been continued old ballparks with today's comfort and buildings in simplified period costume, this year at Cleveland and Arlington, technology. (Interestingly, all new sta­ overt appeals to nostalgia rather than Texas, and will be extended further in diums, even the most currently dis­ attempts to develop expression from Denver, Atlanta, and possibly Milwau­ dained examples of the 60s and 70s, a building's inherent structural and kee. Promoted as old-fashioned parks were greeted by initial enthusiasm by functional characteristics. The neotradi­ with modern amenities, their attributes the media when they opened.) In truth, tional design strategy leads to inau­ include seating capacities in the range most of them are modern facilities thenticity because there is virtually no of forty-five to nearly fifty thousand, dressed in ersatz old-fashioned garb. way to duplicate the construction angular seating and field geometries To their credit, their playing fields take methods, materials, detail, workman­ rather than curved ones, steel struc­ on some of the irregularities that made ship, human scale, and manageable tural frames rather than concrete, and game action in the older parks more size of the classic parks under today's exterior styling that almost always interesting than in the symmetrical and economic conditions.

HUMANITIES 21 Photo Photo by Richard F. Lasn er 1 1

Opening csuwrwny. befloM the ftui&i qrnrn cdt Ohiok (pwik cd (famdsin rljwtdA, in JJie hm hi a#downtown fijcdlimoM, OpJiil 6, 7 992.

The second is economic stratification. Baltimore has one level of suites. In feet, and Arlington is the worst in base­ Traditionally, baseball tickets were Arlington, there are two, and Cleve­ ball history at two hundred feet, priced so that the most expensive land has three. The private desire to despite a cautious experiment with ticket cost roughly three or four times create such gold mines is the engine columns within the lower seating deck. as much as the cheapest, and the num­ that propels the construction of new Oriole Park at Camden Yards was a ber of inexpensive seats was about ten ballparks, while the public desire to major step in the evolution of ballpark to twenty percent of the total. But in return to a golden age of stadiums is design, but its emulators have not the newer parks, bleacher seats are not the shiny red fiberglass body on this matched its two prime accomplish­ in great supply, and the price ratio can replica cabriolet. ments: relative intimacy and integra­ reach as high as 28 to 1. This is due to The final problem is lack of intimacy. tion with urban life and form. The air-conditioned private suites where Today's "old-fashioned" stadiums are current ballpark building boom is the seats can cost between $37 and $112 far larger than their role models. biggest since 1909-1915, and in most per game, exclusive of catering costs, Arlington Stadium takes up almost cases represents an overall gain over and where tickets must be bought in three times the area of Ebbets Field, the stadiums that are being replaced. blocks of eight or more for the entire and its built portion (exclusive of the But at the same time, these structures eighty-one-game home season, pay­ playing field) occupies more than are not fully honoring baseball tradi­ able in advance. five times the space of the Brooklyn tion as claimed. Until greater efforts Arlington provides an illustration of park's. And, while it is touted as old- are made to curb the mushrooming the private economic benefits of a fashioned, its has 5,784 more seats than size of the new parks, to bring their publicly built new stadium. The old the modern park it replaces. At 49,292 upper decks closer to the action, to park had twenty thousand seats seats, it holds more than some of the provide a greater amount of afford­ priced below $8, while the new one huge concrete doughnuts of the 60s able, old-fashioned bleacher seats, and has only six thousand. In moving next and 70s, and about 50 percent more to seek authentic architectural expres­ door, the team was able to raise its than the typical classic park. Jacobs sion, the public benefits derived from average ticket price by 35 percent. Field in downtown Cleveland has only building these $250 million to $400 (The raised theirs 60 percent of its predecessor's seating million projects will be largely cos­ 39 percent upon moving into Jacobs capacity, yet is larger. metic, while the private gains will be Field this spring.) Arlington's suites Due to added seating tiers, wider old fashioned in a way that nineteenth- will cost between $30,000 and $200,000 seats, greater legroom, and the elimina­ century railroad and oil barons would this year, food and drink not included. tion of columns within the seating greatly admire. □ With 118 of these suites available, the areas, modern parks have upper decks team can gross perhaps an added $10 that are much farther from the field million annually once they are fully than those of the early fireproof era. In John Pastier is an architecture critic and leased. Another exclusive seating cate­ today's parks, lack of upper deck field ballpark consultant who has worked on gory, the club section, occupies its proximity (a major determinant of inti­ the design of parks in Baltimore and Tren­ own level, sells at top prices, and car­ macy) is even worse due to the posi­ ton. He has taught architecture, urban ries a $4 per game surcharge for tioning of suites and club seats. Taking design, and criticism at the University of waiter service. a typical top deck seat behind home at Berkeley and McGill Univer­ These two elite seating areas are the plate as a yardstick, average viewing sity in Montreal. keystones of all new stadiums. They distance to the batter has increased occupy the prime space immediately from 108 feet in 1909 to 180 feet in the Pastier will speak on "Architecture and above the lower deck, and since they notorious 1961-70 decade, and to 194 Baseball: The Houses that Ruth (and Mays require considerable room, cannot feet in the four newest parks. Of the and Clemente and Brett) Built" in Galve­ both be added to existing ballparks. last group, Baltimore is the best at 182 ston, Texas.

22 JULY/AUGUST 1994 In Focus BY NICOLE L. ASHBY Diana Natalicio

/ T i JT Y REAL MISSION RIGHT the professors and Jesuits from the I \ / 1 now is to try to communi- university brought life to the lan­ JL ▼ JLcate to people that the guage. This is part of the encourage­ world that they see may not be real/' ment that helped her become the first says Diana Natalicio, "that this society in her family to go to school, much will only survive and all of us benefit, like the 62 percent of UTEP's student if all of us in fact participate." body who are first generation univer­ Natalicio is directly speaking to the sity students. "privileged" in society— those with "My parents didn't go to college. an education— to say to them that They were small business people. But they must share what they have. they valued education," she says. She believes there is a growing "I feel I was very fortunate in so many gap between them and the "have- ways that I had a very supportive and nots" and that education is the encouraging home background, that only equalizer. people along the way, in a variety of "I think I am a voice. I certainly settings, gave me opportunities to do a don't pretend to be the only voice and lot of things— different things. I certainly don't see myself as single- "That's where I am now with my handedly going out and saving the own life. I want to try—in one way or world. But I am very idealistic about another— to make it possible for oth­ all of this. In many ways, I believe so ers to have those opportunities strongly in education." A Voice for because I know what it meant to me. Since 1988, Natalicio has been presi­ So I see myself now in the role of the dent of the University of Texas at El the Unheard opportunity-creator rather than the Paso, an institution with a large enroll­ opportunity-seizer." ment of Hispanics— almost two-thirds numerous books, reviews, and articles She serves on the board of the Texas of its 17,000 students. And most of the on applied linguistics, specifically on Committee for the Humanities and is students— 86 percent— commute the student who has difficulty speak­ a member of the Department of Edu­ daily from their homes in El Paso. ing standard English. cation's Fund for the Improvement of "They're members of very large Natalicio graduated from her home­ Postsecondary Education. With families supporting younger brothers town college of St. Louis University membership in more than thirty-five and sisters. They have no health insur­ with a degree in Spanish and headed academic, humanitarian, and civic ance. They're dealing with many of to Brazil on a Fulbright Fellowship. "I organizations, she travels across the life's challenges and trying to go to had never been on an airplane," she country making an average of ten school at the same time. And most muses. "And I took off for Brazil and speeches each month. often, their academic careers are lived there for a year and that's when I Her ties are very strong to the His­ interrupted by life's challenges, not by really suddenly understood that my the fact that they're not quality little world was really very small." panic community, nevertheless she students or that they're not going to be Five years later, after receiving a says her voice is not limited to repre­ successful ultimately." master's degree in Portuguese and senting one group. "I really don't like Natalicio recalls twenty-nine students Brazilian area studies at the Univer­ divisions very much. I think we are who graduated in the class of 1992 after sity of Texas, she returned to Brazil as too divided as a society into pockets— ten years of classes. "They had the a language coordinator for the Peace color or gender. I am most interested tenacity to hang in there and finish. If Corps training program. She went in tapping the full potential of the you look at their histories and what back to Austin for her doctorate in human resources in this society. I see happened to them over those ten linguistics. "Knowing more than one it as trying to unleash or create an years— it's absolutely awesome. So language gives you an opportunity to opportunity for the development of from the admission side, I am more come into contact with different peo­ people—whoever they are, whatever interested in helping people succeed ple. And I've always liked languages their color, whatever their ethnicity, than I am in keeping them out. And I very much. I think it's because it's not whatever their gender. People are just am more interested in their finishing a solitary thing— language." very important. than in the speed of their finishing." Natalicio says another reason for her "I think once we get to know each Natalicio is UTEP's seventeenth and language study was "back in the late other, a lot of these perceived tensions first woman president. She arrived at 1950s, early 1960s, you didn't worry would just vanish because we're all the university twenty-two years ago as much about what job you were going people. We all have the same kinds of an assistant linguistics professor. Over to get, you just majored in something needs, and desires, and hopes, and the last two decades, she has written because you liked it." She adds that dreams. And why not?" □

HUMANITIES 23 Gandhi in Geneva, Switserland, Answering tuestions through a Translator, Ufonders of Chicago's Great Centurg of Progress Are Revealed to lecemher 1331. Thousands on Eve of Opening, lag 17, 1933.

MAGINE THAT YOU ARE IN A MOVIE THEATER. The house lights dim, and before the feature film, the news­ reels flash— "Europe in Shadow of W ar!... Britain! London rings itself with anti-aircraft guns... France! Paris speeds mobilization... America! In Washington, President Roosevelt holds history-making press conference and discusses untiring peace efforts. In New York, travelers T he returning from Europe happily hail Miss Liberty!"

For approximately a half-century—before nightly television Inews and "Entertainment Tonight"— newsreels were the USA Today of yesterday. "The newsreels were at once thrilling spectacles and informative documents, the unique fusion of entertainment and enlightenment that came to be the hallmark of modem 1930s: mass culture," says Robert Rosen, director of UCLA's Film and Television Archive, the nation's second largest publicly held collection of film and television materials, after the Library of Congress. "Although intended to BY be shown only once when the events were still fresh, the tens of thousands J A N I S of newsreel stories now constitute a veritable treasure trove of historical JOHNSON Prelude documentation." The UCLA archive— with more than two hundred thousand motion pictures, television programs, and radio broadcasts—is a repository of twenty-seven million feet of Hearst to ar Metrotone newsreel footage dating W from 1919 to 1968, or more than five thousand hours of visual history. In this material, Rosen says, "one can identify a virtually infinite array of subjects: mass media in mass society, Europe in Shadow of llfar!...... Britain! London rings itself with anti-aircraft guns...... France! Paris speeds the mohiliEatinn automobile...... andAmerica! the twentieth In Washington, Presideit

— Photos courtesy of UCLA Film and Television Archive 24 JULY/AUGUST 1994

I Ilaeis Burn Books of noted. Writers in Great Bonfire, lai) 31,1933. King JlleHander of Yugoslavia and French Foreign Minister Barthou Moments before Their Assassination. Dctoher 9, 1931!.

century, the history of aviation, local and regional histo­ "Unique School Trains Debutantes! Society's daughters ries, the American presidency, multiculturalism in Amer­ attend classes in New York to learn how to become the ica, images of women, recreation and leisure, criminality smartest of smart set—with perfect posture and poise." and violence, war and revolution." .. ."Motor Strikers Riot as Sit-downers Defy Court. This material is in constant demand for commercial fea­ Graphic pictures of the strike at Flint, Michigan, show ture films and broadcast production, documentaries, and that clubs and tear gas bombs were used in the clash at public television series. the factory.".. ."'Prosperity always returns, and will Unfortunately, however, much of the newsreel legacy has again,' says ninety-three-year-old John D. Rockefeller, Sr., been lost and much of what remains is seriously endan­ handing out dimes." gered, "a victim of neglect, indifferent conservation, the rav­ In the 1930s, newsreels matured into a sophisticated, ages of chemical deterioration, and disastrous fires," Rosen wide-reaching form of communication, the archivists says. A particular problem is the fragile nature of the nitrate explain. Not only does the material illuminate the drama film stock on which newsreels were shot before the of these richly historical years leading up to World War II, changeover to acetate safety film in the early 1950s. Nitrate but the project itself "provides a model for how other film has a life span of approximately sixty years under good donors might work with the archive to rescue the [entire] storage conditions; eventually it turns into a fine powder. newsreel collection." Of the nitrate stock that survives, only a small portion is An average of eighty million Americans (more than half available for scholarly research. the population at the time) attended movies each week In the race against time, the archive, with support from between 1930 and 1945, according to the project organizers. private partners and the National Endowment for the Newsreels were integral to motion picture exhibitions dur­ Humanities, is engaged in a three-year project dedicated ing this period. Block booking practices insured that to selecting, preserving, and providing access to the orig­ biweekly newsreel issues preceded most, if not all, movie inal footage from one decade of this newsreel era, 1930 to feature presentations, making newsreels an important fac­ 1939. The Great Depression, the rise of fascism and the tor in shaping public opinion. Newsreels portrayed war Spanish Civil War, and Japan's invasion of China were and peace, technological innovations, popular culture, and only a few of the breaking news stories of the 1930s. sports. They even contained a "society page" for the latest Signs of the times. . ."Japan Pushes On in World Trade: in celebrity gossip. Behind all the 'war talk,' Nippon goes ahead winning Five major newsreel companies were at work—Para­ foreign markets". . ."Sensational Films of Shanghai mount News, Universal Newsreel, Fox Movietone News, Bombing! The greatest drama of the war in China filmed Warner-Pathe News, and Hearst Metrotone News. Their by News of the Day cameramen at the risk of their vast networks of camera operators and journalists shot lives!". . ."Sky Scraping Blimp Meets Disaster: Baby footage around the globe and shipped it back to New dirigible Columbia, veteran of daring flights over the tow­ York for distribution. "Newsreels continued to be influ­ ers of N.Y., cracks up in storm". .. ential during the rise of television," the organizers note. oseuelt holds history-making press conference and discusses untiring peace efforts. In Heiir York, travelers returning from Europe happily hail Miss Liberty!

HUMANTTffiS 25 Jlation Unites in Birthday Partij for P resen t. February 3 ,1931!. Complete Films of Hindenlurg lisaster! l a y ID, 133?.

"The Hearst newsreel company supplied television sta­ Emerson and Laura Kaiser have written. "In contrast to later tions throughout the country with daily news coverage periods (such as during World War II) when newsreel com­ until well into the 1970s. Hearst news footage appeared panies pooled their footage, the material from the 1930s has on landmark television news programs such as Edward a distinctive point of view, making it a truly fascinating sub­ R. Murrow's See It Now and Victory at Sea." ject of study for both historians and students of the media." From a scholarly view, newsreels are important not only While print sources remain crucial to understanding for their lens on the times, but also for the opportunities events of this era, moving image documents "give new con­ they present for the analysis of media techniques and the text to this period," the archivists note. role of ideology in mass communications. Archivists pre­ In addition, many of the Hearst newsreel journalists were dict that only two of the five major American newsreel col­ important figures in the development of the medium, espe­ lections are likely to survive intact to be passed on to future cially Ariel Vargas and H. S. "Newsreel" Wong. (The generations and made accessible for scholarly use— the Japanese government placed a bounty on Wong in 1937 Hearst Metrotone News Collection at UCLA and Universal because his coverage of Japanese attacks on Shanghai had Newsreel at the National Archives. aroused such international indignation.) More signs of the times: "Kids Serenade Mussolini: II Especially interesting, the archivists add, is foreign news­ Duce gets a musical reception visiting sons of Italians living reel interpretation of the United States, such as a German abroad".. ."World's Fair Gets Finishing Touches: Wonders Universum Film AG story showing life in Harlem from a of Chicago's great Century of Progress are revealed to thou­ Nazi perspective. sands on eve of opening".. ."Babe Ruth on the Job with Of the entire Hearst collection, approximately fifteen per­ Braves: Bambino Arrives in St. Petersburg, Florida, with cent exists as released newsreels, or edited stories including Boston team and big crowds pack field for his first work­ narration and sound. The rest of the vault materials con­ out". . ."Quintuplet Record Is Put in Shade: Mother in tains stories that were prepared for broadcast never Refugio, Texas, gives birth to nineteen babies, but then appeared and represent a rich but untapped primary she's a Great Dane and it's a record for her breed." research source. Scholarly access to all this has been limited The Hearst Corporation donated the Hearst collection to for several reasons, chiefly the fragility of the materials and UCLA in 1982. Of the five major companies, only Hearst the lack of reference copies. was closely associated with a newspaper organization— Although the collection is extensively cross-indexed and produced by journalists as opposed to the entertainment has a complete set of summaries of material released the­ industry. Despite their point-of-view interpretation of atrically, there are glitches, according to Blaine Bartell, world and national events, the Hearst newsreels showed UCLA's newsreel preservationist. He cites the footage of less of an obvious bias than Hearst newspapers, according the aftermath of the bombing of Guernica during the Span­ to the UCLA archivists. ish civil war, the event that inspired Picasso's famous "Though the editorial emphasis often reflects American painting. The story summary only mentions the town of isolationist tendencies, Hearst's coverage of regional con­ Balboa, and the index card gives no cross-reference for flicts in Europe and Asia was exemplary," UCLA's Cornelia Guernica, which is mentioned only in the card's shot

Sensational films of Shanghai Bomhing! The greatest drama of the war in China filmed lij Hews of the Dai] cameramen at the risk of their lines!

26 JULY/AUGUST 1994 Empernr Him hit n HEviEwing His Troops, ca. 1939. IRarian AniErsnn at Het Lincoln lEmnrial ConcErt. April 1939.

summary. This problem was discovered during research The second category, "Europe Before World War II," or preparation for the NEH grant. about one hundred twenty hours of film, will show the About ten million of the twenty-seven million feet of response of both major and minor European nations to Hearst newsreels were shot on unstable nitrate film and economic and political instability, including the Depres­ faced inevitable deterioration without preservation sion and the rise of fascism, as well as the development efforts. About five million feet were taken during the of treaties, pacts, and alliances in a futile attempt to pre­ 1930s. The oldest portion of the collection, from 1919 to serve peace. Here, materials include the French army 1929, has been preserved, as well as early sound news­ reinforcing the Maginot line in 1936, the German-Japan- reels produced by Hearst before 1934. ese treaty in 1937, the French fascist movement, Mus­ More signs of the times: "Europe's Gravest Hour! Dra­ solini's anti-Communist activities, and the nine-power matic Highlights of Czechoslovakian Crisis!". . ."Lindy in conference in Brussels in 1937. Russia on Mystery Trip: Lone Eagle, mum as usual, tours Finally, "The 1930s in America," another three hundred Moscow with imposing escort of Soviet airmen making fifty feet, will survey the impact of domestic and interna­ rumors fly".. ."Tydings Beats New Deal Purge! Seventh tional instability within the U.S. There is film of such events blacklisted Senator, renominated by Maryland landslide, as gold disputes and purchases, New York Mayor LaGuardia tells what his victory means to country".. ."Europe at denouncing Nazi savagery in 1938, a German Bund meeting War! Films flown from London-Paris-Berlin-Warsaw show at Madison Square Garden in 1939, an antiwar demonstra­ Continental capitals as conflict breaks— curtain rising on tion in New York in 1935, and riots in Harlem. greatest drama in history— the Second World War." When this project is completed in 1996, scholars and edu­ A year-by-year approach to preservation of the 1930s cators will be able to access the material at the UCLA Film material would be prohibitive in cost and time as preser­ and Television Archive Research and Study Center on VHS vationists carefully reformat newsreels onto acetate videotape, while copies also will be made available to safety film. Bartell told the Los Angeles Times that it took archives, libraries, and research institutions for scholarly use. "a couple of years just to preserve the Hindenburg explo­ Apart from new records of events and emotions of the sion reel." So, the archive has selected three distinct cate­ 1930s, the UCLA newsreel project is expected to have a long- gories of subject matter. range ripple effect on other preservation efforts. "By making "Regional Conflicts in the 1930s," or about thirty-five this project possible," says Rosen, "the National Endowment hours of film, will focus on localized military clashes, for the Humanities has opened the door to a whole new such as the Russo-Japanese War, the Sino-Japanese War, approach to saving our moving image heritage." □ the Spanish civil war, the Russo-Finnish War, the Italian invasion of Ethiopia, and the Manchukuo border dispute. Janis Johnson is a free-lance writer in Alexandria, Virginia. The range of materials includes footage of Italian troops occupying Ethiopia, the Japanese attack on Shanghai, and The University of California at Los Angeles received $255,000 Soviet troops fortifying Shuyngdufeng Hill on the from the Preservation Projects Program of the Division of Manchukuo-Soviet border. Preservation and Access.

Sky Scraping Blimp Meets Disaster: Bahy dirigible Columbia, ireteran of daring flights oner the tamers of II. Y., cracks up in storm

HUMANITIES 27 the chautauqua rolls into town each week, pitches it

of Twain or one of th

he great plains chautauqua takes to the road o ' for its tenth summer, bringing with it historical figures from /// America’s Gilded Age—Mark Twain, Jack London, Stephen /v Crane, W. E. B. Du Bois, and Kate Chopin. Stopping in Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, and North Dakota, the chautauqua will revisit that era between the end \\\ of the Civil War and the beginning of World War I in which 41

new technology, new immigration, and new political alliances % were beginning to change the strata of society. The chautauqua T rolls into town each week, pitches its tents, and then, on five succes- sive evenings, a scholar in the guise of Twain or one of the other writers, talks to the audience. The scholar Kate Chopin (1850-1904) answers questions while still in character, and then reverts to his or her modern-day self to continue the did not begin her brief literary career until 1884, questions from the audience. when she was a widow The chautauqua includes daytime workshops, one for adults and one for children, brownbags, mapmaking with six children. — Courtesy of Missouri Historical Society and other activities. To prepare for the arrival of chautauqua, each of the states provides a series of reading and discussion programs, “Let’s Talk About It,” which draws from the writers’ major texts: Adventures of Mark Twain habitually Huckleberry Finn, The Red Badge of Courage, The Call of the Wild, The Souls of Black Folk, and The Awakening. wore white suits, saying, The first stop on this year’s tour is McAlester, Oklahoma, on July 8, followed by Hiawatha, Kansas, on July 15, 'T prefer to be clean in the Hastings, Nebraska, on July 22, Sturgis, South Dakota, on July 29, and Bismarck, North Dakota, on August 5. matter ofrainment—clean in a dirty world." The Great Plains Chautauqua is supported by the state humanities councils of the five states. For additional — Courtesy o f Great Plains Chautauqua Society information call Everett C. Albers of the North Dakota Humanities Council at 1-800-338-6543. In other chautauquas: Naturalist John Muir and environmentalist Gifford Pinchot are among the his­ torical figures on the circuit in Arizona. In Nevada, the cast of visitors includes the westward visionaries

28 MeriwetherJULY/AUGUST Lewis 1994 and Jesse Fremont. tents, and then, on five successive evenings, a scholar other writers, talks to the audience

■Courtesy o f Great Plains Chautauqua Society

Stephen Crane as a war correspondent in Greece, 1897. — Courtesy of Syracuse University

Jack London in 1909, writing in the garden of his home in Glen Ellen, California.

— Courtesy of Henry E. Huntington Library

HUMANITIES 29 State by State BREAKING DOWN

Here is a sampling of activities around the country sponsored Through a Teachers’ by state humanities councils and foundations: Institute on ALABAMA — "Making It in the of archives and other community Birmingham District," an exhibition of resources to help teachers to incorpo­ reconciliation, state documentary photography of the city's rate material about immigrant expe­ industrial history, opens on July 20 at riences and diverse cultures into the Downtown Public Library. The their teaching plans; July 23-29. penitentiary teacher exhibition moves to the National Build­ GEORGIA— An exhibition titled ing Museum in Washington, D.C., in "Puppetry of African Descent" opens Mark Sanderson late September. For additional informa­ July 8 at the Center for Puppetry tion call 205-930-0540. Arts in Atlanta in conjunction with In celebration of its twentieth gains a better the National Black Arts Festival. It anniversary, the Alabama Humanities contains thirty-five objects from a Foundation has introduced a new variety of collections. The exhibition understanding statewide program, "Humanities at will be in Atlanta through Novem­ Work," directed toward judges and ber. It will visit Huntsville, Alabama; lawyers, doctors and nurses, corporate of the Lakota and Nashville, Tennessee; Goldendale, executives, and other professionals. Washington; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; The participants meet in one-to-two- and Washington, D.C., in 1995. For Dakota peoples day sessions around the state to dis­ information call 404-873-3089. cuss humanities texts and their pertinence to the workplace. Larry IDAHO — An exhibition at Blaine ...and himself. Allums of Mobile University is County Museum explores the life and the lead scholar. ideas of poet Ezra Pound, bom in Hailey, Idaho. It includes pho­ ARIZONA —A new roster of his­ tographs, excerpts from letters and toric figures is joining the chautauqua poems, text, and an interpretive circuit this summer. Among them are brochure designed to illustrate Mary Austin, John Muir, William Pound's importance to twentieth cen­ Mulholland, Gifford Pinchot, John tury literature. In the fall, the exhibi­ Wesley Powell, and Brigham Young. tion will begin traveling to public The characters are portrayed by schol­ libraries in Boise, Idaho Falls, Lewis­ ars who make a first-person presenta­ ton, Moscow, Pocatello, and Twin tion; then the audience has an Falls before returning for permanent opportunity to ask questions of the display in Blaine County. historical character and the scholar. For information call 602-257-0335. INDIANA — In conjunction with the Historic Landmarks Association CONNECTICUT— The Hartford of Indiana, the council will operate Stage Company will offer a weeklong an information booth July 2-3 at the £ seminar on Shakespeare's Richard III to Indiana Black Expo in the Conven­ O middle and high school teachers of tion Center in Indianapolis. English and drama. The July 18-22 <£ sessions will include lectures and IOWA — "Johnson County: A 3 discussions on textual analysis, and River Runs Through It" continues biographical and contextual through November at the Heritage approaches to the play by professors Museum in Coralville. The exhibi­ from Trinity College, the University tion examines the history of the Mark Sanderson, a teacher at the South Dakota of Hartford, and Brandeis University; Iowa River and the lives of the State Penitentiary, believes the key to concilia­ accompanying the lectures will be people who have lived along its tion is understanding one’s culture. workshops on using live performance banks. Visitors see an old-time trad­ in the classroom. ing post, learn about the lives of In Waterbury, the Mattatuck Native Americans who inhabited Museum will offer a one-week seminar the area 10,000 years ago, revisit for teachers of grades 4-12 on teaching famous floods, and learn about the about ethnic diversity. Scholars and the making of clamshell buttons, museum staff will demonstrate the use ice-gathering, and grist mills.

30 JULY/AUGUST 1994 PRISON WALLS BY DAVID REMUND

RISON WALLS MIGHT SEEM AN UNLIKELY PLACE FOR A FRIENDSHIP KANSAS— The Great Plains Chau­ built on respect. Mark Sanderson, a teacher at the South Dakota State Peniten­ tauqua visits Hiawatha July 15-19 tiary School, and inmate George Blue Bird prove otherwise. Since Sanderson with Mark Twain and other historical figures from the Gilded Age. (See attended a South Dakota Humanities Council teachers’ institute on reconcilia­ page 28.) tion, the men’s friendship has grown even stronger. KENTUCKY— An exhibition titled "Impact of the First Paper Mill in the “Mark is one of the few people who has proven to me that this world is a nice American West" is currently on dis­ P place to live,” Blue Bird explains. Blue Bird grew up in the shadow of alcoholism play at the Georgetown and Scott County Museum in Georgetown. The on the Pine Ridge reservation. exhibition documents the operations Now, under Sanderson’s supervision, Blue Bird teaches the Lakota language and cul­ and significance of the Craig-Parker ture he learned from his grandparents to his fellow inmates. To achieve that success, paper mill, which opened in 1793. Blue Bird needed help overcoming his animosity. One of the owners was Elijah Craig, a Baptist preacher who also founded “Part of the respect I show for George is listening,” Sanderson says of his friendship with the town of Georgetown, started the Blue Bird. “But that empathy and understanding can only happen because I have learned school that became Georgetown more about myself and my own culture.” College, and, many believe, invented During a two-week teachers’ institute in 1992, Sanderson studied the oral and written bourbon. The exhibition includes a model of the mill, examples of paper accounts of Native American, Hutterite, Russian, Scandinavian, and German settlements. it manufactured, and a sixty-page He and the other teachers who attended learned how to become better advocates and pro­ interpretive booklet. moters of the many cultures in South Dakota. MAINE—John Wilmerding, visit­ “One significant thing I learned was the immense diversity among the European set­ ing curator of the Metropolitan tlers of the state,” Sanderson explains. “The Russian, German, and Scandinavian peoples Museum in New York, will speak didn’t just come here, settle the land, and hold hands. There were very real divisions July 20 at the opening session of "Maine in America: Lecture Series on among the different enclaves, which were not unlike the divisions we still have among Maine's Role in American Art." The whites and Native Americans.” four-part series is being held at the Sanderson and Blue Bird agree that there should always be a time for asking impor­ William A. Farnsworth Library and tant questions, for learning and dialogue— even in prison. Art Museum in Rockland through mid-August. Another aspect of art, “The basis of understanding is learning,” Sanderson says. “The teacher and student "The Craftsmen as Yeomen: Jeffer­ must have that understanding and connectedness. If we do not feel a connectedness, sonian Ideals in the Modern Ameri­ there will be problems in our can Crafts Movement," will be the society. Nobody’s a martyr topic July 11 at the Haystack Moun­ tain School of Crafts' Gateway Build­ and nobody’s a savior here ing in Deer Isle. in our school. We’re all on a The council is also offering two pilgrimage. We have a long weeklong teachers' institutes on the way to go.” Holocaust, from July 17-22 in Presque Isle and July 3-10 at Bates College in The institute is being Lewiston. For information phone taught again this summer at 207-773-5051. Sinte Gleska University and MARYLAND — Authors Marita South Dakota State Univer­ Golden and Juan Williams will exam­ sity. Gifts from US West and ine the treatment of the Civil Rights Black Hills Power and Light, movement in fiction and nonfiction, and poet E. Ethelbert Miller will dis­ along with grants from the cuss links between politics and South Dakota Humanities poetry at Baltimore's annual Council, will fund the Artscape Festival on July 16 and 17. 1994 session. For information, call 410-625-4830. Continuing: "Lavish Legacies: Balti­ Inmate George Blue Bird teaches the Lakota culture to fellow more Album Quilts, 1846-54" is tour­ inmates under Sanderson’s supervision. ing fifteen sites throughout Maryland. The exhibition focuses on issues Excerpted from the South Dakota Humanities Council publication, The Human Adventure. Reprinted by permission. HUMANITIES 31 relating to women in the 1840s and 1850s; interpretive programs include an exhibition audio and a dramatic reading, "Quilt Voices/' based on nine­ teenth-century diaries. MISSISSIPPI— "The Sportable William Faulkner/' which continues at the State Historical Museum in Jack­ son, includes a collection of seldom seen family photographs and a newly unveiled portrait of the writer. Film versions of Faulkner's fiction are being shown in the course of the exhibition, which runs through August. In statewide activities, the council has embarked on a three-year initia­ tive to assure that history, literature, ethics, and other traditional liberal arts are an integral part of the curriculum in Mississippi's community and junior colleges. The project is a joint effort with the Community College Founda­ tion and the Millennium Group, a coalition of citizens and civic leaders across the state interested in postsec­ ondary education. The project has taken them to Hinds Community College/Rankin, Meridian Commu­ nity College, Pearl River College in Poplarville, Senatobia, and Tupelo. Poet Herbert Woodward AMifffh as

For information call 601-982-6752. Council Humanities of Ohio ■Courtesy MISSOURI—"Sacred Encounters: Father DeSmet and the Indians of the Paul Laurence Dunbar Rocky Mountain West," continues at the Rockhurst College-Saint Louis University South Campus Building in Kansas City through August 21. N A LETTER DATED NEARLY ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO, THE The exhibition includes Native Dayton, Ohio, poet Paul Laurence Dunbar wrote of his ambition, “the American and Catholic artifacts such all-absorbing desire to be a worthy singer of the songs of God and as decorative clothing, sacred objects, trade goods, housewares, pho­ nature. To be able to interpret my own people through song and story, tographs, and drawings. For ticket and to prove to the many that after all we are more human than African.’' and other information, call the co­ A century later, another black poet from Dayton, Herbert Woodward sponsoring Kansas City Museum, Martin, is speaking in the voice of Paul Laurence Dunbar with the 816-483-8300. intention of recreating the poet in his times. "Sacred Encounters" was organized I His portrayal of “Paul Laurence Dunbar: The Eyes of the Poet” is one of the thirty by Washington State University in Pullman, in collaboration with the talks featured in the Ohio Humanities Council’s 1994 Speakers Bureau, which Cheney Cowles Museum in Spokane, addresses the theme, “Community Reconsidered.” Washington. The Jesuit Missouri As a man of his times, among the first generation of blacks born after the Civil Province Archives, the Confederated War, Dunbar was acutely aware that he had something to prove. The son of freed Salish and the Kootenai tribes of the slaves, Dunbar worked hard to become an educated man. For most of his short life Flathead Nation of western Montana, and the Coeur d'Alene tribe of Idaho (1872-1906), he worked at menial jobs to support himself. And like most black also cooperated in producing the Americans, Paul Laurence Dunbar was bilingual. He wrote in “proper” English as exhibition. Funding came from the well as the dialect of his people. Idaho, Missouri, Montana, and Wash­ Like Dunbar, Martin has proven himself a poet of his times. His celebrated poem, “A ington Humanities Councils along Negro Soldier’s Vietnam Diary,” deals with a crisis of his own generation. Martin under- with the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Skaggs Foundation, and the Lilly Endowment. B Y THERESE NOLAN

32 JULY/AUGUST 1994 stands black colloquial speech as the verbal artistry of a people who had, until the Civil then discussed; targeted for audiences War, been legally denied the written word. “We have had to come back to the authentic for whom English is a second lan­ narrative voice of black language,” he asserts. “Oral forms are highlighted. You pick right up guage and for those enrolled in general educational development. on the rhythm. It’s an acceptable way of performing. I’m at more pains to hear the natural Eighteen series were offered in 1993. voice and speech patterns; in that instant some of Dunbar’s come through.” For more information, call Georgia Professor of English and poet-in-residence at the University of Dayton, Martin is also a Whidden at 908-932-7726. physical dead ringer for Dunbar. In his presentation for the OHC Speakers Bureau, Mar­ Continuing: InTHINK offers New tin draws upon theater, poetry, and historical authenticity to create the character and Jersey's business community the opportunity to present humanities voice of Dunbar. programs to its employees, primarily Martin addresses the language issue head on. Black culture is alive with its own vernac­ through lunch-hour lecture and discus­ ular, which has a deeply poetic cadence. Martin points out that Dunbar, like W. E. B. sion series in the workplace. Twenty- Du Bois, Zora Neale Hurston, Countee Cullen, and Langston Hughes, was caught three such program are under way, between two basic vocabularies of black authors: “proper” English and dialect. All with topics that include African addressed the issue of dialect. Only Cullen rejected it. But according to Martin, “An awful American history, women's history, twentieth-century American fiction and stigma was attached to dialect.” This stigma, Martin points out, was also fought by a poetry, Latin American short stories, white writer: “Mark Twain used dialect. He managed Southern black and Southern white Latin American Nobel Prize-winning as well as standard English. So did Dunbar in the same time frame.” However, black literature, and music history. authors sometimes found that the “unusual” market for their work, and often the patron­ NORTH DAKOTA— The Great age of wealthy whites, favored dialect. Martin notes, “One reason that Dunbar wrote in Plains Chautauqua visits Bismarck dialect was that he was able to sell dialect.” August 5-9 with Mark Twain and During the 1890s, Paul Laurence Dunbar became one of the earliest literary voices of other historical figures from the his people. His poems were read aloud by schoolchildren both black and white, includ­ Gilded Age. (See page 28.) ing the young Martin growing up much later in Birmingham, Alabama. In the 1990s, OHIO — Representatives of four black novelist-poets such as Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, and Alice Walker have cre­ Native American Nations will meet ated a renewed interest in dialect. “In Alice Walker’s The Color Purple, because of the let­ with historians and the general public on July 22-23 to discuss issues such as ter format, you ‘hear the voice,”’ says Martin. “Dialect is a problem, so we need to hear the preservation of tribal history and people pronouncing these words. When we read in our minds, we don’t read aloud. We customs, respect for burial grounds need to do that about three times to figure out the rhythms. When you have access to and mounds, and sovereignty. The the poetry, you can read with joy and understanding.” symposium, "Ohio Native American Martin provides that voice. In Martin’s interpretation of Dunbar’s “Ante-Bellum Sermon,” Heritage Re-examined: Delaware, he summons up a preacher’s exhortations, but the words themselves recall the music of Shawnee, Miami, Wyandotte" will take place in the Tuscarawas Valley of east­ black culture and assemble themselves into graceful lyrics. According to Martin, the lan­ ern Ohio, where the last Delaware guage “starts with the blues, then slowly but surely it works into a gospel song, then goes Grand Council gathered more than two back to blues and jazz.” □ hundred years ago. For information call Rachel Redinger at 216-343-1047. Therese Nolan is a freelance writer whose work appears in the Columbus Monthly and OKLAHOMA— The Great Plains other magazines. Reprinted by permission of the Ohio Humanities Council Chautauqua will stop in McAlester from July 8-12 with Mark Twain and other historical figures from the Gilded NEBRASKA— The Great Plains century visitors to the state, among Age. (See page 28.) Chautauqua visits Hastings on July 22 them Meriwether Lewis, Jessie Benton OREGON —The story of Columbia with Mark Twain and other historical Fremont, Horace Greeley, and Villa and the people who live there is figures from the Gilded Age. (See Brigham Young. Activities will the subject of a two-year project under page 28.) include children's programs, book way which will combine oral histories, Other events: "The Dust Bowl discussions, public policy forums, and exhibitions, photograph documenta­ Experience" will be discussed July 13 a teacher training seminar, the tion, videotaping, and lectures and at St. Rose Church in Fremont, and Truckee River Institute. For discussions. A picnic in August at the "The Remarkable Suggs Family" will information call 702-784-6587. Villa will serve a a way to invite the be the subject of a July 14 meeting at NEW JERSEY— Continuing: community's participation. Columbia Union College in Lincoln. "People and Stories/Gente y Cuentos" Villa, built as public housing for work­ NEVADA —The third Great Basin involves small groups listening to and ers in war industries in Portland in Chautauqua visits Rancho San Rafael discussing contemporary short stories. 1942, had fallen upon hard times by Park in Reno July 25-28. The theme of The group meets at least six times for the 1980s, with drugs and unemploy­ this year's program is "Desert Trav­ ninety-minute weekly sessions at ment undermining its residents; in the ellers," featuring notable nineteenth- which each story is read aloud, and last five years there has been an effort

HUMANITIES to reclaim the area and understand the TENNESSEE —Southern litera­ able for sites throughout the state. values of the diverse cultural groups ture is the focus this summer in the Based on a Columbian Quincen­ that live there. For information call program bureau. Scholarly speakers tenary exhibition from the National Richard Lewis at 503-241-0543. cover a wide range of the field: Museum of Natural History in Ernest Gaines, Josephine Washington, D.C., the exhibition PENNSYLVANIA— The state is in Humphreys, Kate Chopin, Bobbie looks at the social and cultural the second year of a three-year project Ann Mason, Richard Ford, Alice effects of five "seeds" that shaped called "Raising Our Sites: Women's Walker, Cynthia Rylant, Flannery the modern world—corn, potato, History in Pennsylvania." The work O'Connor, Jesse Hill Ford, and sugar, the horse, and disease. involves fourteen historic sites and is William Faulkner. designed to strengthen the representa­ WEST VIRGINIA— A statewide tion of women in exhibits, program­ UTAH— "Choices for the initiative on National Issues Forums ming, and interpretation. Twenty-First Century: Public Policy is under way in which citizens Discussions in Your Local Library" SOUTH CAROLINA— Continuing: examine the human values that is a project being organized across "Quiet Heroes: a Documentation of underlie important public policy the state with funds from the the Civil Rights Era from 1949-1993," issues such as health care, criminal United States Institute for Peace. at South Carolina State University. violence, and free speech. WPBY-TV The discussion series is designed to The work of NAACP photographer is producing a documentary on a bring together diverse populations Cecil Williams documents the early high school forum on free speech for to discuss the common values that history of the Civil Rights movement distribution in the fall. Tapes will be guide U.S. policy. For additional in the United States, with a focus on available to teachers for staff train­ information call 801-359-9670. the citizens of South Carolina. ing, to librarians, to literacy tutors, Meanwhile, a five-year program in VIRGINIA— "Through Film and to corrections instructors, and to Japanese studies at Richland County's Video: The Practice of Seeing," is others interested in the issue. For W. J. Keenan High School is being being offered for a second year for information call 304-346-8500. elementary, middle, and high expanded this fall to the middle WISCONSIN— To mark the five- schools. Japanese teachers will make school teachers, beginning July 21. hundredth anniversary of the estab­ periodic visits to middle school At the twelve-day seminar at Mary lishment of an Ojibwa village at La classes, providing lessons in Japanese Baldwin College, filmmakers join Pointe, there will be three one-week language and culture for those inter­ educators in presenting lectures, institutes for fourth grade, middle ested in the magnet program at leading discussions, and screening school, and high school teachers on Keenan. As part of the program, the films. The participants also work incorporating Wisconsin Indian his­ high school will sponsor a daylong with cameras and editing equip­ tory and culture into the curricu­ festival with visiting scholars dis­ ment as a way of sharpening their lum. Each institute will involve cussing history and art, film as an critical skills and improving their studies in history, art, music, and indicator of the society, religion, folk­ understanding of the way ideas are literature, and meetings with tribal tales, and literature. For information, transformed into images. Members elders. Through the school year, the call 803-771-8864. of the seminar divide into produc­ tion groups and produce films to be participants will be enrolled in the SOUTH DAKOTA— The Great shown the final evening at Mary University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire Plains Chautauqua stops in Sturgis Baldwin. The seminar is cospon­ SocStudies-Net, an online electronic from July 29 to August 2 with Mark sored by the Center for Media and mail network for state social studies Twain and other historical figures from Culture and the Center for the teachers. UW-Eau Claire is a spon­ the Gilded Age. (See page 28.) For Liberal Arts at the University of sor, along with Lac Courte Oreilles additional information, call John W. Virginia. For information call Ojibwa Community College and Whalen, 605-688-6113. Michelle Branigan at 804-924-3296. the Chippewa Valley Museum. Other events: an institute for elemen­ In another summer institute, tary and secondary teachers, "Family VIRGIN ISLANDS— The influ­ scholars at the Milwaukee Art Diversity through Literature," at the ence of the history of slavery on Museum will offer "Art and Arti­ University of South Dakota July 11-22, Virgin Islands culture will be the facts as Historical Texts: New and a discussion on German-Russian subject of a residential summer insti­ Documents for U.S. History and Lit­ settlement in the Midwest, July 8-9 at tute for social studies teachers at the erature." The course is intended to the Pierre Ramkota Inn. University of the Virgin Islands on help high school teachers integrate St. Croix, from August 1-19. Teach­ "The Braided Lives Multicultural documents and objects into their ers will work with international and Reading Series," in which thirty com­ classes. Among the nontraditional local scholars. For further informa­ munity groups around the state are texts studied will be nineteenth- tion call 809-776-4044. participating, resumes in August. century landscape and portrait art, Among the texts will be Amy Tan's WASHINGTON— Continuing: the photography of reform, prints The Joy Luck Club and No No Boy by Four traveling versions of the exhi­ and drawings of the 1930s, and John Okada. bition, "Seeds of Change," are avail­ modern art. □

34 JULY/AUGUST 1994 Free at Last In July, 1963, Hannah Johnson— a free black woman whose son was a NOTEWORTHY member of the Massachusetts Fifty- fourth Regiment of the Union Army— BY AMY LIFSON wrote to President Lincoln imploring him not to recant the Emancipation Proclamation. More than one hundred years later, her words to Lincoln have an eerie feeling of prophecy: ".. .don't do it. When you are dead and in Heaven, in a thousand years that action of yours will make the Angels sing your praises I know it. Ought one man to own another, law for or not, who made the law, surely the poor slave did not. so it is wicked, and a horrible Outrage, there is no 15 r r&QL-t sense in it, because a man lived by robbing his whole life and his father Free at Last is an abridged work con­ musical is where the overriding con­ before him, should he complain taining selections from the first four ceptual framework of the piece because stolen things found on him volumes of Freedom: A Documentary replaces the plot and character devel­ are taken...." History of Emancipation, 1861-1867. opment in the traditional sense. A This is part of one of the documents To compile Freedom, members of the recent example of this is A Chorus published in Free at Last: A Documen­ Freedmen and Southern Society Project Line— any song in it could be replaced tary History of Slavery, Freedom, and the at the University of Maryland searched with a different song without chang­ Civil War, winner of the 1994 Lincoln and sorted more than two million doc­ ing the plot." Prize given annually by Gettysburg uments pertaining to emancipation at With help from NEH, the founda­ College in Pennsylvania to a work the National Archives. From these, tion is preserving the collection in the about the Civil War. Past winners of they selected fifty thousand for index­ Weill-Lenya Research Center (named the Lincoln Prize include Ken Burns's ing, and then three thousand for publi­ also for Lotte Lenya, Weill's wife and The Civil War. cation. Project director Leslie Rowland the center's founder) and making an says, "Selection is the most challenging index of it accessible on a national and the most difficult part of the library database. The collection con­ process. But some of our best material tains audio and video recordings of lies ahead, as we start delving into the Weill's staged work, pop recordings of Freedmen's Bureau records that docu­ his songs, performance history materi­ ment the years of Reconstruction." als, and correspondence and oral his­ tories with directors, choreographers Kurt Weill and the American Stage and singers who The earliest recording of Kurt Weill's worked with Weill. work is a 1927 acetate recording of a Farneth says that tango from his opera Der Zar lasst sich because of the breadth photographieren, housed at the Kurt Weill of the collection, the Foundation for Music in New York. This center is one of the few recording may also be the first example resources for compre­ of a phonograph used as part of the hensive research on stage action—where the orchestra Weill on both sides of stopped, and the characters on stage put the Atlantic. "In the on the record and danced and sang to it. past, one of the difficul­ Weill's career was filled with innova­ ties in getting access to -Kurt Weill Foundation for Music tions that left their mark on American Weill's work was Kurt Weill musical theater. He was one of the first because he first lived in users of American jazz forms on stage, Germany, then went in and of comment songs— when during exile to Paris, and then came to the a musical the characters sing out of United States. His works were scat­ context from the action. He is also con­ tered with various publishers in many sidered the originator of the concept countries. When this project is realized, musical with his work Lady in the Dark, scholars will have the benefit of access which was produced with Ira Gersh­ to documents that show Weill and his win and Moss Hart in 1941. Director of oeuvre in their entirety, and it may Private Hubbard Pryor of the Forty-fourth the Kurt Weill Foundation for Music prompt far-reaching revisions to the U.S. Colored Infantry, 1864. David Farneth says, "A concept current body of literature on Weill." □

HUMANITIES 35 Calendar JULY ♦ AUGUST BY STEVEN SNODGRASS

♦ "Colonial Encounters in the Chesapeake: The Natural World of Native Americans, Europeans, and Africans, 1685-1800" uses murals, drawings, and prints to explore the Chesapeake Bay watershed. The traveling exhibition is on display at the Calvert Marine Museum in Solomons, Maryland, in July and at the Martin Luther King, Jr., Library in Washington, D.C., in August. — Kathlyn Jam es-W illiam s.

Virginia's Carlyle House Historic Park is showing "Don't Get Weary: African Americans in Eighteenth-Century Alexandria" through August 28. The exhibition uses artifacts, authentically costumed mannequins, and living history presentations to reveal the everyday lives of enslaved and free African Americans.

"Windows on Richmond/Reflections of a Nation/' an interac­ tive, multimedia exhibition, traces the evolution of Richmond, Virginia, by examining trade, migration, culture, and social change. The exhibition compares Richmond's urban develop­ ment to those of other U.S. cities. "Windows" is on permanent display at Richmond's Valentine Riverside, a history park and museum complex.

"Chicago Goes to War, 1941-45" looks at the contributions that Chicago's households made to the war effort and the role the city

PREPARE YOUR TIN CANS played as an industrial center during World War II. The exhibi­ FOR WAR tion includes a piece of the world's first nuclear reactor, ration 1 REMOVE TOPS AND BOTTOMS 2 TAKE OFF PAPER LABELS stamps, a wooden neighborhood honor roll, and posters promot­ 3 WASH THOROUGHLY ing scrap drives, war bonds, and enlistment. It is on display at 4 FLATTEN FIRMLY

the First Division Museum at Cantigny in Wheaton, Illinois. ® ______-Chicago Historical Society.

36 JULY/AUGUST 1994 ENDOWMENT EXHIBITIONS

"Arkansas Indians: Roots, Removal, and Rebirth," planned with Quapaw, Osage, Caddo, and Tunica Indians, focuses on their ancestors' forced abandonment of the land and struggle to establish an ethnic identity. A replica of a pre­ historic farming town, grave-site artifacts, and displays describing contemporary ceremonies are included in this exhibition at the Arkansas Museum of Science and History in Little Rock.

More than forty-eight hundred American decorative-arts works from the colonial period through the mid-nineteenth century are on display at the Bayou Bend Collection and Gardens, part of Houston's Museum of Fine Arts. The collection is housed in a twenty-eight-room mansion on the estate of the late Houston philanthropist and collector, Miss Ima Hogg.

A handwritten Gettysburg Address, signed copies of the Emancipation Proclamation, and one of Lincoln's stovepipe hats are among more than two hundred artifacts that chron­ icle the life of the Civil War president in "The Last Best Hope of Earth: Abraham Lincoln and the Promise of Amer­ ica." The exhibition will be on display at the Huntington Library in San Marino, California, through August 30.

— Huntington Library.

HUMANITIES 37 HUMANITIES GUIDE

RITING A DOCTORAL are eligible to be nominated. Each dissertation in the humani­ Ph.D.-granting institution in the W ties requires time, concen­ country can nominate up to ten candi­ tration, and freedom from distractions. dates for awards and each establishes Those are precisely the rewards built its own internal competition to deter­ The mine its nominees. Fellows receive into the Endowment's Dissertation Grants program, which made its first $14,000. The six- to twelve-month awards in the spring of 1993. tenure period can begin any time This new program is designed to Dissertation between June 1 and September 1. It is humanities doctoral students at expected that the dissertation will be American institutions so they can complete by the end of the grant devote their time exclusively to com­ tenure period. Grants The most competitive applications pleting the writing of their disserta­ tions. It is already bearing fruit. Laurie come from those who have largely Hovell McMillin of Syracuse Univer­ completed their dissertation research sity has the distinction of being the 1Program and have already begun drafting first fellow to complete her doctorate chapters. The application consists of after successfully defending her dis­ two letters of recommendation— one sertation, "Horizons Lost and Found: from the dissertation director, a Travel, Writing, and Tibet in the Age resume, a list of graduate courses of Imperialism." She will begin teach­ BY KATHLEEN MITCHELL taken, and a brief but pointed descrip­ ing at Kenyon College in Ohio this tion of the dissertation project in three fall. And she is not alone. single-spaced pages. The proposal is accompanied by a one-page bibliogra­ A number of 1993-94 fellows have doctoral programs, have demon­ phy identifying the most important already received their degrees and strated the tremendous quality and scholarship and documentation even more have accepted teaching promise of the new generation of relating to the dissertation topic. positions. They can be found as new humanities interpreters and teachers. Doctoral candidates interested in members of the faculties of such One of the outstanding characteris­ applying for Dissertation Grants may institutions as Columbia University, tics of many of the 1993-94 Disserta­ request guidelines and application Franklin and Marshall College, tion Grants fellows is their remarkable materials from the program by Michigan State University, Samford skill with languages. Their resumes calling 202/606-8465. The program University, the Universities of Califor­ show facility with virtually all the maintains a file of the names and nia at Berkeley and San Diego, the major language families, including phone numbers of the designated University of South Florida, and Uzbek, Akkadian, Serbo-Croatian, nominating officials at the various Vassar College. Vietnamese, Thai, Hindi, and the Ph.D.-granting institutions and will The Dissertation Grants program African Kikongo dialect, Kituba. These be happy to provide these to poten­ offers the Endowment's first grant for candidates also have strong records of tial applicants. graduate students, those in post­ professional advancement and publi­ Guidelines and application materials baccalaureate degree programs. The cation. Some have already had careers, should also be available from the uni­ response of graduate students and among them a doctor, a lawyer, a versity nominating official, who will their universities has left no doubt of reporter for the Wall Street Journal, an have received them well in advance of the intense interest the program award-winning film-maker, high the deadline. Because applications are generates. Applications representing school teachers, an army officer, and a accepted only by nomination, the three-quarters of the Ph.D.-gran ting town selectman. They are students of potential applicant should contact institutions in the country have history, literature, classics, linguistics, the university nominating official to been submitted. art and architectural history, music find out the nominating procedures In terms of the number of awards it history, theater and media, philoso­ and dates for the internal competition. can make, the program is not large, phy and religious studies, and politics The application postmark deadline but it has a wide reach. In the first two and society. for the national competition for competitions students from forty- Applicants to the Dissertation 1995-96 Dissertation Grants is seven universities in twenty-three Grants program are nominated by November 15,1994. □ states received offers of awards. As their doctoral institutions. U.S. citi­ the list of these award-winning zens, doctoral candidates in the universities shows, students at both humanities at U.S. institutions, who Kathleen Mitchell is senior program public and private universities, insti­ have completed all requirements for officer in the Division of Fellowships tutions with both large and small the doctorate except the dissertation and Seminars.

38 JULY/AUGUST 1994 A Year of One's Own BY CONSTANCE BURR f "W " 'M COVERING 40,000 YEARS of aboriginal history in Australia called the Dreamtime," said Marilyn Strelau, a 1994 teacher-scholar. "I need to understand the idea of the Dreamtime in the myths and stories of the aboriginal people, before I understand how immigrants assimilated that idea into ■ JL . Australian literature." MARILYN STRELAU Strelau introduced her students to aboriginal myths in a multicultural literature class she teaches at Simsbury (Connecticut) High School. This September she and twenty-three other teacher-scholars will begin researching a wide variety of humani­ ties topics that span the millennia, with support for an academic year of full-time independent study. They met at NEH last spring with past mentors and former teacher-scholars to discuss scholarship methods and resources and ways to build a successful relationship with a mentor. "You're pioneers in creating a different national climate," declared Maynard Mack, Jr., who led the workshop on research methods and had served as a mentor to former teacher-scholars. "You become a symbol of all the teachers around you who are trying to educate by preparing for the unknown," said Mack, who is asso­ ciate dean of undergraduate studies and associate professor of English at the Uni­ versity of Maryland. "You embody the fact that teachers from kindergarten through high school have minds that need to be nurtured— and that gets noticed." The program demonstrates that scholarship is a means of professional self­ renewal, giving teachers the opportunity to study topics and texts that are related to the subjects they teach. Mack advised participants to structure their time and research to ensure headway on their projects, as well as lead to a sense of confi­ dence, expertise, and exhilaration. To help prepare the 1994 grantees for the coming year, he Simsbury High School, recommended the following: Simsbury, Connecticut • "Present yourself as a scholar. To gain access to a university library, explain what you're In "Australian Literature: working on and identify yourself as a National Endowment for the Humanities teacher-scholar. NEH can give you an introduction that's almost a guarantee. You're a national investment at Conversations among the this point; at the end of a year you're a national treasure. Fringe Dwellers," Strelau • "During the first three months plunge in and focus. Jot down ideas or lists to anchor what you've learned. If you have sixteen books to read, read the first five books and write five pages will search for a national about them before reading the rest. Writing at this stage will give you direction and tell you identity in the literature of what to look for in the remaining books. • "Get into the habit of writing a few paragraphs every Friday. Writing is one of the most the Aborigines, the English, efficient ways to help you discover what you need to know. I don't know what Dreamtime is. and the new immigrants. But I do know it has the look of Joseph Campbell and a black hole that you could disappear into and never come back from. Although it is impossible to cover 40,000 years of history, for example, ask if you are absorbing enough material to use in the works that you are going to teach, and then move on. • "If you're totally ignorant about computerized library reference systems and information searches, have no shame. Reference librarians exist to be exploited; in most cases they'll do the search for you. Also, develop a selection of key words in your computer so you can use

HUMANITIES 39 notes efficiently. One of the benefits authority on modern European intel­ could contribute, a way to help him of the computer is being able to lectual history. To be with someone think about relationships and provide search those sections easily. whose job is to think about abstract conceptual coherence to this wide • "E-mail conquers time. Investigate ideas and convey them to young range of reading." its potential. Neither sender nor people kept me on my toes." During the session with Mack, responder needs to be available at the Burson recommended that teacher- teacher-scholars discussed tailoring same time, so you can correspond at scholars meet with their mentors over research methods to suit their pro­ your own convenience. As a means of lunch, "because that way you're not jects. For example, Lorraine Boomer, exchanging ideas and making new taking their time. Univer­ of Gallup, New Mexico, contacts, e-mail could sustain you sity faculty are so busy will spend the year throughout the year in magical ways." with their own teaching, “Find a studying Navajo stories, In another workshop, a 1992 teacher- committees, students in the mentor who myths, and legends, scholar and a mentor offered their office, and pressure to pub­ some of which she heard perspectives on the experience. lish. And besides, it's more won't be as a child in her first lan­ George Burson, a history teacher at congenial," he added. guage. Because the Aspen (Colorado) High School, and Burson met with Kramer satisfied majority of her elemen­ Lloyd Kramer, Burson's mentor and about every three weeks. with the tary school students associate professor of history at the He assured the partici­ never learned to speak University of North Carolina at pants that "by December mundane, Navajo, she intends to Chapel Hill, discussed their year-long you'll have a handle one who transmit the culture's affiliation at UNC. Burson put forth on what you're reading, a rich oral literature and the idea that the mentor relationship focus." Working an eight- will ask traditional knowledge to should be collegial. "If you have a hour day, Burson said he them in translation. mentor who doesn't meet this crite­ outlined or summarized questions This is a different type rion, I urge you to bail," he said. each book he read, and you haven't of inquiry. "A lot of what "Look for a professor who is inter­ used that material to I'm going to do," ested in precollegiate education, develop student objectives thought Boomer says, "is seek out someone who is curious about what and lesson plans. He about." stories in a real life con­ you do, and is smarter than you. would bring these writings text. I go back in magical Find a mentor who won't be satisfied to their lunchtime sessions, time to my grand­ with the mundane, one who will ask asking Kramer what he thought of mother's, when I would questions you haven't thought his interpretations. do the dishes if she would tell me a about," Burson advised. Kramer explained his role in bring­ story. These stories are a legacy, a gift. Kramer, an intellectual historian, ing coherence to the readings. "In the As I weave them into a kind of per­ more than filled the bill, according to beginning we were fairly structured, sonal meaning and connect them to Burson. He and Kramer discussed but we always came back to whether the Navajo world view, I will do this how to structure meetings between there was a relationship between these in an artificial setting, a library, where teacher-scholars and mentors and get revolutions, between ideas and I will study works on philosophy, the most out of the relationship. actions," he said. ethnology, and anthropology. "Don't expect your mentor to guide "As the year went on, he cast a "Yet I'm afraid that because of all you," Burson said. "He's the person wider net with his readings: the the scholarly kinds of knowledge, I'll on the side; you're doing the work. Ottoman Empire, Argentina, and get sidetracked into what the scholars Even though the relationship is colle­ slave trade. No matter what George perceive as important." gial, have in mind where you want would read," Kramer continued, "You've made a very courageous to go next. "I would come back to questions statement," Mack responded, "that "My topic was an analysis of the about how economic and cultural — Courtesy o f Lorraine Boomer American, French, and Latin Ameri­ motivations shape actions. This was can revolutions, and Lloyd is an not interrogation, but something I

LORRAINE BOOMER

Window Rock Elementary School, Window Rock, Arizona A "Study of Navajo Oral Literature," will explore myths and legends to determine their relationship to the Navajo world view and to modern society.

40 JULY/AUGUST 1994 SUSAN MITCHELL San Rafael Elementary School, Oceanside, California "History of Indigenous San Diego Tribes" will focus on precontact culture of the Cupeno, Cahuilla, and Kumeyaay tribes and their place in California history.

beautifully defines the problem. If in an active culture. You're trying to you're concerned about the idea of explore their position in relation to a falling into someone else's system and culture's efforts to come to terms with losing the authenticity of that material, itself— without bringing in scholarly — Courtesy of Susan Mitchell that's very exciting." machinery. That is what the humani­ Mack advised Boomer to be wary of ties are all about. After all, this is the him to faculty library privileges. anyone who might provide a struc­ National Endowment for the Humani­ "When you arrive, let them know ture that would keep her from "deal­ ties, not the National Endowment you're there," he stated. "I urge you to ing with the outrageous for Research." be proactive." otherness and fragility of In both sessions, par­ "Unless you call attention to your­ the fact that these are sur­ ticipants talked about self," Kramer concurred, "you could viving oral stories. "You've made broadening profes­ drift for months, because everyone is "I think you are close to sional contacts. "The caught up in daily routines. George something that many of a very process of working on came in and said, 'Here I am. These us don't have access to. A courageous one of these grants is are my interests.'" Kramer introduced lot of your responsibility political," said Mack, Burson to the Project for Historical is to have the courage not statement "and it's crucial to play Education, a UNC program to revital­ to be a systematizing the game in a way ize high school history teaching scholar, but to get in there that beauti­ that's good for you funded by the North Carolina State with your heart and your fully defines and good for the kinds Humanities Council. Burson was own experience. of deep, humanistic asked to sit on the project's board, and "People can always the problem. concerns that drew he gave workshops for social studies come in with the scholarly If you're you into your subject teachers on the relationship between machinery—and they in the first place." African studies, slavery, and Ameri­ will," cautioned Mack. concerned To foster as many can history. When he became a "But you have something working relationships as Woodrow Wilson fellow the following to offer that they don't about the possible, program offi­ summer, he used the knowledge he have—if you have the idea of falling cer Annette Palmer gained at Chapel Hill to give work­ courage to say it and find explained that NEH shops in five cities nationwide. ways to help people see into someone sends letters announcing In addition to establishing scholarly the value and experience else's system a grantee's award and credentials, defining a focus, and the authentic quality of it." J describing the pro­ advancing research through writing Susan Mitchell, a and losing the gram's purpose to and discussion, another topic of com­ teacher at San Rafael Ele­ authenticity school superintendents, mon interest was organizing vast mentary School in Ocean­ board members, amounts of information without side, California, stated of that libraries, museums, becoming overwhelmed. A discussion that she was working and other institutions, in Mack's group dealt with breaking with oral traditions, as material, as teacher-scholars research down into bits and pieces, well. In studying the his­ that's ver\^ request them. becoming well-versed in each part tory of the Cupeno, J An often overlooked before tackling the next one, and being Cahuilla, and Kumeyaay exciting." way to develop profes­ alert to unanticipated results. tribes of the San Diego sional contacts is simply "The computer has changed so area, she plans to visit by announcing one's much," noted Robert Dyer, a classics these Native American presence. Burson had teacher at the Hotchkiss School in communities and record their stories. written to the head of the history Lakeville, Connecticut. "I used to "Those are performance stories, in department at Chapel Hill to obtain make boxes of notes that I never effect," Mack said, "that are still active visiting scholar status, which entitled looked at because they were too

HUMANITIES confusing. With the computer, I keep files of my work in various states of 1994-95 organization, so while I'm working on the current version, I can see how Teacher-Scholars it looked three months ago. Some­ times the changes I've made are LORRAINE BOOMER good, or were not necessary. I find Window Hock Elementary School myself building up files so I can keep Window Rock, Arizona track of how a project reshapes A "Study of Navajo Oral Literature" will itself." Dyer will use the resources of explore myths and legends to determine their Yale University to study the cultural relationship to the Navajo world view and to background of Vergil, philosophical modern society. and religious treatises of Cicero, and SHAWN CHEN modern critical theories of their Leuzinger High School literary influence. Lawndale, California "Hang onto the early versions," "Toward an American Art: Gertrude Stein and Mack enjoined. "They make you Georgia O'Keeffe" will examine the writings of conscious of changes, development— Stein and the art of O'Keeffe for their contribu­ and perhaps more judicious." tions to modern art. As for the collective benefit of these highly individual pursuits, Mack had ROBERT DYER THOMAS CHMEUR this to say: "Regardless of St. Louis University High School which direction you take, it is St. Louis, Missouri a victory for the country. A study of "Native American Themes: Points Your only obligation is to do of Conflict and Harmony with Non-Native Amer­ the work with dignity and icans" will determine whether themes of the seriousness. Then the virtue Native American world view are expressed by of it will be available to more non-Native American writers. and more people. That's why DONNA DIAL NEH does this— to set Miami Beach Senior High School models, to make it possible Miami Beach, Florida for the country to use the pro­ "The Great Depression: As Reflected in its Lit­ gram as a model for teachers' erature and Popular Arts" will investigate litera­ professional development. ture, radio programs, films, and photography to "Remember," he mused, understand the country's political and social "you're just doing something currents in the 1930s. in Western culture that goes ROBERT DYER back to Horace. You're The Hotchkiss School leaving the city not to Lakeville, Connecticut leave it, but to come back In "Studies in the Reading and Cultural Back­ to it rejuvenated, and more ground of Vergil," Dyer will examine the intellec­ powerful. It's the whole tual context of Vergil's Aeneid, treatises of pastoral story, and NEH is Cicero, and modern critical theories of their work. the pastor of the modern BURTON EIKLEBERRY commercial, exploitive world. The Hotchkiss School Grants Pass High School "You're retreating into the pastoral Lakeville, Connecticut Grants Pass, Oregon world not because you want to tend "Selected Ethnic Women Writers" will focus on sheep, but because it's the only place In "Studies in the Reading and recent prose by women of various ethnic back­ where by cultivating the soil, you Cultural Background o f Vergil," grounds to study identity, gender, and culture. can cultivate your soul. Which Dyer will examine the intellectual brings you back into the city ready PAULA FOWLER to be a more interesting, urbane context o f Vergil's Aeneid, treatises West High School Salt Lake City, Utah person. We're all living in the city; o f Cicero, and modem critical the classroom is the city, obviously. "Options for Creative Expression by Female "I do want to hear from you. Have theories o f their work. Artists: A Critical Approach to Understanding a wonderful year." □ Their Lives and Art" will examine how social pressures and traditions have affected them. Constance Burr is assistant editor of BETTY FRANKS Humanities. Maple Heights High School The NEH Teacher-Scholar Program Maple Heights, Ohio provided stipends of up to $30,000 to Franks will study "The Constitution of Japan: twenty-four elementary and high school Rights and Responsibilities— Indigenous or teachers for academic year 1994. Imported?" to evaluate the constitution's effect on the development of democracy in Japan.

42 JULY/AUGUST 1994 DOUGLAS GOLDE ALYSON PATCH Tenafly High School Sanderson Academy Tenafly, New Jersey Ashfield, Massachusetts In "Painting and Literature: Comparative "Including Native Americans in the Study of Studies of 'the Sister Arts,'" Golde will compare Early American History" will examine the the aesthetics and cultural history of painters relationship between Native Americans and and writers from three eras. European settlers from the time of exploration THOMAS HARRISON to the Federal period. The Brearley School GEORGE RION New York, New York Point Loma High School "Eastern European Dissidents and the San Diego, California Breakdown of Communism" will explore how In "The Lewis and Clark Expedition: An democratic- and human-rights activists con­ In-Depth Study of an American Epic," Rion will tributed to the breakdown of Communist determine the impact of the expedition on the regimes and led to the revolutions of 1989. history of the West. PATRICIA KAUFMAN JANE SCHMIDT Talawanda High School Bradford Middle School Oxford, Ohio Starke, Florida "Cultural Diversity: African Literature in "I'd trade my "Women as Political Visionaries and Radical Reformers" will determine reformers' percep­ Historical Context" will study the historical and Grand Slam for tions of social, economic, and political problems cultural contexts of African authors and the societies they write about to recognize Humanities and their solutions for them. recurrent themes. Join the growing number of ANDREA LIBRESCO Humanities subscribers today, SHERRY STIDOLPH Valley Stream South High School and get a year's subscription Whiting Lane Elementary School Valley Stream, New York (six bimonthly issues) for only West Hartford, Connecticut "American Women's Rights Activists as $13 or two years for only $26. "Shakespeare and the Young Child" will focus Reflected in Biographical and Primary Sources" on elements of the fairy tale in several Shake­ will research women's contributions to change spearean plays and rework them as narratives in American society from 1830 to 1920. that are appropriate for young children and true Company or Individual name LORIN MALONEY to Shakespeare's intent. Winchester High School MARILYN STRELAU Winchester, Massachusetts Simsbury High School Address "Tribal Resistance and Accommodation to Simsbury, Connecticut Waves of Imperial and State Domination in the In "Australian Literature: Conversations Balkans from the Seventh through the Twenti­ among the Fringe Dwellers," Strelau will search eth Century" will study religious and ethno­ for a national identity in the literature of the Abo­ graphic backgrounds. rigines, the English, and the new immigrants. MARILYN LEE MAUGER PAMELA VALENTINE City, State, ZIP code Haddonfield Memorial High School Cambridge Elementary School Haddonfield, New Jersey San Antonio, Texas "Spirit in the Stories: The Oral Tradition as "Reverberations: The Spirit of Mexico Defined Daytime phone, including area code Contemporary American Literature" will explore through Its Symbols from the Past to the oral traditions of the Acoma-Laguna, Zuni, Hopi, Present" will explore motifs from pre-Columbian and Navajo and their relationship to Native times to the present in art housed in the San □ Check payable to □ GPO American poetry and fiction. Antonio area. the Superintendent D eposit of Documents A ccount SUSAN MITCHELL JOAN VANDENBERG San Rafael Elementary School Santana High School □ VISA or MasterCard Oceanside, California Santee, California "History of Indigenous San Diego Tribes" will "Marriage in the Victorian Novel and Short Account no./Expiration date focus on precontact culture of the Cupeno, Story: A Cultural Frame" will investigate Cahuilla, and Kumeyaay tribes and their place in nineteenth-century American fiction, history, 7/94 California history. and culture to understand domestic relation­ Signature KEVIN O'REILLY ships and changing conventions. Hamilton-Wenham Regional High School SUSAN VANDER HEIDE M AIL TO: South Hamilton, Massachusetts Highland View Middle School New Orders "Textile Workers and Social Change, 1780- Corvallis, Oregon Superintendent of Documents 1850" will compare changes in attitudes "Socialization of Islamic Women in Three P.O. Box 371954 Pittsburgh, PA 15250-7954 toward work and family among textile workers Cultures" will study Muslim women in Bosnia, or FAX (202) 512-2233 in New England and Lancashire, England, during Jordan, and India to understand the impact of the Industrial Revolution. religion on the socialization of adolescent girls. □ ORDER PROCESSING CODE! 5 4 9 4

HUMANITIES 43 INBEISB0L EL NORTE

2 3 —

B y SAMUEL O. REGALADO

"WHEN I CAME TO THE UNITED STATES TO PLAY PRO­ FESSIONAL BASEBALL, I KNEW IT WAS GOING TO TAKE A LOT OF HARD WORK, DESIRE, AND DETERMINATION," RECALLS MANUEL MOTA OF THE DOMINICAN REPUB­ LIC. HE AND OTHERS LIKE HIM TRAVELED NORTHWARD DRIVEN BY THEIR DREAMS. BROTHERS JOINED BROTH­ ERS AND SONS FOLLOWED FATHERS AS GENERATIONS OF LATINO PLAYERS LOOKED TO THE UNITED STATES IN SEARCH OF STARDOM AND FINANCIAL REWARD.

Players from Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, the Commonwealth of , and other Caribbean and Central American countries were to come to the United States and enter a sporting institution that symbolized the American dream of opportunity, upward social mobility, and success. They brought to the big leagues remarkable skills, and they added flair and charisma—players such as the Alou brothers, , Jorge "George" Bell, Orlando Cepeda, , Juan Gonzalez, Adolfo Luque, Juan Marichal, Orestes "Minnie" Minoso, , Atanasio "Tony" Perez, Ruben Sierra, and Fernando Valenzuela.

44 JULY/AUGUST 1994 ■Photos ■Photos from National Baseball Library & A rchive Orestes Minnie Minoso of the Chicago White Sox was the first Latin black player to enter the big leagues after World War II.

HUMANITIES 45 A number came to prominence after World War II, captur­ For many, however, their early days in the United States were ing seven Most Valuable Player awards, ten Rookie-of-the- filled with loneliness. The Spanish language was a bond. "Just Year titles, three Cy Young trophies, and eighteen batting listening to Orlando (Cepeda) chatter in Spanish was enough to championships. There have been seven home run kings and make me feel at home," recalls Dominican Felipe Alou. But eight eamed-run-average seasonal leaders; and, from 1951 while the language was a tie with home, it was a barrier in through 1979, Latin players were stolen base champions terms of recognition. twenty-one times. But the fame and fortune seen by most For black Latinos, there was another difficulty, Jim Crow. modem baseball observers often overshadowed the meager Even for those who anticipated this problem, the reality of beginnings from which many Latin players emerged. dealing with prejudice was difficult. "I wasn't allowed to "I was so poor that I never know what it means the word go to the white hotel," recalled Puerto Rican Vic Power. "I 'lunch/" recalls Cuban Zoilo Versalles. Versalles eventually stayed in the best house in the colored section, and that was triumphed in his quest to reach the big leagues; and in 1965 usually a funeral parlor." This frustration magnified their with the he became the first Latin to win sense of isolation. "Until then, I hadn't been homesick," the Most Valuable Player award. Baseball was clearly an claims Felipe Alou. "About the only thing that kept me opportunity for success. And success was often measured in from going home was that I wanted to play baseball more terms of a balanced diet, a diverse wardrobe, shoes, and an than ever." The negative factors associated with their North opportunity to bring comfort to the family. In addition, it American experience, however, faded when compared embodied the virtues of individualism, personal honor, and with the poverty found in their own countries. integrity. Most Latin players, in fact, saw themselves as What became a flood of Latin talent in recent years, had ambassadors on behalf of their native lands. "I feel like I rep­ begun with a trickle in the late nineteenth century. The first resent Puerto Rico," claimed ' outfielder was Esteban Bellan, who joined the Troy Haymakers of the Ruben Sierra. National Association in 1871. Known as the "Cuban Sylph," Bellan had come to the United States in 1866 to attend Fordham University. Accounts of Bellan's history vary, some arguing that he had learned the game from another Cuban, Nemesio Guillot, who had attended school in the United States, others claiming that American sailors taught the game to Cubans during their stay on the island. This much, however, is clear: Bellan developed his skills, played for two years with the Haymakers, and was instrumental in fur­ thering Cuba's baseball knowledge. By the late 1880s, Cuba's interest in baseball blossomed. Indeed, one Cuban writer correctly predicted that the "baseball fields of Cuba will persist longer than the cockfighting and the bullring." Cuban baseball also bled into the other Caribbean regions. Island hopping between national and regional teams became routine, and by 1900, base­ ball had also found a home in Mexico's Yucatan peninsula and in Venezuela. From 1911 to 1947, the and the Washington Senators sent scouts south to recruit low-cost players, primarily from Cuba. Armando Marsans, Mike Gonzalez, and Roberto Estallella, among others, came from Cuba to grace America's baseball diamonds. Adolfo Luque, who pitched between 1914 and 1935, was regarded as the most talented among them. Gifted with a superb curve- ball, the right-handed "Pride of Havana" compiled a won-lost record of 194-179. In 1923 he led National League pitchers with a 27-8 record. In 1923 and 1925, he led the league with the lowest . The Sporting News called him "Cuba's greatest gift to our national game." Others went less noticed. Black Latinos, like their American counterparts, were achieving only limited fame in the Negro Leagues. During the American winter season, however, they tested their abilities against the American white players who participated in the Caribbean leagues. Orlando Cepeda, who had a .297 lifetime batting average and 379 home runs, began Armed with a blazing , Jose Mendez, playing big league ball with the New York Giants in 1958. known as the "Black Diamond," dueled and

46 JULY/AUGUST 1994 routinely defeated American stars such as Christy Math­ ewson and Eddie Plank. Martin Dihigo was said to be even better. His outstand­ ing pitching—he won approximately 256 games in the American Negro League—was matched only by his pow­ erful bat. Negro League records indicate that the Cuban routinely batted in the high .300s. His extraordinary tal­ ents earned him induction into the Cuban, Mexican, United States, and Venezuelan halls of fame. "I was in the game twenty-three years, and I never saw anyone better than he was," says Hall of Fame slugger and Negro League legend Buck Leonard. Orestes "Minnie" Minoso became the first of the Latin blacks to enter the big leagues in the post-World War II period. As a catalyst on the 1951 Chicago White Sox team, Minoso was one of baseball's most engaging players and led the in stolen bases from 1951-1953. White Latin players also became instrumental to their clubs. In 1954, Roberto "Beto" Avila, second baseman with the Cleveland Indians, became the first Latin to win a bat­ ting title. Their successes brought a Latino surge—Felipe Alou, Luis Aparicio, Orlando Cepeda, Vic Power, , among others. Roberto Clemente was perhaps the greatest Latin to grace the major leagues. The Pittsburgh right fielder, whose career extended from 1955 to 1972, was Puerto Rico's glory. Not only did he win the 1966 Most Valuable Player award, four batting titles, 3,000 lifetime hits, and several Gold Glove awards, but he also campaigned to alter the image of Fernando Valenzuela of Mexico. As a rookie for the , he -pitched eight consecutive victories at the outset Latinos in baseball. Spanish-speaking players, he argued, of the 1981 season. were unfairly ridiculed and stereotyped. "The Latin player doesn't get the recognition he deserves. We have self-satis­ non "became a culture, a pole to which many happenings faction, but after the season is over nobody cares about us," gravitated. With Valenzuela in the spotlight, many people he once claimed. Clemente, who often sparred with the who did not speak Spanish became interested in learning." American media, had a compassionate side. With great In June of that year, President Ronald Reagan and Mexican pride, he supervised the construction of Sports City where President Jose Lopez de Portillo invited him to lunch dur­ Puerto Rican parents could send their young people to ing an important economic summit. advance their athletic skills and develop family values. It was on a 1972 relief mission to earthquake victims in By the 1990s, more than two hundred Latinos had climbed Nicaragua that his plane crashed in the Caribbean, killing into the majors. The impact caused major league clubs to all aboard. Within months, baseball writers voted him into make changes in the way they dealt with their Latin recruits. the Hall of Fame at Cooperstown, New York. Clubs hired Spanish-speaking employees both on and off The Latin presence, with the exception of the Cuban the field to address their Latin constituencies. The American players, continued to expand. Because of the diplomatic rift media, as well, instituted changes. More Spanish-language between Cuba and the United States, Cuban ballplayers radio affiliates covered big league games. Television cover­ became almost nonexistent. Only Tony Perez and Luis age expanded. The aired games in Spanish to Tiant remained as representatives of what was once a Latin countries on the periphery of the Caribbean. And the thriving source of talent for the big leagues. Players from American mainstream press began to hire bilingual the Dominican Republic took up the slack and eventually reporters to assure better coverage of Latino players. several major league organizations established baseball By 1994, five Latin players—Luis Aparicio, Roberto academies there to develop talent and to orient players to Clemente, Juan Marichal, Martin Dihigo, and — North American culture. had earned enshrinement in baseball's Hall of Fame. They The star of the 1980s, however, was to come from Mex­ and their brethren had changed the face of baseball and ico. Fernando Valenzuela captured the attention of the typified the changing ethnic character of the United States. entire baseball world when, as a rookie pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers, he reeled off eight consecutive victories Through drive and perseverance, they had not just enriched at the outset of the 1981 season. Caught up in the euphoria America's national pastime but had carved a niche of their known as "Fernandomania," Latin radio affiliates esti­ own in Pan-American culture. □ mated that nearly twenty million Spanish-speaking listen­ ers tuned in to hear a Valenzuela-pitched game. His Samuel O. Regalado is associate professor of history at California celebrity helped to bridge the Anglo and Latin worlds. State University at Stanislaus. Regalado will speak on "Latinos Jaime Jarrin, the Dodgers' broadcaster on the Spanish­ y Beisbol: Buy Me Some Peanuts and Cajeta," in October in speaking radio affiliate, remembered that the phenome- Galveston, Texas.

HUMANITIES 47 Continuedfrom page 7

Babe Ruth in Nova Scotia, 1936.

is, the most poetic writing possible— Bums: That's correct. war, as never before, and maybe we and at the same time enlarge that begin to suspect that there was a com­ H ackney: The Red Badge of Courage, vision incrementally with equally com­ mon emotional language between us Stephen Crane's book, which is a great pelling images, with music from the all that goes on.... novel, comes to mind. It does contain period, with first-person voices from Nowadays, as we find ourselves so some of the horror of war, but it's the period (read artfully rather than fractured, so separated one from the written at a distance. overdramatically), and finally with other, we have to ask, "What is it in sound effects that might help make Burns: Very much at arm's length. our environment that can remind us these old photographs come alive, then Actually, if you think about the Civil of this powerful common heritage?" I you may be taking at least a few small War in writing, it's only Whitman's believe that it is only in the constant steps towards what Whitman said is work and the personal diaries that reminding, through good history, of impossible: that is, rendering the past. bring it home. The terrible pain of it this common bond between us, that Hackney: Whitman may have also all. I think Whitman's palpable loss of we might act with the kind of cohe­ had in mind the notion that war was his brethren, feeling the lost limbs of sion Adams hoped for, in the kind of filtered through a set of conventions. his countrymen buried in Virginia sympathetic dialogue that you have In the mid-nineteenth century, those fields or Gettysburg orchards, that suggested so many times. That excites conventions were that the horror of hurt him personally, and his writing me—how we might find a new war was not to be transmitted to inno­ reflects that. Combined with the new Homeric form. When we think of cent civilians. They were not supposed invention of photography, you are what gets in the way, we see that to know how terrible it was. suddenly made to feel our war, any television is one of the worst features

48 JULY/AUGUST 1994 of our daily life; that it promotes look at the history of the game of base­ work most beautifully. It will continu­ disunion at a psychological, emo­ ball as a family album. This person ally reject the narcissism of our culture tional, and personal level more insidi­ might be a disturbing racist character, because, if you come to bat only once ously than practically anything else in this one might be a cutthroat business­ every nine times and you fail so often, our culture. But it may also be, para­ man, this one might be a wonderful, it is a wonderful leveler of ego and doxically, the instrumentality of our heroic figure who sold out to gam­ self-involvement. At the same time, deliverance, a way in which we might blers, but they're nevertheless our the blandness and uniformity of the find a common language and a com­ family members. We can love them, community is checked in baseball and mon purpose. care for them, be repelled by them; we enriched by character. Baseball brings can study them and learn from them. us all magnificent characters, people Hackney: Do you think baseball will And make no mistake about it, they who bubble up to the surface and in a evoke the same sort of common reac­ are all us. big and emphatic way—like Babe tion that Whitman expected the war to? Ruth did, like Ty Cobb did, like Jackie Hackney: You pay some attention in Bums: I hope so. We've taken a game Robinson did. It's good biography—in this series to John McGraw and which is beloved by millions of peo­ my view the most satisfying kind of ple, and we haven't forgotten that Christy Mathewson. history. And we are, as a people, hun­ game. Despite all the high talk of com­ Bums: Yes. gry for that. But I think we're best plicated social themes, it's still a per­ served when these seemingly contra­ fect game in which the drama can be Hackney: Do you see that as a small dictory forces of individuality and appreciated purely for what happens morality play? community vie for supremacy. In foot­ on the field. Bums: I think it's a wonderful irony ball, you can run a few plays into the line to kill the clock. You can't kill the Hackney: So it plays at various levels. that one of the most rabidly competi­ tive players—and in the series we go clock in baseball. You have to throw Bums: I think it plays at many levels. back into his childhood to see the roots the ball across the plate and give the What surprised me more than any­ of McGraw's passion for winning, and other team a chance to win, and they thing else is that once we had mas­ can win until the final out. winning at all costs—he nevertheless tered the narrative of the baseball finds his favorite player in the man Hackney: That's true. It's never over. game itself and had been able to go to who came to distinguish baseball from the next level and look at some of Bums: Remember, when the bases are the earlier rowdyism that McGraw these complex themes of race and loaded and there are two outs and embodied, and that was Christy Math­ labor and immigration and other you're behind by three runs, Babe Ruth ewson, Christian Gentleman. social tensions, what was produced by will fail seven times out of ten to More than any other player, Math­ the collision of these two forces— this deliver— and that is a magnificent lev­ ewson brought the baseball player to glorious game and these complicated eler. It's an incredibly democratic sport. a point of national heroic promi­ social themes — are very powerful Hackney: In what other ways is it nence. What I find interesting is the emotions about time and memory, democratic? family and home that I think engage incredible partnership that these two all of us at the deepest level. men forged. Mathewson's untimely Bums: The game rewards excellence, and early death was a terrific emo­ and it has helped therefore to pro­ Hackney: Baseball, all sports, are tional blow to McGraw, who should mote wave after wave of disen­ based on ideas franchised or, up about getting old­ to that moment, er as well. We've “Baseball brings us all magnificent characters, people who bubble up to disenfranchised just got family the surface and in a big and emphatic way— like Babe Ruth did like Ty people. You hear and loyalty and , time and again basic themes. Cobb did, like Jackie Robinson did. It’s good biography— in my view the in baseball that Burns: But there most satisfying kind ofhistory. And we are, as a people, hungryfor that. ” playing the game seems to be a gap was a badge of with this current citizenship that generation. We no piece of paper seem to have forgotten so many have been above this sort of thing could confer, that it was a way for a things, particularly our heroes and because he was so hard and tough. son to be, as Donald Hall says in the other people that we might identify It's a great story. film, "less Polish and more Ameri­ can." We have a wonderful exchange with. Tom Boswell, the great sports Hackney: It is a great story. I am in our second episode in which a writer for the Washington Post, says fascinated with one pair of bonded father with great concern and worry that we don't dispose of the heroes in opposites in there, that is, individual­ for his young son writes to the Jewish baseball the way that we dispose of ism and communities. Baseball is Daily Forward and says, "I want my other heroes in this disposable society. strongly based on team spirit, yet is boy to grow up to play chess, not "We don't dispose of Babe Ruth," he filled with heroes. said. "We don't dispose of Walter baseball. In educated America, adults Johnson. And that's a wonderful thing Bums: Well, baseball may be the one play baseball. They run after a ball." to pass down to our children." We can place in which that tension seems to He wrote, "I want my son to be a

HUMANITIES 49 mensch, not a wild American runner Most Valuable Player Award in the important home run in regular sea­ and yet he cries his head off." Abra­ National League nine times. And son in the history of the game, took ham Kahn, the great editor of the Jew­ when you realize there was still a the Staten Island ferry home. I love ish Daily Forward, writes back to this quota system—there were still only that image. man. He says, "Let your boy play a handful of blacks—it's an amazing, Just think what would it have been baseball. Let us not so raise the chil­ amazing statistic. like to be with Bobby Thomson taking dren that they grow up to be foreign­ Hackney: That's a powerful statement the Staten Island ferry home and ers in their own land." in itself. maybe looking out across the rail at Hackney: It seems to be also true that I know you have great faith in base­ the Statue of Liberty as you pass by, sports provide an arena in which egal­ ball, but do you have faith in the and wondering what benevolent god itarianism can be proved in that uni­ future of baseball in this television had provided him with a day like versal standards are being applied. In era? It's a linear game. today? That would be good. every other area of life, you can dis­ The third thing that bothers me, Bums: I'm troubled by three things. criminate against someone and hide it. after television and money, is a sense I'm troubled by television, whose that the game has forgotten its own Bums: That's right. You can't fudge in hunger seems to force the game to do history. In an attempt to make itself baseball. Here's a really good exam­ things that aren't natural. When I was viable, baseball would like to pretend ple: In 1945, Branch Rickey decides a boy, I could come home from school that it's really basketball or football, he's going to bring a black man into and watch the World Series game and with extended playoffs and other bad the major leagues. He sends his scouts talk about it the next day. Now it's an changes. That, to me, is an identity cri­ out, and it's clear almost instantly that event and a special privilege to stay sis, and as we know with individuals, this young player recently discharged up till eleven or midnight to see the when you have an identity crisis, you from the army, Jackie Robinson, play­ game, and so I don't think the game is go to a therapist and the therapist ing for the Kansas City Monarchs, giving itself the chance to make new would be ideal. Robinson's will, his fans. Since baseball is such a genera­ says, "Where did you come from? pride in his people and his race—he's tional thing and relies on continuity, Who are your parents?" The begin­ a college-educated man and an inspir­ I'm worried about that. ning of the healing process begins ing player—make him the best and I'm also worried about money. In when you know your past. I would most likely candidate. Rickey realizes 1869, the first year of professionalism, like to hope that baseball would he's going to have to start him off in George Wright, one of the stars of the engage in a dialogue with its past, to his minor league club, and he picks Cincinnati Red Stockings, was paid see its great strength and its unique­ the Royals in Montreal, because he six times the average working man's ness. That is to say, we don't want to feels that, since race is less of an issue salary, the unheard-of sum of four­ make it all action like football and bas­ in Canada, Jackie will have an easier teen hundred dollars for the baseball ketball because, in fact, baseball is time. However, the manager in Mon­ season. One hundred and seven years about the intervals, the gloriously nat­ treal is Clay Hopper from Mississippi, later, 1976, the average player still ural intervals. Baseball is about the who asks Rickey, "Do you really think only made seven or eight times the long season. It is like breathing, like a nigger is a human being?" and begs average working man's salary. daily life, instead of a spasm and con­ him not to put Robinson on his team. Today, eighteen years later, it's fifty vulsion of activity and then nothing, At the end of this year, the '46 season times. So we now have a sense that as football is. in which the Roy­ Hackney: Person­ als have won the alities seem to Little World Series, “Our role models today are not teachers: They are the lowest paid. be important in Jackie Robinson Our role models are not scholars, the lowest paid. But someone can sports. People sparked the team identify with in­ with spectacular make one hundred ten million dollars a year in the United States of dividuals about base-running, ter­ America as a syndicated talk-show host. ” whom they know rific fielding, and something or unbelievable hit­ something that is ting. Now Hop­ especially inter­ per is the first to say, "This man is a players are no longer one of us. They esting to them. great ballplayer," and urges Rickey to are merely gladiators from another Is that necessary? move him up to the Dodgers for that cosmos who engage in a kind of ritu­ Burns: Yes. I think it's personality that historic 1947 season. When faced with alized combat quite removed from gives baseball history so much of great performance on the field, there our experience. its flavor. We eat up Babe Ruth is very little you can do. And the Baseball used to be so familiar. You because he eats us up, and that's a great tragedy, it seems to me, in base­ would walk to the ballpark and kids wonderful kind of consumption. And ball is why we did not do it sooner. would be playing this game along the even though we're repelled by it, we Here's the proof of the tragedy: In the way. The ballplayers themselves need to have the lesson of Ty Cobb's eleven years that followed Jackie might be taking the trolley. Bobby ferocity, anger, and bile to set in relief Robinson's arrival, blacks won the Thomson, after hitting the most our own ferocity, anger, and bile. We

50 JULY/AUGUST 1994 m>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>^^

“Safe!” 1985 College World Series.

|| need these people to be mentors in think will survive, as if we think one quotes dating back to the 1860s in || s| conscious and unconscious ways for can live on a diet of Twinkies. which people are worried about the || l| us, and we have very few arenas in But what we discover is that we are exact same things that I've listed—the || || which that happens in a healthy fash­ starved for something of significance, greed, the selfishness, the other dis- |l es ion. Quite often, in our entertainment of value. I think the response to The tractions. In 1869, Pete O'Brian said, || || areas, people are promoted based on Civil War was a way to say, "Look, I'm "They're not playing baseball the way || 15 so little skill that I think we're all col­ hungry for something more," and this they used to back in 1857 and 1858, || good food doesn't necessarily have to li lectively shocked. Our role models when I was a kid," and you suddenly || taste bad. We don't turn up our nose realize this glorious idea that one || l| today are not teachers: They are the at this stuff. It's not castor oil. It's needs only to know one's history to 1| || lowest paid. Our role models are not actually nourishing, attractive, and be liberated from the major anxieties || || scholars, the lowest paid. But someone tastes good. of our day. || || can make one hundred ten million dol- || lars a year in the United States of Hackney: Which is to say that baseball Hackney: To what extent do you work || || America as a syndicated talk-show responds to the market, this is a very with specialists when you're putting « 11 host. We have elevated glibness, facile democratic... together this story? || humor, put-down, and superficial Burns: Well, once you begin to list all Burns: I participate in a community || good looks as the treasured currency these threats to the game, you tend to of documentary filmmakers who || of our culture. This is now what we fret and knit your brow. But we have believe, not without some legitimate

HUMANITIES 51 reason, that every idea they have is against slavery as well as being vehemently, yet they are linked good and every idea should therefore impassioned by the oratory of Lincoln together in the game of baseball. They be funded and they should be left or Frederick Douglass. both are devoted to baseball. alone to pursue their artistic dream. Hackney: I think a lot of people, Bums: Well, you may have hit upon it We realized right off the bat that we regarding the Civil War, have a hard better than I have ever stated it even have to form alliances and partner­ time understanding how the historical after five years of working on it. What ships with various groups if we are causes of the war—rooted in slavery I finally love about the work that I do going to be funded, if we are going to and all the things that go with slavery, is process—not the finished product, get these projects done, not the least two different kinds of society, what­ but the notion of working the mater­ of which, in my circumstance, has ever those causes were— are different ial: How do you make this scene been the National Endowment for from individual motivations of the work? What is the hidden dynamic of the Humanities. Among the many people who go to war. requirements of the Endowment, as narrative, what are the dynamics of music and image and sound effect you know, is that each project have a Burns: That's exactly right. We know and of voice, what are the dynamics body of scholarly advisors. Many of that slavery started this war, but we of presenting this material? That's my colleagues complain to me bit­ know that most Southerners fought, what animates me. And maybe that's terly about this, as if these scholars as Shelby Foote said, paraphrasing what the great gift of baseball is. It were an unnecessary burden, but we the young Confederate who was cap­ seems to point to process. It seems to find them a positive influence on our tured early in the war, "because point to exactly what you were say­ work. They are not window dressing, you're down here"—because the ing, that it is the doing and not the but dedicated scholars we actively Yankees had invaded his country. A result, it is the engagement and not engage in helping us make this film, more impossible question, which we the expectation of reward. Perhaps reminding us where we go off, rarely engage, is why would some­ when we feel baseball is threatened is reminding us of the diversity of opin­ one from northern Minnesota, a when we get off that point. When ion and perspective. In the case of The farming son maybe, someone who people talk about going to a football C ivil War, our board of advisors may never have even met a black game, they talk about what's happen­ ranged from the most conservative person, want to fight for something ing now and the result; the same with Confederate historians to Marxist called union? To leave his safe life for basketball. When we talk about going emancipationists. Within this colli­ an idea of union and emancipation. I to a baseball game, we talk about the sion of ideas, we actually were able to find this a glorious thing. This is experience, my experience, my first choose the sets of ideas that we what we're talking about here. When sight of the green, green field, what it wished to influence us. you say a national conversation and smelled like, the taste of the beer and But we did run into dogmatic reac­ when I say why it is that we agree to the hot dog, the memory of when my tion nevertheless. When, in the film, cohere, we're talking about an idea of father took me to a game, and his we had a Southern first-person voice, union. I think we are hoping to enlist story about when his father took him, we were not—as many Marxist histo­ new recruits, to a new Union army, and then, maybe only then, I realize rians accused us of— subscribing to the in a new battle against, not slavery, that there happened to have been a "old version" of history. It was merely but pernicious racism, a new battle game that day, and in that game, the listening to a legitimate voice from the against the separatism and disunion great moment was not the grand-slam past; just as putting in a first-person caused by a variety of ills, including home run, just as one would describe quote by Frederick Douglass was not, a rewritten version of diversity the last-second touchdown pass, but as many conservatives accused us of, which allows everyone to grab their the little head fake that the base run­ "selling out" to the emancipationists or own story, claim a kind of righteous to some revisionist version. It was ner made, the breaking pitch that victimhood, and depart from our col­ merely saying, we have not brought deceived the batter, the extra jump the lective narrative. into our narrative mainstream this outfielder got on the ball hit to the I still subscribe to a Lincolnian love black voice, indeed other black voices, gap. So the memory we bring back is of those things that stitch us together, when we tell this story, and we wish to a choreography of intimate moments that bind us all to each other, all the do so. Finally we realized it's only past and present, as if God could be same. We're not a country united by those who wish to exert a kind of found in the details of the game and language, by geography, by ethnicity, philosophical tyranny on the past who not merely the result. certainly not by religion, and yet for are uncomfortable with that. Those more than two hundred years, we Hackney: Which is another interesting who are willing to simply allow the have agreed to come together more or thing about baseball. It is a game which sweet and bittersweet ambiguities of less magnificently as the world can be understood very simply in those what happened, which I suppose is around us continually shows us terms, but it yields more meaning to about as close a definition of life as examples of disunion. those who know its subtleties. The you could possibly have, realize that more you know, the more you learn. we must be able to drink in, in the Hackney: I think that's right, which is same moment, the seemingly contra­ why baseball may be a wonderful Burns: Yes, it rewards study. But, I dictory impressions of understanding metaphor for America. Yankee fans have two small daughters, and they why a Southerner might fight, at the and Red Sox fans can hate each other come to the game and can follow it, same time having moral outrage or can disagree with each other rather and even lacking some of the sub­

52 JULY/AUGUST 1994 The Give’m tleties, they drink it in. So perhaps ture with European culture in North game’s break! with the Baseball series, we can invite America that creates a different culture, fo rfe it. Th e y’re everyone into our tent and say, "If you and jazz features individual improvisa­ like baseball, you will enjoy this. If tion but in the setting of a group per­ Your home you think there's something more formance and with discipline. It has all lineup’s reading there, you will find something more to the elements of baseball. missing! Humanities !j mine from the story." This is the Bums: Exactly. And the Constitution, 7 * metaphor of emotional archaeology that much maligned document that that I keep talking about—you dig makes everyone yawn and roll their and you will find some more. eyes, is in fact a beauty to behold, full H ackney: There's lots of meaning of the same kind of improvisational there. One of your advisers, Gerald riffs that jazz music has. There is a Early, had a rather striking observa­ rigid code, but within that code, a tol­ tion on the cultural creations of Amer­ erance for variety and variation. It has ica— baseball and jazz and— actually animated our story for the last two hundred years, given a little snap Burns: The Constitution. It's really to our step because of those ambigui­ perfect. Gerald Early is one of our ties, and given us room to adjudicate scholars, and we had been anxious to those questions that seem at any given find another "talking head," as we moment impossible to decide. That's say, to talk about some of the themes its great glory. that could integrate into our main nar­ Join the growing number of rative the African-American narrative. Hackney: That's right. Another way to Humanities subscribers today, Gerald, who kept suggesting other think of it is the Constitution really is a and get a year's subscription people, refused to let himself be set of rules. It's the definition of a (six bimonthly issues) for only filmed. Finally we said, "We have to process, like baseball rules or like jazz, $13 or two years for only $26. film you. You're the most articulate of where you have a theme and a beat, all the people we've wanted to talk and people wander around that. to." We brought him in, and he was Bums: Before we leave these wonder­ magnificent. We used one part of his ful metaphors, it might be possible to Company or Individual name interview in the beginning of our suggest that there's a moment in jazz series, in which he said that baseball when, having stated a theme, the musi­ makes him feel more American, cians begin to wander off in improvisa­ Address makes him feel connected to this cul­ tion, in pursuit of an improvisational ture (which is a terrifically painful perfection. But there is a moment when thing as well as a positive thing for an they are obligated by some higher laws American black man to say because of the universe, which we listeners the game's history is so checkered and hardly know, to return to the original so unsure even now). Then he stopped theme. And when they do return to the City, State, ZIP code and said that there were only three theme, there is within our breasts a things this civilization will be remem­ kind of special powerful exaltation that bered for two thousand years from occurs. I am interested not so much in Daytime phone, including area code now. "The Constitution, jazz music, bottling or identifying or labeling that and baseball. They are the three most exaltation, but trying to say to everyone beautifully designed things this cul­ that there is such a thing and that we □ Check payable to □ G PO ture has ever produced." I don't know ought to celebrate it and look for it. the Superintendent D eposit if you could really give that argument You clearly know this from jazz, when of Documents A ccount a serious challenge. the audience bursts into spontaneous □ VISA or MasterCard applause as the musicians return to the Hackney: It is powerful. Jazz itself has theme we first heard. In baseball, you been suggested to me as the most might find in its complicated rhythms a Account no./Expiration date appropriate metaphor for what it moment where things line up, and you means to be American. That it is a feel within your breast a powerful democratic art form. It is the only Signature 7/94 emotion that I would suggest is a kind indigenous higher art form. of American elixir, a tonic that is Burns: I agree. And at its heart is unique to us as a people, that I am in MAIL TO: the African-American experience, pursuit of in all of these films, whether New Orders an ironic recapitulation of our it's The Brooklyn Bridge or the Shakers, Superintendent of Documents national tension. Congress, The Civil War, or Baseball. P.O. Box 371954 Pittsburgh, PA 15250-7954 Hackney: Indeed, but it is interaction H ackney: We will look forward to or FAX (202) 512-2233 of African Americans or African cul­ that. Thank you very much, Ken. □ ORDER PROCESSING CODE! 5 4 9 4

HUMANITIES 53 DEADLINES DEADLINES DEADLINES

DIVISION OF EDUCATION PROGRAMS James C. Herbert, Director • 606-8373 Area code for all telephone numbers is 202. Deadline Projects beginning

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Area code for all telephone numbers is 202. Deadline Projects beginning Humanities Projects in Media • James Dougherty 606-8278...... September 16, 1994 April 1, 1995 Humanities Projects in Museums and Historical Organizations • Suzi Jones 606-8284 December 2, 1994 July 1, 1995 Public Humanities Projects • Wilsonia Cherry 606-8271 ...... September 16, 1994 April 1, 1995 Humanities Projects in Libraries • Thomas Phelps 606-8271 Planning...... Augusts, 1994 January 1, 1995 Implementation...... September 16, 1994 April 1, 1995 Challenge Grants • Abbie Cutter 606-8361 ...... May 1, 1995 December 1995

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