Recounting the Past A Student Journal of Historical Studies at Illinois State University Editor-in-Chief Christine Varga-Harris Editorial Board Kyle Ciani Issam Nassar Monica Noraian Katrin Paehler Richard Soderlund Sudipa Topdar Amy Wood 1 Acknowledgments Recounting the Past recognizes undergraduate and graduate student accomplishments in the History Department at Illinois State University, as well as faculty who mentor students pursuing scholarly research. Alongside these students and faculty, many thanks go also to those individuals who invested their time and effort at various stages of the production process. These include Dr. Issam Nassar and Dr. Richard Soderlund, who contributed much to compiling and editing this issue; the team at University Marketing and Communications that guided the journal through the final crucial phases of publication, employing their proficiency in design, page layout and copy-editing; and Linda Spencer, Administrative Aide in the History Department, who during the entire process served as a liaison with Marketing and Communications, as well as provided her broad organizational expertise. Abstracts The articles in this issue of Recounting the Past are based on primary source research, informed by historiographical debates in their respective fields, and draw upon current historical methodologies. As the following abstracts illustrate, taken together they address race relations in the United States, pivotal episodes in the advancement of American women, significant moments in world history, and vital facets of American education. In “The Jim Crow Origins of American Felon Disenfranchisement Laws,” Kevin Pajor shows how the criminal justice system serves as a mechanism for the continued exclusion of African Americans from society. Specifically, he traces manipulations of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, as well as the implementation and adaptation of felon disenfranchisement laws stretching back to the late 19th century, to highlight continuities in legal tactics from the Reconstruction period to the present. Using race as an analytical category, he asserts that the disenfranchisement of convicts does not merely mimic historical Jim Crow laws, but was rooted in the demobilization of black voters in the South during the Jim Crow era. Race is central also to “Joe Louis Pummels Racism In The Face.” In this article, Pedro Olivarez portrays boxing as a microcosm of American ideas about race, as well as of the struggle between democracy and fascism in the interwar years. He does so by comparing media depictions of two critical fights that occurred between the black American Joe Louis and the white German Max Schmeling. Olivarez demonstrates that Americans as a whole generally rallied for Louis; however, the African American public attempted to imbue the fights with political import for racial equality, while the white public supported Louis chiefly to voice opposition to the Nazism with which Schmeling was conflated. Thus, he argues, although the fights united Americans in national sentiment against Germany, they failed to overturn racist ideology in the United States. “Pinch Hitting,” by Rebecca Kijek, also delves into the world of sports, but in this case, to examine its potential to effect gender equality. Specifically, this article delineates the ways in which participation in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League shaped the work and lives of its players. As Kijek asserts, the women who made up the various teams within the League, which was formed 1943, did much more than simply 2 fill the positions of men in sports during the Second World War. They also challenged conventional norms and myths surrounding womanhood, served as an inspiration to girls of the next generation, and moreover, enjoyed personal fulfillment. When the League was disbanded in 1954, former players continued to exemplify a range of possibilities for women, pursuing higher education and professional careers rather than restricting themselves to family life. The Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) is another instance of public female participation explored in this issue. Namely, it is the subject of “WILPF and the Fight Against the Arms Race and Chemical Warfare.” In this article, Lyndsey Eagle shows how American women used the international forum that WILPF provided to pursue gender equality in the United States, as well as to oppose war and try to eliminate the use of chemical weapons worldwide. With their fight for female suffrage intensifying just as WILPF was formed in 1915, American members presented equality between men and women, alongside the traits and roles with which women were associated, as integral to world peace. Then, after they were granted the right to vote in 1919, peace activism became their principal concern. As Eagle illustrates, this quest too had its challenges, as the pacifist stance of the WILPF rendered its activists “un- American” and subjected them to persecution during the first Red Scare. While “WILPF and the Fight against the Arms Race and Chemical Warfare” focuses on American engagement in international concerns, the next two articles shift attention away from the United States. In the first of these, “Russian Perspectives on Cuba during the Khrushchev Years,” William O’Farrell demonstrates that contrary to conventional interpretations – many of which center expressly on the Cuban Missile Crisis – the Soviet leadership did not aid Cuba simply to make it a satellite state. Furthermore, Soviet involvement in Cuba was not singularly intent on strengthening the position of the Soviet Union in the world or forcing concessions in Berlin or elsewhere. Instead, O’Farrell asserts, the Soviet leadership extended to the Cuban people both economic and moral support because it viewed their struggle as a metaphor for the Soviet struggle – essentially that of a communist society striving to survive in a hostile capitalist world. Although in a very different way and under decidedly different circumstances, questions about capitalism arise also in “The Formation of Economic Policy in Post- Colonial India.” In this article, Sidney Comstock compares the economic visions of Jawaharlal Nehru and Mahatma Gandhi and concludes that the ideas of Nehru prevailed because the ones that Gandhi proposed were too drastic a departure from “Western” precepts. As he explains, each addressed nationalist concerns and incorporated critiques of the colonial legacy, as well as varying degrees of socialism. However, focused on industrial growth and aimed at generating wealth and mass consumption, the Nehruvian plan better served to rectify the stunted agricultural and industrial growth that India confronted in the aftermath of British imperial rule. Meanwhile, Gandhian economics was more preoccupied with religious than material goals, underpinned as it was by conceptions of morality and duty. The final two articles in this issue delve into American education. In “Debunking Moscow in the Midway,” Caleb Rowe broaches the topic of academic freedom by offering a glimpse into the attacks on higher education generated by myths proliferating about communism during the 1930s and 1940s. Then, in “Myth or Reality?,” Valerie Gabaldo raises matters related to school instruction as she outlines the ways in which textbooks and monuments have served, at different times, to uphold or to debunk the mythology surrounding Christopher Columbus. Rowe studies two investigations of the University of Chicago at a time when American culture was pitting democracy against communism, and even a perceived association with the latter could render an individual a traitor and subject them to harassment. Each of these inquiries raised the issue of First Amendment rights for college professors and students, and each involved Robert Maynard Hutchins, who was president of the university during the first of these investigations (in 1935), and chancellor during the second (in 1949). In detailing how the University of Chicago was able to withstand the pressures and threats of anti-communist organizations and government bodies, Rowe provides a unique instance of a university defending its academic freedom, one that he credits to the steadfastness that Hutchins exhibited. As Rowe shows, the persecution of academia was rooted more in the fear and paranoia of its times, than in substantive evidence. Gabaldo also emphasizes the significance of historical context, as she demonstrates how varying portrayals of Columbus in school textbooks and monuments reflected the experiences and concerns of American society at the time they were produced. Since each was built to celebrate a major anniversary of his 1492 voyage, the two monuments that she discusses, understandably, did little to revise conventional narratives surrounding Columbus. Her sampling of textbooks from the 1960s through the 1990s, however, tells a different story. Surveying these for the quantity of coverage they afforded Columbus, the aspects of his life and explorations they favored, and the ways in which these were presented, Gabaldo underscores how revelations about the atrocities of colonialism in the Americas and changing mentalities have, over time, greatly complicated the heroic image that the “discoverer” once enjoyed. Christine Varga-Harris Editor-in-Chief 4 Recounting the Past A Student Journal of Historical Studies at Illinois State University Table of Contents Kevin Pajor 1 The Jim Crow Origins of American Felon Disenfranchisement Laws Pedro Olivarez 15