Benjamin A. Railton's Blog, page 264

March 27, 2017: Televised Fools: Catastrophe

[For this year’s April Fool’s series, I wanted to AmericanStudy a handful of recent comic TV shows. Share your thoughts on these or other televised foolishness, present or past, in comments!]On three ways to contextualize Sharon Horgan and Rob Delaney’s funny, raunchy Amazon original series about sex, relationships, and parenting.1)      Narratives of Parenthood: A number of prominent recent film comedies, from Knocked Up (2007) to Juno (2007) to Baby Mama (2008), have used nonconventional pregnancies and unexpected possible parenthoods to challenge our collective narratives of those eternal human experiences. In some ways, the 2015 first season of Catastrophe—which begins when Delaney’s American businessman gets Horgan’s Irish schoolteacher pregnant during a brief fling while on a London trip, and chronicles the pair’s next steps after receiving that shocking news—echoes those edgy films. But because it allows the story to unfold over a half-dozen episodes, and because its second seasonwas set some years later with the couple now parents to two children, Catastrophe is able to explore both pregnancy and parenting in far more graphic and realistic (extreme, perhaps, but realistic) detail than do those movies. As a result, I’d argue that the show offers narratives of those universal experiences that, in their combination of humor and realism, are pretty distinctive on the pop culture landscape.2)      The Special Relationship: Catastrophe is certainly first and foremost focused on those themes of sex and family—but because Delaney’s character moves to England to live with Horgan’s at the start of the first season and they have remained there throughout the series to date, it also consistently features stories of the culture clash between this American expat, his Irish fiancée (and then wife), and their English friends and community. I’m far from an expert on British television (and as usual, additions and corrections very welcome in comments!), but I don’t know of too many shows that explore the special relationship between the U.S. and the U.K. through the lens of a romantic relationship in this way. As the characters are originally drawn, Delaney and Horgan are in many ways stereotypical representatives of their respective nations—and while Delaney has changed most obviously through his expatriation, I believe Horgan has likewise evolved through her relationship with and marriage to this very American man. Just another level of social realism subtly explored by this funny show.3)      Streaming Series: Catastrophe is far from unique in being a show that is released all at once on a subscription site for instant streaming—each of my next two shows are produced in precisely the same way (Netflix in their cases, but the principle is of course the same). I’m sure there are Cultural and Media Studies dissertations being written on whether and how that form of production changes either the shows themselves or the audience experience of them, but without quite that much research I would say two things. First, it allows for a sitcom to function much more like a serialized drama—plotlines on Catrastrophecarry over across multiple episodes in a narrative form that feels quite distinct from the classic TV sitcom (which of course has itself evolved over the years). Second, it can sometimes be a problem when it comes to humor—at least for this viewer, binge-watching more than a few episodes of a comedy at a time can produce a feeling of repetition that dulls the edge of the humor somewhat. And no matter what your particular viewing experiences, Catastrophe proves on all these levels that television comedy is certainly distinct in 2017.Next TV fooling tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? Other TV comedies you’d highlight?

March 25-26, 2017: Crowd-sourced Spring

[As spring gets ready to spring, this week’s series has focused on the season in American culture. This crowd-sourced post is drawn from the responses and spring connections of fellow AmericanStudiers. Add your bloomin’ thoughts, please!]Following up Monday’s post on Williams and Eliot, Wade Linebaugh writes, "I've been fascinated by the contrast between these two poems for a while and I LOVE reading them together. For me--and especially because The Waste Land hits first and makes such a significant splash--I often read the two as warring over language and culture itself and especially the American idiom. For Eliot, so much of him doing the writer's work of 'shoring the fragments against his ruins' always reads to me as a heroic stance he considers himself uniquely set for. His deep and allusive writing is a way of mobilizing the history of language and writing as a way to /craft/ something to stand in opposition to bankrupt or entropic modern culture. I read Williams, by contrast, as willing to see something that opposes entropy springing up. For the browns and lifelessness in "Spring and All" there's also the wildcarrot leaf and that fantastic awakening of the roots in the final line. And knowing Williams's imagery and taste for 'the american grain,' I always see a kind of faith in his version of Spring.

Anyway, that's just me. I always see a conflict about the culture they see around them, partly because Eliot is so situated in Europe and matches that with such densely allusive verse, and Williams is so powerfully American and relies on a set of poetic imagery to match. Neither sees anything entirely bankrupt, I agree, but Eliot sees a world he has to fight to make meaning in. Williams sees the perennial return of organic life, which always just manages to do its thing on its own...even when it's March and the snow feels endless and you can't even imagine how the trees around going to manage to push out buds. At any rate I feel myself pulled powerfully by both of them at different times."Andrew McGregor Tweets, “It’s not Spring without a reading of Casey at the Bat !”Melanie Newport Tweets, “I keep coming back to this very enjoyable cartoon.”Olivia Lucier writes, “When I was a kid my mom read me Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney . I always liked the illustrations. Very spring like! Although not a classic novel. Still a spring story!”Floyd Cheungshares “Toshio Mori’s story ‘Lil’ Yokohama.”Rob LeBlancwrites, “I would share the unabashed mid-1960s pop-rock enthusiasm of Gary Lewis and the Playboys' ‘Green Grass.’”Natalie Chasenotes, “With Easter right around the corner I can't help but think of the very opening chapter of Love Medicine ...‘The World's Greatest Fisherman!’”And finally, Nancy Caronia shares that “Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is my choice for cultural critic of 2017. Here's a new piece he wrote on Get Out.” Jeff Renye adds, “Kareem is a member of the Baker Street Irregulars. Interesting fella.”Next series starts Monday,BenPS. What do you think? Other spring connections or contexts you’d share?

March 24, 2017: Spring in America: The Mayflower and the Maypole

[As spring gets ready to spring, a series on the season in American culture. Add your vernal associations and responses for a blooming weekend post!]On two contrasting images and narratives of spring for America’s earliest English arrivals.Sylvia Plath’s sonnet ”Mayflower,”another Plath poem that should be more widely known than it is, captures quite eloquently, through an extended metaphor connecting the ship to an actual flowering plant, the quality I most admire in the Pilgrims: their perseverance, in the face of some of the most daunting circumstances (including but in no way limited to Cape Cod in December!) to have faced any fledgling American community. As Plath indicates, their faith (particularly in the concept of Providence) provided one critical element to that perseverance; as I’ve written elsewhere in this space, Tisquantum (or Squanto) provided another. But in any case, I agree wholeheartedly with Plath that, like the may flower after which they named their ship, the Pilgrims embodied “how best beauty’s born of hardihood.”That flower, as Plath envisions it at least, was the bud of the hawthorn plant—and, not quite coincidentally, it is a short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne (who was throughout his life and career hugely interested in his Puritan ancestors) which provides our clearest illustration of a very different side to May for that fledgling New England community. As fictionalized in Hawthorne’s “The May-Pole of Merry Mount” (1836)—and as documented in William Bradford’s Of Plymouth Plantation—one of the earliest splinter groups from the Puritan communities was that led by Thomas Morton, the man who came to be known as “the pagan Pilgrim” for his embrace of a far livelier and more celebratory set of practices. Those celebrations were exemplified by the May-Pole that Morton and his followers erected in their town of Merry-Mount (Mt. Wollaston), and it was perhaps the appropriation of this be-flowered “pagan” symbol that led to the full condemnations of Morton and his community by Bradford and his fellow orthodox Puritans.So two images of spring: as a beautiful, hard-earned reward for enduring the winter; or as a time of excess and luxury, of plenty and its resulting vices. And two corresponding images of the Puritans: as a persistent and hardy community, blossoming into American fullness after making it through their first and hardest winter; or as an overly dour and intolerant bunch, suspicious of any deviation from their norms and most especially of anyone, anywhere, having a good time. The truth? As so often on this blog, all of the above, or more exactly a combination of them all that hopefully leads us toward something more and different and stronger. Spring, like any season and experience, can indeed bring out the worst in us (whether we see that worst as carnival or condemnation); but it can also allow us to wonder at the best, of who we are and of the world we live in. There’s value, I believe, in engaging with each and all of those sides.Crowd-sourced post this weekend,BenPS. So how would you engage with the season? Thoughts on this or any of the week’s posts? Other takes on spring in America?

March 23, 2017: Spring in America: Children’s Stories

[As spring gets ready to spring, a series on the season in American culture. Add your vernal associations and responses for a blooming weekend post!]On two pioneering children’s classics that capture very different sides to the challenges that a new season can present.In “Spring,” the opening story in Arnold Lobel’s award-winning first book about his most iconic characters, Frog and Toad Are Friends (1970), Frog arrives at Toad’s house to announce the arrival of the new season, only to find his best friend unwilling to emerge from his long winter’s nap. The story very nicely introduces the two characters’ personalities and relationship: Frog more optimistic and hopeful, pushing Toad in new directions; Toad more pessimistic and worried, reining in Frog’s occasional excesses. Yet, like all of Lobel’s deceptively simple (there’s that phrase again) Frog and Toad stories, it also illustrates a universal and important emotional lesson for young readers: the ease of resisting change or staying in our comfortable homes and routines (when we’re lucky enough to have them), and yet the importance of pushing past that to find the wonders of the ever-changing world outside our door.In The Garden of Abdul Gasazi (1979), the award-winning first book by iconic author and illustrator Chris Van Allsburg, young Alan is led by a naughty dog named Fritz (for whom he’s pet-sitting) into the mysterious, enchanted, and possibly dangerous titular garden.  The book features all the main elements that have distinguished Van Allsburg’s works and career ever since: stunning, (usually) black and white illustrations; an undertone of the supernatural, as experienced by seemingly ordinary young people; an interesting final twist to add another layer to the book and its effects. Yet, despite not explicitly identifying its seasonal setting, I would argue that Garden highlights subtly but significantly themes that complement yet contrast with Lobel’s arguments for experiencing spring: Alan, a cautious and proper young man content to stay at home, is led into his garden adventure against his will; and while both he and Fritz escape the titular enchanter (more or less; I won’t spoil the final twist!), there’s nothing to indicate that Alan is particularly happy to have had the experience. It might seem like a truism to note that the world in general, and every new season in particular, is indeed both of these things: a wonder to be explored (even if we have to shake off our rest to do so), and yet a source of potential dangers (many of which we won’t see coming until we’re dragged into them). But one of the achievements of great children’s books is to present such truisms in original and compelling ways, and thus to introduce them to our earliest audiences. Moreover, the very best children’s books speak to the adults reading them at the same time that they’re speaking to those young audiences; I would argue that one of the central dualities of parenting is how much we want our children to explore and experience the world, yet also how terrified we are of all the dangers that world will throw at them, making this pair of books and images of spring very resonant for this Dad as well.Final spring connection tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? Thoughts on these or other children’s books? Other images of spring you’d highlight?

March 22, 2017: Spring in America: “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?”

[As spring gets ready to spring, a series on the season in American culture. Add your vernal associations and responses for a blooming weekend post!]On the simple and vital song that captures the essence of political music.As I tried to make clear in one of my very first posts, on Public Enemy and N.W.A., I don’t have anything against overt and aggressive political, protest music; quite the opposite, some of my favorite American songs, from the ones referenced in that post to many by Springsteenand Steve Earle (among other songwriters), fit that bill quite directly. And I certainly have moments where nothing other than a Rage Against the Machine song seems to capture my AmericanStudier’s perspective on our politics, society, or culture. Yet at the same time, I would argue that the most effective political or protest songs are often far more simple and subtle, weaving their melodies and meanings into our consciousness in a quiet and compelling way; that’s how I’d describe Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land,” for example (my nominee for a new national anthem!).Guthrie’s song might be the most exemplary such simple political song, but it’s got some serious competition from Pete Seeger’s “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?”  Inspired by some lines in a Russian novel, based on a melody from a different Russian folk song, and expanded through a series of additions (both by Seeger and other songwriters) in the decade after its initial appearance, Seeger’s song certainly has had a complicated history and evolving American presence. But at its core is an even more simple use of structure, repetition, and imagery than in Guthrie’s song—yet “deceptively simple” is probably a better phrase, because by the end of its third verse (Seeger originally wrote only the first three, although again they have been expanded since) the song has tied together allusions to environmental destruction, fleeting and lost youth, marriage and its effects on women, and the consequences of war, among the many complex and sweeping themes to which we might connect its seemingly straightforward lines and phrases.But what about spring, you might ask? (If you care as much about the continuity of these weekly series as I do, which, I know, is asking a lot!) The song’s title and first verse might of course suggest the seasonal opposite, the shift toward fall that brings with it the close of each year’s most abundant flowering. Yet I would disagree, and would instead analyze the first verse as a statement about (in part) the worst kind of human response to the natural wonder that is spring’s annual rebirth. That is, those symbolic “girls” who have “picked every one” of the flowers represent to my mind the way in which we can come to take such natural wonders—and ultimately, of course, the environment and planet on which they occur—for granted, as simply more material of which we can take advantage for our own beauty and happiness. Would it be possible for us to appreciate and enjoy the flowers without picking them? Just as possible, Seeger might argue, as it would be to stop sending young men (and now women) to die in wars—which means incredibly difficult, yet worth aiming for. Sounds like a political anthem to me.Next spring connection tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? Thoughts on Seeger or political music? Other images of spring you’d highlight?

March 21, 2017: Spring in America: “Appalachian Spring”

[As spring gets ready to spring, a series on the season in American culture. Add your vernal associations and responses for a blooming weekend post!]On the composer and work that helped bring classical to America, and vice versa.I’m no music historian, yet I would argue that many, indeed most, of the last century’s dominant genres of popular music originated in America: the blues, jazz, rock and roll, country, rap, hip hop, all would seem to have had distinctly American origins. By the same token, however, it’s inarguable that when it comes to one of the most longstanding world musical traditions, classical music (or orchestral music, to make clear that the tradition has continued into our contemporary moment just as much as those other genres), America’s historical role has been far more insignificant. For example, the 19th century saw such classical masters as Tchaikovsky, Chopin, Dvorák, and Mendelssohn, among many others; yet in America during roughly the same period, it’s fair to say (again, says the non-music-historian) that the only composer to achieve any sort of international prominence would be John Philip Sousa—and his marches were of course themselves not exactly classical symphonies.By the mid-20thcentury, many of the aforementioned popular genres had begun to emerge in earnest, and with them many significant American composers and musicians. Yet the same decades witnessed the rise of (to my mind) America’s greatest classical composer, one deeply indebted to contemporary American genres such as jazz yet also able to stand toe to toe with any international peer: Aaron Copland. Copland’s earliest (1920s) compositions reflected both sides to those influences, with more classical pieces such as “Symphony for Organ and Orchestra” (1924) complemented by jazz-inflected ones like “Music for the Theater”(1925). His more mature and famous compositions carried forward both trends, as evidenced by two pieces from 1942: the classical (“Fanfare for the Common Man”) and the American (“A Lincoln Portrait”). But perhaps no single piece, of Copland’s or of any other composer’s, better weds the classical to the American than “Appalachian Spring” (1944).Copland composed the Pulitzer Prize-winning “Appalachian Spring” for Martha Graham’s ballet of the same name, but of course the music has endured in our popular consciousness more fully than the ballet. There are various possible reasons for that persistence, but I would argue it’s most centrally due to just how successfully Copland balances American folk motifs (such as the traditional Shaker song “Simple Gifts” on which he apparently based one of his central melodies) with classical traditions. The truth, of course, is that every nation’s version of a “classical tradition” is due precisely to a combination of unique, local influences with overarching tropes and elements—as brought together and taken to another level by the kinds of musical masters I cited above. That isn’t to downplay the legacies of the world’s greatest composers, but to note, instead, how fully Copland stands among those greats, and how thoroughly he brought America with him into the classical conversation. An uncommon man, and piece, indeed.Next spring connection tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? Thoughts on Copland or music in America? Other images of spring you’d highlight?

March 20, 2017: Spring in America: Williams and Eliot

[As spring gets ready to spring, a series on the season in American culture. Add your vernal associations and responses for a blooming weekend post!]On the two modernist poems that exemplify alternative, contrasting, yet ultimately complementary narratives of hope.When it comes to literary images of spring, the first work that (pardon me) springs to mind is William Carlos Williams’ poem “Spring and All”(1923). Created at least in part in response to Williams’ work as a doctor (hence the “contagious hospital” in the opening line), and more exactly his experiences dealing with at-risk young patients whose very existence and future were in doubt, the poem transcends any specific contexts to become both a realistic and yet an idealistic depiction of spring itself: of what it means for new life to make its struggling, haphazard, threatened, perennial, inspiring journey to the surface of a world that had been cold and lifeless (in terms of blooming things, anyway) only days before. Making the best use of an unpunctuated last line since Emily Dickinson, Williams’ closing line captures perfectly the precise moment of “awaken[ing],” as both an uncertain transition to whatever comes next yet also a miraculous achievement in its own right.Williams at times consciously positioned himself and his poetry in contrast to high modernist contemporaries such as T.S. Eliot, and it’s difficult to imagine a more direct contrast to “Spring and All” than the opening lines of Eliot’s The Waste Land (1922). “April is the cruelest month,” Eliot’s poem begins, and in case the reader thinks he’s upset about Tax Day or something, the speaker goes on to make clear that it is precisely spring’s rebirths to which he refers: “Breeding / Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing / Memory and desire, stirring / Dull roots with spring rain. / Winter kept us warm, covering / Earth in forgetful snow, feeding / A little life with dried tubers.” Where Williams’ poem focuses on the season’s partial and uncertain but still powerful moves toward a future, Eliot’s thus looks back at a past, one that would be better left buried yet that is instead brought back with every new blossom. And where Williams creates images of awakening new life, of spring as birth, Eliot portrays the season as a painful re-awakening, back into identities already (it seems) too much in the world.Those contrasts are genuine, and again reflect more overarching distinctions between these two poets as well. Yet I think in at least one significant way the two poems (particularly when we take all of Eliot’s into consideration, not just his opening line) complement rather than contrast each other. After all, one clear way to describe the modernist literary project is as an attempt to represent life in the aftermath of disaster, destruction, death, doubt, all those characteristics so amplified within a post-WWI world. To that end, we can see both poems’ speakers as struggling with that question, and trying to imagine whether and how new life and possibilities can or should emerge into such an inhospitable world (whether represented through a contagious hospital or a barren wasteland). The poems do differ greatly in tone, but it’s possible to argue that the very act of writing is in both cases a hopeful one, a pushing through the wintry ground into some evolving new form. “These fragments I have shored against my ruins,” Eliot writes in his poem’s final lines—and what is spring (he said at the tail end of a New England winter) but a fragmentary yet inspiring annual rebirth of a ruined world?Next spring connection tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? Thoughts on these poems? Other images of spring you’d highlight?

March 18-19, 2017: Andrew Jackson and Donald Trump

[March 15thmarked the 250th anniversary of Andrew Jackson’s birth. So this week I’ve AmericanStudied five sides to this controversial, influential figure and president, leading up to this special weekend post on Jackson and Trump!]On what links the two polarizing presidents, and what separates them.Ever since the start of his surprising and unnerving (to put both adjectives mildly) successful campaign for the presidency, Donald Trump has drawn an ever-evolving series of historical comparisons, both American and international, all seeking to better understand the man and candidacy (and now presidency). My own Talking Points Memo piece linking Trump to Benjamin Franklin (in one very particular way) became part of a larger NPR article on many of those different American historical comparisons. In the last few months, of course, the bulk of the comparisons have been to various dictators and authoritarian leaders, from the Hitlers and Silvio Berlusconi’s of the distant and recent past (respectively) to the Putins and Kim Jong-un’s of the present, among many others. None of these parallels lines up perfectly, of course, but I believe that each has had a good deal to tell us about just what we’re dealing with in this unprecedented/unpresidented and potentially catastrophic administration. And that’s definitely true for the American president to whom Trump has most frequently been compared (including it seems by Trump himself), Andrew Jackson.Trump’s self-made comparison is likely due to the idea of a shared interest in the “common man,” but as I’ll note in a moment I don’t agree with that parallel at all. Instead, I would argue that the links between Jackson and Trump are all much more revealing of Trump’s flaws and failings. Both men have thin skins and violent tempers that are easily provoked by the slightest perceived slight, with Trump using Twitter insults and in a manner quite similar to Jackson’s recourse to dueling challenges. Both have pursued policies that use the power of the federal government to disrupt the lives and communities of their fellow Americans, seeking to displace and remove entire such communities from our shared national landscape. And both have demonstrated an easy willingness to oppose the judiciary and our democratic system of checks and balances, in favor of a self-centered and authoritarian desire to see their will done and done as fully and quickly as possible. (I’m not sure there’s ever been a more Andrew Jackson-esque moment from a fellow president than Trump Tweeting “See you in court!” to the federal court/judges who had just ruled against his immigration/refugee ban.) All of which is to say, Andrew Jackson wedded bigoted policies to a thin-skinned, violent, destructive, and authoritarian temperament and governing perspective, and unfortunately Donald Trump seems well on his way to exceeding Jackson on all those levels.At least some of the policies that Jackson pursued in those ways were aimed at democratizing American politics and society, at providing better opportunities for the “common man” (even an idea as ill-fated as the spoils system did have that side as well, since it ensured that political offices could not be passed down to multiple generations of the same family or otherwise preserved as legacies). Trump has repeatedly claimed that he has similar goals when it comes to the “swamp” of Washington and our system, but in every possible way the first months of his presidency-elect and now administration have revealed that he intends to do precisely the opposite: to use the office and our government to further enrich himself and his family, his friends and business partners, and the most elite of our society’s elites. And while any person from any background can pursue any potential policies, it seems clear that this policy distinction between Jackson and Trump could be connected to their very distinct origin points: as I noted in my first post this week, Jackson’s beginnings were truly as humble as any president’s have been; Trump is of course far from the first president who was born into extreme wealth and privilege, but whereas folks like Franklin Roosevelt and George W. Bush had held other elected offices and worked in public service prior to the presidency, Trump had literally only ever “worked” in the gilded towers he inherited from his father. In this way, at least, a comparison to Andrew Jackson makes Old Hickory look like a pretty darn ideal alternative.Next series starts Monday,BenPS. What do you think? Other ways you’d link or contrast Jackson and Trump?

March 17, 2017: Andrew Jackson’s America: The $20 Bill

[March 15thmarks the 250th anniversary of Andrew Jackson’s birth. So this week I’ll AmericanStudy five sides to this controversial, influential figure and president, leading up to a special weekend post on Jackson and Trump!]On three historical ironies surrounding Jackson’s presence (for now!) on the twenty.1)      The Federal Reserve/Paper Money: When Jackson finally managed to kill the Second Bank of the United States, it stayed dead, and so did any idea of a national bank—right up until 1913, when the latest in a long line of financial panics convinced Congress to pass the Federal Reserve Act to create a new such national monetary system. Jackson was also an impassioned opponent of paper money (he cautioned against its use in his March 1837 farewell address), and one of the new Federal Reserve’s first steps was to create a series of new bills, including a $20 bill in 1914. Grover Cleveland was the first choice for the president on that currency, but in 1928, on the 100th anniversary of his first election to the presidency, Andrew Jackson became the twenty’s portrait (Cleveland was shifted to the $1000). I can’t say that I much mind the thought of Jackson cursing from beyond the grave his inability to challenge the architects of each and every one of these policies and steps to one last duel. 2)      Grover Cleveland’s Marriage: Speaking of Jackson’s duels, it’s also ironic that he replaced Cleveland on the $20, since Cleveland’s presidential marriage was likely the other most unusual in our history. A bachelor at the time of his inauguration, the 48 year old Cleveland soon developed a relationship with Frances Folsom, a Wells College undergraduate who was both 21 years old and something of a ward of Cleveland’s (he had helped supervise her upbringing after the death of her father, Cleveland’s friend Oscar Folsom). Cleveland and Folsom were married in the White House’s Blue Room on June 2nd, 1886. While it would seem that some of those details might have been cause for scandal, apparently Frances and the marriage were generally well received; whereas while Andrew Jackson married a woman whom he had helped escape from an abusive marriage and who was still married only because of a technicality, she and the marriage would become the source of constant rumors and accusations throughout Jackson’s life and political career. I do feel worse about this Old Hickory irony, to be clear.3)      Harriet Tubman: Whereas this historical irony? This one I don’t feel the slightest bit badly about. I’m with those who felt and feel that Jackson should have been replaced by almost any historical figure on the twenty—not because he’s some sort of monster (although as I discussed in Tuesday’s post, he unquestionably did some monstrous things as president), but because we have precious few such currency slots, and they should go to truly impressive and inspiring figures. While I would have been fine with any of the four women who became finalists for the twenty—and certainly Cherokee Principal Chief Wilma Mankiller would have represented a particularly delicious irony in her own right—I think Harriet Tubman is most definitely an inspired choice. Not just because Jackson was a slaveowner, although yes, that. But also and even more pitch-perfectly because while much of Jackson’s life featured some of the worst forms of social and political violence—dueling, “Indian fighting,” warmaking, and forced removal—Tubman embodies the Underground Railroad, a form of social resistance and activism that was both nonviolent and hugely effective. We can’t and shouldn’t eliminate Jackson from our collective memories—but replacing him with Tubman on the $20? Easiest call ever.Special post this weekend,BenPS. What do you think? Other Jackson histories or contexts you’d highlight?

March 16, 2017: Andrew Jackson’s America: Dueling Histories

[March 15thmarks the 250th anniversary of Andrew Jackson’s birth. So this week I’ll AmericanStudy five sides to this controversial, influential figure and president, leading up to a special weekend post on Jackson and Trump!]On what two of Jackson’s many duels help us understand about both the activity and the man.By far the most famous single duel in American history—even before the smash hit musical that has made it famous to a whole new generation of Americans—would have to be the July 1804 tilt between Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton. But thanks to the confluence of both cultural and personal contexts, Andrew Jackson is likely just as famous as an individual participant in numerous duels (the number is uncertain but has been said to be as high as 103). For one thing, dueling was particularly prevalent on the frontier, and at the time of Jackson’s youthful experiences in Tennessee that state was very much on the new nation’s western frontier; although dueling was technically illegal in Tennessee, Jackson, himself a lawyer, fought most of his duels while living there (often crossing into Kentucky to do so). For another thing, while living in Nashville Jackson fell in love with Rachel Donelson Robards, a very unhappily married woman, and the two were married before (it turned out) she had received a divorce; this led to numerous accusations of adultery, many leveled at Jackson by legal or political opponents, and to which Jackson’s most consistent answer was a challenge to duel. And for a third, and simplest, thing, Andrew Jackson seems to have been a man prone to anger and violence, living in an era when codes of gentlemanly behavior gave him an acceptable outlet for those tendencies. All duels weren’t created equal, though, and two very distinct Jackson duels offer dueling images (I know, I know—don’t shoot me) of the activity. Jackson’s first recorded duel was in North Carolina on August 12th, 1788, against Waightstill Avery, a fellow attorney and prominent Revolutionary War veteran who had handily bested the much younger Jackson (he was only 21 at the time, to Avery’s 47) in a court battle. Chastened by the legal outmaneuvering, the hot-tempered Jackson challenged Avery to a duel on two consecutive days of the trial, and on the second Avery accepted. By the time the two men arrived at the dueling grounds later that evening, however, their passions had cooled sufficiently that they resolved the matter in an apparently honorable but entirely harmless way: firing their guns into the air. While I don’t know how many of Jackson’s 103 duels were similarly symbolic rather than life-threatening, it seems likely that this possibility played out a fair amount of the time—after all, whatever the era and its social codes and mores, few people actively seek death on a regular basis, and fewer still can consistently find willing compatriots in that pursuit. That Jackson and Avery apparently became and remained friendly after their symbolic duel only cements the idea that such displays of honor often existed as much to make a point as to end a life.Friendship was very much not the outcome of Jackson’s most famous single duel, however: a fatal contest with fellow attorney Charles Dickinson in May 1806. This time Jackson was the elder (39 to Dickinson’s 26), and Dickinson more the instigator: a series of family and financial skirmishes culminated in Dickinson insulting Jackson’s wife Rachel, a move that by this time was more or less guaranteed to result in a challenge to duel. Dickinson, well known as a crack shot (he had supposedly already killed 26 men in duels by this time), shot first and hit Jackson in the chest, narrowly missing his heart; but the hardy Jackson did not fall (leading to Dickinson’s famous cry, “My God! Have I missed him?”) and hit Dickinson, who died of his wounds later that night. Jackson would carry the bullet inside him for the rest of his life, certainly a reminder of the far more destructive and fatal possibilities of dueling. Indeed, while Dickinson is the only man whom we know Jackson killed in a duel, it’s fair to say that the practice served as a constant reminder of the presence of violence in both Jackson’s individual temperament and his society and era.Last JacksonStudying tomorrow,BenPS. What do you think? Other Jackson histories or contexts you’d highlight?