Benjamin A. Railton's Blog, page 28

January 4-5, 2025: 2025 Anniversaries: Five 1975 Films

[A NewYear means another blog series dedicated to historic anniversaries we’ll becommemorating this year. Leading up to this special weekend post on five filmscelebrating their 50th this year!]

Quickthoughts on what five 1975 classics can tell us in 2025:

1)     Jaws: I wroteabout what Spielberg’s game-changing summer blockbuster can tell us about Americancommunities in that hyperlinked post. But here, in a moment when orcasare rightfully rising up to take back the seas from selfish greedy humans, I’lladd that it’s getting increasingly difficult not to root for the shark—and forall of nature to resist and overthrow the human regime that has been sounnecessarily destructive to it. Sorry for that bleak start to an ostensiblyfun post, but, well, January 2025 be like.

2)     OneFlew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest: Surprisingly, that brief mention ina post on Dorothea Dix is the only time I’ve really engaged at all in thisspace with Milos Forman’s complex and wonderful film (or even with KenKesey’s even better 1962 novel, it seems). I can’t do any kind of justiceto it in this brief space, but I will say that a fraught but definite lesson ofthe 2024 election is that we need to do better to engage with youngmen’s mental health—and the history of how we’ve done so (or how we haven’t)is, to say the least, relevant.

3)     DogDay Afternoon: This 1975 film I have blogged about atlength, in that hyperlinked post. But that post was from 2014, and I’d pointout something deeply cringe-worthy that reflects a vital continued conversationin 2024: my use of “transsexual” in the final paragraph (in service of, I hopeand believe, entirely inclusive ideas, but nonetheless). On the one hand, we’vecome a long way in the last ten years in how we talk about our transgenderfellow Americans—but on the other hand, if you watched any Trumpcampaign ads, you know just how far we still have to go, and how much weneed sympathetic portrayals like this film’s.

4)     The Rocky Horror Picture Show: The portrayalof LGBTQ+ Americans is significantly more central still in this cultclassic film, of course. In recent years there’s been alot of debate over whether the film is transphobic; I won’t pretend to bequalified to weigh in, but this articlerepresents one side of the coin, and thisone the other. Cultural works are complicated and contradictory, and onesfrom 50 years ago even more so of course. I vote we watch them all, take awaywhat we can, critique what we need to, do the work.

5)     Nashville: In that recentpost I made the case for how a few of the many main characters in Robert Altman’sfilm can help us think about not just that place and time, but our own as well.My older son nowliving in Nashville has pushed me to think more about that community, asboth of my sons’ interestsin country music have made me give that genre a far deeper listen. And that’sthe thing—as much as I don’t feel that I recognize far too many fellowAmericans in 2025, we’d all better find ways to do so more fully if we’re gonnasurvive together.

Nextseries starts Monday,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think?

January 3, 2025: 2025 Anniversaries: 1925 Literature

[A NewYear means another blog series dedicated to historic anniversaries we’ll becommemorating this year. Leading up to a special weekend post on five filmscelebrating their 50th this year!]

In lieu ofa last full post in this series I’m going to ask you to read instead a SaturdayEvening Post Considering History columnof mine where I made the case for reading and remembering 1925 not only throughthe lens of its most famous and frequently-taught novel, but with otherimportant books and voices in the mix as well. The fact that such educational effortsare likely to be endangered in 2025 America makes that goal only that much moreimportant still!

Specialpost this weekend,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think?

January 2, 2025: 2025 Anniversaries: Two 1875 Laws

[A NewYear means another blog series dedicated to historic anniversaries we’ll becommemorating this year. Leading up to a special weekend post on five filmscelebrating their 50th this year!]

The PageAct, the Civil Rights Act, and the worst and best of America.

I’vewritten a good bit about the Page Act of 1875, thenation’s first federal immigration law, both inthis space and in other projects like my ConsideringHistory column and my podcast(where the Page Act frustratingly foreshadowed the Chinese Exclusion era that soaffected the Celestials). In researching for the podcast’s Fifth Inning inparticular, I learned about just how blatant California RepresentativeHorace Page was in his arguments for this law and its attempts to restrict(if not entirely exclude) Chinese arrivals overall and Chinese women inparticular, which he claimed were intended “to end the danger of cheap Chineselabor and immoral Chinese women.” And, for that matter, how none other thanPresident Ulysses Grant echoed some of those prejudiced and xenophobic sentiments,as in his December7, 1875 annual message to Congress: “I invite the attention of Congress toanother evil—the importation of Chinese women, but few of whom are brought toour shores to pursue honorable or useful occupations.”

Grant’sendorsement of this racist and exclusionary federal law was particularly frustratinggiven his crucial role in that same year in the support for and passage of a farmore progressive and inclusive law: theCivil Rights Act of 1875. Drafted by Radical Republican Senator Charles Sumner in a directresponse to the developing system of racial segregation that would become knownas Jim Crow, thislaw prohibited discrimination in any public conveyances and accommodations (sonot just public transportation, but also “inns, theaters, and other places ofpublic amusement”). Although the increasingly awful Supreme Court would laterstrike down the law in its 1883Civil Rights Cases decision, it’s important not to let that eventualhistory minimize how progressive and significant the 1875 law was—and, for thatmatter, how much of aninfluence it was on the more famous and more enduring (we hope, he added inearly 2025) Civil Rights Act of 1964.

So how canwe possibly commemorate the 150th anniversary of these diametricallyopposed federal laws without minimizing one or the other? Certainly the dualityhelps remind us that many of the late 19th century’s most ardent advocatesof African American rights and equality were frustratingly unable to extendthat perspective to Chinese and Asian Americans, as apparently illustrated byGrant but also and far more clearly by SupremeCourt Justice John Marshall Harlan. But to my mind it’s also a reflectionof just how difficult it can be, and concurrently and not coincidentally howcrucial it is, to fight for solidarity and community as well as rights andprogress—to truly imagine and work toward, that is, liberty and justice forall. Even in periods of progress that balance isn’t easy to maintain, andin our more fraught and fragile eras (like the late 19th century,and like right freaking now) it’s far easier still to throw certain Americansoverboard. Let’s commemorate 1875 by recommitting that we not make the samemistake in 2025.

Lastanniversary tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think?

January 1, 2025: 2025 Anniversaries: The Erie Canal

[A NewYear means another blog series dedicated to historic anniversaries we’ll becommemorating this year. Leading up to a special weekend post on five filmscelebrating their 50th this year!]

For the 200thanniversary of its opening, three figures who helped construct the Erie Canal.

1)     DeWitt Clinton: There’sa whole Early Republic history to be written through the lens of the Clintonfamily, includingGeorge (the fourth Vice President of the US) and his nephew DeWitt(who himself ran for President in 1812, in between stints as a Senator andGovernor of New York among other influential roles). The final public act inDeWitt’s life was his two terms as NY Governor, during the second of which hedied unexpectedly in February 1828. And no aspect of DeWitt’s time as governor wasmore significant to him, nor more influential for the state and young nation,than his supportfor the Erie Canal project (leading to his nickname “Father of the ErieCanal”). He and it met with plenty of opposition, producing such colorfulphrases as “Clinton’sBig Ditch.” But as with so many progressive ideas, just about everybody wasmore than happy to get on board once Clinton’s pet project opened andcontributed so potently and positively to the evolving Early Republic.

2)     CanvassWhite: Prominent political allies are key for any major project of course,but at the end of the day it takes the folks on the ground to make the projecta reality. There weren’t really professional civil engineers yet (at least notin America), and so the folks on the ground came from many walks of life: politicianslike James Geddes,judges like BenjaminWright, educators like NathanRoberts, and amateur inventors and would-be engineers like Canvass White.Just 26 when he began working for Judge Wright as an engineer on the Erie Canalproject in 1816, White persuaded Governor Clinton to fund a trip to Englandto learn more about their canals. He learned so much, and contributed so muchto the Erie Canal project over the decade leading up to its opening, that he wouldbe appointed Chief Engineer for multiple subsequent such projects, including theDelaware and Raritan Canal and the Lehigh Canal.

3)     ElyParker: I’ve written about Parker, one of my favorite Americans, many timesin this space, including that hyperlinked post and thisone among others. He was born in 1828, so to be clear he didn’t play anyrole in the original construction of the Erie Canal (he was awesome but notsuperhuman). But he studiedcivil engineering at RPI, and when an 1840s extension of the canal wasannounced, Parker (still only 20 years old at the time) applied for and wasappointed as theproject’s resident engineer in Rochester. He was also in that same periodcontinuing hislifelong fight for his Seneca Nation’s land rights and claims, which helpsus remember both that all construction projects in America intersect with suchfraught issues and that figures like Parker have worked to complement ratherthan oppose these needs.

Nextanniversary tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think?

December 31, 2024: 2025 Anniversaries: Lexington and Concord

[A NewYear means another blog series dedicated to historic anniversaries we’ll be commemoratingthis year. Leading up to a special weekend post on five films celebrating their50th this year!]

On two waysto add to our memories of an already very familiar history.

Comparedto yesterday’s subject of King Philip’s War, and indeed compared to almost any otherAmerican histories, the battles ofLexington and Concord figure very, very prominently in our collectivememories. Even as a kid learning about American history in Virginia schools—andthus occupying an overtly partisan, anti-New England place inthe debate over where the American Revolution and thus the United States ofAmerica itself began—I distinctly remember how much was made of the minutemen atLexington and Concord (and of related figures and stories like PaulRevere’s ride). There’s no version of our revolutionary and foundinghistories that doesn’t include these sites and stories in central ways, and thuscommemorating the 250th anniversaryof Lexington and Concord might well feel like a repetition, or at least areinforcement, of existing memories.

If you’rea reader of this blog, though, you already know that I believe we can and shouldalways expand and add nuance to our collective memories, and that the process isonly that much more important when the histories already feel familiar. I’ve writtenpreviously in this space, in response to Serena Zabin’s phenomenal book TheBoston Massacre: A Family History (2020), about the importance ofthinking of the American Revolution as a civil conflict, rather than a warbetween two distinct nations. As Zabin traces, even the British soldiers had becomepart of American communities in a variety of ways that made these battlesfamilial; and if we go beyond the people firing guns at each other at Lexingtonand Concord, we can really remember the range of perspectives featured amongcolonists themselves on the conflict, on England and America, and on everyaspect of this historical moment. In a very real sense, the shotheard ‘round the world was more like Fort Sumter, the first shots in acivil war, than we’ve generally been able to see.

Moreover,and more complicatedly still, that reference to Fort Sumter can remind us ofanother vital and too often forgotten aspect of Massachusetts in 1775—the presenceand practice of slavery in the colony (and in the state once it was created aswell). I’ve madethe case repeatedly, in this space and most everywhereelse, for thinking about enslaved people like ElizabethFreeman and Quock Walker as American revolutionary leaders. Seen in thatlight, another shot heard ‘round the world (or one that should have been andstill should be, anyway) was the1777 petition through which Massachusetts enslaved people and their alliesargued for their freedom in a post-Declarationof Independence world. At the very least, 250th anniversary commemorationsof Lexington and Concord in 2025 should include Massachusetts and Americanenslaved people, a recognition of both the limits of revolution and of whatevery part of those unfolding histories meant and could mean for these Americancommunities.

Nextanniversary tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think?

December 30, 2024: 2025 Anniversaries: King Philip’s War

[A NewYear means another blog series dedicated to historic anniversaries we’ll becommemorating this year. Leading up to a special weekend post on five filmscelebrating their 50th this year!]

For its350th anniversary, a couple important ways to push past ourmemories of a tragic conflict.

In thispost on the Pequot War’s horrific massacre at Mystic, I noted that that 1630swar represented a painful and definitive shift in therelationship between English settlers and Native American communities inNew England. Of course settler colonialism and violencehad always been part of that relationship, but so too had the possibility ofcross-cultural alliances like those traced by historian Cynthia Van Zandt inher excellent book Brothers Among Nations: The Pursuit of InterculturalAlliances in Early America, 1580-1660. But across the 17thcentury, that relationship in New England became more and more overtly andcentrally hostile and violent—and if the Pequot War marked a significant stepin that destructive direction, it was KingPhilip’s War forty years later which really reflected the worst of European-indigenousencounters and set the stage for (for example) the unfolding history of scalpbounties that I tracedin this column.

As with somany of our most painful histories, we’ve done a pretty terrible job includingKing Philip’s War in our collective memories. When we have done so, at leasthere in New England, it seems to me that it’s been entirely through the lens ofMaryRowlandson’s captivity narrative, the story of an English woman takenhostage by the Wampanoag who witnesses much of the war during her time withthat community. As I argued in that hyperlinked post, and at length in a chapterof my book RedefiningAmerican Identity, Rowlandson unquestionably experiences cross-culturaltransformations that reflect the possibility of more mutual relationshipsbetween these communities. But her narrative begins with an extended depictionof the violent attack on her home and town by Wampanoag warriors, and it endswith her grateful return to her white world and sense of the entire experienceas a challenge presented by her Christian God. Which means that in too manyways, remembering the war through Rowlandson’s lens deepens our sense of thedivisions and hostility between these two communities.

There’sanother possible lens through which our collective memories of this conflictcan be viewed, though, and that’s the Wampanoag chief (known to his people asMetacomet) after whom we’ve named the war. I’ve written manytimes in this space about one of my favorite critical patriotic texts,William Apess’s “Eulogy onKing Philip” (1836). Apess doesn’t just ask his audiences—both whiteBostonians in the 1830s and all Americans at all times—to remember Philip/Metacometwith more nuance and more sympathy, although he certainly does that. He alsomakes the case for thinking of this figure as an ancestor of all Americans, andthus for “every patriot” to see him as a revolutionary leader akin to GeorgeWashington himself. I agree entirely, but would add this: even if 21stcentury white Americans might struggle to get to that perspective, they and allof us could at least since this war as a civil conflict, a tragic battlebetween multiple, interconnected American communities. That’d be an important reframingas we work to commemorate the war’s 350th.

Nextanniversary tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think?

December 28-29, 2024: December 2024 Recap

[A Recapof the month that was in AmericanStudying.]

December2: McCarthy’s America: Mythic Patriotism: A series for the 70th anniversaryof the Senate’s censure of McCarthy starts with an excerpt from my most recentbook.

December3: McCarthy’s America: Chambers, White, and Hiss: The series continues withespionage, railroading, & the true complexity of historical nuance.

December4: McCarthy’s America: Edward R. Murrow: The special report that helped beginMcCarthy’s fall & embodies the best of journalism, as the series rolls on.

December5: McCarthy’s America: Roy Cohn: The figure who embodies American hypocrisies—andsomething even worse.

December6: McCarthy’s America: Censure: For the 70th anniversary of thatcensure vote, three quotes that sum up the process that led up to it.

December7-8: McCarthy’s America: 21st Century Echoes: The seriesconcludes with throughlines, overt and overarching, and what we must learn fromthem.

December9: Hawaiian Histories: Three Shifts: For the 150th anniversaryof a Hawaiian King’s state visit, a HawaiianStudying series kicks off withthree moments through which the islands’ history shifted.

December10: Hawaiian Histories: King Kalākaua’s Visit: The series continues with threestriking moments in the course of that state visit.

December11: Hawaiian Histories: Annexation: Two prior pieces through which I highlightedthe worst of America’s involvement with Hawaii, as the series surfs on.

December12: Hawaiian Histories: Pablo Manlapit: The Filipino American labor leaderwho reflects Hawaii’s defining diversity.

December13: Hawaiian Histories: The Varsity Victory Volunteers: The seriesconcludes with a post-Pearl Harbor group who embody the best of the war, Hawaii,and America.

December14-15: Hawaiian Histories: Hawaii in American Culture: A special weekendpost on a handful of cultural representations of the islands.

December16: Fall Semester Reflections: 20C Af Am Lit: For my Fall semester reflectionsI wanted to focus on moments that embody the best of our conversations andcommunities, starting with an inspiring semester-long moment in Af Am Lit.

December17: Fall Semester Reflections: First-Year Writing: The series continueswith the frustrations of generative AI and a moment in which we engaged withthem together.

December18: Fall Semester Reflections: Senior Capstone: A Halloween moment thatreminded me of why I do what I do, as the series reflects on.

December19: Fall Semester Reflections: Online American Lit: A great example of whyI use creative exam prompts in my literature courses.

December20: Fall Semester Reflections: Women’s Circle Breakfast: The series concludeswith the latest example of my always inspiring experiences with public talks.

December21-22: Spring Semester Previews: A special weekend post on a few of themany reasons why I’m looking forward to the Spring semester (but not quite yet).

December23: 2024 in Review: The Climate Crisis: 2024 was one hell of a year, moreor less literally. So I wanted to start my annual year in review series with acouple of the most challenging crises, including the one that scares me themost.

December24: 2024 in Review: AI: The series continues with another trend that scares& frustrates me in equal measure.

December25: 2024 in Review: The Celtics: Turning to more positive topics, aChristmas special on my favorite family moment from 2024.

December26: 2024 in Review: Women Rock: How badass women in music defined the year’scultural stories.

December27: 2024 in Review: Moo Deng: The series and year conclude with the babyhippo who’s better than we deserve, but what we desperately need.

New Year’sseries starts Monday,

Ben

PS. Topicsyou’d like to see covered in this space? Guest Posts you’d like to contribute? Lemme know!

December 27, 2024: 2024 in Review: Moo Deng

[I wasinitially trying to decide whether to focus my annual Year in Review series on heavyor light topics, but then I realized this was 2024—we had it all, from the seriousto the surreal, the absurd to the awesome. So I’ll start with a couple toughsubjects and move toward some happier ones. I’d love your end-of-yearreflections as well!]

“Becausehe’s a better hippo than America deserves, but he was the one we needed rightnow. So we’ll harass him. Because he can take it, although he shouldn’t have to.”Not sure I need to say anything more than that paraphrased, misquoted yet stillto my mind pitch-perfectly applicable, allusion to Commissioner Gordon’sclosing speech in The Dark Knight. From what I can tell, a ton of peopletreated this cute baby hippo like crap for social media views and clout, andthat’s unquestionably one level of reflection of where we all here at the endof 2024. But at the same time, the intertubes gave us all (most of us, I hopeand believe, better than that worst) a chance to meet this delightfulbaby hippo. And also to watch this equally delightful SNL portrayal of him. Let’s carry that energy into 2025,and see if we can’t leave some of the worst behind as we do.

DecemberRecap this weekend,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? What stands out from this decades-long year?

December 26, 2024: 2024 in Review: Women Rock

[I wasinitially trying to decide whether to focus my annual Year in Review series on heavyor light topics, but then I realized this was 2024—we had it all, from the seriousto the surreal, the absurd to the awesome. So I’ll start with a couple toughsubjects and move toward some happier ones. I’d love your end-of-yearreflections as well!]

In my lastYear in Review blog series (2022’s, as the schedule meant I didn’t get to shareone last year), I dedicateda post (on the birthday of one of the two most badass women I know, my Mom,who over the last two years has become somehow even more inspiring, and alsohas become wonderfully connected to the second such badass woman and subject ofmy personalfavorite event of 2024, my wife) to the trend of “Hot Girl Music.” As bigas female musical artists were in that year, I think it’s fair to say that theywere perhaps even a bit bigger this year, from the absolute ubiquity of Taylor Swift’s Eras tour to the chart-toppingdominance of songwriters, performers, and artists like Sabrina Carpenterand Chappell Roan and Dasha, among others (although I have to admit being veryexcited to see one of the boys’ and my favorite male artists, BensonBoone, high on that list too). Moreover, while I was of course especiallymoved by Bruce Springsteen’s endorsement of the Harris/Walz ticket, I don’tthink any endorsements moved the needle more than T-Swift’s and Beyoncé’s. Swift’swas an especially striking moment in both the evolution of thatworld-conquering artist and the deepening intersections of politics, culture,and every aspect of our communities—including our most badass women.

Last 2024reflection tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? What stands out from this decades-long year?

December 25, 2024: 2024 in Review: The Celtics

[I wasinitially trying to decide whether to focus my annual Year in Review series on heavyor light topics, but then I realized this was 2024—we had it all, from the seriousto the surreal, the absurd to the awesome. So I’ll start with a couple toughsubjects and move toward some happier ones. I’d love your end-of-yearreflections as well!]

Christmascame in June for the Railton household this year, as my sons and wife and I gotto watch together as our favorite shared sports team, theBoston Celtics, clinched their 18th NBA Championship. I saidmost of what I’d want to say about that team from an AmericanStudies perspectivein that hyperlinked post, but I did want to use this post to do three additionalthings:

--Sharing this video of mysingle favorite live sports moment of my lifetime, Payton Pritchard’s first-half-buzzer-beatinglonger-than-half-court shot in Game 5, as captured from every camera anglepossible;

--Highlightingthe truly awesome public service and partnership work that Jaylen Brown is doing for theBlack community and all communities in Boston, as well as sharing hisdelightful recent episodeof Hot Ones;

--And makingthe broader case, through those various layers but also through a reminder of my recently completed first podcastwhich I hope made this case at great length and which I can think of no betterChristmas present than y’all checking out and sharing widely, for all the waysthat sports can connect to our worst but also and especially our best.  

Next 2024reflection tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? What stands out from this decades-long year?