Benjamin A. Railton's Blog, page 32

October 9, 2024: Contested Holidays: Labor Day

[Ahead ofColumbus/Indigenous Peoples’ Day, I wanted to dedicate a series to exploringsuch contested American holidays and what they can help us think about. Leadingup to a special post on that most conflicted of all our federal holidays!]

On thebare minimum for how we should celebrate Labor Day, and a couple important stepsbeyond.

To keepwith the trend in this week’s posts, I’ll start by asking you to check out aprior piece of mine—in this case, a TalkingPoints Memo column from 2015 in which I traced the radical origins andhistory of Labor Day. Take a look at that column if you would, and then come onback for some additional thoughts on a holiday that means a lot more than theend of summer.

Welcomeback! When I was growing up in Virginia, we didn’t have Labor Day off fromschool, nor did my Dad as a professor at the University of Virginia—Virginia wasand remains a “Rightto Work” state, which is a particularly Orwellian phrase for states (26 of them as of thiswriting; that’s from an overtly anti-union website, just FYI) that don’t recognizepublic employee unions and thus don’t celebrate Labor Day (among many, manyother effects of that status). The histories of how such legislation developed andwhich states have passed it are of course multi-layered and feature contextsbeyond this brief mention, but to my mind two things are not complicated atall: every state in the United States both should allow public employees tounionize and should celebrate this federal holiday dedicated to workers’ rightsand equality. I’m a big believer in conversation, so if you’re reading this anddisagree with either or both of those premises feel free to leave a comment andwe can chat further, but I gotta tell you I don’t think those should be (orare) controversial positions to take.

Whilecelebrating Labor Day is thus to my mind a default, I’d also argue that, aswith Memorial/Decoration Day with which I began the week’s series, this is aholiday that demands more thoughtful engagement with the histories that it commemorates.For one thing, I’d say it’s pretty important for us to remember the incrediblyaggressive and violent ways in which big business and its political and socialallies attacked the Labor Movement—from definingit as entirely un-American to imprisoningand executing its leaders to droppingactual bombs on its striking members. And for another thing, it’s equally importantfor us to remember the incredibly aggressive and violent ways in which too manylabor unions and organizations excluded non-white workers, as exemplified by theRock Springs massacre. Do those two points seem contrasting and even contradictory?Well welcome to the U.S. of A., and to Labor Day commemorations that can helpus engage with all our fraught and frustrating and vital histories while webbq.

NextHolidayStudying tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think?

October 8, 2024: Contested Holidays: The 4th of July

[Ahead ofColumbus/Indigenous Peoples’ Day, I wanted to dedicate a series to exploringsuch contested American holidays and what they can help us think about. Leadingup to a special post on that most conflicted of all our federal holidays!]

On whetherand how there’s a place for celebratory patriotism in our national commemorations.

For manyyears I’ve made the case that all Americans should read, hear, or at leastengage with Frederick Douglass’s “Whatto the Slave is the 4th of July?” on that holiday. I did soearlier this year in thispost, so will ask you to check that one out and then come on back here fora couple other ways to think about this contested holiday.

Welcomeback! Having written multiplebooks centered on the conceptof critical patriotism, I both believe Douglass’s speech embodies it aswell as any American text ever has and would argue that such patriotism has to occupya key place at our July 4th commemorations. For far too manyAmericans, past and present, the ideals celebrated on such occasions have neverbeen fully realized, or even extended to them at all, and any commemorationthat doesn’t acknowledge and grapple with those realities is ultimately ahollow one. But at the same time, as a Dad whose sons have long loved theannual 4th of July fireworks in their hometown (a traditionabout as old as the holiday itself), I would never argue that we should doaway with such communal celebrations entirely, nor that after every dazzlingdisplay of lights we have to stop the show to have an analytical conversationabout hard histories. If I ever become that much of an academic, please feelfree to slap me with a hot dog.

Moreover,I’d say that there’s a meaningful way that celebratory and critical patriotismscan and should be intertwined on occasions like this. As I trace throughout my patriotismbook, too often celebratory patriotism becomes so uncritical that it turns intomythic patriotism, the type that simplistically and fully idealizes the nationand sees anyone who disagrees as unpatriotic and even un-American. But just asI refuse to cede patriotism overall to that particular vision, I likewiserefuse to see that as the only outcome for celebratory patriotism specifically.There’s no reason why we couldn’t listen to some of Douglass’s speech at a 4thof July commemoration, consider both our foundational ideals, the ways we’vefallen short of them, and the continued collective goal of moving closer to them,and then watch a kickass fireworks show to drive home every bit of that.Indeed, I think such a multi-layered commemoration would have a far betterchance of including all Americans than do the simplistic and too often overtlyexclusionary versions of the holiday. Let’s celebrate our independence fromthose limited and limiting legacies!

NextHolidayStudying tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think?

October 7, 2024: Contested Holidays: Memorial/Decoration Day

[Ahead ofColumbus/Indigenous Peoples’ Day, I wanted to dedicate a series to exploringsuch contested American holidays and what they can help us think about. Leadingup to a special post on that most conflicted of all our federal holidays!]

This pastMay, as I’ve done every year for quite a few now, I shared a specialMemorial/Decoration Day post making the case for an additive commemorationof that powerful but fraught occasion—and kicking off a weeklong series of DecorationDay histories as well. I’d ask you to check out at least that holiday post ifyou would, and then come on back for a couple additional reflections.

Welcomeback! As I’ll write in the upcoming Columbus/Indigenous Peoples’ Day post, I’mno longer quite as convinced as I once was that adding to our collectivememories is always the right move, at least not when it comes tocommemorations. That is, while it’s certainly important that we remember asmuch of our history as possible, I definitely don’t believe we need to commemorateall of it with things like holidays or statues. Yet while the history of howMemorial Day came to replace Decoration Day is (as that hyperlink post aboveand the series that followed it hopefully made clear) a frustrating and toooften white supremacist one, there’s quite simply nothing about Memorial Dayitself that is problematic in the ways that Christopher Columbus was and is. Soin this particular case, I remain totally fine with the idea of commemoratingboth holidays at once, of an additive celebration that emphasizes the inspiringand too-often-overlooked Decoration Day origins but also extends those MemorialDay respectful remembrances to all those who have given their lives in our militaryconflicts.

But it’s importantto add that such Memorial Day remembrances have themselves been too often exclusionary,have focused on white casualties and veterans at the expense of thefoundational and consistent diversity of those who have served in our military.The overtexclusion of U.S. Colored Troops veterans from the May 1865 (right nearMemorial Day’s usual timing, actually, if years before that holiday had comeinto existence) Grand Review of the Armies in Washington is just one of so, somany examples of such racist commemorations—and while I know Memorial Day isdedicated to fallen servicepeople rather than living veterans, about 40,000Black soldiers died during the Civil War, a stunningly high percentage ofthose who served. So if we’re going to keep Memorial Day as part of our combinatorycommemorations of this holiday, we have to make sure that we’re likewise addinginto those memorials the full range of those who have given all for the UnitedStates.

Next HolidayStudyingtomorrow,

Ben

October 5-6, 2024: My New Podcast!

[200 yearsago this week, “Father ofBaseball” Henry Chadwick was born. So this week I’ve AmericanStudiedChadwick and other 19th century baseball histories, leading up tothis special weekend post on my new podcast on 19th century baseballand much more!]

This SundayI’ll drop the sixth Inning (episode, but y’know) of my weekly narrative historypodcast, The Celestials’ LastGame: Baseball, Bigotry, and the Battle for America. If you haven’t hada chance to listen yet, you can catch up on all the prior Innings at thathyperlink! Here I wanted to reflect on a few quick takeaways from my firstexperience with podcasting:

1)     Brevity: When I was initially planning thepodcast, I anticipated something like 45 minutes for each Inning, and honestlywas expecting that they might end up more like an hour long (as y’all know I’vegot a lot to say, and this is a story I really want to tell in full). But inwriting and especially in recording them, I found that about 25 minutes wasmuch more of a sweet spot, not only for me but also for my ideal audienceexperience. There’s always more to say, and I very much hope listeners willcontinue to research and read and learn about all the histories and issues thatI’m highlighting. But I also believe it’s far better to leave them wanting abit more than to overstay my welcome, and I hope I can keep applying thatlesson to all my public scholarly work, where I’d say it’s a universally goodgoal. Soul of wit and all!

2)     Honesty: There are various reasons why thebook project that was my longstanding expectation of how I’d tell this story neverquite came together, some of them entirely outside of my own control. But onesignificant factor is that there’s a dearth of information on some of its corehistories, including the details of the Celestials themselves (both in theirNew England semi-pro league and in their 1881 final game in San Francisco). Icouldn’t quite figure out how to frame that in a book manuscript, at least notwithout creating overtly fictionalized sections which just wasn’t how I wantedto approach it. But in a podcast, I could simply talk about those limitations,share how I was hoping to fill in some gaps with educated speculation, and hopethat listeners would appreciate my honesty and be willing to go on this journeywith me.

3)     Storytelling: That ability to share honestreflections was one nice effect of creating my first oral scholarly work, buteven more exciting was the way in which it felt like I could lean intostorytelling as a central goal. I’ve long argued that stories, narratives, offerus ways to learn about our histories, our communities, our identities that atthe very least complement, and in many ways transcend, more informational or pedanticmodes of communication. That’s why I wanted to create a narrative history projectfor my 7th book—and when that book transformed into a podcast, I wasable to lean into that emphasis on stories and storytelling even more fully andhappily. I hope the results speak to you as much as the process has to me!

Nextseries starts Monday,

Ben

PS. Hopeyou’ll check out the podcast!

October 4, 2024: 19th Century Baseball: The Celestials

[200 yearsago this week, “Fatherof Baseball” Henry Chadwick was born. So this week I’ll AmericanStudyChadwick and other 19th century baseball histories, leading up to aspecial weekend post on my new podcast on 19th century baseball andmuch more!]

On two 19thcentury baseball contexts for an inspiring 1870s team.

I firstdeveloped the ideas that are at the heart of my new podcast in this2020 Saturday Evening Post Considering History column. That column providesa lot of contexts for the Celestials semi-pro baseball team, a team formed bystudents at the 1870s Chinese Educational Mission in Hartford, so I’d ask youto check it out and then come on back for a couple ways to link that inspiringsquad to 19th century baseball histories.

Welcomeback! In the 20th and 21st centuries, we’ve become usedto professional athletes being quite thoroughly distinct from amateur ones(especially in the major sports leagues—obviously things get a little trickierwhen it comes to the Olympics and the like). But in the 19thcentury, there was far more overlap between the two categories, and that’ssuccinctly illustrated by the fact that members of the Celestials were continuingto play for both high school and college teams while they were also part ofthis successful semi-pro squad. One of their founding members and best players,Liang Pi Yuk(also known as Liang Cheng), was still in high school at the PhilipsAndover Academy when the Celestials began in 1878, and famously led thatteam to a victory over its rival Philips Exeter Academy during the same periodwhen he was playing for the Celestials. Most of the other founding members wereplaying baseball for Yale University inthat period, and likewise continued to impress on the collegiate diamond whilethey were achieving their semi-pro victories. That’s an important and easilyforgotten layer to late 19th century baseball, professional and otherwise.

Playingamateur baseball might have been sufficient on its own to inspire the studentsto form their semi-pro team, but it just so happens that one of the most successfulearly majorleague teams was for a brief moment also located in their Connecticut hometownof Hartford. Known officially as the Hartfords and generally called the Dark Blues,this team was originally founded in 1874 and played for three very successful seasonsat the HartfordBall Club Grounds, widely considered one of the premiere stadiums in thisearly era of professional baseball. Ahead of the 1877 season the team waspoached by Brooklyn and became the Brooklyn Hartfords, and was disbanded afterjust season there; but the legacy in Hartford remained, exemplified by the team’smost famous fan, Mark Twain. Twain alsobefriended and supported the Chinese Educational Mission students, and it seemsundeniable to me that when they started their own semi-professional baseballteam in Hartford in 1878, it was likewise part of the legacy of this prominentand popular ball club in the city.

Specialpost this weekend,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Baseball or sports histories you’d highlight?

October 3, 2024: 19th Century Baseball: The First Professionals

[200 yearsago this week, “Fatherof Baseball” Henry Chadwick was born. So this week I’ll AmericanStudyChadwick and other 19th century baseball histories, leading up to aspecial weekend post on my new podcast on 19th century baseball andmuch more!]

Four figureswho together help us chart the evolution of professional baseball.

1)     Jim Creighton:I really don’t know that I can do justice to the genuinely legendary (in bothpositive and tragic senses) career of the first player to be paid to playbaseball; you’ve really got to check out that hyperlinked Baseball Reference page,but before you do prepare yourself for the shocking and horrific (and entirelybaseball-related) reason Creighton died before his 22nd birthday. Obviouslythose specific details are quite unique to Creighton—but as that firstsuperstar and thus first player to be paid, receiving some form ofcompensation (probably a percentage of the gate) from the Brooklyn Excelsiorsafter they recruited him away from his prior Brooklyn teams in 1859 (longbefore there were official professional leagues), Creighton nonethelessforeshadows this next stage in the sport’s evolution.

2)     Davy Force:In 1869, a decade after Creighton’s signing, the National Association of BaseBall Players (NABBP) created a new professional category into which teams couldopt if they wanted to pay some or all of their players. Led by the dominant Cincinnati Red Stockings, twelve clubsdeclared themselves professional for that season, and two years later the firstfully professional league, also known as the NABBP,was created. But for the first few years multiple teams could sign the sameplayer and then compete for his services, producing a hugely chaotic situationthat must have been very confusing for spectators season to season (or evengame to game). When shortstop DavyForce tried to play for the Chicago White Stockings but was forced toreturn to his prior club, the Philadelphia Athletics, because the league’spresident was associated with them, league administrators decided morestructure was needed. The result was the 1874establishment of the National League, the first real forebear of the modernmajor leagues.  

3)     MosesFleetwood Walker and Weldy Walker: Once again I’ll recommend that you checkout that hyperlinked article, a wonderful piece on the lives and careers—beforeand after as well as during their time in professional baseball—of these two pioneeringbrothers who helped integrate baseball in the 1880s, some 60 years beforeJackie Robinson (and faced the same horrific racial hate and threats of violencehe did). The Walkers were eventually forced out of white major league baseball,although Moses would continue to play in both the minor leagues and theshort-lived NationalColored Base Ball League before his 1891 retirement. Those latter leaguesreflect a central premise of my podcast: that the range of semi-pro and local leaguesmeant that late 19th century baseball featured the possibility (andthe reality, if a fraught and fragile one) of multi-racial teams far more thandid much of 20th century baseball. I’ll write about one of thoseteams in tomorrow’s post!

Last baseballhistory tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Baseball or sports histories you’d highlight?

October 2, 2024: 19th Century Baseball: The Massachusetts Game

[200 yearsago this week, “Fatherof Baseball” Henry Chadwick was born. So this week I’ll AmericanStudyChadwick and other 19th century baseball histories, leading up to aspecial weekend post on my new podcast on 19th century baseball andmuch more!]

On three placesthat can help us better remember an alternative form of baseball thateventually lost out to the New York Gameand its “KnickerbockerRules.”

1)     Dedham in 1858: Local teams had been playingbaseball in Massachusetts since at least 1854, but it was at Dedham’sPhoenix Hotel on May 13th, 1858 that the MassachusettsAssociation of Base Ball Players met to formally establish the shared setof rules which would become known as the Massachusetts Game. Those rules weredesigned to create a faster-paced and higher-scoring game than their New Yorkcounterparts, including such details as closer bases (60 rather than 90 feetapart), batters starting between home and first bases (only 30 feet away fromfirst, and thus giving them a distinctly better chance to reach base safely),and no foul territory or baselines (giving batters the ability to use any partof the field for both hitting and running). And the results reflected thosedifferences, as exemplified by theJuly 1859 game in which the Medway Unions beat the Upton Excelsiors 100 to78 (although Upton got its revenge by beatingMedway 100 to 56 for the state championship later that Fall).

2)     Pittsfield in 1859: Unlike football, which asI detailed in thisSaturday Evening Post Considering History column began at thecollegiate level before gradually evolving into a professional sport as well,baseball was much more fully semi-professional and professional in its earlydays. But there were collegiate teams as well, and just a year after the formalizationof the Massachusetts rules, the first intercollegiate game took place in thestate and following those rules. OnJuly 1st, 1859, in the Western Massachusetts town of Pittsfield,AmherstCollege defeated Williams College 73-32 (Amherst would likewise defeatWilliams in a chess match the following day, as the contestwas two-part). Like most of their semi-professional peers, the ChineseAmerican baseball players on whom my new podcast focuses played the sport incollege (and did so in New England as well), and thus were direct descendantsof these earliest collegiate baseballers.  

3)     Civil War diamonds: As the dates in this post,and I hope throughout this week’s series, have made clear, the popularmythology of the Civil War as the period during which baseball originated (oreven was popularized) is entirely inaccurate. But the fact that the opposite istrue—that baseball was well-established by the 1860s—only amplifies the rolethat thesport played for Civil War soldiers during their many downtimes between marchesand battles. And since a good number of those soldiers came from New England,the Massachusetts Game was an integral part of those Civil War contests, evenwhen New England teams played those from elsewhere—as with an1863 game between the 11th Massachusetts and 26th PennsylvaniaRegiments that was played using the Massachusetts rules. Although the New Yorkrules had become dominant by the decade’s end, and would be featured in the newprofessional leagues I’ll write about tomorrow, at this foundational moment inAmerican history the Massachusetts Game was an important presence.

Next baseballhistory tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Baseball or sports histories you’d highlight?

October 1, 2024: 19th Century Baseball: Henry Chadwick

[200 yearsago this week, “Fatherof Baseball” Henry Chadwick was born. So this week I’ll AmericanStudyChadwick and other 19th century baseball histories, leading up to aspecial weekend post on my new podcast on 19th century baseball andmuch more!]

For hisbicentennial, on three ways the groundbreaking journalist HenryChadwick (1824-1908) helped shape both the sport and its stories.

1)     Rules: As yesterday’s post indicated, and as I’llget into even more fully in tomorrow’s post, in its early decades baseballfeatured a number of different and even contrasting rules. But it’s fair to saythat the game wouldn’t have become a truly national sport without a more uniformand consistent set of rules, and despite spending most of his career as asportswriter (rather than a league official, although he did brieflyperform that role as well), Henry Chadwick contributed meaningfully to thatevolution. To cite only the most prominent example, for its first couple decadesbaseball included a “boundrule,” meaning if a fielder caught a batted ball after one bounce it wasstill ruled an out; Chadwickwas the most vocal opponent of this rule, seeing it as an unnecessaryprotection of fielders, and in the 1860s succeeded in getting it eliminated (bythe National Association ofBase-Ball Players at their December 1863 convention), an innovation withoutwhich modern baseball would look entirely different.

2)     Box scores: As any baseball fan will tell you,one of the greatest joys of following the sport is the box score—ideallykeeping score at a game oneself, but in any case reading box scores in thepaper (or, yes, on the intertubes) the following day. And while the origins of baseballare hotly contested as I discussed in yesterday’s post, there’s no doubt towhom we can trace the origins of the box score: HenryChadwick. In his role as the baseball writer for the New York Clipper,Chadwick created the first box score for a game in 1859,including a number of specific details that remain part of box scores andbaseball scoring to this day: “K” as the simple for strikeout; the numbers assignedto each of the nine fielders; and more. As I’ve argued manytimes in this space, the essence of baseball is that it is both itself astory and profoundly connected to many other American stories, and Chadwick’screation of the box score both reflected and helped amplify that sportsstorytelling.

3)     Writing: As the many baseballbooks I’ve highlighted inthis space make clear, that storytelling doesn’t just happen through theimmediacy of scoring and box scores—it also can be found in the centuries ofwriting that have accompanied the sport’s development and enduring presence inAmerican culture and society. Henry Chadwick was one of the first to createsuch baseball books, on two distinct but complementary levels: as the editor ofannual guides such as Beadle’sDime Base Ball Player (which launched with that 1860 edition); and asthe author of the first hardcover baseball book, TheGame of Base Ball: How to Learn It, How to Play It, and How to Teach It, withSketches of Noted Players (1868). As someone who has needed to research19th century baseball for the podcast I’ll share in the weekendpost, I’m eternally indebted to Chadwick’s writing—as are all of us who lovethe game.

Next baseballhistory tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Baseball or sports histories you’d highlight?

September 30, 2024: 19th Century Baseball: A Contested Origin

[200 yearsago this week, “Fatherof Baseball” Henry Chadwick was born. So this week I’ll AmericanStudyChadwick and other 19th century baseball histories, leading up to aspecial weekend post on my new podcast on 19th century baseball andmuch more!]

On what’snot the case about the sport’s origins, and two interesting details of the(uncertain) real story.

Soapparently AbnerDoubleday had nothing whatsoever to do with the invention of baseball. I’mnot gonna pretend for a second that I knew that before researching thispost—indeed, blog completists might remember that I highlighted Doubleday as atleast a strong contender for the title in thislong-ago post on Thomas Dyja’s Play for aKingdom (if you are really that long-standing and attentive of a reader,please please please leave a comment or email me and sayhi!). But while former baseball player, club executive, and sporting goodsentrepreneur AlbertSpalding really pushed thenarrative of Doubleday as the sport’s inventor—going so far as tocommission his friend and former National League President Abraham Mills to“investigate” the question, leading to the highly suspect MillsCommission report of December 1907—the truth is that there isno specific evidence in Doubleday’s life or writings, or any peripheralmaterials, to support the myth. That’s particularly ironic because the MillsCommission identified Cooperstown,NY as the site of Doubleday’s invention (in the equally fabricated year of 1839),leading to the eventual location of the Baseball Hall of Fame in that town.

Doubleday’slack of involvement with the sport’s invention is far more certain than thequestion of when baseball was invented, and by whom. Indeed, what is far moredefinite is the late 19th and early 20th centuryfeaturing warring camps, and that those camps were often explicitly linked tothe ongoing rivalry betweenEngland and America. The English historians traced the sport’sorigins to various traditional folk games, from archaic games like “stoolball” and “trap ball” to themore familiar (and still played) parallel sports of cricket and rounders. TheirAmerican rivals acknowledge these antecedents and influences, but focus insteadon more direct references in early American texts and documents to games like “baste ball”(mentioned in the 1786 diary of PrincetonUniversity student John Rhea Smith), or to “baseball” being included(alongside “wicket, cricket, batball” and others) in a 1791 bylaw in Pittsfield, MA. Intruth, what these various historical examples and details indicate is that thesport developed over centuries, through various iterations and stages, and wasplayed in both England and America for many years before being standardized andprofessionalized (on which more in a moment). But that’s not as sexy as a fightto the death between Revolutionary rivals, so I’ll let the transatlanticdiamond turf war proceed unchecked.

Apologiesto my EnglishStudying colleagues and friends, but it was more definitely in anAmerican setting that the sport’s rules were first laid down in a morestandardized way. That setting was New YorkCity in September 1845, where the Knickerbocker Club and its officersAlexander Cartwright, William Wheaton, and William Tucker publisheda set of rules that came to be known as (duh) the Knickerbockerrules. These rules were close enough to the modern game that in 1953Congress credited Cartwright as the sport’s inventor, which was a totalslap in the face to the Williams but that’s another story for another post. Butin any case I think we can all agree that the most compelling thing about theKnickerbockers was their decision later in 1845 to move their home games toHoboken, NJ’s ElysianFields, which remains the most impressively named field or stadium I’veever encountered. As I’ve highlighted in just about every post I’ve written aboutbaseball in this space, the sport captures certain fundamental,pastoral, idyllic American images in a legendary, mythological way that defiesprecise histories, which might just explain why the history of its owninvention remains and likely will always remain an open debate.

Next baseballhistory tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Baseball or sports histories you’d highlight?

September 28-29, 2024: September 2024 Recap

[A Recapof the month that was in AmericanStudying.]

September2: Fall Semester Previews: 20C Af Am Lit: For this year’s Fall Semesterpreviews I focused on things I’m especially excited for, starting with studentpresentations in 20C Af Am Lit!

September3: Fall Semester Previews: First-Year Writing: The series continues withadding digital options to my longstanding First-Year Writing course.

September4: Fall Semester Previews: English Studies Capstone: Reading Jesmyn Ward’svital new novel in Senior Capstone, as the series rolls on.

September5: Fall Semester Previews: American Lit II Online: What differentmodalities of teaching require and help me to do.

September6: Fall Semester Previews: Aidan at Vanderbilt!: The series concludes withan even more special Fall Semester, my older son’s first!

September 7-8: Fall SemesterPreviews: My New Podcast!: I didn’t get to write a post on the podcast, butplease check it out at that hyperlink!

September9: Classic TV Studying: Amos ‘n’ Andy: A series inspired by a couple TVanniversaries kicks off with a strikingly different way an influential earlysitcom could have gone.

September10: Classic TV Studying: Sitcom Dads: The series continues with the clichedextremes of sitcom dads, and the men in the middle.

September11: Classic TV Studying: Little House on the Prairie: For its 50thanniversary, on a key difference between the Little House show and books.

September12: Classic TV Studying: Lassie: For the show’s 70thanniversary, takeaways from three iterations of the classic canine hero.

September13: Classic TV Studying: I Love Lucy: Why the groundbreaking sitcom’scomfortable familiarity reflects its most radical elements, as the serieswatches on.  

September14-15: TV Studying: Bridgerton and The Bear: The series concludes with a specialpost on three contexts for two recent TV hits.

September16: Summer Reads: The Good Lord Bird: A series on books I read for pleasurethis summer kicks off with James McBride’s historical fiction masterpiece.

September17: Summer Reads:  Interior Chinatown:The series continues with Charles Yu’s experimental and excellent novel.

September18: Summer Reads: The Cold Millions: Jess Walter’s impassioned andimportant historical novel, as the series reads on.

September19: Summer Reads: Let Us Descend: A bracing and beautiful recent novel thatI’ll be teaching in my Senior Capstone course!

September20: Summer Reads: Yellowface: The series concludes with a complex and bitingbook about culture, cultural appropriation, and much more.

September23: Folk Figures: Pecos Bill and Joaquin Murrieta: In honor of JohnnyAppleseed’s 250th birthday, a folk heroes series kicks off with twocompeting frontier figures.

September24: Folk Figures: John Henry: The series continues with a link to my SaturdayEvening Post Considering History column on railroad heroes.

September25: Folk Figures: Molly Pitcher: Why the iconic war hero might not haveexisted, and why she matters in any case, as the series rolls on.

September26: Folk Figures: Johnny Appleseed: For his 250th, two contrastingcontexts for the iconic folk figure.

September27: Folk Figures: MrBeast and 21st Century Folk Heroes: And theseries concludes with one of my favorite recent posts, inspired by conversationswith my sons and my wife alike!

Nextseries starts Monday,

Ben

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