Benjamin A. Railton's Blog, page 58

December 12, 2023: Boston Tea Party Studying: The Adams Boys

[Thiscoming weekend marks the 250thanniversary of one of the most significant events in Colonial America, the Boston Tea Party. So this week I’llAmericanStudy a handful of layers to that important moment, leading up to a specialweekend tribute to some of the many BostonStudiers from whom I’ve learned agreat deal!]

On how thetwo famous cousinscontrasted yet complemented each other, and one more layer to thosecomparisons.

More than 5000Bostonians—roughly a third of the city’s entire population—didn’t justrandomly gather outside the Old South Meeting House on the evening of December16th, 1773. A couple weeks earlier, on November 29th,local political leader and radical activist Samuel Adams hadheld a mass meeting at Faneuil Hall to protest the new taxes England wasimposing on the tea trade. That meeting grew so large it had to move to the OldSouth Meeting House, and it led to both a resolution demanding that the Dartmouth (about which I wroteyesterday) depart without paying the tax and a posse of men who stood guard atthe ship to ensure the tea would not be unloaded. The RoyalGovernor Thomas Hutchinson refused to let the ship leave without paying thetax, and when the December 16th deadline for its departure arrived,an even larger group of angry Bostonians gathered at another meeting led bySamuel Adams. While the ensuing Tea Party itself may havedeveloped organically, rather than as a plan of Adams’ (although as thatarticle notes this remains a point of historical contention), there’s no doubtthat he was instrumental in creating the circumstances for this radical act ofcollective protest.

Notpresent at the meeting or the Tea Party was Samuel’s second cousin, theyoung lawyer and activist John Adams. But his absence doesn’t mean that he wasin any way opposed to the event (which some might assume given hisearlier role defending the British soldiers involved in the BostonMassacre, for example). John was simply not in town on December 16th,and when he learned of the Tea Party the next day, he wrote about it veryenthusiastically in his diary: “Thisis the most magnificent Movement of all. There is a Dignity, a Majesty, aSublimity, in this last Effort of the Patriots, that I greatly admire. ThePeople should never rise, without doing something to be remembered—somethingnotable and striking. This Destruction of the Tea is so bold, so daring, sofirm, intrepid and inflexible, and it must have so important Consequences, andso lasting, that I can’t but consider it as an Epocha in History.” Johnwas always more about words than actions, and these are bold words indeed.

Thecomplementary roles of words and actions is a somewhat reductive but, it seemsto me, fundamentally accurate way to think about what John and Samuel Adamscontributed respectively to the Revolutionary cause. But I would say that there’sanother way to frame this complementary contrast, and perhaps an even moremeaningful one when it comes to thinking about pre-Revolutionary events likethe Tea Party. Samuel was largely focused on immediate and practical concerns—anonerous new tax, ships full of tea, the question of whether and how a city’s residentscould respond to and help alter these realities. John, as we see in thatdiary entry, was thinking much more philosophically, considering questions of patrioticduty and history-changing epochs. Events like the Boston Tea Party can’ttranspire at all without the focus and direction that Samuel provided—but theycan’t necessarily become part of an incipient world-changing event like theAmerican Revolution without the frame that John did.

Next TeaParty post tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Tea Party takes you’d share?

December 11, 2023: Boston Tea Party Studying: Causes

[Thiscoming weekend marks the 250thanniversary of one of the most significant events in Colonial America, the Boston Tea Party. So this week I’llAmericanStudy a handful of layers to that important moment, leading up to a specialweekend tribute to some of the many BostonStudiers from whom I’ve learned agreat deal!]

On a fewkey 1773 moments along the way to the Boston Tea Party.

1)     The TeaAct: One of the many (many many) crucial historical issues aboutwhich I knew very little for much of my AmericanStudying life was the role ofthe British EastIndia Company in American colonial and Revolutionary history (to say nothing,as that hyperlinked article notes, of its roles in the whole world during thisperiod). It’s not just that the company dominated trade between so much of theworld, but also and even more importantly that the English government waswilling to do whatever it could to support that economic institution. One suchstep was the Parliamentary Tea Act, which passed in April 1773 and went intoeffect in May; the law granted the East India Company virtuallysole rights over the tea trade between England and the American colonies. Thiswas far from the first controversial such law—that would be the Stamp Actof 1765—but it was another key step in the road toward Revolution.

2)     Franklin’s Satire: If laws were one form ofhistorical documents that helped precipitate those Revolutionary responses,another of course were the impassioned and activist writings—often anonymous orpseudonymous, but no less potent for it—produced by colonial leaders. InSeptember 1773, four months after the Tea Act went into effect, the London newspaper The Public Advertiser published such a work by none otherthan Ben Franklin himself. Entitled “Rules byWhich a Great Empire May be Reduced to a Small One,” Franklin’sessay was deeply satirical, poking fun at a number of British missteps butcertainly dwelling at length on precisely the kinds of economic extremescomprised by laws like the Tea Act. It’s impossible to know whether the angerthat led to the Tea Party would have happened without this textualencouragement, but again these different layers undoubtedly worked together atthe very least.

3)     The Dartmouth: Fourtotal ships left England in November 1773 with the first shipments of EastIndia Company tea affected by the new law; one (the William) was lostat sea and the other three arrived in Boston a few weeks later, with the firstto dock being the Dartmouth. As that firsthyperlinked article above highlights, the Dartmouthhad originated in Nantucket, reflecting the complex interconnections betweenAmerican shipping and these English companies and laws. Indeed, as I’ve argued both here and in Of Thee I Sing about Revolutionary War Loyalists,that community were just as much part of America (and thus the new UnitedStates) as were the revolutionaries. The Nantucket Quaker Rotch family behindthe Dartmouth (and a second of thefour ships, the Beaver) offer one small window into thosemultiple American communities, all of which were present at the Boston TeaParty in December 1773 to be sure.

Next TeaParty post tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Tea Party takes you’d share?

December 9-10, 2023: Crowd-sourced Board Game Studying

[On December1, 1948, a Connecticut inventor named James Brunot copyrighted a newboard game called Scrabble. Like many great games Scrabblehas endured and grown ever since, so for the 75thanniversary of that pivotal moment I’ve AmericanStudied it and a handful ofother board games. Leading up to this crowd-sourced post on those and othergreat games—add your thoughts in comments!]

LarryRosenwald follows up Monday’s post on Scrabble, writing, “Not part of what you'll cover, but it's always puzzled methat I'm so bad at Scrabble - I mean, I'm good with words in lots of ways, butwinning at Scrabble requires (and cultivates) very specific skills, which Idon't have.”

Betsy Cazden adds, “I had no ideaScrabble was a brand new thing during my childhood! We played it a lot.”

AshleeRhodes follows up Tuesday’s post on Monopoly, highlighting thispodcast episode on the game’s origins.

OtherBoardGameStudying takes:

Katherine N. Yngvehighlights, “Settlers of Catan,maybe from a post-colonial perspective?” On a different note, she adds, “Ithink I learned from playing the board game1776 that defeating the British is hard. How does theUSA event exist?????”

Paul T.  Miller goes with Masterpiece,“a game that ostensibly helps one learn aboutart but is really an exercise in unbridled capitalism with profiles of uberwealthy and social dilettantes acquiring paintings the rest of everyonecouldn't imagine even traveling to see in a museum. the game has million dollarbills!”

And Dr. Captain Abraham Tweets that “card andboard games that are all about feelings and interpersonal communication captureAmerica in the early 1970s perfectly.”

Nextseries starts Monday,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Other games you’d highlight?

December 8, 2023: Board Game Studying: Collaborative Games

[On December1, 1948, a Connecticut inventor named James Brunot copyrighted a newboard game called Scrabble. Like many great games Scrabblehas endured and grown ever since, so for the 75thanniversary of that pivotal moment I’ll AmericanStudy it and a handful of otherboard games. I’d love your thoughts on these, others, and board games over fora competitive yet collaborative crowd-sourced weekend post!]

On themore common form of collaborative board game, and a unique alternative.

Back whenI was writingregularly for the excellent Good Men Project, I publisheda piece on why I found it important when my sons were young to lose to themon purpose (if as subtly as possible) most of the times that we played board gamestogether (which was a lot of the time!). That was over nine years ago, andcertainly my perspective has entirely and appropriately changed over time; formany years now, in the far less frequent times we get to board game together intheir increasingly busy lives, I’ve greatly enjoyed competing fully with them(and still losing to them quite often and quite happily, natch). But I stilltry to do so without the most toxic sides of what competition can draw out of anyof us, and for that reason among others I have a special place in my heart fora particular genre of board game: collaborativeones, where the players work together to achieve a common goal.

Most ofthe collaborative games we’ve discovered and enjoyed fit a particular andfamiliar mold: there’s an external threat that’s drawing ever nearer, and theplayers have to work together to defeat it before it destroys them. Probablythe best-known game of that variety is Pandemic, whichwe’ve gotten to play a couple times and found very challenging but fun; we’vealso enjoyed the multiple games in the Forbiddenseries (Desert, Island, Sky, etc.). Most games of this type can be prettyserious and even bleak, though, so we’re particular fans of Munchkin Panic,a collaborative game set in the delightfully silly world of Munchkin card games and featuring suchthreatening adversaries as the Gelatinous Octohedron and the truly terrifyingPotted Plant. After all, if you’re playing a collaborative game of this typethere’s a genuine chance that you could all die (otherwise, it wouldn’t be muchof a game), and in that case I suppose we’d prefer to die feeling delightfullysilly rather than serious and sad.

Because ofour (well, definitely my, but I think the boys share it as well) fondness forcollaborative games, I’ve also sought out others in the genre, including thosethat offer a different experience from that most familiar one. And by far themost unique and compelling one that we’ve found is Mysterium, anevocative and haunting game which asks the players to use images in complexways to communicate with each other and solve a shared puzzle before time runsout. Mysterium’s collaborative gameplay and goals feel quite distinct from themore familiar type, which makes for a fun change of pace for folks like us whoenjoy this genre overall. But it’s also just one of the most beautiful games I’veever seen, and there’s something to be said for immersing yourself in anaesthetically attractive and compelling world for those minutes or hours thatyou’re gaming with friends and loved ones. Meet you all at the gaming table!

Crowd-sourcedpost this weekend,

Ben

PS. So onemore time: what do you think? Other games you’d highlight for the weekend post?

December 7, 2023: Board Game Studying: War Games

[On December1, 1948, a Connecticut inventor named James Brunot copyrighted a newboard game called Scrabble. Like many great games Scrabblehas endured and grown ever since, so for the 75thanniversary of that pivotal moment I’ll AmericanStudy it and a handful of otherboard games. I’d love your thoughts on these, others, and board games over fora competitive yet collaborative crowd-sourced weekend post!]

On threeboard games through which I learned a lot about war histories and stories.

1)     Ambush!: Ambush!,which began with a focus on post-D-Day European campaigns and then expanded toinclude Italy and the Pacific as well, stands out as (by far) the bestsolitaire board game I ever played. But its style of gameplay also captures theuncertainty and constant danger of warfare as well as anything I’veencountered: as the player moves his eight squad members across the board inpursuit of each unique mission, anything and everything can suddenly transpire:sniper fire, the arrival of an enemy tank, an encounter with a civilian, a mineor other explosive device being triggered. Awaiting the results of each movewas, as board games go, as nerve-wrecking as it gets.

2)     Sink theBismarck!: Something about board games with exclamation points, I suppose.Inspired by one of the most uniquenaval histories in World War II, as well as the 1960 British film of thesame name, Sink the Bismarck! was an incredibly complicated board game, and I’mnot sure I ever played with every rule and feature (or even most of them). Tobe honest, I spent a good deal of time just examining the board, the pieces andcards, the rules and peripheral materials, learning not only about the game butalso about the histories and stories connected to this famous Germanbattleship, to the Axis and Allied naval armadas, and to all the complexitiesof naval warfare. I don’t think MichaelScott Smith would mind that outcome one bit.

3)     Gettysburg: Ah, thegenius of AvalonHill’s Gettysburg, a game that was at one and same time deeply groundedin the battle’s histories (the board alone taught me a great deal about thebattle’s locations and landscapes) and open to each player’s and game’s uniquechoices (I still remember the time I had J.E.B. Stuart’s cavalry flank theUnion lines and capture General Meade, winning the battle in one fell swoop;luckily for all Americans it didn’treally work out that way!). The battle and war are history, but thegame made them come alive, made them new and meaningful for each player andexperience. I owe much of my enduring love of history to precisely sucheffects.

Last boardgames tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Other games you’d highlight for the weekend post?

December 6, 2023: Board Game Studying: Careers

[On December1, 1948, a Connecticut inventor named James Brunot copyrighted a newboard game called Scrabble. Like many great games Scrabblehas endured and grown ever since, so for the 75thanniversary of that pivotal moment I’ll AmericanStudy it and a handful of otherboard games. I’d love your thoughts on these, others, and board games over fora competitive yet collaborative crowd-sourced weekend post!]

[NB. Iwrote this piece for the Fitchburg Historical Society’s Summer 2020 newsletter,so it’s a bit longer than my usual blog posts, but it’s also too perfect forthis week’s series not to include here!]

My sons and I have been serious board gamers for most of theiryoung lives (they’re now 14 and 13 years old), but in this locked-down momentwe have taken our board gaming to a whole new level. As usual that has meantmultiple daily repeats of the same current obsessions, which at the momentincludes a new favorite, the delightful card game Exploding Kittens; and a 1980s classic, Iron Crown Enterprise’swonderful Middle-earth-set Riddle of theRing. But this new reality has likewise required a deep dive into thebackbench of our voluminous collection, assembled across many years, threeapartments, and roughly three-dozen obsessions. At the bottom of one of our piles,hidden beneath larger boxes and thus far too long forgotten, was a game I hadordered from eBay many years ago: the 1971 version of Careers.

The original Careers (whichwe had played with my parents at their Virginia home, prompting our interest inordering our own version of the game) was released by Parker Brothers in 1957.The 1971 edition kept much of the same design and gameplay, but offered, as theback of the box notes, “a bright, new board and some new career choices, likeEcology, which reflect the world of the 1970s.” And indeed, playing the 1971game with two curious and thoughtful middle schoolers felt very much likeentering a time machine and emerging in early 1970s America, to learn a numberof interesting and at times frustrating lessons about that moment (and perhapsabout legacies into our own).

As you might expect, gender was a particularly overt andeye-opening subject. The 60s women’s rights movement meant that the mostblatant sexism of the 1957 edition—which featured for example a space called“Shopping Spree” in which “your wife” spent an exorbitant amount of your cashon hand—had disappeared. But the 1971 game still has a number of details whichread quite differently in the era of #MeToo. In the “Big Business” career path,you can receive 4 hearts (a measure of happiness, but one often linked torelationships and love) for “Lunch with your secretary.” In the “Sports” path,you receive 2 hearts for “Play touch football with the girls.” And in the“Teaching” path, you receive 4 hearts when your “New principal is a bachelor,”which of course not only condones workplace romances with serious boss/employeeand power dynamic issues, but also assumes that anyone going through the“Teaching” path is a woman (compared to the game’s overall default, which asthese other “romantic” spaces suggest tends to be that the player is male).

That latter space likewise illustrates a second, somewhat subtlertakeaway from the game: the cultural attitudes toward distinct career paths.Perhaps it’s because I’m a teacher so my sensitivity was up, but I found theattitudes toward teaching particularly striking. Besides that “bachelor” spaceand its assumption of teaching as a gendered (and romance-centered) profession,it’s interesting to note that teaching is the career which features the mosthappiness rewards, but through one specific and strange lens: of the threeother happiness spaces in the path, two are framed as opportunities to not haveto do the job at all (“Snow storm, no school” gives you 2 hearts; while theculminating “School’s out” space gives you 8, one of the game’s biggesthappiness payouts overall). Taken together, these spaces create an image ofteaching as a profession for women who are more interested in landing apowerful bachelor than, y’know, educating young people.

Perhaps the other most telling career path is “Space.” Just theexistence of this career path at all reflects a very different historicalmoment than our own, the era of the 1969 Apollo XI moon landing and subsequentmissions which made astronaut was one of America’s most desirable careers (asin the 1957 edition, “Space” is tied with “Sports” for the career path whichoffers the most rewards). Moreover, while some of the Space path’s rewards arefor successes within the career itself (“Successful lift-off” offers 6 stars[fame], while “1st man on Mars” offers a game-high 16 stars), manyothers indicate that a career in Space is geared more towards celebrity thanexploration. If you “Endorse Crunchies,” you receive a “$2000 fee”; if you“Sell your life story,” you “Collect $5,000”; and if you “Sell moon craters,”you “Earn $10,000.” Those financial rewards are second only to those availablein the “Sports” path (and in both cases they are among the path’s culminating,most rewarding spaces), illustrating a pair of careers in which capitalizing oncelebrity seems to be a chief pursuit.

While the American Studies scholar in me might have expected someof these details about 1971 attitudes, it’s also important to note a final categoryof lessons from the 1971 edition of Careers:unexpected, surprising details. For example, one of the biggest punishments inthe “Politics” career path (and in the game overall) is the culminating “Caughtwith mink” space, which causes you to “Lose ½ your Fame”; I wouldn’t have saidthat the anti-fur and animal rights movements were prominent enough in theearly 70s to occasion such a punishment (and it’s possible that they weren’t,as my fellow American Studies scholar father reminded me that VP candidateRichard Nixon had famously claimed that his wife Pat would never wear a “minkcoat” in his 1952 “Checkers” speech). On the other hand, the “Big Business”career path features a number of surprising spaces which indicate just howfully (in the game’s imagining) the corporate world remained about cozying upand kowtowing to power rather than achievement or innovation: if your “Uncle isthe treasurer” your salary goes up $1000 (which seems unethical and potentiallyillegal, but hey) and if you “Let Boss win at golf” it goes up $2000, while“Dent boss’s car” is one of the path’s negative experiences.

Perhaps the most surprising details are contained within theaforementioned, new “Ecology” career path. While the path is partly orientedtoward scientific study (if you earn a “Science” degree in College you canenter Ecology for free), many of its spaces focus instead on the goal of livinga more environmentally aware life. That includes both individual actions (both“Bicycle 50 miles to work” and “Invent self-destructing containers” earn youfinancial rewards) and collective goals (“A smog-free day” and “Swim inunpolluted river” both earn you happiness rewards). Since this was the only newcareer path in the 1971 edition, it’s fair to say that the creators wanted toemphasize both threats to the environment and opportunities for action withthis addition to the game; just a year after the 1970 founding of Earth Day,then, the American environmental movement was clearly making an impact onnational conversations and narratives.

Who said that homeschooling and play have to be two differentlockdown activities? Next board games tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Other games you’d highlight for the weekend post?

December 5, 2023: Board Game Studying: Monopoly

[On December1, 1948, a Connecticut inventor named James Brunot copyrighted a newboard game called Scrabble. Like many great games Scrabblehas endured and grown ever since, so for the 75thanniversary of that pivotal moment I’ll AmericanStudy it and a handful of otherboard games. I’d love your thoughts on these, others, and board games over fora competitive yet collaborative crowd-sourced weekend post!]

On point,counterpoint, and counter-counterpoint when it comes to a complex game of capitalism.

I think it’sbecome relatively common knowledge that the board game which evolved intoMonopoly was originally invented to be critical of that capitalist concept. Butit still bears repeating just how fully and intentionally that was the case: Elizabeth“Lizzie” Magie (1866-1948), a radical feminist author and activist whosubscribed to HenryGeorge’s progressive and anti-monopolist economic theories, invented The Landlord’s Game in 1904 and beganself-publishing copies in 1906 in order to educate the public on the dangers ofmonopolies. To that point (but perhaps also unintentionally complicating it, aswe will see), Magieincluded two sets of rules with that original version of the game: amonopolist set that rewarded players for bankrupting their opponents; and ananti-monopolist set which rewarded each player when all players did well. I’lldedicate a post later in the week to collaborative games, but it’s pretty interestingto think that Monopoly had the potential to be part of that genre.

That itdid not evolve that way is due largely to a moment and person which togetherembody the worst kind of the capitalism that Magie and her game critiqued. TheLandlord’s Game never achieved huge success but remained in distribution forthe rest of Magie’s life, and at a 1932 dinner party in Philadelphia anunemployed man (as with the invention of Scrabble yesterday, this was theDepression era) named Charles Darrowplayed the game with a few friends. Darrow loved the game, took a written copyof the rules home with him that night, and apparently decided to startdistributing it (with some changes to the rules and board, but with the coreconcepts the same) as his own invention under the name Monopoly. It was fromDarrow that ParkerBrothers originally bought the rights to the game in 1935, although totheir credit when they learned about Magie’s version they also bought therights to her patent. But while Parker Brothers may have done the right thing,Darrow clearly learned precisely the wrong lesson from The Landlord’s Game, andthen some—he didn’t even purchase the property from which he would seek to makehis fortune, but simply stole it from its rightful owner. (That’s my interpretationof asomewhat ambiguous situation, at least.)

In anycase, after Parker Brothers acquired the game and (with the help of cartoonistF.O. Alexander) significantly developed the board and look, Monopoly tookoff and became the iconic board game it has remained ever since. Oneparticularly interesting moment in that trajectory, and one that definitelyrelates to Magie’s original vision, took place in 1973, when San FranciscoState University Economics ProfessorRalph Anspach (1926-2022) published his own competing game entitled Anti-Monopoly(alternately known as Bust the Trust). Parker Brothers successfully sued fortrademark infringement, but Anspachwon on appeal, with the court ruling that monopoly was too generic of aconcept to be trademarked; Anspach was able to keep producing his game for therest of his life, even after a new 1984 law generallyprotected trademarks more rigorously. I won’t pretend to know the ins and outsof copyright law, past or present, but I will say that a game calledAnti-Monopoly challenging Monopoly’s hold on the market is about aspitch-perfect for the origin story and inventor of this board game as anydetail could get.

Next boardgame tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Other games you’d highlight for the weekend post?

December 4, 2023: Board Game Studying: Scrabble

[On December1, 1948, a Connecticut inventor named James Brunot copyrighted a newboard game called Scrabble. Like many great games Scrabblehas endured and grown ever since, so for the 75thanniversary of that pivotal moment I’ll AmericanStudy it and a handful of otherboard games. I’d love your thoughts on these, others, and board games over fora competitive yet collaborative crowd-sourced weekend post!]

On threeexamples of the moments and stages through which a game becomes an icon.

In 1931,an out-of-work New York architect (this was the Great Depression, after all)and gaming enthusiast named Alfred Mosher Buttswrote an article entitled “A Study of Games.” Butts was a particular fan ofword games and puzzles like crosswords, and after analyzing countless examplesof the genre like those found in the NewYork Times he decided to invent a game of his own that could replicate theexperience of completing such puzzles but involve multiple competing players atonce. At first he calledthe game Lexico, and it required the players to write down the letters andwords themselves; but having had no luck marketing his proposed game tocompanies like Parker Brothers and Milton Bradley, in 1938 Butts added a boardcomponent, renamed thegame Criss-Cross Words, and began manufacturing copies himself.

Buttswasn’t able to make too many of those self-produced copies, but one of themfound its way into the hands of a Newtown, Connecticut social worker, Federalgovernment employee, and would-be game designer named JamesBrunot. Brunot and his family loved Criss-Cross Words and believed it hadpotential; in 1948 he bought the rights from Butts (offering to pay him aroyalty on every copy sold), changed a few of the rules and the name toScrabble, and received the copyright 75years ago this week. At first Brunotand his wife Helen likewise manufactured their own copies of the game,producing around 18 copies a day out of their Newtown home (which they renamedthe Production and Marketing Company). But for whatever reason—and I do thinkthe name change had something to do with it; Scrabble is a great name—demandwas much higher, and the Brunots sold 2400 sets in 1949 alone, moving productiontoan abandoned schoolhouse as it expanded.

The thirdof these pivotal stages is a bit more ambiguous and might even be apocryphal—butwhat is the story of an American icon without some legendary details? Asthe story goes, the influential president of Macy’s department store, JackStraus, played Scrabble while on a family vacation in 1952 and fell inlove; when he returned to work he was frustrated to see that his stores did notcarry the game, and demanded that they do so. Almost immediately the demandoutstripped what the Brunots were able to produce, and they licensedmanufacturing rights to the longstanding game company Selchowand Righter. No matter how much the Brunots were able to do, it’s unlikelythat a home-manufactured game could ever have achieved the widespreadpopularity that Scrabble has; so whether the Straus story is entirely accurateor not, there’s no doubt that the 1952 transition to both department storesales and an existing manufacturer was a key moment in Scrabble’s evolutionfrom quirky invention to one of the most successful board games in history.

Next boardgame tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Other games you’d highlight for the weekend post?

December 2-3, 2023: November 2023 Recap

[A Recapof the month that was in AmericanStudying.]

October30: Contested Elections: 1800: For the 75th anniversary of“Dewey Defeats Truman,” a series on contested elections starts with the momentthat definitely changed things in Early Republic America, and how itfortunately didn’t.

October31: Contested Elections: 1824: The series continues with a contested andcontroversial election that frustratingly foreshadows our own moment twohundred years later.

November1: Contested Elections: 1948: For that anniversary, on a couple significantAmericanStudies contexts for the 1948 election beyond the headlines.

November2: Contested Elections: 1960: Two clearly important factors in one of ourclosest elections ever and one more ambiguous one, as the series votes on.

November3: Contested Elections: 2000: The series concludes with three frustratingand continuing aftermaths of the most hotly contested presidential election inour history.

November6: 13 Years (!) of AmericanStudying: 2010 Origins: For this year’s bloganniversary series, I highlighted key moments in my development as a publicAmericanStudier, starting with when and how this blog got started!

November7: 13 Years (!) of AmericanStudying: The Historical Society in 2013: Theseries continues with my 2013 connections to a key online public scholarlyconnection and community.

November8: 13 Years (!) of AmericanStudying: Talking Points Memo in 2014: A viralpiece that launched my first public scholarly column and changed everything forme, as the series reflects on.

November9: 13 Years (!) of AmericanStudying: Saturday Evening Post in 2018: What mylongest-running and best online public scholarly gig has helped me think aboutand do.

November10: 13 Years (!) of AmericanStudying: #ScholarSunday Threads in 2020: HowI’ve tried to build public scholarly community and solidarity through anothernew area of work.

November11: 13 Years (!) of AmericanStudying: Influential Folks: The seriesconcludes with a handful of the many folks who have been instrumental to myevolving career.

November11-12: Kyle Lockwood’s Guest Post: Exploration and the Human Spirit: Andhere’s another great anniversary series conclusion, a Guest Post from a recentFSU English Studies alum!

November13: AmericanStudying the Blues: Scott Joplin: For W.C. Handy’s 150thbirthday, a BluesStudying series kicks off with the composer who helped startit all.

November14: AmericanStudying the Blues: Robert Johnson: The series continues withone reason I really like the Devil folktale, and one way I’d push back.

November15: AmericanStudying the Blues: Billie Holliday: AmericanStudies takeawaysfrom the two versions of Lady Sings theBlues, as the series sings on.

November16: AmericanStudying the Blues: W.C. Handy: Three texts through which wecan trace the legacy of the “Father of the Blues” on his 150thbirthday.

November17: AmericanStudying the Blues: Five More Icons: That’s just the tip of theBluesStudying iceberg, so here are quick compelling stories for five moregreats.

November18: AmericanStudying the Blues: 21st Century Artists: The seriesconcludes with one telling song from five artists who are carrying thetradition into the 21st century.

November19-20: Sandra Hamilton’s Guest Post on the Blues in American Culture: AndI’m so excited to have Guest Posts from two FSU English Studies Majors thismonth, including this one from current student and future professional writerSandra Hamilton!

November20: Thankful for Scholarly Communities: Fitchburg State: For my annualThanks-giving series, I wanted to focus on scholarly communities for which I’mthankful, starting with two talks this Fall at my home institution of FSU.

November21: Thankful for Scholarly Communities: Freedom Over Fascism Podcast: TheThanks continue with a podcast to which I was excited to return for a secondconversation this Fall.

November22: Thankful for Scholarly Communities: 9 Online Conference: Virtualconferences have meant a great deal to me in the last few years, and I was veryproud to share my current book project with this conference on baseballhistory.

November23: Thankful for Scholarly Communities: Black in Boston & Beyond Podcast:The second scholarly podcast to which I made a return visit this Fall, as theseries thanks on.

November24: Thankful for Scholarly Communities: U of Buffalo’s English Department:I was honored to give a lecture this Fall for the University of Buffalo’sJuxtapositions series!

November25-26: My Biggest Thanks-giving: The series concludes with three of thecountless ways in which my scholarship (like my life in every sense) has beeninspired by my sons.

November27: Gun Control Histories: The Constitution and Framing Era: For the BradyBill’s 30th anniversary, a GunControlStudying series starts where ithas to start.

November28: Gun Control Histories: Myths, Realities, and the 2012 Election: Theseries continues with the developing gun lobby myths around guns in America.

November29: Gun Control Histories: Parkland: What wasn’t new at all and what definitelywas about a 2018 school shooting and its aftermaths, as the series rolls on.

November30: Gun Control Histories: The Brady Bill: For the 30thanniversary of its passage, six figures who together helped move that groundbreakinglegislation forward.

December1: Gun Control Histories: Jim Jefferies: The series concludes with two ofthe many great arguments in a comic case for gun control.

Nextseries starts Monday,

Ben

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

December 1, 2023: Gun Control Histories: Jim Jefferies

[30 yearsago this week, Congress passed the groundbreaking gun control legislation knownas the BradyBill. So this week I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of key moments andlayers to the debate over gun control and guns in American society, past andpresent!]

On two ofthe many great arguments in a comic case for gun control.

To mymind, one of the most persuasive (and definitely the funniest) cases for gun controlwas made by Australian stand-up comedian JimJefferies in his 2014Netflix special Bare (that’s Part1; here’s Part 2). Ifyou haven’t had a chance to watch that stellar extended bit, please check it outand then come on back if you would for a couple takeaways from among Jefferies’excellent arguments.  

Welcomeback! Perhaps the single most pointed (and likewise very funny, if in aparticularly Black Comedy kind of way) commentary on America’s epidemic of gun violenceis the headlineshared by The Onion after everymass shooting since 2014: “‘No way to prevent this,’ says only nation wherethis regularly happens.” Jefferies’ starting point in his gun control bit is anextended and inarguable version of the same point: that after a horrific1996 massacre in his native Australia, the country passed aggressive guncontrol legislation, and there have been no mass shootings there since. Ofcourse (as he also notes) the U.S. is not Australia, but here as well in thedecade after the 1994Assault Weapons Ban there were immeasurably fewermass shootings than there have been since that ban was allowed to expire in2004. We know full well, both from our own experiences and from those of othernations, that there are aggressive steps which can limit mass shootings; wejust, as Jefferies mockingly points out, aren’t taking them.

Jefferiesisn’t ultimately as interested in questions of national laws and policies,however, as he is in the ways that individuals make the case for unfettered gunownership. And to my mind, he uses his comedy to note one of the singleclearest hypocrisies in that case: that the pro-gun crowd claims to want theseweapons for protection, but that they likewise note that “responsible gunowners” keep their guns locked in a safe to prevent accidental shootings,especially by and toward children (a tragically commonexperience). “Then they’re not fucking protection!,” Jefferies exclaimsafter a pointed pause, in one of the single funniest and most accurate momentsI’ve found in any stand-up special. Followed closely by his recognition of theonly genuine argument that the pro-gun crowd can make in good faith: “Fuck off,I like guns.” I suppose it’s obvious enough from this week’s series that I donot like them; I know that’s partly a difference of preference, but I hope theseries has also illustrated the long history of national debates over guns andthe common welfare.

NovemberRecap this weekend,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Histories or contexts you’d highlight?