Benjamin A. Railton's Blog, page 9

July 8, 2025: Rock-y Groundbreakers: Chuck Berry and Little Richard

[On July 6, 1925, Bill Haley was born. So for thatcentennial I’ll share blog posts on Haley and other rock ‘n roll pioneers,leading up to a crowd-sourced weekend post featuring recent rock recs!]

On a pairof foundational icons whose stories represent some of the worst and best ofrock and race.

Lists area famously contested way to commemorate musical history, but also one of the mostcommon ways to do so—and for both reasons I have no qualms aboutstarting a post on Chuck Berry and Little Richard by noting that the pair ofmusical pioneers account for no less than nine of the top 27 rock and rollsongs of the 1950s per this (I’m sure quite authoritative and impossible todispute) list. And intruth, while that list and all lists might be made for good-natured disputes,there’s simply no arguing with the fact that we can’t narrate nor commemoratethe origins of rock and roll without a central place for Charles EdwardAnderson Berry (nicknamed the “Father of Rock & Roll”) andRichard Wayne Penniman (nicknamed “thearchitect of rock and roll”; a nickname perhaps bestowed by himself, butwhat’s more rock and roll than that?!). They’re far from the only ones, as Ihope this week’s series will make clear—but at the same time, if I were togoing to narrow it down to just two groundbreaking icons (there’s that listidea again), I think I’d have to go with Chuck and Richard.

While theyhave much in common, then, it’s fair to say that Chuck Berry and LittleRichard’s respective stories and arcs diverged quite a bit, and not just in theways that the careers and lives of any two distinct artists and individualsalways would. After dominating the charts, airwaves, and rock tours throughoutthe mid- to late-50s and into the early 60s, Berry’s career took a precipitousdecline in 1962 when he was chargedand convicted under the Mann Act and sentenced to three yearsin prison, an arrest and sentence that I can’t help but believe were tiedto the power structure’s racist fears of both Black sexuality and rock androll’s cross-cultural influences on young (white) people. To be clear, it seemsto be genuinely the case that Berry transported a minor with whom he was in asexual relationship across state lines, making him legally culpable under theMann Act; but I would note that just a few years earlier, in 1957, the whiterocker Jerry Lee Lewis had famously marrieda 13 year old (and his cousinto boot) and was to my knowledge never charged nor arrested, andcertainly never convicted nor jailed, for doing so. Moreover, after graduallyrebuilding his career, in 1979 Berry was once againsentenced to jail for doing something that numerous artistshave done and likely continue to do—getting paid in cash to avoid paying taxes.

WhileLittle Richard was not without his share of criticisms and controversies—manyalso related to issues of sex and sexuality, sinceRichard was a truly groundbreaking artist who consistently crossedboundaries around those issues, dress and appearance, and many relatedlayers of identity (although he also went through frustratinglyregressive periods)—he avoided any such legal challenges andmaintained his striking 1950s success throughout the subsequent 60+ years ofhis career and life. Moreover, Richard similarly and even more influentiallycrossed boundaries when it came to race and music, as exemplified not just bythe constant covers of his works by white peers (including Elvis Presley, who toldRichard in 1969 that he was “the greatest”), but also by his influences on TheBeatles—the group opened for Richard on some early 1960s tour dates, andRichard apparently taught Paul McCartney some of his vocalizations in theprocess. The history of rock and roll can’t be told without remembering theracism and double standards faced by artists like Chuck Berry—but at its heartI believe it’s a profoundly cross-cultural and boundary-crossing genre, and noone embodied those trends more than Little Richard.

Nextgroundbreaker tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatrecent rock would you recommend for the weekend post?

July 7, 2025: Rock-y Groundbreakers: Bill Haley

[On July 6, 1925, Bill Haley was born. So for thatcentennial I’ll share blog posts on Haley and other rock ‘n roll pioneers,leading up to a crowd-sourced weekend post featuring recent rock recs!]

On the limitsbut also the importance of mythology in the story of early rock ‘n roll.

Accordingto Haley’s Wikipedia page, the liner notes for BillHaley and His Comets’s 1955 albumRock Around the Clock (featuring the title sing, which reached #1 70years ago this week and fully established the artist and band at the forefrontof the emerging genre of rock ‘n roll) included an overtly mythologized accountof Haley’s ascent to stardom: “When Bill Haley was fifteen he left home withhis guitar and very little else and set out on the hard road to fame andfortune. The next few years, continuing this story in a fairy-tale manner, werehard and poverty-stricken, but crammed full of useful experience. Apart fromlearning how to exist on one meal a day and other artistic exercises, he workedat an open-air park show, sang and yodeled with any band that would have him,and worked with a traveling medicine show. Eventually he got a job with apopular group known as the 'Down Homers' while they were in Hartford,Connecticut. Soon after this he decided, as all successful people must decideat some time or another, to be his own boss again – and he has been that eversince.”

As thephrase “continuing this story in a fairy-tale manner” overtly indicates, this narrativeof Haley’s early career is far from exact (to put it mildly). To cite just oneparticularly striking contrast, Haley not only got steady work as a cowboy yodeler in the1940s (during his late teens and early twenties), but for much of that decadewas one of the nation’s most prominent and successful yodelers, performing underthe stage name “SilverYodeling Bill Haley.” He also fronted his own band during that time, TheFour Aces of Western Swing; perhaps that’s what the liner notes mean by “behis own boss again,” but saying that on the notes for a Comets record makes it seemas if it’s that 1950s band to which the phrase refers. Which is to say, Haley’sstory, like that of most artists who make it big, was a long-developing andmulti-stage process; and given that rock ‘n roll only really emerged in the1950s, it makes clear that his process and stages included genres and stylesquite different from the rocking one that he and His Comets would embody.

On theother hand, liner notes for a rock album aren’t necessarily intended to be ahighly detailed and precise biography—nor, indeed, would we want them to be.Just like an album cover or a music video (a medium not yet invented in 1955 ofcourse) or even a concert performance, those notes are part of the mythmaking,part of the ways in which artists and bands and songs and albums are made intosomething larger than life, presented to audiences as an entertainment that we’llwant (no, need) to experience. If that’s still true today (and I’d say itdefinitely is), it was significantly more true in the first years of rockmusic, when the genre was anything but a sure thing and its performers had toscratch and claw to create a foothold on the landscapes of music and popularculture. That Bill Haley and His Comets did so, and so successfully at that,isn’t just a reflection of their rockin’ hits (although they had a number ofthem to be sure)—it’s also an illustration of the importance of mythmaking.

Nextgroundbreaker tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatrecent rock would you recommend for the weekend post?

July 5-6, 2025: Keeping the Critical Patriotic Conversations Going!

[As theauthor of a book onthe contested history of American patriotism, every day of 2025 feels strikinglyrelevant. So for this year’s July 4th series, I wanted to share& expand on excerpts from that book that feature models of criticalpatriotism from across our history, leading up to this special post hoping forfurther conversations!]

I hopethat the excerpts from Of Thee I Sing: The Contested History of American Patriotismthat I’ve shared all week have not only highlighted that book’s profoundrelevance to our current moment, but have also made you excited to check outand talk about the whole project! If that’s the case, I wanted to make oneoffer and one request of y’all:

The offeris one I’ve made many times before but always mean, now more than ever: I havean electronic copy of the book’s proofs, and would always be happy to send it alongto anyone who’s interested. Feel free to leave a comment here or to email me (brailton@fitchburgstate.edu) andI’ll get the book to ya!

And the request,whether you ask for a copy or not, is if you can think of communities andaudiences with whom I could talk about the book—from students/classes to libraries/museumsto book clubs/organizations to podcasts to anything and everything class—I’dreally love to hear about them, and/or for you to reach out to them and keep meupdated (again, email works great). I believe this book and all that itincludes couldn’t be more present in our current moment, and I’d love thechance to talk about it at any and every point!

Nextseries starts Monday,

Ben

PS. Youknow what to do, and thanks in advance!

July 4, 2025: Models of Critical Patriotism: Thoreau

[As theauthor of a book onthe contested history of American patriotism, every day of 2025 feels strikinglyrelevant. So for this year’s July 4th series, I wanted to share& expand on excerpts from that book that feature models of criticalpatriotism from across our history, leading up to a weekend request for furtherconversations!]

On two interconnectedtexts through which the naturalist and activist embodied critical patriotism.

The bookexcerpt: “[Ralph Waldo] Emerson’s Concord neighbor, friend, and protégé, theauthor and naturalist Henry David Thoreau(1817–1862), expressed in one of his most prominent actions and works adistinct and more critical form of active patriotism. In late July 1846, whenhe was about a year into what would be a two-year sojourn in his cabin at WaldenPond, Thoreau happened to meet Concord’s tax collector, SamStaples. Staples asked Thoreau to pay unpaid poll taxes, and he refused,citing his opposition to both the Mexican American War and the concurrentextension of slavery into new American territories, themselves two directreflections of the violent and divisive effects of myths of Manifest Destinyand national expansion. Thoreau would spend a night in the Concord jail beforea family member paid the tax against his wishes, and he turned that experienceinto the source for two interconnected texts: his January and February 1848lecture series “The Rights and Duties of the Individual in Relation toGovernment,” delivered at the Concord Lyceum; and his 1849 essay “Resistance to Civil Government,”published by his fellow Transcendentalist and reformer Elizabeth Peabody in aMay 1849 collection entitled Aesthetic Papers and posthumouslyre-published under its more well-known name “CivilDisobedience.”

In thatessay, Thoreau advances a clear argument about the active patriotic duty ofeach American if the nation is to move closer toward its ideals. “To speakpractically, and as a citizen, …I ask for, not at once no government, but atonce a better government. Let every man make known what kind of governmentwould command his respect, and that will be one step toward obtaining it”(Thoreau’s emphasis). He connects that argument to an alternative, stillcelebratory but more active account of the “Revolution of ’75” and its legaciesin his own moment, noting that “I think it is not too soon for honest men torebel and revolutionize.” And he ends with a critical patriotic vision of anAmerican government and community that lives up to the founding celebrations ofliberty and equality, writing, “I please myself with imagining a State at leastwhich can afford to be just to all men.” Thoreau’s active patriotism, expressedin this essay and embodied throughout his tragically short life, weds theTranscendental emphases on the individual and the unfolding present to anargument that it is the expansion of justice and equality to all Americans,rather than the expansion of the nation’s territory, which should be America’smanifest destiny.”

Earlierthis year, for a Patriots’ Day installment of my Saturday Evening PostConsidering History column, I connected those Thoreau moments and texts toanother even more overtly critical patriotic one, and the reason why I’msharing this particular post on July 4th: Thoreau’s speech “Slaveryin Massachusetts,” delivered at a July 4th, 1854 anti-slavery rallyin Framingham, Massachusetts (and inspired by the AnthonyBurns saga from earlier that year) and then turned into apublished essay later that year. Thoreau’s culminating, impassionedcontrast of the Burns case with Patriots’ Day celebrations at Lexington andConcord—“As if those three millions had fought for the right to be freethemselves, but to hold in slavery three million others”—makes for a perfectcomplement to another critical patriotic speech I’ve writtenabout often in this space, Frederick Douglass’s “Whatto the Slave is the 4th of July?” (1852). Two authors andactivists, and a number of interconnected texts of theirs, that can serve asexemplary models of critical patriotism, on this holiday and every day.  

Specialpost this weekend,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Models of patriotism you’d share?

July 3, 2025: Models of Critical Patriotism: Carlos Bulosan

[As theauthor of a book onthe contested history of American patriotism, every day of 2025 feels strikinglyrelevant. So for this year’s July 4th series, I wanted to share& expand on excerpts from that book that feature models of criticalpatriotism from across our history, leading up to a weekend request for furtherconversations!]

On one ofour most poetic and powerful patriotic passages.

The bookexcerpt: “While the Joads [in John Steinbeck’s novel TheGrapes of Wrath] experience some of the worst of the period’soppressions and destructions, the Filipino immigrant, migrant laborer, andauthor CarlosBulosan (1913–1956) experienced those and much more besides. Bulosan immigratedto the United States in 1930 at the age of 16, and for the next decade workedas a migrant laborer throughout the Western U.S., witnessing not only theeconomic and social hierarchies and divisions that Steinbeck depicts, but theera’s exclusionary prejudice and violence targeting Filipino Americans,including constant police brutality, outbreaks of racial terrorism such as the 1930Watsonville, (California) massacre, and legal discriminations such as the1934 Tydings-McDuffieAct and 1935 FilipinoRepatriation Act. As I trace in my book Wethe People, those anti-Filipino exclusions were a defining element ofearly 20th century America, and reflect the ways in which the Depression’smyths affected immigrant and minority communities with especial force.

Bulosandocuments all those exclusions and horrors in depth and with graphic detail inhis first book, the autobiographical novel Americais in the Heart (1946). But from its title on, that stunning workoffers a critical patriotic perspective, one that refuses to turn away from allthat Bulosan has experienced and witnessed yet likewise refuses to abandon hisfundamental belief in America’s community and ideals. In the book’s finallines, he expresses that vision of the nation with particular clarity andpower: “It was something that grew out of the sacrifices and loneliness of myfriends, of my brothers in America and my family in the Philippines—somethingthat grew out of our desire to know America, and to become a part of her greattradition, and to contribute something toward her final fulfillment. I knewthat no man could destroy my faith in America that had sprung from all ourhopes and aspirations, ever” (Bulosan’s emphasis). That final “our” isto my mind intentionally ambiguous, encompassing not only Bulosan’s family andcultural community, but all those Americans whose struggles and hopesconstitute the idealized nation that he, like [John] Dos Passos and Steinbeck,imagines and contributes to.”

I’m not goingto pretend I can follow up with anything that will be as eloquent as whatBulosan already wrote there, but I do want to add one thing to my own analysisof that beautiful closing passage. I really love that Bulosan links not onlyhis “brothers in America” (by which he means his actual brothers, but of coursealso the broader Filipino American community) but also his “family in thePhilippines” (by which ditto on both levels) to this process of knowing, becomingpart, and contributing to America’s community, tradition, and finalfulfillment. Far too often, even those of us who fully support the equal placeof immigrant communities in the United States act as if it is only those folksin the U.S. who are part of that national identity. But the truth, as anyonewith any experience of immigration in any way knows well, is that thesefamilies and communities and cultures maintain global connections, and thusmake them part of our American story and identity as well. Making that case, asBulosan does quickly but potently, is a profoundly critical patrioticperspective.

Lastpatriotic model tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Models of patriotism you’d share?

July 2, 2025: Models of Critical Patriotism: Standing Bear

[As theauthor of a book onthe contested history of American patriotism, every day of 2025 feels strikinglyrelevant. So for this year’s July 4th series, I wanted to share& expand on excerpts from that book that feature models of criticalpatriotism from across our history, leading up to a weekend request for furtherconversations!]

On two 2025takeaways from one of our most important and inspiring court rulings.

The book excerpt:“[HelenHunt] Jackson experienced her own version of that shift in understandingtoward justice for Native Americans, as she was brought into the cause afterhearing a speech by the Ponca chief turned civil rights activist Standing Bear (Mantcunanjin;c. 1829–1908). Standing Bear’s Ponca tribe had been removed from their Nebraskahomeland to “Indian Territory” (modern-day Oklahoma) in 1877, after decades ofconflicts with white settlers and the U.S. army; when Standing Bear attemptedto return to that homeland in order to bury his son, who had passed away fromstarvation in that hostile new setting, he was arrested by General George Crookfor having left the reservation. With the help of SusetteLaFlesche, an Omaha Native American interpreter, and her husband ThomasTibbles, a journalist and reformer, Standing Bear sued for a writ of habeascorpus. The StandingBear v. Crook trial (1879) represented the first time a Native Americanwas allowed to advocate for his rights in a court of law, and Standing Beartook advantage of the opportunity, delivering a critical patriotic final speechin which he both defined himself as part of a national community and appealeddirectly to the judge’s commitment to American ideals: “[My] hand is not thecolor of yours, but if I prick it, the blood will flow, and I shall feel pain.The blood is of the same color as yours. God made me, and I am a man…I see thelight of the world and of liberty just ahead…But in the center of the paththere stands a man…If that man gives me the permission, I may pass on to lifeand liberty. If he refuses, I must go back and sink beneath the flood…You arethat man.” JudgeElmer Dundy ruled in Standing Bear’s favor, establishing as precedent thatNative Americans were entitled to full legal personhood and thus civil rightsunder the law; in his decision the judge also symbolically and crucially linkedNative Americans to founding American ideals, writing that they “have theinalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” It was acrucial victory, and one that, like Standing Bear’s voice and advocacy, wouldfor years to come shiftAmerican conversations as well as influence activists like Jackson.”

In his 1776pamphlet Common Sense, Tom Paine wrote that “in America the law isking. For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries thelaw ought to be King; and there ought to be no other.” In this firstyear of the second Trump administration, we’ve seen a president and his supporters(and, perhaps worst of all, his Congressional enablers) push, far further thanin any prior moment in post-Revolutionary American history, toward a genuinelyand horrifyingly monarchical chief executive—which has meant and will continueto mean that one of the central means of resistance to those forces has to beprecisely what Paine identified, the law. And that, in turn, means that we mustdepend on judges to make decisions that both follow and enforce the law and atthe same time embody our ideals—not an easy combination, as of course too oftenour laws have fallen far short of our ideals; but still a crucial goal, and onethat Judge Dundy’s 1879 ruling exemplifies as well as any judicial figure anddecision ever have.

Butimportant and inspiring as Judge Dundy was in that moment, he was nonetheless thesecond most important and inspiring voice at that trial (a point with which Iknow he would fully agree). StandingBear’s statement, including but not limited to the above quoted section, isnot just one of the most eloquent ever expressed in a courtroom; it’s also a reminderthat one of the reasons our founding and Constitutionalright to a trial by jury is so crucial is that it gives every American thechance to express their own voice and perspective, to advocate for themselvesand their equality under the law. Which is why one of the most monarchical andhorrifying policies of the 2nd Trump administration has been thekidnapping and human trafficking of Americans without allowing them this rightand opportunity—and for anyone who would respond that the right and opportunityis afforded only to citizens, I would note that Standing Bear was not a U.S.citizen, and thank Law he still got the chance to share his voice and make hiscase.

Nextpatriotic model tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Models of patriotism you’d share?

July 1, 2025: Models of Critical Patriotism: David Walker

[As theauthor of abook on the contested history of American patriotism, every day of 2025feels strikingly relevant. So for this year’s July 4th series, Iwanted to share & expand on excerpts from that book that feature models ofcritical patriotism from across our history, leading up to a weekend request forfurther conversations!]

On a fierywork and voice that exemplify the “critical” in critical patriotism.

The bookexcerpt: “In the same year that [William] Apesspublished his autobiography, another young Bostonian firebrand launched hisown critical patriotic broadside against American myths and exclusions. DavidWalker (1796–1830) was born in Wilmington, North Carolina to an enslavedfather (who died before his birth) and a free mother, making him legally freebut deeply tied to and affected by the system of slavery. As an adult he movedto Charleston, South Carolina and then Philadelphia, joining the groundbreakingAfrican Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in both cities, before settling in themid-1820s in Boston’s BeaconHill neighborhood, a haven for free African Americans. He became over thenext few years a leading voice, in that Bostonian community and throughout theNorth, for abolitionism, civil rights, and the development of a thrivingcommercial and social scene for the African American community, such as in hisrole as a contributor to the nation’s first black-owned newspaper, Freedom’sJournal. And in September 1829 he published a book, Walker’sAppeal, in Four Articles; Together with a Preamble, to the Colored Citizens ofthe World, but in Particular, and Very Expressly, to Those of the United Statesof America.

As thatlong title indicates, Walker directly modeled his Appeal upon theU.S. Constitution, beginning with a Preamble and moving through four Articles.In many ways the book embodies the critical side of critical patriotism, layingout the case for Walker’s opening assertion, offered to his “Dearly belovedBrethren and Fellow Citizens,” that “we (colored people of the United States)are the most degraded, wretched, and abject set of beings that ever lived sincethe world began.” The Articles trace four root causes of that state, fourinterconnected forms of oppression and exclusion that Walker demands that allAmericans face head on; he does so in a style that combines passion,exemplified by his frequent capitalizations, italics, and exclamation points, withnuanced logic and argumentation. But the very creation of his text, as well asits direct parallels to the Constitution, embodies a critical patrioticchallenge to the nation’s celebratory and mythic ideals. And in his conclusionWalker takes that work one step further, quoting at length the opening of theDeclaration of Independence and then exclaiming, “See your DeclarationAmericans!!! Do you understand your own language?”

As thosebrief quotations from Walker’s book illustrate, his is one of the most extreme (if,as I hope would go without saying, entirely justified and righteous) voices Iinclude in the book and in my category of critical patriotism. While thecritical patriotism of a contemporary and fellow firebrand like WilliamApess leaned a bit more into unity and love, that is (not surprisinglygiven Apess’s work as atraveling Christian minister), David Walker’s variety most definitelyemphasized the “critical.” Such voices and perspectives can be harder foraudiences to hear, especially our frustratingly fragile white American audiences(then and now), leading all too easily to dismissals of “angryBlack men” and the like. But an important goal of my book’s tracing of thehistory of critical patriotism is to push us past such knee-jerk reactions andtoward a collective conversation about what these voices can help us to see andengage in our shared histories—and if we can’t hear hard truths about ournation, past and present, then we can’t say we truly love it either.

Nextpatriotic model tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Models of patriotism you’d share?

June 30, 2025: Models of Critical Patriotism: Hannah Griffitts

[As theauthor of abook on the contested history of American patriotism, every day of 2025feels strikingly relevant. So for this year’s July 4th series, Iwanted to share & expand on excerpts from that book that feature models ofcritical patriotism from across our history, leading up to a weekend request forfurther conversations!]

On aRevolutionary poem that models multiple patriotic perspectives.

First, thebook excerpt: “[Annis Boudinot] Stockton’s Mid-AtlanticWriting Circle colleague HannahGriffitts (1727– 1817), a Philadelphia Quaker who contributed dozens ofpoems to her cousin MilcahMartha Moore’s voluminous commonplace book, linked feminism to incipientrevolutionary patriotism even more clearly in her 1768 poem “The Female Patriots.”Griffitts opens with a complaint about the lack of patriotic activism from hercommunity’s men, who, “supinely asleep, & deprived of their Sight/Arestripped of their Freedom, and robbed of their Right.” She then argues for theneed for her titular female patriots to take up that cause: “If the Sons (sodegenerate) the Blessing despise,/Let the Daughters of Liberty, nobly arise.”She admits that in traditional political terms “we’ve no Voice,” but makes thecase for the boycotting of English goods as a key way these female patriots cannonetheless take action: “As American Patriots, our Taste we deny”; and so “ratherthan Freedom, we’ll part with our Tea.” And she ends by highlighting thebroader revolutionary effects of not only such boycotts, but also her own poemand writing: “a motive more worthy our patriot Pen,/Thus acting—we point outtheir Duty to Men.” By expressing and enacting their female patriotism, then,Griffitts and her peers likewise offer a feminist critical patrioticperspective on the frustrating, counter-productive absence of women from thesepublic debates.”

That lastpoint is without doubt my favorite thing about Griffitts’s unique and engagingpoem. I’ve written a good bit, inthis space and elsewhere, aboutAbigailAdams’s request to her husband John that he and his fellow Framers “Rememberthe Ladies,” lest those ladies “foment a Rebellion” of their own. I like Adams’sletter a lot, and especially love that idea of a potential further revolutionfrom American women (something I focus on a good bit in the section of my bookfrom which the above excerpt is drawn). But in truth, Adams kept herperspective more or less private, and so it’s really published, public writers fromthe period like Griffitts, Annis Stockton, and others (including one of myfavorite Americans, JudithSargent Murray) who modeled female patriotism in both their words and deeds.One of the most important effects of broadening our definition of Americanpatriotism—perhaps my book’s most central goal—is that it can allow us to betterremember impressive and inspiring figures, texts, communities, and events beyondthe familiar refrains, and I don’t think that’s more true of any Americanmoment than these Revolutionary women writers.

Griffitts’spoem also models a second form of American patriotism from my book’s fourcategories: active patriotism. I define active patriotism as service andsacrifice in order to push the nation closer to its ideals, and I don’t know ofany single line that sums up that concept better than Griffitts’s “rather thanFreedom, we’ll part with our tea.” I know the line, like the poem overall, is abit tongue-in-cheek (and delightfully so); but at the same time, there’s nodoubt that giving up comforts is one of the more challenging sacrifices we canmake, especially during difficult times when we need those comforts more thanever. I’ve been inspired by many such collective sacrifices during this fraughtfirst half of 2025, illustrated nicely by theTarget boycott (in which my wife and I took part) among many others. Thisform of active patriotism can be easily overlooked but is one of the mostgenuinely collective things we can do as a community, and one potently modeledby Hannah Griffitts’s “The Female Patriots.”

Nextpatriotic model tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Models of patriotism you’d share?

June 28-29, 2025: June 2025 Recap

[A Recapof the month that was in AmericanStudying.]

June2: GraduationStudying: George Moses Horton’s Poem: A series inspired by myyounger son Kyle’s high school graduation kicks off with the layers behind adeceptively simple poem.

June3: GraduationStudying: Crummell and Douglass’s Debate: The series continueswith an impromptu graduation day debate that exemplifies one of our mostcomplex and crucial questions.

June4: GraduationStudying: Du Bois’s Speech: Two lessons from one of myfavorite speeches by my favorite American, as the series commences on.

June5: GraduationStudying: The Graduate: One aspect of the iconic 1967 filmthat hasn’t aged well, and two that still feel very relevant.

June6: GraduationStudying: That Suncreen Speech: The series concludes withthree stand-out quotes from Mary Schmich’s famous 1997 advice for graduates.

June7-8: What’s Next for Kyle: And a follow-up update on what’s next for myfavorite recent graduate!

June9: Revolutionary War Figures: Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys: Inhonor of the Continental Army’s 250th birthday, a Revolutionary Warseries kicks off with the less than noble side to a folk hero.

June10: Revolutionary War Figures: Molly Pitcher: The series continues with whythe iconic hero who might not have existed still matters.

June11: Revolutionary War Figures: The “Black Regiment”: Three telling detailsabout the Continental Army’s longstanding African American regiment, as theseries fights on.

June12: Revolutionary War Figures: Benedict Arnold: The benefits andlimitations to remembering our most infamous traitor the way that we do.

June13: Revolutionary War Figures: YA Novels: The series concludes with three groundbreakinghistorical novels that reflect the evolution of YA literature as well as ourRevolutionary memories.

June14-15: Revolutionary War Figures: The Continental Army: For the ContinentalArmy’s 250th, a special post featuring three details about itsformation and evolution.

June16: American Nazis: Madison Square Garden: For the 80thanniversary of Operation Paperclip, a series on Nazis in America kicks off withan infamous 1939 event.

June17: American Nazis: Ford, Lindbergh, and Coughlin: The series continueswith three famous figures who reflect the breadth and depth of American Nazism.

June18: American Nazis: The Plot Against America: Three telling and compellinglayers to Philip Roth’s 2004 novel, as the series marches on.

June19: American Nazis: Wernher von Braun: Three striking lines from Tom Lehrer’ssatirical song about the Nazi turned American scientist.

June20: American Nazis: Neo-Nazis and Charlottesville: The series concludeswith how we can respond to a resurgent Neo-Nazi movement.

June21-22: American Nazis: Project Paperclip and Hunters: A special weekendpost on one of our best cultural representations of Operation Paperclip andNazis in America.

June23: Sound in Film: Vitaphone’s Anniversary: A series on the 100thanniversary of a groundbreaking cinematic technology kicks off with contextsfor that pioneering moment.

June24: Sound in Film: Al Jolson: The series continues with how the firstspoken dialogue in an American film reflects some of our worst and best.

June25: Sound in Film: Mid-Century Evolutions: How two films and one genre reflectthe changing landscape of film sounds, as the series talks on.

June26: Sound in Film: Dialogue Dubbing: Revealing one of film’s hiddenhistories through three characters whose dialogue was dubbed by a differentperformer.

June27: Sound in Film: Meaningful Music: The series concludes with a link to awonderful piece from FilmStudier Vaughn Joy on how one iconic film uses music.

Nextseries starts Monday,

Ben

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

June 27, 2025: Sound in Film: Meaningful Music

[100 yearsago this week, the brothersHarry and Sam Warner struck a deal with Bell Labs to use theirinnovative Vitaphonetechnology in the production of the first sound films for Warner Brothers.So this week I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of contexts for talking pictures!]

I’m goingto hand off this last post in my sound in film series to my favorite currentFilmStudier, the awesome VaughnJoy. Earlier this year for her weekly Review Roulette newsletter, Vaughnfocused her reviewof White Men Can’t Jump (1992) on the film’s unique and vital use ofboth soundtrack and score. I couldn’t say it any better about the role of theseelements of sound in film, so I hope you’ll check out Vaughn’s review to roundoff the week’s series!

June Recapthis weekend,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Examples of sound in film you’d highlight?