Benjamin A. Railton's Blog, page 93

October 26, 2022: PBS People: LeVar Burton

[October 29th would have been the iconic Bob Ross’ 80th birthday. So this week I’ll AmericanStudy Ross and four other figures who have helped make PBS the cultural and educational force it is!]

On why the host of another iconic PBS show was as important as the content.

The first two posts in this series have focused on figures connected to the two longest-running PBS children’s shows, Sesame Street and Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood; the third longest-running was Reading Rainbow, which aired from July 1983 to November 2006 (and has since been reborn as a very successful app). I’m not sure how many of those episodes this young AmericanStudier actually watched—ours wasn’t a household where the TV was on every afternoon after school by any means—but it was enough that the phrase “If you want to know the rest, read the book!” has become thoroughly ingrained in my consciousness (and has made it onto this blog at least once and into my teaching way more than that). Obviously for the voracious young reader that I was (I may have been known, and indeed known all too well, to wander the halls of my middle and high school with my nose in a book), it was the books at the center of Reading Rainbow that made it so memorable. But in looking back, I think nothing about Reading Rainbow was more memorable and meaningful than the show’s host (and executive producer), LeVar Burton.

Burton had been acting in films and TV shows for nearly a decade by the time he landed the Reading Rainbow gig, and would continue to do so throughout his run as host; probably his best-known role, as Geordi on Star Trek: The Next Generation(1987-1994), not only coincided with some of the early years of Rainbow but was even featured on an episodeof the PBS show! But while Geordi might be Burton’s most prominent role, as is often the case when even the most established actors venture into the Star Trek universe, it was definitely not his most influential: that title would have to go to just his second screen performance, as the young Kunta Kinte in the TV miniseries Roots (based on Alex Haley’s 1976 book of the same name). Roots debuted in 1977, when Burton was just 20 years old, and he would be nominated for an Emmy for his compelling performance as the lead character in that sweeping, multi-generational, historical and historic, truly groundbreaking and important cultural work. In an era when we’ve finally started to see a wide variety of cultural representations of slavery (and many other too-long-underrepresented histories), it might be difficult to recognize just how significant Roots was in the 1970s (and into the 80s and 90s). But it was, and Burton was at the heart of it.

That is of course an argument for remembering Burton well beyond Reading Rainbow (or Star Trek, for that matter). But it’s also an argument for kind of the opposite point: that the choice of Burton in 1983 (just six years after Roots) to host Reading Rainbow, to serve as the face of this iconic educational show for children everywhere, was a genuinely striking and impressive one. Again, it can be hard to look back on that moment without our hindsight being affected by just how beloved Burton became and remains (just note the huge, viral campaign to make him the new host of Jeopardy!after Alex Trebek passed away in November 2020). But in 1983, he was simply an African American actor, best known for his role in the most prominent cultural representation of slavery specifically and African American history more broadly (at least if we set aside really, really problematic ones like Gone with the Wind) that had yet aired in the United States. The choice of that actor and performer, that artistic figure, to host a PBS children’s show about the importance and pleasures of reading was, to my mind, one of the most inspiringly inclusive in TV history, and one that clearly has echoed into the four decades since.

Next PBS person tomorrow,

Ben

PS. What do you think? Other PBS people or shows you’d highlight?

October 25, 2022: PBS People: Jim Henson

[October 29th would have been the iconic Bob Ross’ 80th birthday. So this week I’ll AmericanStudy Ross and four other figures who have helped make PBS the cultural and educational force it is!]

On why it’s absolutely right, but not nearly enough, to connect the groundbreaking puppeteer to PBS.

It’s important to note off the top that both Jim Henson as a professional puppeteer and artist and the Muppets as a cast of puppet characters long predate Sesame Street. Henson and his wife and longtime creative partner Jane (Nebel) Henson created the Muppets as early as 1955, and throughout the 1960s brought them and other Henson puppets and creations into TV commercials, talk show appearances, and award-winning short films among other arenas. I think I might have said before learning more about it that Sesame Street helped launch the careers of Henson and the Muppets, but it seems more accurate to say that things worked the other way around—Henson and the Muppets alike had at least begun to establish themselves in the TV and entertainment industries by the time the PBS show debuted in 1969, and it was more of a coup for the show that they were able to land Henson as a contributor and his puppets as a key presence.

In any case, land him they did, and it’s difficult to overstate the central role that Henson’s puppets played in Sesame Street’s foundational and groundbreaking success as a children’s educational entertainment. (Or even in the entirety of PBS as a network: when Henson passed away in 1990 [at the tragically young age of 53], a PBS spokesperson called him “the spark that ignited our fledgling broadcast service.”) It’s not just that individual Henson creations, puppets, and characters like Grover, Cookie Monster, Bert and Ernie, Oscar the Grouch, and Big Bird became so immediately and completely synonymous with the show, although they did and have remained so for the subsequent half-century. It’s also, and I would say especially, the way that the puppet and human characters and performers interacted and gelled so effortlessly in the show’s storytelling and settings, a creative and artistic achievement that also importantly reflected and amplified the show’s central messages of inclusion and community, of this literal and figurative street where so much difference came together into one family. Sesame Street was the product of many talented creators and artists, but I think it’s fair to say that there’s no way to tell the story of the show that doesn’t foreground Henson and his creations.

But at the same time, there’s no way to tell the story of Henson that doesn’t go way beyond Sesame Street—not only because of that decade-plus of origins and evolution prior to the show, but also and especially because of how quickly and fully he and his team began to move beyond it. As early as 1975 Henson was contributing characters and sketches to Saturday Night Live, as well as pitching his own weekly television series, The Muppet Show, which began airing in the UK in 1976; in 1979, his hugely successful first theatrical film, The Muppet Movie, hit theaters; and in 1979-80 he worked with George Lucas on the character of Yoda in The Empire Strikes Back (1980; Henson also suggested his friend Frank Oz to be the puppeteer and voice for Yoda). Those were of course just a few steps and areas into which Henson, the Muppets, and other creations of his would continue moving, including countless more Muppet movies, standalone films like The Dark Crystal (1982, co-directed with Oz) and Labyrinth (1986, directed by Henson), organizations like The Jim Henson Foundation and Henson International Television, and many other projects. While someone like yesterday’s subject Fred Rogers remained closely linked to PBS throughout his career, Jim Henson intertwined with just about every layer of American pop culture and society in his tragically brief but hugely influential life.

Next PBS person tomorrow,

Ben

PS. What do you think? Other PBS people or shows you’d highlight?

October 24, 2022: PBS People: Fred Rogers

[October 29th would have been the iconic Bob Ross’ 80th birthday. So this week I’ll AmericanStudy Ross and four other figures who have helped make PBS the cultural and educational force it is!]

On why niceness isn’t limiting, but why it’s also not everything.

I greatly enjoyed the film A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019)—not surprisingly, as two of its main stars are two of my very favorite actors of all time, Matthew Rhys and Chris Cooper—and was particularly interested in two of its interconnected main points: that Fred Rogers (a typically wonderful Tom Hanks) is indeed as fundamentally and genuinely nice as he seems, and that that niceness is more or less a superpower. Rhys’ cynical journalist Lloyd Vogel (based loosely on Tom Junod, from whose 1998 article “Can You Say … Hero?” the film was adapted) is constantly looking for a meanness or darkness beneath Rogers’ niceness, and the film’s ultimate argument is two-fold: that Rogers is in reality precisely as nice as he seems on his multi-decade, meta-hit PBS show Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, if not somehow even nicer still; and that his niceness is able to powerfully and vitally affect even a deeply troubled and disenchanted person like Lloyd. That might sound profoundly treacly, but while the film occasionally ventures into that territory, I think the tremendous talents of its performers (and its director Marielle Heller) keep it on the right side of that equation.

Interestingly enough, one of the most famous moments from Rogers’ TV show likewise reflects the genuine and striking power of niceness, on multiple levels. In the episode which aired May 2nd, 1969, Rogers asked his friend, the Black policeman Officer Clemmons (played by François Clemmons), if he wanted to dip his feet in a wading pool on a hot day; when Clemmons did so, his bare feet next to Rogers’ in the small pool, this simple, kind gesture became an overt statement against the moment’s continued racial segregation (which included swimming pools in a central and symbolic way). It was, as Clemmons later reflected, Rogers’ “way of speaking about race relations in America.” But Rogers himself apparently also had to learn from that ideal of welcoming kindness, as he was initially somewhat less supportive of Clemmons’ identity as a gay man—but when they recreated the scenein Clemmons’ final appearance in 1993, Rogers extended the kindness yet further, allowing Clemmons to sing “Many Ways to Say I Love You” and then drying Clemmons’ feet with his towel.

So niceness can open a lot of doors, in our own hearts as well as in society. But it isn’t always enough, nor necessarily the right response to a particular problem, a reality that Fred Rogers likewise reflected in one of his most famous public moments. In 1990, Rogers and his team discovered that a Missouri chapter of the Ku Klux Klan was imitating his voice in phone messages seeking to convert young people to their racist and hateful messages, and he immediately took action, successfully suing to stop the Klan from appropriating him in this way. Of course it stands to reason that Rogers would oppose the Klan, but my point here is that he didn’t try to kill them with kindness, nor (for example) just to make an appeal on air for his audiences (young and old alike) to resist such hate. No, Rogers swiftly and, I would say at least, aggressively used the power of the law and of his (by this time) extremely well-connected organization to stop this hate group. I’ve thought a lot about the limits of inclusion over the last few years, and I believe Rogers would agree with me that, when it comes to domestic terrorists like the KKK, we quite simply don’t want them to be our neighbors.

Next PBS person tomorrow,

Ben

PS. What do you think? Other PBS people or shows you’d highlight?

October 22-23, 2022: HUAC and McCarthyism in Pop Culture

[75 years ago, the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA), usually referred to instead as the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), built on its new status as a standing committee in the US House of Representatives and held its first trials. So this week I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of layers to that controversial committee and its influences and legacies, leading up to a weekend post on pop culture representations!]

On two novels and four films that represent different sides to these fraught histories.

1)      The Book of Daniel (1971) and The Public Burning (1977): I wrote at length about E.L. Doctorow and Robert Coover’s Rosenberg-inspired historical novels, and a little bit about Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, in this post—here I’ll just add that historical fiction is a particularly apt genre to explore these themes, as of course questions of truth and fiction, history and story, narratives and audiences could not be more central to any events and issues.

2)      The Front (1976): The Front is probably best remembered as the last time Woody Allen acted in someone else’s film, before the mega-success of Annie Hall (1977) made him a full-time filmmaker (and actor in many of his own films). He does give a compelling tragicomic performance as the titular front, a small-time 1950s bookie enlisted by a blacklisted friend to pretend that the friend’s TV scripts are his own. But the film is far more noteworthy as a collaboration between a number of formerly blacklisted artists, including screenwriter Walter Bernstein, director Martin Ritt, and actor Zero Mostel among others.

3)      The Majestic (2001): Director Frank Darabont clearly set out to make a deliberately Capra-esque film with this historical melodrama about McCarthyism and the movies, and Jim Carrey, while demonstrating (for one of the first times) that he had acting chops beyond his silly comedies to that point, was no Jimmy Stewart. But I do really like the way the film’s mistaken identity plot creates a clear parallel between a World War II hero and a blacklisted artist, helping us think about active and critical patriotism in direct conversation.

4)      Good Night, and Good Luck (2005): Speaking of critical patriotism, few 20th century figures demonstrated that concept more potently than did Edward R. Murrow, never more so than in his vocal opposition to Senator Joseph McCarthy. George Clooney made that moment and man the focus of his directorial debut, with the great David Straithairn giving one of his countless stellar performances as Murrow. This is quite simply one of the best American films of the 21st century, and a vital cultural representation of the McCarthy era to boot.

5)      Trumbo (2015): I haven’t had a chance to see Jay Roach’s 2015 film, based on Bruce Alexander Cook’s biography Trumbo(1976) and starring Bryan Cranston as the blacklisted screenwriter, and I welcome reviews in comments! I’ll just say that I hope the week’s series has made clear how many compelling stories, both individual and collective, are linked to this fraught and telling historical period. I look forward to more pop culture storytelling, and yes more public scholarly blogging, about it!

Next series starts Monday,

Ben

PS. What do you think? Other pop culture representations, and/or other histories or contexts, you’d highlight?

October 21, 2022: HUAC Histories: The Final Years

[75 years ago, the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA), usually referred to instead as the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), built on its new status as a standing committee in the US House of Representatives and held its first trials. So this week I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of layers to that controversial committee and its influences and legacies, leading up to a weekend post on pop culture representations!]

If you’re like I was until researching this series, you didn’t know that HUAC continued to exist until 1975 (the last few years under a new name, the House Committee on Internal Security). So here are three telling moments from its post-blacklist decade and a half:

1)      San Francisco in 1960: If Dalton Trumbo’s screenwriting credit for Spartacusrepresented one 1960 crack in HUAC’s armor, another would have to be the clusterfuck that took place in San Francisco in May of that year. HUAC was holding hearings at City Hall, and students from local universities protested outside; city police officers fire-hosed those students and dragged them down the building’s marble steps, injuring many and creating a full-scale riot in the process. Among the many voices who called out this excessive and brutal response was William Mandel, a prominent journalist who had been subpoenaed to testify before those hearings; his angry denunciations of the police and HUAC alike became well-known throughout the country and helped truly turn the tide against the committee in public consciousness (not unlike the “Have you no sense of decency?” McCarthy moment).

2)      Operation Abolition and Operation Correction: In an effort to combat those changing public perspectives, HUAC released an anti-Communist propaganda film, Operation Abolition, which attempted to reframe the May riot and which the committee screened around the country in 1960 and 61. But exemplifying the shifts in HUAC’s authority and power in this moment was a counter-film, Operation Correction; made by the Northern California ACLU and featuring commentary from that organization’s amazing Executive Director Ernest Besig, this film overtly highlighted and countered misrepresentations and falsehoods in Operation Abolition. There’s no way to know which of these films was more effective or influential for particular audiences (or all Americans, for that matter)—but I would argue that the immediate existence of the alternative film reflects in any case HUAC’s far more contested and challenged presence post-1960.

3)      The Yippies: HUAC continued holding hearings over the next decade, but the tone and tenor of those hearings had likewise changed, becoming much more consistently a circus. That shift is illustrated succinctly by the 1967-68 hearings involving the leftist counter-culture community known as the Yippies; HUAC subpoenaed leaders such as Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman, and those figures took advantage of the occasion to poke significant fun at the committee itself: dressing in costumes, blowing bubble gum bubbles, making mock Nazi salutes, etc. In a particularly telling moment, Hoffman arrived wearing an outfit made of an American flag; when he was arrested, he joked at his trial, “I regret that I have but one shirt to give for my country.” HUAC would continue (under the new name in a failed attempt to change the narratives once more) for another handful of years after those moments, but the writing was most definitely on the wall.

Special weekend post tomorrow,

Ben

PS. What do you think? Other histories or contexts you’d highlight?

October 20, 2022: HUAC Histories: McCarthy and Mythic Patriotism

[75 years ago, the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA), usually referred to instead as the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), built on its new status as a standing committee in the US House of Representatives and held its first trials. So this week I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of layers to that controversial committee and its influences and legacies, leading up to a weekend post on pop culture representations!]

An excerpt from Of Thee I Sing that highlights how HUAC and (especially) Joe McCarthy embodied the worst of mythic patriotism.

“Both the Depression and World War II eras’ fears of anti-American radi­cals, movements, and communities likewise extended into the post-war mo­ment in an even more prominent and overarching way, with the emergence of the hugely influential, mythic perspective expressed and embodied by Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy. Despite McCarthy’s central role in perpetuating and amplifying those myths, it’s important to note that another vital source for that perspective, the tellingly named House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC), pre-dated both McCarthy (who became a Senator in 1947) and the post-war period. HUAC, also known as the Dies Committee after its chair, Texas Representative Martin Dies Jr., was created as a special investigating committee in 1938, building upon and making more official the work of earlier Congressional committees such as the 1934–37 Special Committee on Un-American Activities to Investigate Nazi Propa­ganda and Certain Other Propaganda Activities. From the beginning HUAC’s investigations focused on fears of communism and targeted many of the period’s most prominent American communities: student radicals, as illus­trated by a 1939 investigation into the communist-affiliated American Youth Congress; New Deal artists, as illustrated by the 1938 subpoena of Federal Theatre Project director Hallie Flanagan to address communist influences on that project; and Japanese Americans, as illustrated by HUAC’s infamous “Yellow Report” which made the case for internment based on a number of mythic arguments about Japanese loyalty to the empire.

When Senator McCarthy extended and amplified those investigations in the post-war period, he did so with the help of two interconnected mythic pa­triotic arguments. First, the World War II veteran McCarthy used propagan­distic war stories to make the case for his own candidacy and governmental role. McCarthy had served as a Marine Corps intelligence officer and aviator between August 1942 and April 1945, and in the process received (or quite possibly gave himself) the nickname “Tail-Gunner Joe.” When he ran for the Senate against incumbent Robert M. La Follette Jr., McCarthy criticized La Follette’s lack of military service, although La Follette was 46 years old at the start of the war, and used the slogan “Congress needs a tail-gunner” to play up his own. He also created myths about his military service: an exaggerated number of aerial missions (32, rather than the actual number of 12) in order to qualify for a Distinguished Flying Cross; a broken leg that McCarthy referred to as a “war wound” but had in fact occurred during a shipboard celebration upon crossing the equator; and a letter of commendation that he claimed had been written by his commanding officer but turned out to have been written by McCarthy himself. None of these myths elide the reality of McCarthy’s wartime experiences and service, but they reflect a willingness to create pro­paganda based on such real experiences, in order to significantly bolster his own authority and arguments.

As he began making his overtly exclusionary arguments in early 1950, McCarthy did so through equally mythic images of a government and na­tion overrun by and fighting back against “enemies within.” McCarthy used that phrase in a February 9th, 1950 speech to the Wheeling, West Virginia Republican Women’s Club, an address in which he also produced “a list of names” of alleged “members of the Community Party . . . working and shap­ing policy in the State Department.” As he turned that idea into the origin point for a four-year exclusionary crusade against “anti-American” forces and communities of all types, from communists and fellow travelers to leftist intellectuals and academics, artistic and cultural figures, homosexuals, and other “subversives,” McCarthy linked that crusade to a mythic vision of an embattled American identity for which he was the consistent and chief cham­pion. “McCarthyism is Americanism with its sleeves rolled,” he argued in a 1952 speech during his successful reelection campaign, and he titled his book published later that year McCarthyism: The Fight for America.”

Last HUAC histories tomorrow,

Ben

PS. What do you think? Other histories or contexts you’d highlight?

October 19, 2022: HUAC Histories: Chambers, White, and Hiss

[75 years ago, the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA), usually referred to instead as the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), built on its new status as a standing committee in the US House of Representatives and held its first trials. So this week I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of layers to that controversial committee and its influences and legacies, leading up to a weekend post on pop culture representations!]

On espionage, railroading, and the true complexity of historical nuance.

In one of my earliest posts for this blog, I used the wonderful Season 2 West Wing episode “Somebody’s Going to Emergency, Somebody’s Going to Jail” to think about recently revealed details of the Rosenberg case and the question of historical nuance. In lieu of a new first paragraph here, I’d love for you to check out that post if you would, and then come on back here for today’s thoughts.

Welcome back! The same thorny questions I considered in that post, of how we can accurately critique McCarthyism (on which more in tomorrow’s post) while grappling with the apparent truths of the Rosenberg case, certainly seem to apply to the story of two of HUAC’s most famous targets, Harry Dexter White and Alger Hiss. In August 1948, HUAC subpoenaed Whittaker Chambers, an admitted former Soviet spy now working as a senior editor at Time; in his testimony Chambers named names of other alleged Soviet agents in the U.S. government, including Treasury Department official White and State Department official Hiss. Both men denied the accusations categorically; White died of a heart attack a few days later and the question of his espionage remains entirely unclear, while Hiss was eventually convicted of perjury(thanks to documents provided by Chambers which contradicted Hiss’ sworn statements before the committee) and imprisoned for years. Hiss maintained his innocence until his death in 1996, but recently released Sovietarchival materials seem to provide proof that he was at least for a time on the Kremlin’s payroll.

There’s a lot more to say about these cases than I can fit into one more paragraph, but I want to make three points here. First, it’s important to note that someone working for the federal government and spying for the Soviet Union is in a far different and more troubling position than a cultural figure accused of Communist sympathies (like all those about whom I wrote in yesterday’s post); if that was indeed the case for Hiss, he deserved at least to lose his job, and likely to serve time in prison. Second, it’s just as important to note that lives can be and were destroyed by such accusations regardless of the facts; Harry Dexter White, one of the 20thcentury’s greatest economic minds, is exhibit A in that case. And third, it’s precisely the job—or at least one central job—of all who seek to explore and engage our histories to include both those points, among others, in our nuanced and multi-layered understanding and narrative of the past. We can add our own emphases and arguments to be sure, and I would argue that HUAC and McCarthy were more damaging to the US than Soviet spies. But there’s no way to understand the 1940s and 50s in America without recognizing that both those communities were problematic parts of our political and social landscape.

Next HUAC histories tomorrow,

Ben

PS. What do you think? Other histories or contexts you’d highlight?

October 18, 2022: HUAC Histories: The Blacklist

[75 years ago, the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA), usually referred to instead as the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), became a standing committee in the US House of Representatives. So this week I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of layers to that controversial committee and its influences and legacies, leading up to a weekend post on pop culture representations!]

On three stages to HUAC’s divisive and destructive attacks on cultural figures.

1)      The Hollywood Ten: In September 1947, not long after it became a standing committee, HUAC began its work by subpoenaing 79 Hollywood figures (mostly directors and screenwriters) under the claim that they had been adding Communist propaganda into their films. The majority chose to cooperate with the committee, but 19 resisted; of those, 10 eventually testified, challenging the committee’s narratives and authority and as a result becoming the first group of blacklisted individuals, known forever after as the Hollywood Ten. Their stories are of course individual and complicated, with some (like director Edward Dmytryk) eventually cooperating with the committee and others (like screenwriter Dalton Trumbo) becoming the face of both the blacklist and of resistance. But whatever their individual choices and arcs, this group of men embody the human effects of HUAC’s attacks.

2)      Red Channels: For the next few years HUAC’s hearings proceeded somewhat haphazardly, identifying and targeting individuals along the way. But in June 1950, the right-wing magazine Counterattackpublished a pamphlet entitled Red Channels: The Report of Communist Influence in Radio and Television. This document, which identified 151 purported Communist cultural figures—including not only filmmakers but writers, journalists, musicians, and more—became the basis for a far more systematic and wide-reaching blacklist, one that of those figures and soon many more besides. While this text was not in any official way associated with HUAC, I would argue that it would never have existed were it not for HUAC’s presence and influence; these political and social voices and forces worked together to truly create the blacklist that would dominate the next decade in American culture.

3)      Faulk’s Pushback: That dominance was very real and destructive, and in some ways did not begin to truly change until Trumbo prominently found work in 1960 as the named screenwriter of the epic film Spartacus (thanks in no small measure to star Kirk Douglas’ advocacy for Trumbo). But nonetheless, there was definite and important pushback throughout the 1950s, and a leading figure in that resistance was comedian and radio host John Henry Faulk. Fired from CBS Radio for his alleged Communist sympathies, Faulk decided to sue AWARE, Inc., a private detective agency that had investigated him on HUAC’s behalf. While he did not win that lawsuit until 1962, its presence in the legal system as well as broader social and political conversations over these years made clear that the resistance exemplified from the outset by the Hollywood Ten had not dissipated. I’m glad we’ve started to better remember Dalton Trumbo, but certainly John Henry Faulk deserves a significant place in our collective memories as well.

Next HUAC histories tomorrow,

Ben

PS. What do you think? Other histories or contexts you’d highlight?

October 17, 2022: HUAC Histories: Three Precursors

 [75 years ago, the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA), usually referred to instead as the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), became a standing committee in the US House of Representatives. So this week I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of layers to that controversial committee and its influences and legacies, leading up to a weekend post on pop culture representations!]

On one takeaway from each of HUAC’s three main precursor committees (apologies to the 1930 Fish Committee, but I like groups of three!):

1)      Overman Committee (1918-19): The first Congressional committee to look into “Communist” elements was created before that concept had much meaning in the US; chaired by North Carolina Democratic Senator Lee Slater Overman, the committee started with an overall aim to expose “un-American activities” among immigrant communities and a specific focus on pro-German elements during WWI. When the war ended, Overman and his committee turned their attention to “Bolshevik” influences, helping launch the broader Red Scare which would dominate much of American politics for the next couple years. But I think it’s crucial to note the interconnections between anti-immigrant sentiments and the anti-Communist ones that would eventually so fully define these committees.

2)      McCormack-Dickstein Committee (1934-35): It would be easy, and not wrong, to say that there couldn’t possibly be a more significant takeaway from this Depression-era House committee than the later discovered fact that its co-chair, New York Democrat Samuel Dickstein, was apparently a paid agent for the Soviet Union’s interior ministry. But I would argue that a corporate and fascist plot to seize the White House and overthrow the president is pretty significant too, and in its first year of existence this committee investigated such a conspiracy, known as the “Business Plot” and confirmed by testimony from General Smedley Butler among others. There’s no doubt that Dickstein was working at cross purposes to the US, but these business leaders and fascists directly sought to overthrow the US government—pretty clear and telling which was the more direct and dangerous threat.

3)      Dies Committee(1938-44): The most direct predecessor to HUAC, and really the same committee but just not yet reified into a standing/permanent committee, this House committee was chaired by Texas Democrat Martin Dies Jr. and spent a good deal of its early years investigating artists like Federal Theatre Project director Hallie Flanagan. But with the outset of World War II its emphases changed, and one of the committee’s most influential actions was its consistent argument for the internment of Japanese Americans, a proposal condensed into the tellingly, awfully named “Yellow Paper.” Both of these elements—the targeting of artists and cultural figures and the racist attacks on multicultural American communities—would be core features of the age of HUAC and McCarthyism, but it’s important to recognize that they predated that period.

Next HUAC histories tomorrow,

Ben

PS. What do you think? Other histories or contexts you’d highlight?

October 15-16, 2022: RunningStudying: Aidan Railton’s Guest Post on Strava

[With my older son in the midst of his high school cross-country season, and both sons gearing up for their next seasons of indoor and then outdoor track, running has become a huge part of this AmericanStudier’s life these days. But it’s long been part of both my life and America overall, so this week I’ve AmericanStudied different sides of running, leading up to this extra special Guest Post from one of those aforementioned youthful AmericanStudiers!]

My name is Aidan and I am a distance cross country and track runner for my high school, now in the beginning of my third year. As my grandiose father, AmericanStudier, noted in his last post, social media is and increasingly continues to be relevant to the running world, from professional athletes to high schoolers. Social media is crucial to much of teenage life in today’s world, and running is no exception. The most popular runner’s social media app is Strava, which I and most other runners I know use. 

I got Strava about a year ago and have only grown more, admittedly, addicted to it ever since. Strava is similar to other social media, composed of different posts on different accounts, except these posts are either runs or about running (among some other, less frequently used sports). People can like each other's posts, by giving kudos, and cannot dislike. It has become both popular and a bit controversial on my team and in the world. A number of my teammates have denounced the app, claiming that it leads to self esteem issues, as most all social media do to some extent. They also argue that knowing a run is going to get posted online can lead to pushing oneself beyond what they should for the day, which can certainly be detrimental and unhealthy.

While these claims may be true, I have only ever experienced the opposite. When I got Strava, I had already been running for a year, but I was not very committed or passionate about the sport. Strava gave me positive peer pressure to always do what needed to be done on every run, which did not always mean killing myself by the end (although it did in races). Strava drove me to improve, and pushed me to train hard this summer in preparation for the current cross country season. I’ve gotten much faster in the last year, and I know that social media played a positive role in that. 

On top of speed advantages, Strava is simply useful and fun. First of all, it allows me to check the statistics of my runs, like looking at my heart rate and stride length which are very important measurements for runners. Second, the people I follow and I often make jokes in our posts, and just always have a blast. I can certifiably say that Strava has strengthened my bonds with my teammates. I also have been able to meet new people and runners online, and see all kinds of new training methods and workouts that I would have never known of otherwise. I highly recommend Strava for any runners, cyclists, nordic skiers, or other similar sports, as well as for people looking into running. 

Strava may be criticized by some, but for all it’s done for me and my running career, it deserves only the utmost kudos.

[Next series starts Monday,

Ben

PS. What do you think? Running connections or contexts you’d share?]