History 1998 Abstracts
History Division
Pioneers in the State Freedom of Information Movement • Jeanni Atkins and James A. Lumpp, Mississippi • This paper examines the genesis of the Freedom of Information movement to enact open meetings laws from 1946-1966. It explores how the nationwide mobilization effort, discusses the problem of convincing journalists and legislators of the need for access laws, examines the difficulties encountered in getting legislation and also explains how the movement changed in the 1970s with the founding of media groups focusing on access problems and the entry of Common Cause into the access battle.
Standing for the Rights of the Black Worker-But Not at Home: The Labor Policies of the Chicago Defender • Jon Bekken, Suffolk University • Founded in 1905, the Chicago Defender quickly established its position as the most influential of the cities and indeed the country’s black newspapers. But while the Chicago Defender consistently portrayed itself as a vigorous defender of the race, the paper’s approach itself as a vigorous defender of the race, the paper’s approach to labor issues was often ambivalent. While the newspaper vacillated between encouraging black workers to accommodate themselves to their employers, or to join together to fight for better conditions, the publishers never reconciled themselves to union conditions in their own operations.
A Few Words Between Friends: A Comparison of How Two Elites, Lyndon Johnson and the Washington Post, Framed the Issue of Civil Rights Legislation in December 1963 • Laura Elizabeth Bond, Texas-Austin • A taped conversation between President Lyndon Johnson and Washington Post publisher Katherine Graham in December 1963 offers a unique opportunity to glimpse power in action and to learn how frames are transmitted from a news sources to the news media. Agenda-setting theory, framing and content and textual analysis provide a framework and tools for examining how the conversation influenced the Post editorial page, thus making a strong statement for civil rights legislation in the process.
The Feminist Mystique and Mass Media: Implications for the Second Wave • Patricia Bradley, Temple University • The author posits that the success of The Feminist Mystique as a product designed and marketed to a mass media audience influenced movement by placing emphasis on the distribution of the feminist message by way of mass media avenues. This served to shape the feminist message according to the needs of mass media to the detriment of the movement at a time when it was trying to establish itself as a political force.
Pioneering for Women Journalists: Sallie Joy White, 1870-1909 • Elizabeth V. Burt, Hartford • Sallie Joy White was the first women staff reporter on a Boston newspaper, a founding member of the New England Woman’s Press Association, an officer in several national press groups, a member of the woman’s movement, and acted as mentor to women seeking career opportunities during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This study of White’s life and work provides a key to understanding the professional experience and development of women journalists during this period.
Surviving the FCC: The Legacy of UHFs • Kathryn B. Campbell, Wisconsin-Madison • WKOW-TV in Madison, Wisconsin, was born, prospered and then faltered during television’s so-called “Golden Age.” Nationally, few of the UHFs of its generation survived that decade of sweeping technological changes and unpredictable FCC regulation. WKOW-TV was broadcast on an Ultra High Frequency (UHF) band at a time when Very High Frequency (VHF) stations were thought to be much superior in terms of potential audiences, broadcast quality and profitability. This paper provides a brief historical review of the development of television, emphasizing the FCC actions in assigning television frequencies and its public service requirements.
The Remarkable Timothy Women • Virginia H. Carroll and Patricia G. McNeely, South Carolina • Elizabeth Timothy is widely acknowledge as America’s first woman publisher, but her skill as a printer/journalist has largely been underplayed. This paper re-examines her contributions along with those of her daughter-in-law, Ann Donavan Timothy, who has been overlooked entirely. If this paper were written in the traditional journalism style • five W’s, and H and an upside-down pyramid • Ann Timothy would be the lead. But from the cultural perspective, we have chosen to present her in the context of her family.
The Icons of Despair: A Comparison of World Series Coverage in Newspapers Before and During the Depression • John Carvalho, North Carolina • Within sports media history, extensive research has focused on sports journalism during the 1920s, the “Jazz Age” decade of Babe Ruth, Red Grange, and Jack Dempsey. By comparison, however, the 1930s have been studies less frequently. Newspapers during the decade were trapped between the realities of economic depression, which caused severe cutbacks in the number of pages, and the continued popularity of sports. This paper examines coverage in ten metropolitan newspapers from a variety of geographical locations.
“Those Who Toil and Spin”: Female Textile Operatives’ Publications and the Response to Industrialization • Mary M. Cronin, Washington State University • New England’s female textile operatives established and edited the nation’s first factory journals to lobby for changes in working and living conditions. These periodicals also served as forums for operatives to respond to the growing tension that were emerging between classes as members of the middle class sought to impose their visions of culture, propriety, respectability, and even religion as the correct ones. These weekly and biweekly newspapers and magazines existed for only a decade from 1840 to 1850, yet they were significant both to media and the labor movement.
The Roots of Press-Government Antagonisms: Newspapers and the Early Cold War, 1945-1953 • David R. Davies, Southern Mississippi • Newspapers’ relationship with government and government officials seemed to crack in the early 1950s, challenging press practices on several fronts. National security concerns rooted in the Cold War accelerated a trend toward greater secrecy in government, igniting a “freedom of information” (FOI) movement in professional associations to fight the growing secrecy at both federal and local levels. Journalists’ relationships with government officials began to suffer as the result of this anti-secrecy fight.
Wrestling with Corporate Identity: Television and the National Broadcasting Company • Chad Dell, Monmouth University • Why did professional wrestling disappear from the National Broadcasting Company’s program schedule, at a time when it may have helped the corporation weather a fiscal crisis? This paper examines the formative stages of NBC’s television operations (1945 to 1950) including a little-known financial crisis in 1949, to explain why this crisis led to a solidification of the company’s programming strategy toward expensive entertainment programming and away from popular, inexpensive genres such as professional wrestling.
Pens and Swords and “Splendid Wars”: The Case of Jose Marti, La Patria, and the Second Cuban War for Independence • Mercedes R. Diaz, Temple University • A small, little known newspaper called La Patria, not the Hearst-Pulitzer circulation wars of the late 19th century, was responsible for igniting the conflict the eventually would be known as the Spanish-American War. With it, publisher and poet-journalists Jose Marti managed to unify the formerly divided Cuban Revolutionary Clubs throughout the Americans, harness their economic might, and lay the groundwork for the second Cuban War of Independence.
The Battle of the Chicago Colonels: A Study of Newspaper Bias in the Debate Over Lend Lease • Wallace B. Eberhard, Georgia • Among the more colorful figures in an era of personal journalism in Chicago on the eve of World War II were two “colonel” publishers • Robert R. McCormick of the Tribune and Franklin Knox of the Daily News. Beneath the rivalry that existed between the two are larger question related to news content. Did those publishers shape the news content to fit their opinions, with all the attendant questions and criticisms raised by such journalistic behavior?
Covering Contraception: Discourses of Gender, Motherhood, and Sexuality in Women’s Magazines, 1938-1969 • Dolores L. Flamiano, North Carolina-Chapel Hill • An analysis of thirty years of birth control coverage in the Ladies’ Home Journal and Good Housekeeping shows shifting and sometimes contradictory discourses of motherhood and sexuality. Early coverage celebrated motherhood and women’s responsibility to their “biological natures.” Coverage in the sixties appealed to two pill-related fears:: endangered femininity and threatened masculinity. Both fears suggested that the pill breaking down the old double standard, and with dominant notions of appropriate gender roles and sexuality.
Public Relations in the Kennedy White House • Cathy Rogers Franklin, Loyola University • This study of President John F. Kennedy’s administration examines whether White House communication strategies were part of a formal plan or program consistent with the textbook definition of public relations. This based on historical evidence from presidential papers and oral history interviews with White House staff members and reporters. Examination of the role of Press Secretary Pierre Salinger and advisers will show whether James E. Grunig’s evolutionary models of public relations is applicable to White House.
Journalism Behind Barbed Wire: Two Arkansas Relocation Center Newspapers • Edward Jay Friedlander, South Florida • Previous researchers have discovered great variation in the editorial quality and editorial freedom of newspapers operated by Japanese Americans at World War II-era War Relocation Authority (WRA) relocation centers. Editorial quality at the two WRA centers in Arkansas also varied, but contrary to previously published research the Denson Tribune at Jerome Relocation Center and the Rohwer Outpost at Rohwer Relocation Center apparently operated with little if any WRA interference.
Spanish-Language Newspapers in New Mexico (1834-1912): Retaining and Recreating Ethnic Identity • Victoria Goff, Wisconsin-Green Bay • This paper’s main focus is the role New Mexican Spanish and bilingual newspapers played in preserving ethnic identity from 1834 when the first newspaper was published until 1912 when New Mexico became a state. The paper also studies how the hispano press helped create a unique multiethnic identity, looks at how the press provided a forum for grievances against Anglo culture, summarizes historical scholarship on Hispanic journalism, and provides an extensive listing of newspapers in the appendix.
The Who, What, Where, and Why of Journalists’ Archives • Joyce Hoffmann, Old Dominion • This paper explores the reasons journalists amass their personal archives. These collections, the object of genteel but spirited competition among research libraries, are the raw materials of scholarship for future generations. In folders filled with long-forgotten letters, yellowed manuscripts, and private diaries, researchers will find insights into the journalists and journalism of the late twentieth century. Decades ago, only death and the patina of time gave an archive value. But the vision of a few librarians changed that in the early 1960s.
Two Tales of One City: How Cultural Perspective Influenced the Reporting of Pre-Civil Rights Story in Dallas • Camille R. Kraeplin, Texas-Austin • Newspaper coverage of a series of racially motivated bombings that took place in Dallas, Texas, in 1950 tells two different stories. A weekly black newspaper, the Dallas Express, perceived the fight to end the bombing of black-owned homes in white neighborhoods as a battle over civil rights. The Dallas Morning News, on the other hand, wanted the violence stopped, but could not conceive of a solution outside of the segregationist status quo.
Hitting from the Left: The Daily Worker’s Assault on Baseball’s Color Line • Chris Lamb, College of Charleston and Kelly Rusinack, Clemson University • On August 16, 1936, the Daily Worker, a Communist newspaper published in New York City, published a banner headline that called on readers to demand the end of segregated baseball. Between 1936 and 1947, the Daily Worker, openly and brashly challenged baseball’s establishment to permit black players; condemned white owners and managers for perpetuating the color ban; criticized the mainstream press for ignoring the issue; distributed anti-discrimination pamphlets at ballparks; and let their readers know of the successes in the campaign to integrate the national pastime.
Paving the Road to Hell: National Public Radio in the Lee Frischknecht Years • Michael P. McCauley, Maine • Millions of Americans are familiar with the news and information programming now available on National Public Radio; indeed, it would be hard to imagine that many members of the educated upper-middle-class could do without their daily dose of Bob Edwards and Robert Siegel. But vast popularity and the smooth delivery of quality programs were not always operative concepts at NPR; such notions belie the major tensions that characterized the network’s day-to-day operations during its formative years.
The Journalistic Function of Book Reviews: How Faludi’s Backlash Made News • Priscilla Coit Murphy, North Carolina-Chapel Hill • Book reviews have traditionally been studied primarily for their role in literary criticism rather than as part of journalistic activity. This paper considers the multiple journalistic roles potentially played by book reviews, from strictly informative to the agenda-setting creation of and participation in public debated. Using Faludi’s 1991 newsmaking feminist book, Backlash, the study traces the controversy’s chronology and the interaction of reviews with general news and commentary surrounding its issues.
Women’s Historical Contribution to Journalism Education As Seen in Emery’s The Press and America • Kristine L. Nowak, Michigan State University • This article examined the treatment of women in the history of journalism education over time. The design is a longitudinal case study of Edwin Emery’s history textbook, Press and America, a volume that has been and continues to be widely used in journalism classes and programs across the country. This examination looks at how women’s contributions to the field are treated in each of the seven editions published between 1954 and 1992.
The Chicago Television “Holy War” of 1956-1957 • Bob Pondillo, Wisconsin-Madison • Martin Luther, a film about the 16th century priest who priest who sparked the Reformation, was to be shown on WGN-TV, Chicago, in December, 1956. Management canceled the movie at the last moment, Lutherans claimed because of Catholic pressure. The Catholics denied it, the Lutherans persisted, and WGN-TV was caught in a legal and public relations nightmare. This bizarre moment in early television tells us much about the emerging medium and the times in which it grew.
Trivia or Relevance? An Analysis of Conference and Published Papers of the American Journalism Historians Association (AJHA) 1982-1996 • J.R. Rush and Alf Pratte, Brigham Young University • Since its founding at Southern Methodist University in September 1982, the American Journalism Historians Association (AJHA) has been successful in attaining at least two of its goals: (1) to provide an additional forum for media scholars to present scholarly refereed papers and (2) to publish research on the history of American journalism. The purpose of this study is an exploratory attempt to identify and quantify to some extent the vast research that has been conducted by hundreds of media historians under the umbrella of the AJHA over the last 15 years.
At Our House: A Case Study of Grace B. Freeman, Syndicated Columnist, 1954-1964 • Marilyn S. Sarow, Winthrop University • This paper focuses on how the attitudes and values of the 50s shaped the writing of Grace B. Freeman, a highly successful southern freelance writer and syndicated columnist. Her column, At Our House, was distributed by King Features Syndicate for 10 years. This case study provides insight on the role of the freelancer in the 50s and the relationship the writer had with her editors.
“Censorship Liberally Administered”: Press, U.S. Military Relations in the Spanish-American War • Randall S. Sumpter, Texas A&M • This research examines issues of the New York World and New York Journal & Advertiser and a collection of official papers to see how the press and the military modified their relationship and their practices to fit the circumstances of the Spanish-American War. Correspondents and Publishers incorporated tales of censorship attempts into their “New Journalism” formula; censors learned that civilian policy makers valued favorable public opinion over requirements for military secrecy.
Casting Radicals Upon the Waters: Press Support of the Deportation Campaign of 1919-1920 • Sue D. Taylor, North Carolina-Chapel Hill • In general sense, the American press has kept a wary eye on government throughout the history of this nation. It has been called the “watchdog” of the public interest against corrupt of illegal practices of politicians and lawmakers at least since the late nineteenth century. This, as they affect the public interest, officials who initiate and implement foreign and domestic policies have long been subject to criticism from the press.
Bridge to the Modern Era: Free Press on the Wage Workers’ Frontier • David J. Vergobbi, Utah • This pilot case study delineates how the editors of an 1887-1889 Western newspaper began their journalistic evolution from a partisan frontier booster press to an emerging independent commercial style. It does so by considering the editor’s engagement with the socio-economic catalysts that rapidly transformed North Idaho’s Coeur d’Alene mining district society from a pioneer self-sufficiency to the corporate dependency of a wageworkers’ frontier. The study clarifies the need and potential of analyzing such journalism on a broader scale of time and geographic location.
“News of the Weird” in 1830? Humorous Ridicule and “Paragraphing” as Journalistic Innovation • Samuel P. Winch, Nanyang of Technological University • Two unique types of 19th-century journalistic humor are now quite uncommon: ridicule of crime victims, and “paragraphing.” Ridiculing crime victims in journalism began in London in the 1820s, and was quickly adopted by George Prentice, a Louisville editor in the 1830s. These two extinct and innovative forms of journalistic humor help us understand the state of the journalistic art in the mid-1800s.
Remembrances Past: Nineteenth-Century Press and the Uses of American History • Betty Winfield, Missouri and Janice Hume, Kansas State University • This study analyzes journalistic historical references during the nineteenth century. It seeks to show how the American press used history or historical referents as part of news accounts by examining as primary sources article titles taken from indices to look for nostalgic references, historical context, historical analogies, value and assumptions about the past. The purpose is to seek to understand the complex relationships between the press story telling and the collective American historical culture.
Print friendly
