History 2003 Abstracts
History Division
Working to Avoid War: Scripps-Howard’s Challenges and Efforts With Japan, 1924-1941 • Edward Adams and David Schreindl, Brigham Young • Roy Howard, president of Scripps-Howard, had an intriguing interest in Japan. Between 1924 and 1941 he communicated regularly with Japanese newspaper editors and government officials. He made several trips to Japan in an effort to gain a better understanding of the tensions between U.S. and Japan. Howard lobbied diligently against perceived anti-Japanese legislation and worked tirelessly to avoid war. The Scripps-Howard owned United Press increased their coverage of Asia and battled Japanese censors to publish factual stories.
Federated Press: An Independent Labor News Service • John Bekken, Suffolk • Federated Press was launched in 1919 to serve a diverse U.S. labor press, ranging from internal union newsletters to substantial dailies that articulated a more expansive working-class vision and reached far beyond the ranks of organized labor. For 37 years, Federated Press offered a daily news service committed to providing this labor press with “objective” coverage of the labor movement, before succumbing to the increased bureaucratization of the labor movement and to intensified red-baiting.
Our People Die Well: Death-Bed Scenes in Methodist Magazines in Eighteenth-Century Britain • Richard Bell, Harvard • John Wesley’s presentation of the death-bed trials of Methodists in his Arminian Magazine between 1778 and 1791 allows us to reconstruct the constitution of the Methodist framework of holy death. A complex interplay between the dying, their biographers, and the magazine editors created scenes/texts designed to provide ready proofs to wavering Methodist readers that they themselves would go to heaven if they followed the example of the holy dying.
1897: American Journalism’s Exceptional Year • W. Joseph Campbell, American • No abstract available.
Exhortation to Action: The Writings of Amy Jacques Garvey, Journalism and Black Nationalist • Jinx Coleman Broussard, Dillard and Louisiana State • This paper provides a textual analysis of themes in the writings of Amy Jacques Garvey, a largely unrecognized black woman journalist who was an associate editor and editorial writer for the Negro World, the official organ of the Garvey movement. Analysis of one hundred fifty editorials Jacques Garvey wrote between 1924 and 1927 found she stressed black productivity, self-reliance, self-determination and repatriation to Africa as a means economic empowerment and independence.
N.J. Frederick, Legendary Editor of a South Carolina Black Weekly, Establishes Legacy as Attorney for Victims of 1926 Triple Lynching • Kenneth Campbell, South Carolina • Attorney Nathaniel Jerome Frederick, the founding editor of The Palmetto Leader (1925-1959), a black weekly in Columbia, S.C., was called “the bravest man in South Carolina” and the NAACP cited his work in 1926 as one of its major accomplishments that year. Frederick convinced the South Carolina Supreme Court to give a new trial to three blacks accused of murdering a sheriff, but as he subsequently defended them they were lynched
The Black Press, The Black Metropolis and the Founding of the Negro Leagues • Brian Carroll, North Carolina • No abstract available.
Monotonous Tale: Legitimacy, Public Relations and the Shooting of a Public Enemy • Matthew Cecil, Oklahoma • On April 6, 1939, FBI agents shot and killed America’s “Public Enemy Number One” as he exited a St. Louis hamburger shop. Confronted by critics who questioned the legitimacy of the shooting, FBI officials in Washington worked with agents on the scene to concoct a version of events more amendable to the heroic media portrayals they preferred. This study explores the bureau’s behind-the-scenes work to legitimize the shooting and its use of the story as a public relations device demonstrating the bureau’s responsibility and utility.
Pricking the National Conscience: The Early Radio Career and Thematic Interests of Charles Kuralt • Johanna Cleary, North Carolina-Chapel Hill • Charles Kuralt is remembered as one of television journalism’s unique voices, but it was radio that launched his broadcasting career. This paper examines Kuralt’s early writing for radio and focuses on commentaries he wrote from 1961 to 1968. While Kuralt’s television work is well-chronicled and documented, his radio scripts offer an important and largely unknown transitional step for one of the country’s preeminent broadcast journalists.
Cattle Barons v. Ink Slingers: The Decline and Fall of the Wyoming Stock Growers Association (1887-1894) • Ross F. Collins, North Dakota State • This article examines the relationship between the Wyoming Stock Growers Association and the press at the end of the Old West Long Drive Era (1867-1890). It considers not only the influence of Wyoming cattlemen on the press, but in particular the influence of the press on the frontier cattle business during the period when “Old West” was moving from frontier reality to American legend.
Freedom in the Age of Propaganda: History of an Idea Within Congress, 1900-1945 • Stacey Cone, Iowa • Debate in Congress over the meaning and significance of propaganda in a democratic society has been an important but undocumented aspect of media history. This paper describes and analyzes the history of the idea of propaganda within Congress in the first half of the twentieth century, documenting how congressional leaders joined in a national debate about propaganda’s compatibility with democratic morality.
Herbert Hoover’s Philosophy of the Public Service Standard in Broadcasting • J.M. Dempsey, North Texas • In the embryonic years of American broadcasting, the Secretary of Commerce under President Warren Harding and, later, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover – of course, later president himself- profoundly affected the development of American broadcasting. In particular, Hoover’s decisions and leadership strongly influenced the concept that broadcasters, receiving licenses to use the public airwaves for commercial purposes, should in return provide a measure of public service. In fact, Hoover was the first to articulate the public-service requirement of U.S. broadcasting.
The Farmer’s Wife (1891-1894): Building a Community of Sentiment in Kansas • Amy DeVault, Kansas State • The Farmer’s Wife, published in Topeka, Kansas, from 1891 to 1894, was a publication by and for women involved with the Farmer’s Alliance. In addition to Alliance and Populist news, The Farmer’s Wife promoted women’s rights, especially the 1894 referendum to amend the Kansas Constitution to allow women to vote in all elections. This study looks at how The Farmer’s Wife promoted women’s rights within the context of Populism and how The Farmer’s Wife created community among its audience.
My Rhodes Scholarship: Fred Friendly as Information Officer in the Second World War • Ralph Engelman, Long Island • This paper examines Fred Friendly’s heady experience as a master sergeant in the Information and Education Section of the China-Burma-India (CBI) Theater during the Second World War, a laboratory for his post-war career. The paper focuses on Friendly’s reporting for the army newspaper CBI Roundup and his wire recordings of combat for the fledgling Armed Forces Radio Network. The paper draws upon interviews with wartime associates as well as Friendly’s correspondence with his mother and other material contained in Friendly’s private papers.
Secrets of the Grand Jury: Media Leaks, Prosecutors and Presidential Impeachment • Mark Feldstein, George Washington • In April, 1973, as the Watergate scandal began to implode, syndicated columnist Jack Anderson published verbatim transcripts of the secret grand jury investigating the affair. In response, Judge John Sirica ordered a criminal investigation to locate and prosecute the muckraker’s source. But in a dramatic last-minute showdown, a legal confrontation was avoided when both sides agreed to compromise.
From Discussion Leader to Consumer Guide: A Century of Theater Criticism in Chicago Newspapers • Scott Fosdick, Missouri • Two recent studies by this author examined the influence of theater critics working for Chicago newspapers at the beginning and toward the end of the twentieth century, finding very different critical environments. This study explores how Chicago criticism traversed the historical landscape from point A to point B, and finds a third major stage of development halfway between.
So Vivid a Crossroads: The FCC and Broadcast Allocation, 1934-1939 • James Foust, Bowling Green State • This paper examines the FCC’s evaluation of the broadcast allocation structure from 1934 to 1939. Specifically, it looks at the participation of non-commercial and commercial interest groups. It builds on NcChesney’s examination of how commercial interests “marched in lockstep” against non-commercial interests in broadcasting policy debates from 1928-1935. This study shows that later the commercial interests fractured into competing groups. But they were still able to establish the terms of the policymaking debate, leaving non-commercial interests marginalized.
The Newspaper Reporter as Fiction Writer: The Tale of Franklin W. Dixon • Marilyn Greenwald, Ohio • Canadian newspaperman Leslie McFarlane, like many of his contemporaries in the newsrooms of the mid 1920s, enjoyed his job, but longed for something more: he wanted to become a fulltime writer of adult fiction. One day, McFarlane answered a vague ad in Editor & Publisher for fiction writers. Little did he know that the ad would change his life in a way he could never have expected. McFarlane soon became “Franklin W. Dixon,” the author of the first 20 Hardy Boys books.
Propaganda v. Public Diplomacy: How 9/11 Gave New Life to a Cold War Debate • David Guth, Kansas • This paper explores the public debate over the use of U.S. propaganda during both the Cold War and the War on Terrorism. While there is broad consensus for communicating U.S. policies and values to foreign audiences, differences of opinion in the role, scope and administration of overseas information programs dominate the debate. The role the State Department plays in administering these programs, first raised during the Cold War, remain unresolved.
Margaret Goss: Pioneering Female Sportswriter and Sports Columnist of the 1920s • Dave Kaszuba, Susquehanna • Working for the New York Herald Tribune in 1924 and 1925, Margaret Goss broke down barriers that had generally kept the sports pages off limits to female writers. Most significantly, she contributed her “Women in Sport” column on a weekly – and eventually – daily basis, making her one of the first female sports writers to have her own, regularly appearing, bylined sports column.
The Influence of Coverage of Contemporary Political Environments on Media Coverage of Historical Events • John F. Kirch, Maryland • This paper explores whether news coverage of historical events is influenced by the contemporary political and social environment of the nation. It does this by analyzing newspaper coverage of two national commemorations: the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s journey to America, which was observed in 1992 at a time of renewed interest in the culture and historic suffering of Native Americans, and the upcoming 2000’ anniversary of the Lewis and Clark expedition, which is being celebrated at a moment when Americans are feeling renewed patriotism following the September 11 terrorist attacks.
Alcoholic Dogs and Glory for All: The Launch of New Communications for National Prohibition, 1913 • Margot Opdycke Lamme, Florida • In 1913, the Anti-Saloon League of America, a Midwestern, church-based, social reforem movement dedicated to the elimination of liquor traffic, declared its intention to pursue national prohibition. Although it continue to adhere to the principles of agitation (its term for the building and mobilizing of public sentiment) and political action, this shift from local and state politics to a national forum required additional communication methods.
Neither Drunkards nor Libertines: Portraying Grover Cleveland as a Threat to the Family in Political Cartoons During the 1885 Campaign • Harlen Makemson, Elon • The purpose of this paper is to examine more broadly cartoons against Grover Cleveland in the 1884 presidential campaign, exploring how artists attempted to portray the candidate and his personal and private behavior as scandalous. The paper will focus on cartoons in three anti-Cleveland publications: The Judge, which in 1884 established itself as a pro-Republican comic weekly to rival the Democratic-leaning Puck, Munsey’s Illustrated Weekly, a short-lived pro-GOP campaign magazine published by a young Frank Munsey; and The Wasp, a San Francisco satirical magazine that chose to support Blame in the campaign.
Woman as Machine: Representation of Female Clerical Workers in Interwar Magazines • Jane Marcellus, Oregon • This critical, qualitative paper looks at depictions of female clerical workers and telephone operators in magazines during the interwar period-an important time for employed women and expanding media influence. It seeks to identify common images and patterns of representation, exploring how femininity and machinery were interconnected in three mainstream magazines-The American Magazine, Ladies’ Home Journal and Forbes. It uses critical textual and visual analysis, plus historical research, to explore editorial copy and advertisements.
Making Room for Cultural History: A Historiographic Exploration of U.S. Radio History • Melissa Meade, Washington • The examination of social and cultural histories of U.S. radio is a growing area of research within communication studies. Indeed, scholars are looking at the historical meanings of the practice of radio, considerations of radio and social relationships, and radio culture itself. Our ways of teaching and discussing radio, however, have remained firmly within the traditional narratives of institutional and technological development; cultural histories remain ancillary to many curricula and general radio histories.
The Johnstown Tribune’s Coverage of the Johnstown Flood of 1889 • Patty Wharton Michael, Pennsylvania State • This paper reviews the first year of the Johnstown Tribune’s coverage of the Johnstown Flood of 1889. The paper examines the Tribune’s editor, George T. Swank, and how he used his paper to serve as a vital medium that not only reported the incident of the flood and its cause, but that continued on by informing the public of the information, resources, and procedures needed to assist Johnstown in becoming a prosperous city once again.
Keep and Use It for the Nation’s War Policy: The Office of Facts and Figures and Its Uses of the Japanese-Language Press From Pearl Harbor to Mass Internment • Takeya Mizuno, Bunkyo University, Japan • This study examines how the United States government treated the Japanese “enemy language” press during World War II by focusing on the policy of the Office of Facts and Figures (OFF), a federal agency that took responsibility for the management and mobilization of the domestic foreign language press during the first six months after Pearl Harbor. The OFF took a distinctively liberal but realistic approach.
The Decline of Live Radio Performance: A Case Study Perspective • Stephen D. Perry, Illinois State • The use of live entertainers for radio programming is well documented for networks, but not for local stations, especially those in rural America. This study examines the period of decline in the use of live entertainers starting in 1940, the pinnacle of live performance on WDZ, a rural independent broadcaster and the oldest continuously operated station in Illinois.
Sex and Censorship on Postwar American Television • Bob Pondillo, Middle Tennessee State • This research explores some of the major sexual programming discourses on postwar television. Considered, among others, are questions of how network censors negotiated representations of homosexuals, the female bosom, and “dirty dancing” on nascent American TV. The paper concludes that viewers of the era expected-even demanded-”protection” by network imposed censorship from an array of secular evils they claimed they witnessed on television.
The Atomic Bomb, the ‘Official Narrative’ and American Newspapers, 1945 • Robert A. Rabe, Wisconsin-Madison • This paper examines newspaper coverage of the atomic bombings of Japan at the end of World War Two. It compares the “official narrative,” a collection of press releases and documents issued by the government, with actual newspaper content and argues that the atomic bomb story, although shaped by government information, was not one dimensional. Given the circumstances, reporters and editors handled the story well.
Moral Guardians and the Origins of the Right of Privacy • Jeff Smith, Wisconsin-Milwaukee • Samuel D. Warren and Louis D. Brandeis are habitually credited with creating the concept of a legal right of privacy. In 1890 the Harvard Law Review published their much-acclaimed article advocating tort liability for invasions of privacy by journalists. How original was their work? Writing in prestigious periodicals during the 1870s and 1880s, a number of the era’s public intellectuals dramatized a need for protecting people from the prying of the press.
A Stunt Journalist’s Last Hurrah: Nellie Bly Goes Ringside to Report on Jack Dempsey Winning the Heavyweight Boxing Championship • Mike Sowell, Oklahoma State • More than two decades after her departure from the newspaper business at the height of her career, Nellie Bly, the famous “stunt journalist” of the nineteenth century, attempted a comeback as a reporter for the New York Evening Journal in 1919. Bly’s second newspaper career lasted only three years, and she came nowhere near recapturing the glory of her youth.
Late Nineteenth-Century Discourse of Independence in Three Independent Partisan Newspapers • Dafnah Strauss, Haifa University, Israel • The paper explores the discourse of independence in American journalism during the Gilded Age as primarily a political discourse. The themes and metaphors of this discourse are analyzed by examining references to independence, neutrality and partisanship in four Midwestern newspapers dating between 1869 and 1888, with particular emphasis on three “independent-Republican” papers. The ways in which their editors sought to balance between an ideology of partisanship, professional journalistic standards and claims of independence within an environment of harsh competition will be pointed out.
The Pulitzer and the Klan: Horace Carter, The Pulitzer and How a Weekly Editor Stood up to the Klan and Won • Thomas T. Terry, North Carolina-Chapel Hill • A line of 29 cars, filled with 100 armed men all cloaked in the white robes and hoods of the Ku Klux Klan, snaked through the unpaved streets of Tabor City, North Carolina, one warm, July evening in 1950, winding toward “the bottom” where the black citizens lived. Stunned residents lined the streets in silence, including twenty-nine-year-old Horace Carter of the Tabor City Tribune. A reign of terror ensued throughout Horry County, South Carolina, and Columbus County, North Carolina.
The Communication Crisis During the Cold War: The Right to Know Movement • Kiyul Uhm, Daegu University , Korea • This paper has tried to examine the history of the right to know movement that started at the onset of the Cold War. Seeing the movement as an organized reaction against the Cold War culture of secrecy, this paper attempts to address the questions of how and why the movement was organized and initiated, and what implications and lessons can be drawn from the history of the movement and also doing a research on it.
Movie Ratings: New Technology, Research on Media Violence and the MPAA, 1968-1984 • Stephen Vaughn, Wisconsin-Madison • This paper uses new primary sources to examine how the American motion picture industry rates violence. Between the 1968 and 1984, a series of violent movies provoked a crisis in the Classification and Rating Administration (CARA) and forced the president of the Motion Pictures Association of America “AA), Jack Valenti, to create a new rating category known as PG-13. These films included The Exorcist (1973), Halloween (1978), Friday the 13” (1980), Dressed to Kill (1980), Blade Runner (1982), Poltergeist (1982), and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984).
They Had a Satellite and The Knew How to Use It: How Women Harnessed the Skies to Communicate Without the Media • Danna Walker, Maryland • In January 1975, Donna Allen, founder of the Women’s Institute for Freedom of the Press, became one of the architects of the wording regarding media of the final recommendations by the National Commission on the Observance of International Women’s Year. As editor of the publication Media Report to Women, she may have known better than anyone the lengths women activists had gone to in challenging the existing media system and its misleading representation of women, as confirmed by the national commission.
The American Press Goes to War: The Drive for Patriotism by Mainstream and Black Newspapers in World War II • Mei-ling Yang, Utah • No abstract available.
The International Sources of Section 12 of the Radio Act of 1927 • Rita Zajacz, Indiana University • Situating the origins of foreign ownership regulations in their historical context allows us to connect them to radiotelegraphy rather than broadcasting. As a means of strategic international communications, point-to-point uses of radio technology were as important as broadcasting in this period. The analysis of the legislative history provided in this paper prompts us to reinterpret the Radio Act of 1927 as a hybrid legislation designed to address two different uses of the same technology.
Going Public Through Writing: Women Journalists and Gendered Journalistic Space in Early 20th Century China • Yong Zhang, Minnesota • The entry of women into public life and discourse is an important feature of modernity. This paper examines the emergence of women journalists in early twentieth-century China. It argues that the rise and the social acceptance of women journalists in China was tied more to nationalism than feminism. However, it was not a simple story of male intellectuals’ inclusion of women in their construction of modernity; women themselves were also historical subjects of the nationalist movement.
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