History 2008 Abstracts
History Division
Cold War Hot Water: The Espionage Case Against AP Correspondent William Oatis • Edward Alwood, Quinnipiac University • This study explores the 1951 arrest and conviction of William N. Oatis, an Associated Press correspondent, in Czechoslovakia. Oatis served more than two years in a secret Czechoslovakian prison where he endured psychological torture as the State Department, the AP, and his family pleaded for his release. His experience illustrates the often overlooked dangers that were faced by American foreign correspondents who covered Eastern Europe following World War II.
The Emergence and Characteristics of Journalists’ Culture: 1880-1940 • John Bender, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lucinda Davenport, Michigan State University, Michael Drager, Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania, and Fred Fedler, University of Central Florida • Culture influences journalists’ attitudes and actions; thus, knowledge of its primary elements can explain and predict journalists’ behavior. Researchers examined autobiographies and biographies of hundreds of journalists, every issue of The Journalist, and 300 articles by and about early reporters, from 1880 to 1940, when newspapers began hiring reporters full-time. Results show that by the 1940s journalists’ basic beliefs about themselves and their work were developed and universal. Once established, journalists’ culture seemed remarkable resilient.
William Worthy: The Man and the Mission • Jinx Broussard and Skye Cooley, Louisiana State University • This article examines the career of William Worthy, an influential but overlooked African-American foreign correspondent, and the oppositional perspectives he presented on issues of international imperialism, communism, equal rights, and freedom of the press from the 1950s through the 1980s. Worthy successfully challenged contemporary notions of the functions of the press through defiance of government ordered travel bans abroad, thereby helping to transform the role of modern foreign correspondence.
A Black Newspaper in Wartime: The Iowa Bystander’s Coverage of the Spanish-American War and World War I • David Bulla, Iowa State University • The Iowa Bystander began as a party newspaper at the end of the nineteenth century. Its editor, John Lay Thompson, was an advocate of the principles of Booker T. Washington. Thompson believed the road to racial equality in the United States was through diligence and achievement, especially in business. Thompson’s newspaper steadfastly supported Republican candidates for office.
Of Mobsters, Molls, and ‘Murder for Love’: The Life of a Chicago ‘Sob Sister’ in the 1920s • Stephen Byers, Marquette University and Genevieve McBride, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee • Two decades before “Dear Abby” or “Ann Landers,” Ione Quinby Griggs began an advice column for the Milwaukee Journal. For 51 years, she wrote six columns a week before retiring at age 94.
Chicago’s “Perfect Baseball Day”: Black Press Coverage of the Negro Leagues’ East-West Classic • Brian Carroll, Berry College • This paper charts and analyzes black press coverage of and involvement in the East-West Classic, an all-star game of professional black baseball players held annually in Chicago, an event that pre-dates major league baseball’s version. Tracking how the press covered the Classic and to what extent it collaborated with Negro league owners to make the summer event a success are useful ways to mark shifts in press coverage of black baseball overall.
Flashes From The Nation: E. L. Godkin’s Reflections on the Cultural Antecedents for American Privacy Law • Erin Coyle, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill • Legal historians trace the right of privacy to Samuel D. Warren and Louis D. Brandeis’s 1890 Harvard Law Review essay that called for judges to develop privacy law in the United States. Most note the attorneys’ disdain for the prying practices of the nineteenth century press as sensation-seeking editors transformed newspaper journalism. Few explore the similarities between that essay and commentary that Edwin Lawrence Godkin, editor of The Nation, published in 1880 and 1890.
Using Student Media to Market Cigarettes on Campus: A Case Study of the Orange and White at the University of Tennessee, 1920-1940 • Elizabeth Crawford, University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh • The purpose of this article is to demonstrate how cigarette advertisers established their presence on campus using advertising in student newspapers as an essential part of their innovative integrated marketing strategy during the 1920s and 1930s. The Orange and White at the University of Tennessee will serve as a case study for this research. The research findings are analyzed using a deductive approach that uses Taylor’s Strategy Wheel.
The Stars and Stripes: A Unique American Newspaper’s Historic Struggle against Military Interference and Control • Cindy Elmore, East Carolina University • The Stars and Stripes is a unique newspaper with a distinctive mission, ownership, and staff of journalists unlike any other in the U.S. Despite its parentage in the U.S. Department of Defense, the newspaper’s directives give it editorial independence. Even so, military commanders and Pentagon overseers have challenged and interfered with those rights from the time of the newspaper’s beginnings during World War I in Europe on up through the early years of the 21st century.
The Idea of the News Report in American Print Culture, 1885-1910 • Kathy Forde and Katie Foss, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities • This paper explores what producers and observers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century American print marketplace understood an appropriate report of the world to be and how contemporaneous social attitudes and cultural values shaped this understanding. The purpose is to understand more fully how, why, and when American journalism adopted the objective, fact-centered news report as the socially preferred and valued form of journalistic expression.
Beyond sombreros, gangs, and aliens: Positive framing of Hispanic immigration in the Garden City (Kan.) Telegram • Michael Fuhlhage, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill • The Garden City Telegram was an early and heretofore unacknowledged leader in contesting negative stereotypes about Hispanics and Hispanic immigration. This study used archive research, interviews of journalists and newsmakers, and textual analysis of news and opinion pieces in the Telegram to examine news production surrounding watershed events in the city’s history of inter-ethnic relations.
“Keep Up the Good Work”: Popular Response to Westbrook Pegler’s Anti-Unionism • Philip Glende, University of Wisconsin-Madison • Newspaper columnist Westbrook Pegler, a writer for Scripps-Howard and the Hearst newspapers from the mid-1930s through the 1950s, often was the target of complaints from labor leaders who insisted the press was trying to undermine the union movement. But to many of his readers, Pegler was a courageous fighter who could use the newspaper to challenge the growing power of organized labor. This paper examines grassroots anti-union themes that emerge in Pegler’s mail from readers.
The Future Will Be Televised: Newspaper Industry Voices and the Rise of Television News • Kristen Heflin, University of Georgia • In the mid-1950s newspapers were the primary source of news for most Americans. By the 1970s television had taken over as the primary source of news. Through a narrative analysis of Nieman Reports and Editor & Publisher from 1954 to 1974, this study examines how newspaper representatives characterized television news as a competitor and how they addressed competition in a time of technological change. This study provides context for today’s news media dealing with convergence technologies.
Portrait of a Pioneer: Local Newspaper Coverage of Ryan White 1985-1990 • Andy Heger, Ohio University • Ryan White was one of the first major advocates of AIDS education and brought a new face to the disease in the 1980s. Ryan contracted the disease through a faulty blood transfusion that was supposed to help treat his hemophilia. After it was discovered that he had the disease, a legal battle ensued over whether or not he should be allowed to attend school.
Surviving Sherman’s torch: Press, public memory and Georgia’s salvation mythology • Janice Hume and Lori Roessner, University of Georgia • General William Tecumseh Sherman’s 1864 “March to the Sea” is seared as if by flame into the collective consciousness of Georgians, yet the publicly-shared memories of this devastating and demoralizing Civil War campaign are complex, myth-laden, and contradictory. Among the most fascinating are memories not of what was destroyed, but what was saved.
Liberty Hyde Bailey, Agricultural Journalism, and the Making of the Moral Landscape • James Kates, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater • Liberty Hyde Bailey (1858-1954) was a prominent horticulturist, professor, rural reformer and author. As an agricultural journalist, he championed the American farmer. His hopes of fostering an autonomous, prosperous rural society would be frustrated by economic upheaval in the farm sector after 1920. But Bailey’s writings, particularly in the areas of nature appreciation and amateur gardening, helped set the stage for the emergence of the U.S. environmental movement after World War II.
Psychological Warfare: Textual-Visual Analysis of Korean War Leaflets • Yeon Kyeong Kim, University of Iowa • Through examination of primary and secondary sources, this study analyzed propaganda war leaflets from the Korean War produced and distributed by the United Nations (UN) forces and the Communist forces to look for strategies or themes used to persuade the enemy soldiers. Textual-visual analysis revealed that UN forces used surrender, nostalgia, and food/war situation themes, while the Communist forces focused on uncertainty and homesickness.
Upton Sinclair and the Los Angeles Times • John Kirch, University of Maryland-College Park • On August 28, 1934, Socialist Upton Sinclair shocked the political world by winning the Democratic nomination for governor of California. His campaign drew attention from across the Depression-weary nation and scared the state’s business establishment into organizing a major media campaign to destroy Sinclair’s chances of victory. This paper analyzes how one player in that campaign, the Los Angeles Times, covered Sinclair’s candidacy. This research concludes that the Times portrayed Sinclair in a negative light.
Cab Rides and Cold War: The New Yorker’s Look at Washington, 1925-1954 • Julie Lane, University of Wisconsin-Madison • The New Yorker carried pieces about Washington, D.C., since the magazine’s inception in 1925. These pieces were mostly light-hearted fare written for the amusement of New York readers. In 1948 the magazine added a regular “Letter from Washington” written by Richard Rovere. This feature tackled more substantial matters of postwar politics and contributed to the perpetuation of the Cold War consensus and to the New Yorker’s reputation as a powerful player in postwar political culture.
Royal Images and Revolutionary Ideals: Loyalist Symbols in Rebel Newspaper Nameplates before American Independence • Autumn Linford, Brigham Young University • Patriot printers of the American Revolution are discussed in most literature as staunch and unfailing in their crusade towards independence. And yet, many of them used pro-British symbols in their nameplates as late as 1775. This paper examines five of these newspapers from a cross section of the American Colonies in attempt to understand why Loyalist engravings were used and what, if anything, this information says about the political standings of colonial printers.
Setting up Standard: How Objectivity Was Exemplified in the New York Times Coverage of the Spanish-American War • Zhaoxi Liu, University of Iowa • The ideal of objectivity became the professional ideology of American journalism after World War I, and The New York Times is a noteworthy figure during the process of the evolution of journalistic objectivity. Using textual analysis method, this paper examines The New York Times’ coverage of the Spanish-American War, and reveals how it adopted the “information model” in the competition with other newspapers, setting up the standard for journalistic objectivity.
The Western Outlook, 1894-1928: A Newspaper “Devoted to the Interests of the Negro on the Pacific Coast” • Kimberley Mangun, University of Utah • The Western Outlook kept African American readers living in San Francisco and other California communities connected and informed for more than three decades. Yet scholars of the black press have overlooked the weekly publication, founded September 1, 1894, and its editors, John Lincoln Derrick and Joseph Smallwood Francis.
Friend, Foe, or Freeloader? Cooperation and Competition Between Newspapers and Radio in the Early 1920s • Randall Patnode, Xavier University • In the 1920s, the newspaper industry had to come to grips with an upstart medium, radio. Initially, newspapers saw natural synergies with radio and became radio’s primary booster. However, the newspaper industry’s enthusiasm for radio quickly peaked, and for the latter half of the Twenties, newspapers resisted the encroachment of broadcasting. This cooperation-competition dialectic predates and provides a pretext for the so-called “press-radio war” of the 1930s, in which newspapers and radio battled over the right to deliver news and sell advertising.
Corporations, Grassroots Organizations, and Public Relations in Newspaper Coverage of the Nestle Boycott • Sheila Peuchaud, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill • This paper examines newspaper coverage of the 1977-1984 boycott against Nestle S.A. That boycott sought to change the company’s infant formula marketing practices that were believed to discourage breastfeeding and increase infant disease and mortality in developing countries. Fifty-four articles from the Boston Globe, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post were analyzed, along with first-person published accounts of the controversy written by key players in the years following the end of the boycott.
‘Regeneración’ and the Spanish-language Anarchist Press in the US: Challenging U.S. Exceptionalism • Illia Rodriquez • The period between 1900-1918 earned its relevance in journalism historiography as one of the most dramatic chapters in the history of censorship of radical ideas and struggle over the meaning of freedom of the press in the United States. In particular, historians have underscored how government repression of anarchist publications placed anarchists at the forefront in the defense of the First Amendment.
Tracking Innovation: A Historical Analysis of Factors Associated with Beef Magazine Start-ups from 1850 to 1990 • Jennifer Scharpe, Iowa State University • This historical study explores forces that led to innovation in agriculture journalism, particularly what caused beef publication start-ups from 1850 to 1990. The research compares start-ups of beef magazines to agriculture publications, beef industry influences, societal and technical trends. This study used the Watson Database of over 9,500 agriculture publications. Findings show that while innovations in the general agriculture press are important, beef publication startups are more influenced by developments in the beef industry.
The Chicago Defender, the Korean War, and the End of Military Segregation • Mark Slagle, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill • The Korean War, which saw the end of racial segregation in the U.S. armed forces, was a period of change for black Americans. This paper examines how the Chicago Defender, one of the nation’s largest and most influential black newspapers, covered the conflict and the beginning of complete integration in the military.
Weekly Sabbath School: The Farm Press as a Pulpit for “Uncle Henry” Wallace’s Progressive Moral Reform and Instruction • Kevin Stoker, Brigham Young University and James Arrington, Pukrufus-Advertise Brand Communicate Design • Henry Wallace founded Wallace’s Farmer in 1895 and transformed farm journalism. Much has been written about Wallace, his son Henry C., and his grandson Henry A., VP under FDR. But little about his “best work” of journalism, “Our Weekly Sabbath School Lesson.”
Claiming Journalistic Truth: Press Guardedness Against Edward L. Bernays and Propaganda as the Minority Voice • Burton St. John, Old Dominion University • The press’s struggle in America to affirm its ability to accurately portray reality has its roots in journalism’s drive to heighten its legitimacy after World War I. Disillusioned with both the war and its own earlier credulity regarding the propaganda of the Committee on Public Information (CPI), the press gradually professionalized during the 1920s. Journalism’s efforts to enhance its credibility focused on developing work routines that allowed it claim it was more accurately reporting the “truth.”
The Forgotten Censorship of Scientific American in 1950 • Wendy Swanberg, University of Wisconsin-Madison • In 1950 the U.S. government destroyed a full issue of Scientific American magazine, to suppress information about the hydrogen bomb. The censorship animated a simmering discourse among scientists, journalists, and government officials about the parameters of scientific and press freedoms in the uncertain peacetime after World War II. In light of Cold War tensions between liberty and security, this essay explores print accounts, congressional testimony, personal interviews, and ASNE records to revive this near-forgotten episode of prior restraint.
“Salesmanship-in-Print” and the Ownership of Consumer Desire: Lessons from Judicious Advertising, 1915-1925 • Rebecca Swenson and John Eighmey, University of Minnesota • This article examines the often-ignored period of transformation within advertising from “salesmanship-in-person” to “salesmanship-in-print.” We illustrate how advertising leaders adapted face-to-face selling techniques to promote their craft within house organ Judicious Advertising from 1915-1925 in ways that made their control over consumer desire seem natural. These constructions shaped advertising’s definition and practice for most of the twentieth century, and this article serves as a basis for reflection about the current transition in advertising to “salesmanship-with-peers.”
Virtual Museums and Digital Archives: Nostalgia for a Digital Future • Christopher Vaughan, Dominican University of California, and Daniel Kim, University of Massachusetts-Amherst • The creation of national digital memory archiving projects in Canada and the United States offers an instructive cautionary tale about the processes employed and the outcomes becoming evident in terms of nationalism, the contours of national identity, questions of minority groups’ belonging, and what events are seen as crucial to the formation, preservation, and challenging of national identity.
Explaining Objectivity as an Occupational Norm: The Role of Education • Tim Vos, University of Missouri • This study highlights how additional theoretical and empirical steps are necessary to account for how objectivity not only emerged but became an occupational norm within the institution of journalism. The study examines one logic of explanation, an ideational argument, as a basis for an exploratory study of how journalism education played a role in bringing about a collective norm.
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