History 2001 Abstracts
History Divison
The Cold War as front-page news: The Truman Doctrine and the headlines, 1947 • Edward Alwood, Temple University • This paper analyzes how President Harry S Truman’s announcement of the Truman Doctrine translated into headline news at the beginning of the Cold War. It compared Truman’s alarmist rhetoric with newspaper headlines to determine the degree to which coverage of the speech reflected Truman’s characterization of Soviet aggression. Though critics have criticized newspapers during this era for serving as conduits for manipulative politicians, this study found that nearly half of the fourteen newspapers examined used Truman’s secondary theme involving the cost of the program in their headlines rather than the president’s alarmist rhetoric concerning Communist aggression.
Everyone’s Child: The Kathy Fiscus story as a defining event in television news • Terry Anzur, University of Southern California • This article examines the first live television coverage from the scene of a breaking news story to reach an audience of significant size: the 1949 attempted rescue of 3-year-old Kathy Fiscus from an abandoned well near Los Angeles, California. The KTLA-TV telecast is reconstructed through newspaper articles, eyewitness accounts and interviews with surviving participants. This broadcast transformed public perception of commercial television as an essential source of information and defined audience expectations of live TV news.
“Still the Manager… in Letter and Spirit”: Absentee Ownership and the East Oregonian • Jon Arakaki, University of Oregon • This study examines sixty-nine letters written from 1902-1906, between a newspaper owner in Portland, Oregon and his circulation manager in Pendleton Oregon. The letters provide a unique perspective on the business of newspapers: the changing role of a small town newspaper owner to an absentee majority owner who communicated primarily through letters. The narrative in the letters also reflect a newspaper caught in the changing business climate, transforming from small town, frontier newspaper to a product of the modern press.
Fearing witches: Anita Whitney and free speech in the Jazz Age • Diane L. Borden, San Diego State University • Among all the First Amendment cases to be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in the 20th century, only a handful have involved women plaintiffs. At the center of one of the most significant was social activist Anita Whitney, whose conviction for speaking out under California’s anti-communism law was upheld by the Supreme Court in 1927. This paper argues that while communism was the witch that men feared in the early decades of the 20th century, Whitney was the woman they tied to the stake.
The World, The State, and Local Newspapers’ Editorial Reaction to a South Carolina Triple Lynching in 1926 • Kenneth Campbell, University of South Carolina • Press coverage of lynchings during the later half of the 19th century and the early 20th century is a much overlooked topic. This paper examines state and local editorial reaction to how The New York World covered a triple lynching in South Carolina in 1926. Five themes emerge including considerable local resistance to The New York World spotlighting “South Carolina’s shame” while ignoring crime and corruption in its own back yard, as some local papers put it.
Mixing Protest and Accommodation: The Response of Oklahoma’s Black Town Newspaper Editors to Race Relations, 1891-1915 • Mary M. Cronin, Bridgewater State University • Oklahoma’s black editors’ responses to African American settlers’ financial, social, and political conditions demonstrates that they used both vigorous protest and aspects of accommodationist policies. Their editorial philosophies must be evaluated in terms of the context of African American life in the Great Plains. While its true that many of the editors’ publications were booster sheets and there was a strong editorial interest in town site promotion, such promotion was only one factor in the use of both protest and accommodation philosophies. Most of Oklahoma’s black town editors protested vigorously to maintain political and civil rights guaranteed by the U. S. Constitution.
Public School Muckraker of the 1890s: A Reinterpretation of Joseph M. Rice • Doug Cumming, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill • Joseph M. Rice, a pediatrician and school reformer of the 1890s, wrote a nine-part magazine exposé of the mechanical methods of teaching used in urban school systems in 36 cities. He has been treated by education historians as a pioneer of educational measurement, child-centered pedagogy, or administrative efficiency. This paper argues that he should be reconsidered a precursor of the muckrakers and the first modern education reporter.
The Farmer’s Wife: Creating a Sense of Community Among Kansas Women • Amy J. Devault, Kansas State University • The Farmer’s Wife, published in Kansas from 1891 to 1894, promoted the Farmer’s Alliance, Populism, and woman suffrage. Geared to rural/farm women, the publication worked to change the identity of women, raise consciousness concerning the suffrage movement, and encourage men and women to work for the suffrage cause. This study suggests that suffrage rhetoric became more significant and direct over the three years of publication, leading up to a vote on a state constitution suffrage amendment.
A Heated News Debate: Origins of the Hot News Doctrine • Victoria Smith Ekstrand, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill • This paper examines the history of the “hot news doctrine” and its roots in the 1918 Supreme Court case, AP v. INS. It argues that the doctrine, which is still good law, is based on outdated copyright principles and was a calculated move by the Associated Press to protect its investments in news.
“Sidewalks and Rooftops Are Black for Blocks Around” D.L. Moody Evangelizes Gilded Age Brooklyn • Bruce Evenson, DePaul University • This paper examines the historic intersection of mass media and mass revival in modern America through the work of D.L. Moody in Brooklyn during the fall of 1875. Moody had a business man’s understanding of the power of publicity and organization in making a sale. With the help of cooperating newspapers, he mounted civic spectacles of unprecedented proportions across Gilded Age America. This makes Moody’s mission to “the city of churches” a case study in the rise of celebrity evangelism in an age of growing “religious indifference.”
Citizen Hearst vs. Citizen Kane: The Battle Fought Behind the Release of One of the Greatest Cinematic Pictures of All Time • Chris Faidley, Drake University • While “Citizen Kane” has been studied at length, Hearst’s reaction to it has not. Historians have asserted that Hearst opposed release of the film, but none have treated the subject to a close, scholarly study. Here, mentions of the film in Reader’s Guide-indexed magazines, theatrical periodicals, and newspapers of the era are located and used to provide a clear picture of Hearst’s attempts to suppress the film and punish its makers—a media tycoon ruthlessly restricting freedom of expression and setting the agenda not only for his own media but for many others.
Reconnecting With the Body Politic: Toward Disconnecting Muckrakers and Public Journalists • Frank E. Fee Jr., University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill • In the early 1900s, muckrakers unleashed aggressive journalism seeking better government for citizens, and themes inherent in their work and motivation continue to echo in modern journalism. At century’s end, public journalists likewise adopted activist roles to remedy political and social malaise. Although public journalists proclaimed theirs a unique approach to journalism, some scholars link muckraking and public journalism. This paper argues that despite commonalities, the two movements differ in fundamental and largely unexplored ways.
The Jailing of a Journalist: U.S. v. Les Whitten (1973) • Mark Feldstein, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill • An examination of the Nixon Administration’s jailing of a journalist who criticized the government. Although U.S. v. Les Whitten was overshadowed by more famous Watergate court decisions; it was an important press victory at a time when First Amendment rights were under siege – and would eventually affect other landmark media cases. By stopping a particularly egregious government attempt to criminalize investigative reporting, it had a little-examined impact that is arguably still being felt today.
Re-Thinking Canadian Journalism History: The Case of the Stunt Girl • Sandra Gabriele, Concordia University • This paper examines how the Canadian stunt girl came to be in the late l9th century. The first part of the paper examines the current literature on English-language journalism in Canada, raising the problems of gender and journalism. Combining articulation theory and feminist historiography as alternate models, the second half of this paper examines these women’s writings in order to discuss the strategies they were using to contain the risks they posed to understandings of journalism and femininity.
Ruth Hale: From “The Better Newspaperman” to Uncredited Collaborator • Susan Henry, California State University, Northridge • Ruth Hale was a journalist, feminist, activist and unacknowledged collaborator with her husband, Heywood Broun, a prolific writer and extraordinarily popular newspaper columnist in the 1920s and 30s. This paper examines Hale’s successful journalism career before her marriage and its sharp decline afterwards, her essential role in the work for which Broun received sole credit and much acclaim, the couple’s problematic marriage, and her fierce fight for a woman’s right to keep her birth name after she married – even as her contribution to Broun’s work was obscured by his byline.
‘London Calling?’ Covert British Propaganda and News Distribution, 1948-1953 • John Jenks, Dominican University • British government propaganda had a substantial presence around the world in the early Cold War, but few historians have examined how Britain’s main propaganda agency, the Information Research Department, tried to influence the world’s news media. I will show in this paper how this agency packaged hard-to-get facts in ways that were consistently negative to the Soviet Union and its friends • downplaying positive interpretations • then offered that pre-packaged reality to journalists.
Tacking Against the Wind: Placing the Recent Debate Over Corporate Speech In a Dialectic Between Civic Virtue and Commercial Energy • Robert L. Kerr, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill • The debate between public (the Common good) and private (economic) interests – or as it has been conceptualized by intellectual historians, between Civic virtue and commercial energy – has resonated so enduringly in American political discourse since the colonial era that it represents a dialectic vital to understanding the course of U.S. history. This study asserts that dialectic as a framework for placing the issue of government regulation of corporate speech into historical context.
“All for Each and, Each for All” The Woman’s Press Club of Cincinnati, 1888-1988 • Paulette D. Kilmer, University of Toledo • This paper analyzes the rise and fall of the Woman’s Press Club (WPC) of Cincinnati, a blip on the radar screen of eternity that, like a lot of women’s history, usually is forgotten. Although loyalty to the past doomed the WPC, members’ experiences provide an essential link in understanding women’s history. The WPC illustrates how solidarity both breathes life into a group and, when taken too far, slowly suffocates it.
Fact or Friction: The Research Battle behind Advertising’s Creative Revolution, 1958-1972 • Patricia M. Kinneer, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill • This study explores the role of advertising research during the Creative Revolution of the sixties – a time when “creatives” ruled the shop and research departments “were washed to sea.” The ebb and flow between the two has remained a constant theme, with the popularity of one agency arm signaling the decline of the other. Insight is offered to advertising researchers and agency management who may face similar issues during today’s “second Creative Revolution”
A Conspiracy of Silence: Mainstream Sportswriters Provide Aid and Comfort to Professional Baseball’s color Line • Chris Lamb, College of Charleston • This paper argues that American sportswriters participated in a conspiracy of silence on the issue of segregation in baseball. By banning blacks from the Baseball Writers Association, using racist stereotypes when referring to black athletes, and remaining silent when others clamored for integration, the nation’s sportswriters provided aid and comfort to the color line. Sportswriters—like all journalists—need to be judged according to their times. But they also should be held accountable for perpetuating society’s sins. From
“True Temperance” to the Talter Advertising messages of Anheuser-Busch in the early years of Prohibition • Margot Opdyke Lamme, University of Alabama • Using the context of Anheuser-Busch’s pre-Prohibition advertising tradition, this paper examines the messages of the Tatler, a monthly sales promotion magazine Anheuser-Busch published for its field agents between 1919 and 1924. The magazine provided consistency between Anheuser-Busch’s advertising messages and those delivered to consumers via Tatler readers. Furthermore, the author concludes that it served as a transition piece, linking pre-Prohibition messages with Prohibition products while cultivating ideas that later contributed to the company’s marketing mix.
McClureÕs: The Significance of 1906-1912 on Willa Cather and Her Artistic Growth • Pamela C. Laucella, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill • Willa Cather’s journalism has received little scholarly attention, especially works published in McClure’s. While Cather classified her journalistic years as those of experimentation and dismissed works prior to 0 Pioneers! from her canon, she admitted her experiences at McClure’s helped formulate ideas on writing and art. This research strives to place Cather’s works in the historical context of nineteenth and early twentieth century journalism and seeks to elucidate the significance of Cather’s contributions to McClure’s.
Attacking the messenger: The cartoon campaign against Harper’s Weekly in the Election of 1884 • Harlen Makemson, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill • Scholars have asserted that pro-Republican political cartooning was ineffective during the presidential campaign of 1884, but they have not offered convincing evidence. An examination of two pro-Republican comic weeklies – The Judge and Munsey’s Illustrated Weekly – suggests that the problem may have been one of focus. Republican comic weeklies spent almost as much ink discrediting Harper’s Weekly, which had refused to support James Blaine in this campaign, as they did attacking Democratic candidate Grover Cleveland.
The Story of Ruth: The Exodus to Palestine As Told Through the Dispatches of a Jewish-American Journalist • Beverly G. Merrick, New Mexico State University • Ruth Gruber is the journalist who inspired the CBS miniseries Haven, based on a true-life account titled Haven: The Unknown Story of 1,000 World War II Refugees. Gruber also inspired the novel and movie The Exodus, based on another true-life account titled Destination Palestine: The Story of the Haganah Ship Exodus 1947. As a foreign correspondent, Gruber covered stories about displaced populations during post-World War II. She reported on Israel’s early years of development. The research was carried out through a special grant; the paper includes an interview with the aging Gruber.
Suppression of Speech and the Press in the War for Four Freedoms Censorship in Japanese American Assembly Camps During World War II • Takeya Mizuno, Bunkyo University • This article investigates how the United States government conducted censorship of speech and the press in Japanese American “assembly centers” during World War II. Using the archival documents of concerned governmental agencies, this study demonstrates that camp officials strictly prohibited the use of the Japanese language and that they also imposed prior censorship on English-language evacuee newspapers. Within those temporary assembly camps, Japanese American evacuees’ constitutional guarantees of free speech and the press went into void.
Beyond War Stories: Clifford G. Christians’ influence on the teaching of media ethics, 1976-1984 • Lee Anne Peck, Ohio University • Clifford Glenn Christians’ work in the area of media ethics education from 1976 through 1984 has influenced the way media ethics is taught to many college students today. This time period includes, among other accomplishments, Christians’ work on the Hastings Center monograph Teaching Ethics in Journalism Education and his creation in 1983 of the book Media Ethics: Cases and Moral Reasoning, a textbook that is still used today.
A “Legion of Decency” for 1950s TV? The Catholic Morality Code that didn’t happen • Bob Pondillo, Middle Tennessee University • In the mid- 1930s and lasting over three decades the Catholic Legion of Decency had the power to control the content of American movies. With the coming of 1950’s network television, these same moral guardians sought to extend their powers of censorship to TV. By reviewing key documents, this work considers how close the church came to creating a Catholic Morality Code for TV – a Legion of Decency for television – and explains why it didn’t happen.
Should “A Citizen” Have His Say? A historical argument for the publication of unsigned commentary in “Letters to the Editor” forums • Bill Reader, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee • The paper offers a historical argument for newspapers to relax policies against publishing unsigned commentary from the public in “letters to the editor” columns and call-in forums. “Must sign” policies are a product of the middle to late 20th century; for much of the press’s history, anonymous commentary was published frequently and prominently. The author argues that must sign” policies may be antithetical to editors’ goals to provide open forums for all readers.
HARRY S. ASHMORE: ON THE WAY TO EVERYWHERE • Nathania Sawyer, University of Little Rock Arkansas • Harry S. Ashmore, a legendary figure in journalism circles, is best remembered as a Pulitzer-Prize-winning editor and prolific book author. Yet, little detail has been published about his life and career. This historical research paper explores his youth, education, and early career and provides insight into the life of a man who rose above his traditional Southern roots to become a voice of reason during the 1957 desegregation of Little Rock’s Central High School.
Bee So Near Thereto: A History of Toledo Newspaper Co. v. United States • Thomas A. Schwartz, Ohio State University • In the tradition of many such First Amendment case biographies, this paper tells the story of Toledo Newspaper Co. V. United States, a 1918 United States Supreme Court decision that upheld the right of federal courts summarily to punish press critics of the judiciary, a form of seditious libel law. The precedent, although overturned in 1940, suggested a significant gap between press freedom theory and journalism practice during the Progressive period.
A Woman in a Man’s World: An Analysis of “Annie Laurie” As One of America’s First Sports Writers • Mike Sowell, Oklahoma State University • Winifred Black, who wrote for William Randolph Hearst’s San Francisco Examiner under the by-line “Annie Laurie,” infiltrated an all-men’s club in 1892 to become the first woman to cover a prize fight for an American newspaper. This article is an analysis of Black’s coverage of sports for the Examiner, and how it compared to the unique brand of journalism known as “sports writing” that was just coming into being in the 1880s and 1890s.
Rising and shining: Benjamin Day and His New York Sun Before 1836 • Susan Thompson, University of Alabama • From his arrival in New York until the publication of the Moon Hoax in 1835, Benjamin Day worked to establish the New York Sun as the first successful penny daily. This paper examines reasons for Day’s success, editorial and ethical differences of Day and co-owner George Wisner, circumstances surrounding Wisner’s departure and those surrounding the perpetration of Richard A. Locke’s famous Moon Hoax, and the phenomenal growth of the Sun in the early years.
Afflicting the Afflicted: How Eight U.S. Newspaper Editorial Pages Responded to the 1942 Japanese Internment • Brian Thornton, Northern Illinois University • This paper examines how eight daily newspapers in the U.S. responded on their editorial pages – with editorials and letters to the editor – to the imprisonment of some 120,000 Japanese-Americans in 1942. This study focuses on the period of March through June of 1942. Seven West Coast newspapers are studied: the Los Angeles Times, the Sacramento Bee, the San Francisco Chronicle, the San Francisco Examiner, the San Francisco News, the Seattle Post- Intelligencer, and the Seattle Times. The New York Times is also examined.
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