During this course, we have studied several legendary Americans who have enjoyed fluctuating levels of fame.  For various reasons, Harriet Tubman, Davy Crockett, and Sacagawea, among others, have risen and fallen from the spotlight due to media influences and changing contemporary values.  While the bandits in this unit, it could be argued, have enjoyed less mercurial fame, the reasons for their infamy have nonetheless changed over time.

As White indicates, fear played a large part in building the reputations of bandits such as Bonnie and Clyde, John Dillinger, and Jesse Jones.  While this may have been relevant during their heyday, it would have ceased to be a factor once the bandits were killed or apprehended, so cannot be seen as an influence on their current reputations.  Additionally, White outlines three types of supporters who would have played a role in maintaining the outlaws’ reputations: kin supporters, active supporters, and passive supporters. (389) The first two categories, again, are insignificant in modern times, but the still-prevalent recognition of the outlaws suggests that the third category of passive supporters, or at least passive acknowledgers of the bandits, has grown.  This is most likely due to the increased speed and span of modern media, which allows the outlaws’ stories to reach more ears.

Despite these changes in the nature of the criminals’ fame, however, the readings suggest that the actual reasons of their notoriety remain the same.  According to White, “it is said that those who romanticized these characters admired their toughness, loyalty, bravery, honor and daring among other qualities.” (407) These features are just as prevalent in modern hero culture as they were in the past.  So, too, do we prize and obsess over the idea of extreme masculinity (as evidenced by the numerous contemporary letters to the Smithsonian referenced in Gorn’s article), which propelled John Dillinger’s reputation in the past just as it does now.  If the bandits were touted as protesters “against either excessive exploitation from above or against the overturn of traditional norms by modernizing elements in a society,” (White) their status as brave souls running outside of society’s lines would still be appealing to current audiences, since (as I argued in the Crockett unit), there is something inherently appealing in the idea of an adventurous renegade, regardless of the time period.  Additionally, the argument that the media’s influence is one of the major changes in the reasons for the outlaws’ fame, we must remember that journalistic spin is not a recent invention.  As Gorn points out, newspapers contributed greatly to the promotion of Dillinger over the police, just as the movie Bonnie and Clyde helped their reputation and as would any modern source that unfairly romanticized the bandits’ lives.

Therefore, I conclude that while the people and methods behind the bandits’ fame has changed over time, the inherent reasons for the legendary status of such criminals has remained unchanged.

As I mentioned in last week’s post, I recently saw a news segment wherein A Texan religious leader was warning his congregation against the dangers of voting for current Republican candidate Mitt Romney on the grounds that he is a Mormon, and Mormonism is a cult that if given the chance would take over the United States via the White House.  This immediately made me think of the fears that preceded Kennedy’s election as the first Catholic president.  I wanted to see what similarities and differences could be found by comparing the two.  Before continuing, I will mention that I am an atheist, and have no particular preference between Mormonism or Catholicism, so I think I can be somewhat objective in my discussion.

Both Kenned and Romney have addressed their religions publicly, and have both said that they would not allow that aspect of their lives to interfere with their political actions.  In theory, at least, trepidation regarding the two men’s religion is not entirely invalid: according to Catholic tradition, the pope does have authority over other believers, and passages within the Book of Mormon that encourage believers to spread as widely and rapidly as possible.

The two cases differ in that while citizens feared external influence by the Vatican, Mormonism is very much an American religion.  This makes the fears about Romney seem almost counter-intuitive: why do we not champion him as more of a ‘true American?’  This also suggests that much of the opposition facing Romney is derived from doctrinal conflicts with other forms of Christianity, whereas Kennedy’s opposition was concerned with the sovereignty of the United States.  Could we conclude, then, that religious bigotry has increased within the past few decades?  Within Romney’s own party, almost 20% of citizens polled last June said that his Mormonism was a “deal-breaker.”  There is also some difference in the groups that were opposed to the candidates’ religions.  JFK, a democrat, primarily had to convince the opposing party that he was a valid option, while Romney has to convince extremists in his own party of his validity.  According to Jon Krakaur, an author of a book about the Mormon faith, “JFK’s speech was to reassure Americans that he wasn’t a religious fanatic.  Mitt’s was to tell evangelical Christians, ‘I’m a religious fanatic just like you.’”

I’m sorry this investigation hasn’t yielded anything particularly useful–because the content is so contemporary, I have had to rely on internet sources for my information, and I haven’t been able to get much good information from the non-scholarly articles I found detailing Romney’s side of the situation.  So yeah, basically I don’t think this is a great avenue to pursue in our discussion, except maybe as an interesting sidenote.  Hopefully next week I can find stuff that will better help the project!

Sources:

http://catholicism.about.com/b/2011/08/09/mitt-romney-youre-no-john-kennedy.htm

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/why-mitt-romneys-mormon-question-doesnt-matter-as-much-in-2012/2011/10/10/gIQAvgIeaL_blog.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/09/opinion/09dowd.html

I found that John Henry: Steel Drivin Man was the most engaging of our assigned readings thus far.  I enjoyed the chance to read about Nelson’s actual investigative history, since this is most likely what we would do if we continued into the historical field.  I enjoyed his ability to uncover, through extensive examination, the details of “the real John Henry’s” life, including the innovative (at least in the field of the books we’ve read) use of songs as a source.

When I first saw that Nelson would make such frequent use of the songs, I doubted their usefulness as a source.  The name ‘John Henry’ seems common enough that it could be a generic, folk-legend name, with little to no actual backing.  The songs were also questionable because most composers would trade historical accuracy for other factors such as rhythm, rhyme, and tone.  When recorded in writing, much of the songs’ meaning (as contained in the melodies and inflections) can be lost or misinterpreted.  For example, Nelson asserts that modern historians wrongly view Henry as a hero due to contemporary versions of the song‘s “fast and chirpy country” tune, which distorted its substance. (30) In part, these concerns were valid: the songs’ content did become “mangled and transformed” (95) based on the situation.  Hunting for historical fact is proved risky by these many distortions.  Early miners’ chants were meant to keep rhythm, and involved an awareness of death and tragic fate to fit the mold of the miner’s ballad.  Later, when convicts sang of John Henry, they sang of distant lovers to reflect their own situations. (106) He then became a working class hero in the chants of railroad workers. (111) This transformation of Henry’s portrayal from a man who cried when he saw the size of the mountain to a macho, triumphant figure echoes the fallibility of the songs as a source of fact.

While these points are true, I initially failed by mistaking the value of a source for the possible accuracy of a source despite our frequent discussion of the principle in class.  Like the factually dubious work of Weems and Bradford, distortions and exaggerations reveal precious fragments about those who “recycled old songs for new purposes.” (95) As Nelson stated, language has the ability to “go underground…from code to jargon back to code again.” (95) We can learn about the lifestyles, fears, and dreams of the miners, railroad workers, and convicts from the versions of John Henry songs that they sang.  Even apart from this, the songs are not necessarily less factually accurate than other primary sources, as I had assumed.  All sources are flawed, and even well preserved documents may contain errors due to data miscalculations, personal filters, and mis-remembrances.  Additionally, archives can be easily suppressed by those in power, while widespread civic texts like the songs are harder to silence.

Based on my personal views and my reading of Sernett, I do not believe that there is a distinct difference between academic and non-academic history.  I think the congruency of the two, whether intentional or not, is unavoidable, regardless of the medium used to portray the history.  Regardless of their degree of difference, I believe both (if we can, in fact, refer to them as two forms) have a place in society and fill beneficial role in its progression.

I believe that the difference between academic and non-academic history, if it exists, exists only in the intentions and perhaps methodologies behind a particular piece of writing.  An academic historian sets out in search of truth, as Conrad did, because he found previous writings (in this case the Bradford books) “inadequate”  (210).  Non-academic writers, filmmakers, and artists, such as Anne Parrish, “make no claim to historical accuracy” (230), and instead strive for other goals, such as financial profit, moral education, artistic beauty, etc.  By extension, the methodologies behind academic and non-academic writing can be used to define the two: while Conrad “cast a wide net in an effort to gather as much information about Tubman as he could” and took care “to cross-check stories told him” (214), non-academic creators are likely to rely on a more limited range of sources.  For example, Parrish’s focus was literary rather than historical, and as such A Clouded Star perpetrated the flawed  and inaccurate suggestions that slavery was a benign institution, as stated by Ulrich B Philips.  Thus, I do believe that there is a difference between the motives and methods of academic and non-academic history, I do not believe that there is a fundamental difference between the actual products.  It is easy to extrapolate “academic” as meaning “truthful” and “non-academic” as “false,” but this is not necessarily true.  As Sutcliffe indicates, Conrad had significant problems finding reliable information of Tubman despite his best investigative efforts, to the point that two of his sources (Brickler and Northrup) were actively contradicting and accusing each other of lying.  Given that these types of inaccuracies can clearly exist even with the most academic methods and intentions, I believe that there is no guarantee that an “academic” text will differ in truth from a “non-academic” one.  This is especially true in art and film history.  An artist is required, by the nature of the medium, to embellish and edit aspects of reality from her work—especially since Tubman lived long enough ago that we have no photographic evidence of her escapades.  Therefore, any artistic portrayal of her life must be largely interpretive, whether it is intended to resemble reality or not.  Similarly, even documentaries striving for academic accuracy must be filtered through the director and actors who have their own nuanced views of how Tubman’s life would have looked, sounded, and occurred.  For instance, Cecily Tyson “did not remind one viewer of Harriet Tubman” (234), and while this is only a modern spectator’s opinion, it demonstrates how no actress could perfectly embody the actual spirit of a long-deceased person, whether she was trying to for academic purposes or not.  While an academic documentary may therefore have a greater chance of accuracy than a film made largely for dramatic effect, there is no guarantee that they will differ.  Therefore, I believe that there is no “sharp, generalizable difference” between the two types of history—only a spectrum of likelihood of resemblance to reality, which it is impossible for us to truly evaluate anyway.

Even though I would argue that academic and non-academic histories are different degrees on a spectrum, both do have a worthwhile function.  Academic histories exist as a public record, so that some form of truth can be found in the past.  They allow as to view events accurately, so that we can correctly apply the information to modern day life and research.  Non-academic histories, in contrast, can be more inspirational and impactful, as its details can be altered to crete the strongest effect.  Less academic history, such as children’s literature, also generates interest in true history and thus encourages more study in the field.  When I was young, I enjoyed history class because I the non-academic texts I was given were like stories that I could enjoy just like any fiction, yet the implication that the stories had been real gave them more importance, and made me stop and consider them more deeply.  Similarly, my dad once tried to show his favorite movie (about soccer games during World War II) and tried to convince me by repeating that “it’s all true!”  The movie turned out to be very non-academic and fictionalized, but the notion that it might have been historically accurate inspired my dad to be interested in WWII sports, at which point he could progress to academic histories.  Additionally, non-academic texts can fill the same role as fiction, and provide morality tales.  This principle can be seen in the non-academic Disney movie about Davy Crockett, which could teach children how to stand up for their beliefs and be honest without weighing the story down with infinite asterisks and footnotes and various interpretations that academic texts often require.

This week I found a children’s book entitled John F. Kennedy, by Jane Sutcliffe, to add a different perspective to our group project.  I would guess the book is aimed at about 2nd-3rd graders, judging by the simplicity of the language.   Many of the details of JFK’s life are glossed over and idealized to avoid overcomplicating things for kids,  as I expected.  For example, the book gives him primary credit for the civil rights movement by citing one unnamed civil rights leader as saying that “[he] made the difference.  [He] gave us [his] blessing.”  Similarly, the final epilogue lists his accomplishments and ignores his failings–he “made the country safer,” “set the nation on a new road to equal rights,” and “encouraged Americans to aim for the Moon.”  Despite these exaggerations, there are, I was surprised to find, facets that weren’t idealized: the book acknowledged that he was a poor student, was never meant to be a politician in his parents’ eyes, and admitted that “not everyone was happy with the job that Jack was doing.”  I found this more revisionist than other examples of children’s literature, such as Weems’s products.  Most of the information I have found on JFK, in fact, has been fairly well rounded.  It made me wonder if historical literature can be be so one-sided in the modern world, with such a wealth of information and a PC culture of immediate, worldwide critique.  How will this affect the way we view recent heroes, like JFK, versus older heroes, like Washington?

I also noticed a surprisingly  coincidental parallel between the Washington legends and the JFK legends as portrayed in the book.  Sutcliffe tells how Kennedy, in his rascally younger days, planned to prank his school’s dance dance by putting horse manure on the dancefloor.  The principal caught wind of the plan and contacted Kennedy’s father, but rather than reprimand his son for the mischief, Joseph Kennedy Sr commended him for his leadership and ingenuity in masterminding the prank.  Obviously, this corresponds to the cherry tree story, in which a young Washington commits a reprehensible act yet even so displays enough good qualities to be let off the hook.  I think this type of story reoccurs because it allows the legend-makers to present a hero who is relatably, seemingly  imperfect yet still a thoroughly good person.

Apart from the book, this yesterday I also saw part of the local news discussing the upcoming presidential elections while at my grandparents’ house.   The clip caught my eye because it showed a Southern religious official (whose name I didn’t catch) telling his congregation not to vote for Republican candidate Mitt Romney because he is a Mormon, and “Mormonism is a cult.”  This immediately reminded me of the anti-Catholic fears that preceded JFK’s election.  For next week I want to look deeper into these parallels and what they say about how our national views have shifted (or not) over time.

I agree with the statement that “what history and memory share in common is that both merit our mistrust, yet both must nevertheless be nourished.”  Both are clearly fallible, but also often have some truth at their core.  I think that is is best to nourish both, since through comparing and cross-referencing the two we can gain a more solid knowledge of a person or event.  The death of Sacagawea illustrates this: we are given the historical assertion that she died in 1812 by Clark’s diary, yet the memory (created through oral traditions) of Native Americans  asserts that her death occurred at a much later date.  I believe that it is best to approach both of these with skepticism, but also with the view that both might be true.  If we do this, there is a greater chance that we will view the past with accuracy.  Additionally, I think history and memory should be mistrusted because I believe that doubting what is taught and held up as fact is the best way to approach history and learning in general, and if we begin with the knowledge that multiple types of sources are vying for recognition then we will more probably view the world with a skeptic’s eyes.

If Bradford’s books can be called ‘histories’ (as suggested by her gathering of documents and “taking reasonable measures” to make the book “as true to the facts as possible”), they should certainly be mistrusted.  Her writing is clearly influenced by a positive bias towards Tubman, and is haphazard in its coverage by Bradford’s own admission.  The need to mistrust such works is evident in the fact that the figure of Tubman’s 19 trips to the south, which was often cited as historical fact due to the book’s apparent authority, was probably not true.  It dtill, however, became part of the cultural memory, and her image was promoted along these lines.

While I believe that her real-life contributions were moral and important, I don’t think Tubman was so important a figure as to justify the extremely prominent place in the Civil War eras that cultural memory has given her.  Still, I do not think that the cultural memory should be necessarily downgraded.  I think the facts of the past should be generally adhered to, but her grandiose image within cultural memory should also be nourished, since I think the values that can be taught through it are a positive influence on society.

As Peter noted, John F Kennedy is often seem as a political champion for the United States due to his resolving of the Cuban Missile Crisis, which is viewed as one of the most potentially destructive moments in human history. However, he has not always been seen as such a champion, and is even deemed to have had major political failures. What surprised me was that his the practical success of his actions was often disjointed from his popular reputation as determined by the polls (which, granted, is by no means a perfect measure of a nations views).  For example, the high point of his popularity, at 83%, counter-intuitively occurred shortly after the disastrous Bay of Pigs Invasion, which caused thousands of casualties with no gain.  The low point, at 56%, was shortly after the civil rights march on Washington.  We could interpret the polls in numerous ways: perhaps the numbers rose due to increased nationalism due to having Cuba as a common enemy, while the internal division of the nation over the civil rights was more disturbing to citizens than external strife.  Some might say that polling is more or less random, but the validity of the numbers is somewhat substantiated by the logical progression of the late 1962 numbers: lower during the Cuban Missile Crisis due to the enormous tension and higher after its resolution due to the relief.  Another point of interest is that in Texas up until immediately before his assassination, Kennedy’s numbers had diminished enough so that if the election were restaged in that state alone, he would lose his presidency.  An article in the Houston Chronicle on the day of his assassination cited “an adverse reaction to the civil rights program” and general disenchantment with JFK’s administration as the reason for the slipping numbers.  Why, then, have we become enchanted again if up until his death his reputation was in decline?  Is the transformation purely due to his martyr-like death?  Is it nostalgia?  Is it due to better perspective due to the passage of time, or is it due to hindsight informed by more enlightened views of his work in the civil rights movement?  According to a recent Times article, Kennedy is ranked #11 of all the presidents, despite dealing mainly in rhetoric and passing “very little in the way of funding or legislation.”  Does this modern view coincide with past polls and historical events?  How can possible changes be accounted for?

Works Cited:

Conway, Debra. “A Look At JFK’s Popularity Polls.” JFK News and Updates – JFK Lancer Blog. 3 Feb. 2009. Web. 05 Oct. 2011. <http://jfklancernews.blogspot.com/2009/02/look-at-jfks-popularity-polls-by-debra.html>.

Hines, Nico. “The Greatest US Presidents – The Times US Presidential Rankings – Times Online.” The Times | UK News, World News and Opinion. 31 Oct. 2008. Web. 05 Oct. 2011. <http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article5055404.ece>.

Houston Chronicle, “Chronicle Poll Sees Goldwater Over Kennedy” Nov. 22, 1963. “Gallup Poll had indicated that 63 per cent of Americans disapproved of the March [on Washington], and that 38 per cent thought he was pushing too fast on integration.” William F. Buckley Jr., National Review, December 31, 1994.

This week I began reading a few books about the JFK election and the role of Catholicism in it.  I mainly found factual information, which was not as useful to us, but some of the content was relevant to our discussions of legends and their making.  In particular, the book The Religious Factor in the 1960 Election makes the point that we actually know very little about JFK’s catholicism, the particulars of which he kept private.  The fact that he was Catholic was a prominent topic of debate, but the actual details were not known.  Still, historians refer to him as “the most important Catholic in American history.”  This was interesting to me because I, at least, thought of Kennedy and the other Presidents (especially the recent ones) as being known for their individual, well-detailed accomplishments, as opposed to shadowy figures of the past such as Sacagawea who were mainly figureheads for a certain cause.  The book made me wonder wether Kennedy’s legend is more similar to hers or, as I think most people would assume, someone like Jefferson who made actual, praise-worthy contributions to the US.  The idea that his symbolic significance outweighs his practical achievements is supported by the fact that not only Roman Catholics, but many other American minorities such as Jewish and African Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans voted for him and saw him as a hope for a better future.

John Brown’s fabled kiss of the African American child on his way to the gallows is perhaps the most prominent facet of his life, yet many historians believe that the legend was largely fabrication.  As Eby notes, the legend arose from a second-hand newspaper report, and was then publicized through poetry (particularly Wittier’s) and images.  Because the stories had so little fact to begin with, a large portion of their content is artistic embellishment, making these renderings particularly revealing about their creators’ views of Brown, Southerners, and African Americans.

In all of the given images, Brown is portrayed in a positive light as a hero.  In all but one of the images he is shown near a heavy door, usually ajar, reflecting his goal of breaking barriers and his emergence from behind the walls of injustice to take his place bravely at the gallows.  He is pictured above the slave pair, as if (even in abolitionist eyes) he was elevated above them, either by race or by the goodness of his deeds.  This stance also enhances his goodness by showing him deigning, as a white, to physically ‘stoop to their level’ in order to show kindness.  In some images, such as “John Brown—The Martyr,” his elevated stance is also protective, upright, and noble, while “The Last Moments of John Brown” shows him in motion almost as if stumbling, as if the kiss was an impulsive move of kindness.  This view is more humanizing, but less idealizing than the other, stronger portrayals. In Noble’s painting, Brown is looked upon by an adoring wounded man and a white woman, fixing him as a general hero of disadvantaged and luckless people, not exclusively slaves, thus allowing his image to reach a wider audience.  He is further ennobled by “John Brown,” wherein he stands in front of a billowing flag against tyranny.  Additionally, Sic Semper Tyrranis is the state motto of Virginia; the association tied Brown to the state and therefore to patriotism.  He is often shown with a long white beard, almost god-like, and the letters curving against the white flag form a vague halo around his head.

The images also reflect the artists’ views of African Americans and Southerners.  “John Brown—The Martyr” gives the most idealized, very European portrayal of slaves, who resemble the Madonna and Child, thus furthering the abolitionist cause by alluding that divine love exists among slaves.  The woman’s position also resembles the lamenting white women of Renaissance paintings or even the paintings of George Washington’s death.  The woman is given Anglicized features and draped Grecian clothes, both of which indicate that she is genteel and civilized.   These features indicate that she is worthy of Brown’s affections compared to the Southern soldiers and their distorted, unattractive features.  The negative view of Southerners is also evident in “Brown of Ossawatomie,” wherein the figures are dehumanized and represented merely as a mass of weapons (as were the mexicans in Disney’s Crockett movie), highlighting their violent nature (in ironic contrast to Brown’s tied, stooped form and rarely visinle hands, which minimize his violent acts).  The soldiers are also far more dressed up than Brown in “John Brown” and “John Brown—The Martyr,” revealing them to be pretentious, bureaucratic, and set in outdated traditions.  Brown, in contrast, is dressed as the everyman thrust into the hero role, just as the artists hoped that the image’s viewers would be upon being inspired to the same heights.