History 2006 Abstracts
History Division
Pete Rozelle: How The Commissioner Used Public Relations To Promote The NFL • William B. Anderson, University of Scranton • This study on former National Football League Commissioner Pete Rozelle presents a unique opportunity to examine how an organizational leader with PR work experience managed a business operation. Rozelle used his public relations background to help make the NFL America’s number one sport (in terms of revenue and in fan polling). Rozelle’s work was analyzed with a methodology developed by Irwin, Zwick & Sutton (1999), which offered a multidimensional approach to help measure organizational performance.
Postal System Development During the Civil War • John Anderson, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign • During the Civil War, postal system development in the United States and Confederate States of America took radically divergent paths. Whereas the U.S. subsidized its postal system, the Confederacy required self-sufficiency. While it remarkably achieved this goal, it did so at the cost of service and public access. To the contrary, the U.S. Post Office implemented several service innovations during wartime. Post-war the U.S. Post Office Department was an active participant in the reunification process.
A Sales Floor in the Sky: Department Store Radio Stations, 1920-1922 • Noah Arceneaux, University of Georgia • Following the creation of the first radio stations in 1920, the number of stations exploded in the following two years. Department stores operated 30 of these early stations and used them to stimulate the sale of receivers, to advertise the store, and to promote specific lines of merchandise. This research analyzes the overlooked phenomenon of department store radio stations as precursors to the commercial model of broadcasting that would eventually dominate the industry.
“Sorry, Cable Trouble”: Kenneth Cox, Lee Loevinger and FCC Reforms in the 1960s • John Armstrong, Furman University • The mid-1960s were a period of ferment and conflict on the Federal Communications Commission. Key issues for the FCC included economic protection for broadcasters against cable television, programming requirements for television licensees, and the fate of the racist television station WLBT. Kenneth Cox and Lee Loevinger were important figures in two conflicting factions of the FCC.
Mediocrity Under Pressure: Chicago Defender coverage of the integration professional baseball in Chicago • Brian Carroll, Berry College • This paper examines the Chicago Cubs’ integration as it was chronicled and contextualized by the Chicago Defender. The Cubs’ additions of Ernie Banks and Gene Baker late in 1953 are placed into the black community’s social and cultural contexts of the time. Examined are the loyalties of the city’s South Side, cleavages that were already divided among the White Sox, which integrated several seasons prior, and the Negro American League, which was struggling to survive.
You have the right to remain silent or you may choose to put your words in print: The Rikers Review and the prison press as advocacy journalism • Kalen M.A. Churcher, The Pennsylvania State University • Prison journalism has been a part of U.S. history since 1800, yet the subgenre has become nearly extinct. Through a close reading of three of the earliest years (1937-1939) of the Rikers Review, this research paper describes how prison reform advocacy was woven into prison journalism much like black, abolitionist and suffragist newspapers presented their own constituencies’ crusades. Though clearly understudied, prison journalism warrants the same scholarly recognition afforded to other advocacy media.
Personal journalism before blogs (anc! before ‘zines): The “amateur press” or “amateur journalism” since 1786 • Dane S. Claussen, Point Park University • After introducing blogging and the “amateur press” movement (primarily late 1860s onward), including listing “amateur journalists” who went on to become prominent newspaper editors and publishers, this paper compares and contrasts today’s blogging with yesteryear’s amateur press movement. Similarities include heavy preponderance of confident, even egotistical, youth; usually short durations; small audiences; financial investment but little or no return; inexpensive technological advances; society’s influences on content; formation of journalists’ community; and no quality control.
Gilles Caron’s coverage of the May 1968 rebellion • Claude Cookman, Indiana University • This article analyzes photojournalist Gilles Caron’s coverage of the May 1968 rebellion in Paris. It argues that Caron photographed the events with great thoroughness, covering both the student militants and the forces of order during the nightly skirmishes; documenting numerous demonstrations, rallies, political meetings and other major events, and portraying the major student leaders and politicians. It maintains Caron produced several images that went beyond daily news photographs to become lasting symbols of the rebellion.
Study Buddies, Matchmakers, and Career Advisors: Cigarette Promotion in the University of Tennessee Newspaper The Orange and White 1926-1963 • Elizabeth Crisp Crawford, University of Tennessee Knoxville • From the 1920s to the 1960s cigarette companies were lucrative campus newspaper advertising sponsors. Advertisements played an important role in creating and reinforcing a cigarette smoking culture. The goal of this research will be to show how cigarette advertisers refined their product’s image to appeal to college students. The campus newspaper of The University of Tennessee, The Orange and White, wil1 serve as a case history to demonstrate how this goal was achieved.
Extra! Chicago Defender Race Record Ads Show South From Afar • Mark K. Dolan, University of Mississippi • The present study examines the South in the narratives, illustrations and song titles of 148 blues and jazz record ads culled from the hundreds appearing in the Chicago Defender between 1920 and 1929. This new, emotionally-charged look at the South through its blues and jazz artists as reflected in the ads clashed with the paper’s prevailing cultural conservatism, the resulting tension is the focus of this study.
“A More Beautiful, More Perfect Lily.” Canadian Women’s Education and Work in the Christian Reform Journalism of Agnes Maule Machar, 1870’s-1890’s • Barbara M. Freeman, Carleton University • Agnes Maule Machar of Kingston, Ontario, was an ardent Canadian nationalist, a Christian social reformer and an early women’s movement activist who believed education was the key to challenging work for women. From the 1870’s to the 1890’s, Machar presented her ideas in several intellectual magazines. Her journalism was shaped by her maternal feminism and Christian social reform activism, the prevailing cultural discourse about women’s rights, and growing commercial pressures in the Canadian magazine industry.
Out of the Darkness, A Hero Emerges: Press Coverage of Coal Mining Disasters • Karen M. Hilyard, University of Georgia • Coal miners are among the most enduring of America’s proletarian heroes, evoking anachronistic imagery and sentimentality. This study seeks to add to the understanding of how heroes are created and covered by journalists, by analyzing media representations of the coal miner during a string of December 1907 mining disasters, as covered by The Philadelphia Inquirer, one of the era’s most prominent urban mass circulation newspapers and the major daily of the coal mining regions.
“Darling Jerry, Darling Mabel, Darling Moran: Ernie Pyle and the Women Behind Him” • Owen V. Johnson, Indiana University • This paper, based on much previously private correspondence, examines the relationship of journalistic icon Ernie Pyle with three women with whom he was intimate and their apparent impact on his journalistic performance. The first was his wife Jerry who nursed him through his days on the road across the United States. As she sank deeper and deeper into manic depression, alcoholism and drug addiction, he was attracted to other women who might take Jerry’s place.
The Lost World of Richard Rovere and Joe McCarthy • Julie B. Lane, University of Wisconsin-Madison • Richard Rovere, the longtime New Yorker correspondent, was an early critic of Senator Joe McCarthy. Reactions to Rovere’s biography of the senator overlook his grudging appreciation of McCarthy’s abilities and obscure his contribution to the journalistic response to McCarthy. Rovere saw McCarthy as a demagogue who dominated U.S. politics and America’s global reputation. This examination of Rovere’s writings adds to our understanding of journalism’s response to McCarthy and to the complexity of the senator’s legacy.
“As citizens of Portland we must protest: Beatrice Morrow Cannady and African American Response to D.W. Griffith’s “Masterpiece,” The Birth of a Nation • Kimberley Mangun, University of Utah • Although some have studied NAACP attempts to bar The Birth of a Nation, journalism historians have overlooked the challenges facing isolated editors. This original study depicts editor Beatrice Cannady’s advocacy on behalf of Black Oregonians. Using primary documents including articles and editorials in the Advocate—the newspaper she published until 1936—film reviews and news stories in the white press, and NAACP documents, this study re-creates a contentious period and illustrates the paper’s importance as a mouthpiece.
Deadly Inferno(s): MOVE as a category for analyzing crisis? • Nicole Maurantonio, University of Pennsylvania • This paper explores how news organizations across the United States chose to present the analogy between the crises in Philadelphia and Waco through an examination of print coverage of the Branch Davidian compound’s destruction. Drawing upon the 1985 bombing of the MOVE house as a similar incident within recent history, journalists attempted to situate the actions taken in Waco within a context accessible to the public.
Meet Pretty Kitty Kelly: Marion Keisker’s Negotiation of Gender in 1940s Memphis Radio • Melissa Meade, Colby-Sawyer College • This paper explores the career of Marion Keisker, a frequently overlooked figure in the history of radio. In the 1940s Keisker developed the “Kitty Kelly” persona on WRECAM, and became well-known in the Memphis community. This study analyzes one particularly illuminating interview, in which Keisker negotiates and challenges inherited gender roles, paving the way for a later career working in the second-wave U.S. women’s rights movement.
A Failed Crusade: Newsroom Integration and the Tokenization of John Sengstacke • Gwyneth Mellinger, Baker University • In 1972 a small group of editors urged the American Society of Newspaper Editors to take up the cause of newsroom integration, but to no avail. Through analysis of primary materials, this paper traces the ways in which the editors’ attempt to enact social justice was repeatedly subverted, often by their own actions. Central to this argument is a discussion of the ASNE’s tokenization of John Sengstacke, the organization’s first black member.
Isaac D. White, Yellow Journalism and the Birth of Media Accountability • Neil Nemeth, Purdue University • This paper examines the role of the New York World’s Isaac D. White (1864-1943) as a major crime reporter, legal expert and the first news ombudsman. After a reporting career of 25 years, White became an expert in media law and the first news ombudsman as head of the World’s Bureau of Accuracy and Fair Play from 1913 to 1931. The paper argues that White was a significant figure in the development of media accountability.
Forgotten and Ignored: Mississippi Newspaper Coverage of Clyde Kennard and his efforts to integrate Mississippi Southern College • Jason A. Peterson, University of Southern Mississippi • Clyde Kennard unsuccessfully tried to integrate Mississippi Southern College in 1959. For his efforts, he was charged with a number of questionable crimes, culminating in a seven-year burglary conviction. This paper argues that the majority of print media outlets in Mississippi failed in their journalistic duties of presenting an unbiased and accurate depiction of the Kennard story.
Tarred, Feathered, and Speaking to the Nation: Niles’ Register and Political Thought, 1829-1849 • Erika J. Pribanic-Smith, University of Alabama • The author conducted a Web-based content analysis to determine Niles’ Register’s position during the Nullification and Wilmot Proviso controversies, if there was a difference between the two, and how the Register compared with political sentiment. The Register reflected Niles’ support of the tariff and opposition to nullification, whereas his successors remained neutral on the Proviso. Other changes during the Proviso included different source materials, blander content, and fewer editorials. The Register reflected the political atmosphere.
Organizing Resistance: The Use of Public Relations by the Citizens’ Councils in Mississippi, 1954-1964 • Laura Richardson Walton, Mississippi State University • During the decade that followed the Brown decision, white Mississippians engaged in many activities to avoid and even nullify the Supreme Court’s edict to integrate the state’s public school systems. In coordinating efforts to protect the “Southern way of life,” the Citizens’ Councils engaged in public relations campaigns that became the key component of the state’s battle to preserve its lily-white school systems.
Hero building in Sporting Life, an early baseball journal • Lori Amber Roessner, University of Georgia • By the turn of the twentieth century, organized baseball had emerged as America’s national pastime with larger-than-life heroes enshrined in mythic lore. Early sportswriters engaged in a symbiotic relationship with organized baseball, promoting the sport, its leaders and players, yet all the while profiting from the game’s success. This paper examines how early sports journalists crafted sports heroes through primitive and advanced means by analyzing Sporting Life, one of the earliest sports journals, from 1912-17.
Hayes, Herr and Sack: Esquire Goes to Vietnam • Keith Saliba, University of Florida • This paper examines the work of Harold Hayes, Michael Herr and John Sack, and what their loose collaboration while serving as editor and writers respectively for Esquire magazine during the 1960s contributed to the journalistic coverage of America’s involvement in Vietnam. Using techniques generally ascribed to literary journalism – and with Hayes’ blessing – Herr and Sack went beyond traditional reporting to delve deeper and reveal a truer picture of the conflict and its human costs.
Rethinking Rights: Press Coverage of Orders Rescinding the World War II Evacuation of Japanese-Americans • Glenn W. Scott, Elon University • California newspapers supported the War Department’s order sending Japanese Americans into internment camps in the months following the attack on Pearl Harbor. When federal decrees were rescinded in late 1944, papers began to reconsider their coverage and depictions of Japanese-Americans returning to the West Coast. This study finds the San Francisco Chronicle, influenced by retired editor Chester H. Rowell, was more willing to revise its narrative than the other major paper, the Los Angeles Times.
Carrying the Banner: The Portrayal of the American Newsboy Myth in the Disney Musical Newsies • Stephen Siff, Ohio University • The Disney musical Newsies depicts a previously forgotten moment in journalism history, when newsboys in New York shut down two of the largest newspapers in the country and sparked what nearly became a city-wide children’s general strike. This paper examines the musical’s fidelity to period accounts of newsboys and 1899 New York newsboy strike and assesses it as a work of history.
Exiled from Italy: The Golden Voice of Italy’s Propaganda Broadcasts (1932-1937) • Stacy Spaulding, Columbia Union College • This paper examines the Italian broadcasting career of Lisa Sergio, a propaganda broadcaster in Rome from 1932 to 1937. Did Sergio, as she claimed in her autobiographical writings, immigrate to the United States because she became an antifascist while working for Italian dictator Benito Mussolini? Or, as FBI informants believed, was Sergio forced into exile because she became too vocal about affairs with high fascist officials?
The Journalist and the Jurist: Twenty Years of Correspondence Between Two Political Adversaries • Kevin Stoker, Brigham Young University • In the early days of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, a progressive Harvard Law professor and a conservative New York editorial page editor began a correspondence that lasted twenty years. The Democratic jurist and future Supreme Court Justice, Felix Frankfurter, had helped found the American Civil Liberties Union and the New Republic. His Republican journalistic cohort, Geoffrey Parsons, wrote for the New Deal’s leading opponent, the New York Herald Tribune.
A Crucible For the First Amendment: The Hollywood Ten in the Autumn of 1947 • Wendy E. Swanberg, University of Wisconsin-Madison • This paper explores the First Amendment implications of the Hollywood blacklists. In November 1947, ten screenwriters were charged with contempt of Congress for refusing to answer questions before the House Committee on Un-American Activities. The “Hollywood Ten” fought the charges with a novel First Amendment argument, but ultimately lost when the movie industry refused to support them. The screenwriters’ constitutional right to silence ran headlong into the movie industry’s right to be free of government censorship.
A Cultural Explanation for Early Political Broadcast Policy: Values of Partisanship and Neutrality • Timothy P. Vos, Seton Hall University • This paper offers a brief description of the political broadcasting policy that emerged during the 1920s and early 1930s. The focus, however, is on constructing a cultural explanation for this particular historical outcome. What were the cultural values, attitudes, and ideas that emerged in debate surrounding political broadcasting policy? By theorizing culture as a toolkit, two specific cultural values, partisanship and neutrality, were explored for their role in bounding the agency of various historical actors.
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