Rock ‘N’ Roll in 1950s: A Review of _All Shook Up_

Although Summer Break is only a few days old, I’ve already begun the arduous task of reading and re-reading books as well as studying for my preliminary exams this fall. I’m going to try to post reviews of some of the books periodically. This week I’m trying to get through a few fun and interesting titles to ease into it and give myself the illusion that I’m doing some pleasure reading. I spent most of today reading Glenn Altschuler’s All Shook Up: How Rock ‘N’ Roll Changed America. It’s a book I saw on several of my colleagues’ reading lists and appeals to the popular bend of both my research and major field.

What I enjoyed most about the book, besides it’s fascinating subject, was Altschuler’s ability to both complicate and add texture to the traditional rock ‘n’ roll narrative. The first half of the book focuses more on the music and musicians touching on subjects such as race and sexuality. The second half looks more at rock ‘n’ roll’s relationship to the music industry and economic forces driving cultural preferences among youth.

In his opening chapter, Altschuler traces the development of rock ‘n’ roll between 1945 and 1955 carefully noting that it is a “social construction not a musical conception”(23). This definition of rock ‘n’ roll frees him to focus a site of contestation, exploration, and, in some cases, amalgamation of differing styles, cultures, and social values.  The next three chapters focus on these contested areas by looking at race, sexuality, and generational differences.

In his discussion of race Altschuler complicates the traditional view that white covers did damage to black artists by noting that in some ways it helped boost them by giving them more airplay and publicity. Similarly, although frequently labeled as “black music” and the catalyst to new segregation laws, rock ‘n’ roll also helped to challenge stereotypes among youth. Despite the prevalence of unfair and shady contracts with African American artists, it also remained a tool of social mobility. He points out that artist of both races often fell victim to predatory labels searching for up-and-comers, although it was more common among blacks. This, of course, is not to downplay the real problems associated with white cooption of rock ‘n’ roll. Indeed, Altschuler continues to argue “rock ‘n’ roll remained a highly visible and contested arena for the struggle over racial identity, and cultural and economic empowerment in the United States” (35).

As with race, sexuality during was also influenced by rock ‘n’ roll during 1950s. Placing the rock ‘n’ roll’s emergence in the context of Alfred Kinsey’s reports on sexual behavior in men and women, Altschuler notes that sexuality was already a heated topic and the focal point of American anxiety. In some ways rock ‘n’ roll exacerbated those feelings with it salacious lyrics, gyrating dancers, and race mixing. At the same time, however, censorship helped allay those fears and pushed rock ‘n’ roll into safer spaces. Indeed, throughout much of his third chapter Altschuler suggests that rock ‘n’ roll became a tool of “containment and control” by allowing American youth to cut loose, dance, and redirecting their sexual tension. Figures like Pat Boone and Dick Clark developed squeaky-clean images and used this cache to publish popular books providing parents and youth advice on topics such as dating and clean living. Both Boone and Clark became safe rock ‘n’ roll symbols that redirected and toned down previously contentious to music to mainstream audiences.

If Clark and Boone made rock ‘n’ roll safe, popular artists, such as Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Little Richard, helped use the newfound safety to push the envelope beyond the strictures imposed by censors and TV networks. While their lyrics continued to be censored, in time the networks relaxed their policies for improved ratings and allowed them on live TV. So strong was the lure that Ed Sullivan, who originally boasted that he would never have Elvis on his show, eventually caved and scheduled for three appearances in 1956. Altschuler suggests that rock ‘n’ roll played an important formative role in foreshadowing the sexual revolution of the 1960s with artists such as Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis Presley serving as key figures in loosening the grips of sexual containment.

In the next chapter, on generational difference, Altschuler again uses Boone and as figures, who sought to “enhance” rock ‘n’ roll’s image and alleviated fears about sexuality and race. Yet through the toning down and expanding of youthful products for adult consumption, the rock ‘n’ roll industry was handing over economic power to teens. Altschuler suggests that rock ‘n’ roll became a key tool in the marketing of products because had remarkable influence over their parents’ product selection and purchases. Added to that was the increased purchasing power of youth themselves in the postwar era. “The relationship between youth and the modern economy changed in the 1950s,” Altschuler writes, “with rock ‘n’ roll often as a leader” (129). Because of this, rock ‘n’ roll symbolized the teetering empire of adult authority in perhaps the largest generational conflict of all.

What was resulted was a battle for culture. The marketing and corporate take over and persuasion of youth culture and their preferences worried many. Investigators explored the rock ‘n’ roll industry seeking to expose a system controlled by corporations. A series of contentious debates followed focusing on licensing profits, corporate control and manipulation of demand, and payola. Spurned on by a battle between the American Society for Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) and Broadcast Music Incorporated (BMI) over music licensing and royalties, and later a quiz show rigging scandal, Congress steadily became more involved. The brunt of their efforts fell on Alan Freed. Widely considered one of the father’s of rock ‘n’ roll, Freed was one of the most influential DJs. He was indicted on charges based on commercial bribes statutes and further investigated by the federal communication commission and the federal trade commission. The investigation ruined Freed’s life. He was quickly fired and found it difficult to find subsequent work. Likewise, he was investigated for tax evasion for failing to report the payola income. Dick Clark, who probably had more extensive connections and financial interests within the rock ‘n’ roll industry outside of his broadcasting gig, eluded investigators by dodging questions and relying on his good-guy image. After all, Clark helped sanitize rock ‘n’ roll while Freed help create it. These investigations hurt and the battle for cultural control rock ‘n’ roll but did not kill it.

Altschuler’s final chapter focuses on the period 1958-1963 and rock ‘n’ roll’s revival. The battle over corporate control hurt the industry, but so too did the decline and retirement of many of its major artists. Some of these artists voluntary existed the industry, but most were forced out through some sort of scandal, such as Jerry Lee Lewis and Chuck Berry. Rock ‘n’ roll continued to change and evolve through this period, however. Motown emerged as an important player as did the Beatles and other British bands who ushered in a new era of rock ‘n’ roll.

The book concludes with a concise essay on Bruce Springsteen as a complex but symbolic figure for rock ‘n’ roll’s transformation over the last quarter of the twentieth-century. Alschuler notes that rock ‘n’ roll continues to be a significant part of youth culture today and carries with it a large amount of influence. Yet, because both it and society have splintered, it is no longer the same unifying force that it once was.

All Shook Up presents an interesting and well-documented view of rock ‘n’ roll during the 1950s. Altschuler presents rock ‘n’ roll as a part of a series of social transformations and controversies at heart of American anxieties during the 1950s. Rock ‘n’ roll interfaced with their concerns and often foreshadowed changes over race, sexuality, consumerism, and corporate control. At the same time, however, rock ‘n’ roll was not all doom and gloom. While Altschuler presents rock ‘n’ roll was a site of negotiation and contestation for a variety of people, he does so without picking winners and losers. The text presents rock ‘n’ roll as a part of a moment actively being socially constructed but never complete. Perhaps this is the best way to understand the 1950s. A period of great anxiety and change regarding civil rights, sexuality, economics and consumerism that gave way to a new generation who did not live through the Depression or fight in the War. Rock ‘n’ roll is indeed a symbol of this generation as they sought to understand themselves and the world around them as well as redefine American in the postwar period.

Overall I really enjoyed the book. Although not present in this review, there were lot of details and anecdotes that I can see myself pulling out and using in lectures. Likewise, I enjoyed the way he used rock ‘n’ roll as a social construction rather than trying to define it as a specific genre. This worked well for him and added to his ability to bend the topic across various issues and controversies.

The book was not without problems though. I felt like the book went downhill in the second half. The chapter on generational difference seemed a bit narrowly focused on economics and consumerism without addressing racial and class differences.  The fifth chapter on the culture wars felt out of place and disconnected from the rest of the work. The ASCAP — BMI debates and the Alan Freed — Dick Clark contrast were interesting and showed government officials responding to controversy and concern, but seemed to abandon some of the earlier themes and could have used more context. Additionally, the final chapter on rock ‘n’ roll’s lull and survival felt more like a conclusion describing the decline of the careers of many of Alschuler’s main character and pointing to new era on the horizon.

The book is at its best when discussion individual and personalities, and providing specific examples of songs and lyrics that sparked controversy. While important, the discussion of more industry specific details slow down the narrative and detract from argument because they’re generally not contextualized with other industries or musical genres. To be sure, many of these criticism are a bit nit-picky  I’ve read a couple pop culture related “industry” histories and generally don’t find them as interesting. I do, however, recognize the difficulty in balancing chapters on government regulation and economics with the fascinating personalities and popular culture creations. And, perhaps, the contrast between the two makes them even more difficult to write.

You Can’t Just Blame It on the Moms

I wrote just over a month ago about the difficulty I was having tying together one of my research papers. The paper explored attempts to create an intercollegiate boxing team at Purdue during the late 1930s and 1940s. Although the Second World War loomed large, the paper is mostly a micro history of debates and activities at Purdue. The research was remarkably fun. There were so many little events that I kept finding in the student newspaper (my main source base) and the more I found the more questions there seemed to be. Because of this, I’ve still been thinking and rethinking through the paper.

Two of the things I struggled with the most while putting together the paper were finding a cohesive thesis and answering the all-important “so-what” question. The end of the semester deadline pressed me a bit to churn out, what I admitted to my advisor at the time I turned it in, an inadequate paper. He’s promised that in the next week or so we’ll sit down and talk it out (something I hadn’t really been able to do before turning it in because both our schedules). But even as I wait for that meeting, I’ve continued to think and am starting to come to a more unified thesis and some solid conclusions. Here are those conclusions.

On the surface the paper is nothing more than “cool story bro” scholarship. It tells the story of an NCAA sport that almost no one knew existed at a school that never offered it as a true varsity sport. Yet, what I am discovering is that Purdue’s unremarkable story — a story of high hopes and unfulfilled potential — is important. The two major works on NCAA boxing focus on the upper echelons of success. E. C. Wallenfeldt’s history of the NCAA Boxing Tournament, which lasted from 1932-1960, focuses exclusively on the creation of the sport at a national level by discussing its most successful boxers and teams. Likewise, Doug Moe’s Lords of the Ring tells the story of the University of Wisconsin boxing team. Wisconsin had the best NCAA boxing team in the sport’s short history and played a key role in its demise. Neither of these books shares the day-to-day, year-to-year struggles of a mediocre program. They fail to provide a full explanation as to why NCAA boxing never materialized across the country and look at the deeper roots of its failure.

As I’ve continued to think over the paper I wrote and the research I have in front of me, I think Purdue’s boxing history helps to tell this story. Boxing at Purdue was remarkably popular. The school fielded an intercollegiate club team in 1942 and 1943 that sent several team members to the NCAA tournament. During World War II, the club teamed with the Navy V-12 and Navy Electricians’ school to offer a series of “Smoker” events several times a year. These events attracted thousands of fans and eventually were broadcasted on local radio. But, after the war, competitive boxing essentially disappeared from the campus.

Although I’ve not been able to find conclusive evident to hint at an absolute or full explanation, it is clear that the departure of the Navy training schools hurt the sport. Particularly because in February 1945 Purdue Athletic Director, Guy “Red” Mackey, expressed support for intercollegiate boxing and hoped to establish a team. Mackey, however, was cautious in his support noting that the creation of a program was hingent on him finding the “right” man. He wanted a college man with no ties to seedier professional boxing. College boxing, as practiced by the top programs in the NCAA, had always been more of a gentleman’s sport that taught toughness and life-long-lessons. The source base makes clear that Mackey never found his man although one may wonder how hard he searched. Purdue had several excellent boxing coaches and interested students throughout the 1940s. College boxing itself was connected to military training from it inception. During the war the Navy and ASTP paid the salary of one of the boxing instructors. Many of the boxers were also connected to the Navy training schools on campus. Hiring a boxing instructor after the war, it would seem, proved more difficult.

While the push for college boxing at Purdue developed independently of the Navy, during the war it became almost in separable from the training schools. Boxing’s zenith at Purdue occurred during World War II. Unfortunately, the NCAA cancelled its boxing tournaments in 1944, ‘45, and ’46 providing little chance for Purdue to establish itself in collegiate circles. The close alliance between boxing and the Navy, in many ways, seems to have doomed the sport. As the war drew to a close and training schools vanished from university campuses, so too did the boxing instructors, and students they brought with them, who were working to establish the sport. Purdue lost all the momentum it had gained toward establishing intercollegiate boxing between 1940 and 1946.

So why is this failure important? First, it shines light on the delicate nature of boxing on college campuses well before 1960 and the sport’s demise. Second, it provides new insight into the relationship between the NCAA sport and the military during World War II. There’s been a lot of talk about football during World War II (in fact, my advisor just wrote a book about it), but others sport, especially boxing, were also important tools for training and morale. Next, I think the story of boxing at Purdue is a part of the larger narrative of NCAA boxing beyond the championship teams and NCAA tournaments. Purdue competed intercollegiate in 1942 and 1943 with schools in Indiana, Kentucky, and Michigan. They tried to continue competing during 1944 but the difficulty in finding opponents and the cancellation of the NCAA boxing tournament prevented them. Although it offers only a brief snapshot of boxing, those two years provide a glimpse into the regional boxing culture and expands the purvey of college boxing beyond the teams who competed at the NCAAs year in and year out.

Perhaps in the end, this is still nothing more than a cool story about a bygone sport. Collegiate boxing didn’t survive at Purdue beyond the 1940s, but it didn’t survive at any of the big programs after 1960. Writing in Sports Illustrated in 1960 as the dominoes were falling and the end of NCAA boxing was in sight, Martin Kane suggested that “You Can Blame It On The Moms.” While he recognized it was more than just them to blame, his narrative didn’t explore the deeper roots of the problem. The story of high hopes and unfulfilled potential of Purdue boxing is one step towards exploring these deeper roots and provides further evidence that you can’t just blame it on the Moms.

A week in New Mexico: Reflections and Ideas from the Bridging Ages Conference

I returned home late Wednesday night from a really fun and engaging conference in New Mexico. It was the annual conference for the Bridging Ages International Organization of Historic Environment Education and Time Travel. The conference included a diverse group of people from 9 countries and 12 different U.S. states. Although my schedule didn’t allow me to stay for the whole week of activities the, conversations, presentations, and people I got to engage with gave me a lot to chew on.

It all started at the Welcome event Monday night. A friend of mine from my MA program, who is now an assistant professor and Director of the Public History program at New Mexico State, introduced me to one of his colleagues, Phil Lewis. Lewis is also a professor at NMSU and serves as the director of their Creative Media Institute. Lately Phil and my buddy, Peter, have been working together on a few projects that combine documentary style videos with history and a person’s “sense of place.” They pioneered and this week launched the first of their creations (which they’ve called place based cinema). The goal of their projects is to take movies/documentaries out of the theater, and history out of the textbooks/museum and into the places where they happened. The movies they create are generally documentary based with reenactments and depictions based on solid historical research. It’s a pretty simple idea that incorporates GPS, podcasts, videos, and other media to help people understand and learn about the places they’re currently in. It’s not too dissimilar from other DH projects and apps being created right now, such as Next Exit History, except they add a video component. (For a better explanation and more info visit their blog)

I really liked the idea and hope to contribute and use it in some of my own work. Phil is a creative guy. He is always experimenting and thinking up new ideas, and even trying to pull seemingly disparate projects and ideas together. This happened during one of our conversations that night. He was telling me about Place Based Media as well as another project he has been working on. It is an interactive ethics training video for the State of New Mexico (as well as 5 other states). In the videos viewers are presented with different situations and able to chose which scene comes next as they work through the video. This reminded me a little bit of video games and virtual reality that I’ve been reading about in a few of my digital humanities and technology classes. Anyhow, over the course of our discussion we got to thinking about what a documentary/movie would like it if it could combine the historical, place-based elements with multiple possibilities. I offered the idea of contingent history as a sort of unifier – that is, the idea that there’s no predetermined outcome and that it is valuable to go back to historical debates and imagine alternate paths/outcomes. So in a contingent place based movie you would be able to explore historical debates and events that offer multiple perspectives. (It goes without saying that all of this is based on strong historical research into the views/voices of different historical actors). Through the process of watching it, you learn about a specific historical moment in a specific historical place that helps you understand how and why this place is the way it is but you also get hints about other ways it could have been.

I really love the idea and really enjoyed talking with Phil. Throughout our conversation I kept thinking of some of the design issues and problems of video games. In a sense, these movies combine a lot of the elements of play and games to movies and history. It was almost like an “ah ha” moment where I was able to flesh out a degree of applicability to so many of my course readings on design, technology, games, and digital humanities.  Indeed, the conference in general sort of took this approach, although not necessarily in obvious ways.

The conference was for the Bridging Ages International Organization of Historic Environmental Education and Time Travel. The event was held at the New Mexico Farm and Ranch Heritage Museum. The Museum had a lot of neat stuff, but perhaps my favorite was the “parade of cattle.” The parade consisted of a museum curator showing us a variety of cattle breeds and telling us about them. They were presented in chronological order based on when they were introduced to New Mexico. I thought it was a novel idea and a good use of livestock as “artifacts” that could be interpreted to help tell the history of New Mexico.

The conference was populated by a bunch of folks from around the world who study and participate in living history and explore ways to get children and classes involved so that they can “time travel” and experience the past. Many of them are museum professionals and public historians. There were sessions that reflected on past “time travels” as well as other which offered tips and suggestions for those creating their own. Panels addressed things such as teaching in historic environment and creating authentic food and costumes.  Although I did not partake in any of the of reenactments or living history exercises, I enjoyed seeing people come together and discuss the best practices of creating and conducting living histories. Although I was somewhat skeptical of the time travel component at first, I started to see them as instances of identity transformation and perhaps even play. Time travel has the potential to help students decenter themselves and view the world from another perspective. This is because students are able to immerse themselves in new environments and play new roles as they “time travel” to explore history. I’m a firm believer in learning-by-doing and see the value in some immersive experiences, but I still don’t know where I stand on the whole time travel thing. I definitely see some cross over and similarities with other pedagogical strategies I‘ve learned, but I don’t know if I’m convinced of its effectiveness quite yet. I would like to have seen some presentations offering a critical pedagogical analysis of this time travel as a distinct teaching style. Even without being convinced, however, it has given me a lot to think about as producer and consumer of history, a public historian, as well as a teacher.

Beyond the conference I got to spend several days with one of my closest academic friends. Because of our closeness and familiarity with each other’s work, our conversations are incisive but encouraging. We talked about his latest research projects, mine, and our mutual interest in public history and the digital humanities. I lamented how I’ve lost touch with some of public history roots while being absorbed in PhD course work. Although my digital humanities field has kept me busy, I feel like I haven’t been reading as many public history books as I should to stay up-to-date. He encouraged me and gave me list of some of the top books to read. I came home motivated and refreshed after only a few days in the New Mexico sun. I have a renewed confidence in myself and my work. I’m also thrilled and excited that his hard is paying off. I love his project and can’t wait until his book comes out (probably not until Spring 2015). As for me, I need to keep on being productive and keep looking for more ways to get more hands on public history and digital humanities.

Research Project Musings: the History of College Boxing at Purdue

Although I have settled on a dissertation topic relating to college football, this semester I am working on a research paper about intercollegiate boxing. It’s a topic that my advisor has encouraged me to pursue as a part of a larger independent study on race and boxing. Although the topic isn’t as sexy as the big name professional boxers that I’ve been reading about, college boxing is fascinating. It flies under most people’s radar. When I went to the University Archives I got a weird look when I mentioned to topic. They had no idea the NCAA ever sponsored the sport.

Before this semester I already knew quite a bit about the topic. I think in some ways that, along with his own curiosity, this is why my advisor asked me to write about it. During my MA I wrote a paper about military, college, and Native American boarding school boxing. After several revisions that cut out most of the college and military aspects, I published that paper last year in a collection on Native American and sports.

In this new project I am committed to remaining focused on the college aspect, but am not quite sure how to frame it. I’ve found some interesting leads but haven’t found a solid source base yet (and yes, it is pretty late in the semester to still be grasping for sources). There are two main sources or at least events/ideas that I want to work the paper around. The first is a boxer named Gus Boughan that placed 2^nd in his weight division at the 1942 NCAA boxing tournament in New Orleans, LA. Bougham was a student at Purdue University and lost to a Wisconsin boxer. Wisconsin had a boxing dynasty during the relatively brief time period that the NCAA sponsored the sport. Indeed, the Wisconsin program has been the focus on a couple of scholarly studies. In fact, Lords of the Ring by Doug Moe traces outlines the program’s entire history. The only other major work on college boxing is The Six-Minute Fraternity by E.C. Wallenfeldt. This book is apparently difficult to find, but I was fortunate enough to have that my library purchased a copy for me.

Anyhow, a quick look in the index for Purdue brings you to a short passage about Boughan and the 1942 NCAA championship bout. I chose Purdue with the hope that we’d have information about him or at least Purdue boxing in our University Archives. Unfortunately this hasn’t been the case so far. But this brings up all sort of new questions about intercollegiate boxing at Purdue. First, how/why did someone compete in the 1942 NCAA Championships if the school did not have a team? Second, since Boughan was representing Purdue, I became curious about what sort of boxing infrastructure the school had. I have read a bit about the various military programs at Purdue in other books, such as the V-5 and V-12 Navy officer training programs. As I learned in my previous work on college boxing, the sport has a close connection with the military.

Beyond these questions, I found another interesting anecdote while searching for “Purdue boxing” in my favorite database, Newspaper Archive. In an article in the February 5, 1945 issue of the Wisconsin State Journal, Purdue Athletic Director Guy “Red” Mackey outlined his desires and apprehensions about potentially starting an intercollegiate boxing team. Mackey felt like intercollegiate boxing was an up and coming sport, but remained nervous about the influence of the professional sport. Indeed, according to Wallenfeldt, this question of professional influence remained a constant concern of everyone involved with college boxing throughout its existence.

In some ways, I think the paper could go one of two ways based on these two events. I could try to find more information surrounding the debates about starting an intercollegiate team and discuss why they eventually decided against it. Or, I could look in the opposite direction and explore the institutional boxing culture at Purdue that pushed Mackey to consider the sport. I’m confident that I can tie both options to a larger cultural view of boxing during this period but maybe not with peer institution examples. Although both options sound quite similar, the difference is largely the type of sources. The athletic department papers are not a part of the Purdue’s University Archives collection. Instead, the athletic department has maintained possession of them without a clear policy on access.

So far I have taken the second approach and looked at the university and local newspapers. I’ve also done some digging in the university annuals. In the annuals, they list information about the intramural programs including the number of participants. My plan is to take a long-range view (15-20 years) and look at the development of boxing in both among both military and regular students. Ideally, I’ll be able to find the beginning of the boxing intramural and trace it through the 1945 Wisconsin State Journal article. This will probably involve mostly mining numbers from the university annuals and seeing what kind of coverage the school newspaper gives it.

Mixed with the intramural culture, I’ve found a couple of articles in the university newspaper about exhibition cards held on campus, called “smokers.” They were popular events. A 1945 article indicates that they featured students from V-12 programs as well as in academic majors pitted against each other in different weight classes. As I continue to dig into the “smokers” it looks as if there were a couple held during 1945 and possibly 1944 too. I haven’t had a chance to look at 1946. It remains to be seen if these were the result of the military’s influence and World War II, or if they continued after the war. I’m also unsure on their connection to the intramural program.

Drawing distinct connections will be difficult, but I think I’ll have enough to paint the picture of an active amateur boxing culture at Purdue that piqued the interest of administrators. It seems rather clear that concerns over professionalism kept it from becoming big time. The key to the success of this paper will be connecting Purdue, and its boxing culture, to other universities. While it’s clear that they did not follow the Wisconsin route, I’m curious if other schools teetered on the verge of going intercollegiate while sponsoring extensive amateur boxing intramurals and exhibition cards. One logical place to look is nearby Notre Dame University. Tentative Google searches have indicated that they did sponsor charity boxing-cards consisting of student combatants as early as the 1920s. The “Bengal Bouts” as they became known, continue to this day and remain a very active part of Notre Dame recreational and student life.

So that’s a glimpse of what I am up to this semester and some of the issues and ideas I am working with. Most of my questions can probably be answered with more time spent reading microfilm and combing the university annuals, but I’m worried that I wont find a smoking gun. I’m resigned to the fact that I probably wont get access to the athletic department papers. The next best option is to see what, if anything, exists regarding the V-12 program and boxing. As I conclude this post I feel like I have a better understanding of what I am doing and where I am going, but I still feel like I lack solid sources. To write this brief overview is one thing, but I want/need to be able to provide more thick-description of the events and the culture. It’s hard to get that from a few newspaper articles and some numbers reported in the university annuals. I guess that’s where the real creativity and writing begins.

THATcampKY

As a part of my semester long exploration of everything DH, I have signed up for THATcampKY. I’ve been trying to get some of my friends and colleagues to come with me, but so far haven’t had much success. It’s being held June 1-2, 2013 at the University of Kentucky. For those of you who are unfamiliar THAT stands for The Humanities and Technology. It is an “unconference” aimed at exploring all sort of humanities and technology issues with its panels and workshops are shaped by the participants. I’ve never attended at THATcamp but have heard rave reviews from several of folks who have. From what I hear, they’re very hands on and are open to people of all skill levels. 

I’ve really enjoyed my time exploring digital humanities issues and literature this semester. My digital history exhibit project was a part of this exploration. Later this summer I hope to offer some more detailed blogs that include some of my reading lists and thoughts about the DH field and my vision/definition/approach to it. I’m still working through a lot of these ideas and haven’t been able to fully articulate them (though I have tried and sounded like an idiot). I think taking the time to think through DH and coming to a unified articulation of my interactions with it will be a worthwhile exercise and I look forward to it and your feedback when I get there. 

Digital History Exhibit Launch

My first attempt at creating digital history “Baker University Track and Field: History & Tradition” is now live. I’ve spent the last several weeks designing and editing content as I digitized my undergraduate thesis in history. Accompanying the exhibit site is a blog where I’ll discuss what I changed from the original undergraduate thesis text, how and why I created pages, choices and debates I had about organization, citations, and links. I also hope to offer my arguments for the collaboration of archives and libraries to create university history and digital history, how projects like this can be utilized in undergraduate and graduate courses, as well as some of the difference I notice in doing digital history versus traditional history. Stay tuned and enjoy the site.

Sports News Round Up #2

I had plans to keep these pieces short, but after finishing writing I think they probably could have been individual posts. Either way, here’s my take on some recent sports news that I’m following.

Big Ten Says No to FCS

Members of the Big Ten athletic conference has to decided to no longer schedule football games against teams in the Football Championship subdivision (FCS, formerly D-IA). The news is obviously driven by self interest, as the league wants it’s teams to increase their strength of schedule to give them a better shot at competing for national championships in the BCS (and future playoff system). Lots of people are commending the league on the decision and hoping that others follow suit. The argument here is for strength of schedule, quality football games every week. No more cupcakes and blowouts in the first three weeks of the season. For fans of competitive football it makes sense and will make the sport more exciting.

At first sight, I like the decision too. But I’m curious what happens to the schools being left out? Most games against FCS school are ‘guarantee’ games where the hosting school (almost always the larger, major conference school) pays the opponents a certain amount of money to come play. These payments are usually in the neighborhood of a half-million dollars. For smaller FCS schools, that’s a lot of money that often makes up a significant amount of their athletic department budget. With decreased budgets those schools must trim the fat. This could be by eliminating sports, cutting back on support staff, etc. They could also ask for more support from students and colleges (after all, very few athletic departments are self-sustaining).

While I am in favor of reigning the in spending (and I think it might help trim budgets of the larger FBS programs), I’m also worried about the increasing disparity between athletic departments. The FCS division only exists for football, but this decision could have ripple effects that impact other sports, particularly women’s sports, but also men’s basketball. Division 1 Men’s basketball competes against everyone. While there are still power conferences, smaller schools (some who don’t even have football programs) frequently make deep tournament runs. Butler University is just one example.

As a football fan I definitely like the Big Ten’s decision, but this is a story I’m going to keep following because it has the potential to have far reaching consequences and impacts on the economic of college sports if other conference follow suit. This decision, teamed with the conference realignment, have the power to dramatically reshape the climate of college athletics over the next couple of decades. It amounts to a chilling effect by the ‘power conferences’ in regards to control and access of money generated from media contracts for football. It’ll also be interesting to see how it affects basketball, women’s sports, etc.

Olympics Drop Wrestling

Beginning in 2020, wrestling will no longer be an Olympic sport, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) recently announced. It came as a shock to many. The decision affects both men’s and women’s wrestling. Although wrestling isn’t necessarily the most popular sport, it is one of the five original Olympic sports. Yet, popularity proved to be the deciding factor, according to the IOC.

The decision is interesting on a variety of fronts. Obviously the sports tradition and connection with the Olympic Games makes it curious. So does the rationale of popularity. According to a recent article in the Chicago Tribune, wrestling it the fifth most practiced sport in American high schools. The article claims that participation by boys and girls is at a historic high, with a dozen of NCAA Division II and III schools recently adding teams. To be sure, a board member of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame wrote the article and it focuses entirely on the United States. I’m unsure if the sport shares the same international clout.

An article in the Times of India notes that female participation, struggles with doping scandals, and it’s failure to adjust to the television age have affected the sport and likely contributed to the IOC’s decision. At the same time, the article described wrestling in India as having “an exalted status” and suggested India might be one of the most affected countries by the decision.

The international ramifications will be interesting to follow, but I’m most interested on the impact of wrestling in the United States. Unlike other sports, the Olympics Games are the pinnacle for wrestlers. While it is true the sport has recently been growing (my alma mater and several of its conference peers have added teams in the last 5 years at the NAIA level), there is still the stigma of Title IX. Since 1972 over 250 college wrestling programs have been cut. Cutting has been the primary response rather than creating women’s programs. The NCAA, NAIA, and NCJAA do not currently sanction women’s wrestling. According to the Women’s College Wrestling Association (who does sanction the sport), there are only 22 varsity programs in the United States. Likewise, only three states offer championships in the sport at the high school level. Yet, a 2007 New York Times article reported 5,000 girls participate in the sport annually, a fivefold increase from a decade earlier. Women’s wrestling was introduced to the Olympics in 2004, and while not all of these participants have Olympic dreams, it’s likely a contributing factor for a few. I’m curious to see what affect the cut has on both men’s and women’s programs. Without international Olympic competition, will schools invest less in wrestling programs? How will this affect the momentum of the women’s wrestling movement (both in the U.S. and abroad)?

I should note that dropping sports from the Olympics is not all that uncommon. Baseball and softball were dropped in 2005 (there were contested in 2008 but not 2012 and they seem to be doing fine in the U.S. without IOC sanctioning. Baseball and softball, however, are on much firmer ground in the college and high school sports landscape. Wrestling had been under attack for many years following Title IX, and the movement to add women’s programs is still quite young. I think in some cases the panic here is warranted with wrestling fans. As I stated above, the Olympics are one of wrestling’s only major international events. The next move is to petition for reinstatement in time for the 2020 game and work on strengthening the sports base and popularity, both in the U.S. and worldwide.

One issue I wanted to talk about here but ran out of time/room is the notion of sanctioning power. Much of what I’ve talked here revolves around the power to legitimatize a sport. Sports historian Allen Guttmann outlined seven characteristics of modern sports: 1) secularism 2) equality of opportunity to compete and in the conditions of competition 3) specialization of roles 4) rationalization 5) bureaucratic organization 6) quantification 7) the quest for records. Wrestling generally fits all of these criteria. The IOC is also a part of this distinction since it is a sports bureaucracy. The IOC, however, rationalized its decision based on popularity. Guttmann deals with popularity separately. It is not essential for spectators to be present for a sport to be considered modern, he explains. I would challenge Guttmann and say that in today’s world, spectators and popularity are increasingly more important and that they do characterize “modern” sports because spectators and popularity are required to generate revenue, which is required by most sports for equipment, referees, etc.

Without being too cynical here, money makes the world go round and it’s especially important in the world of sports. Wrestling, for example, requires expensive mats, special shoes, headgear, kneepads, uniforms, warm ups, clocks, scales, gymnasiums, as well as, coaches, referees, medical trainers, etc. While most of this is start up costs, there’s also ongoing expenses.  As the Time of India noted, wrestling has been slow to ‘modernize’ in terms of adapting to television. This is bad for the sport, in the Olympics eyes, because television is a large part of how the IOC makes money. Likewise, corporate sponsorships are often tied to television exposure, whether via commercial advertisements aired during specific events or signs posted in and around the competition area.

The Olympic also aim to make money. While it’s somewhat unusual for the host city to make much, the IOC and various national Olympic committees (which are generally non-profits) do make money. Being popular is an important part of making money. An article in yesterday’s New York Times sums up the decision fairly concisely: “A shift in priority has occurred in an era of outsize television contracts as Olympic officials seek to add more telegenic sports and more widely visible stars in hopes of maintaining a sense of relevance, modernity and youthfulness in the Winter and the Summer Games.”  The irony in this approach is that wrestling does appear to be growing, particularly with women. Much of that growth has come because of its Olympic status and the increased emphasis and funding and associated with it.

Smithsonian Hosts Native American Mascot Symposium

The National Museum of the American Indian held a symposium about Native American mascots on February 7^th in Washington, D.C. As one might expect, the hometown Washington Redskins were one of the most criticized teams at the event. The event had moderate media coverage in sports world. Dave Zirin, sports editor of The Nation, was one of the more vocal writers. He seems to have made it his mission to convince the Washington Redskins to change their mascot this off-season. Zirin is not alone is in insistence for a change. In his article, entitled “Redskins: The Clock Is Now Ticking on Changing the Name,” implies a real need for change based on the popularity of black quarterback Robert Griffin III and the team’s recent success. He suggests that limelight thrust on them by the just completed season are big reasons for the change. While I admire his tenacity and agree that the name should be changed, his argument ignores the larger struggle.

The Native American mascot issue has been an ongoing battle for several decades. Washington has been in playoffs several times during this fight. And RGIII, for all his popularity, isn’t going to dramatically alter the fight. This, of course, does not mean we should give up hope. Zirin is hopeful that RGIII himself might join the clause, but I have my doubts about that too. I do, however, think the continued pressure will help and I applaud Zirin for keeping the fight alive.

ESPN.com had a similar opinion piece about the mascot. Like Zirin, the author explained the appalling racial history of the teams founder and former owner George Preston Marshall. He was staunch segregationist and was the last owner in the NFL to integrate his team. As the story goes, Marshall was forced to integrate by NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle to appease TV executives and President John F. Kenedy because they were in violation of federal law since their stadium was built on federal land.

The team’s current owner, Dan Snyder, has no connections to Marshall but remains committed to the team name. Although the team declined an invitation to talk about their choice to use the mascot at the Smithsonian event, their spokespeople told various media outlets that they believe the mascot serves as a tribute to Native American warriors and is “derived from the Native American tradition for warriors to daub their bodies with red clay before battle.” This deviates from other explanations the team has given in the past, such as the mascot is used to honor former coach and Carlisle player William “Lone Star” Dietz (his claims to a Native American heritage became controversial and remain unverified. Dietz’ biographer argues that prejudice against Native Americans was so prevalent at that time that it makes little since for me to make it up since claiming Native American ancestry would have made Dietz’s life harder, not easier). He coached the team with moderate success in 1933 and 1934 while they were in Boston.

If we assume Dietz was, in fact, Native America, he is a figure worthy of honor. He was one of a few former Carlisle players that went on to a distinguished coaching careers Perhaps most famous for leading Washington State to the 1916 Rose Bowl, Dietz coached a handful of other college teams in addition to serving as a one of Pop Warner’s assistant coaches at Carlisle, Stanford, and Temple. In 2012, he was posthumously inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame. Interesting, he is not a member of Washington’s “Ring of Honor.” Of course, Dietz ended his time coaching the Boston Braves with a .500 record. Perhaps this is why Washington has changed its story about the mascot name, or maybe it’s why they chose to honor in him in such a derogatory way?

There is no honor in the term Redskin. None. Mascots are inherently representations. They’re built off of stereotypes. They encompass expectations of a certain behaviors and characteristics, whether physical or mental. People name their teams after bulldogs because they are tenacious, they’re bold and stubborn, they’re strong, they have really strong jaws that grip and tear their opponents easily. Although today bulldogs are kept mostly as pets, one hundred to one-hundred-and-fifty years ago they were central parts of urban bachelor and tavern culture. Native American mascots, on the other hand, build off of a long history of conflict between them and conquering and colonizing American settlers, soldiers, and missionaries. They represent complex ideas about what it means to be Native American, and what being Native American means to society. Some pretend to be proud and praising of qualities such as bravery, leadership, and nobility (e.g. the Braves and Chiefs). Others focus on less desirable qualities. Before they changed their mascot, the Texas Tech Red Raiders symbolized Native Americans raiding white settlements that were infringing on Native lands. Looking at the history of the words and their uses implicates both sets of mascots. The terms Brave and Chief, despite their modern justifications, are not innocent. Indeed, they were both once considered racial slurs.

There is a lively collection of scholarship dealing with Native American in sports and mascots. Scholars have explored the issue for a variety of angles and published their findings in numerous articles and books. I explored a lot of the controversy while writing my master’s on Jim Thorpe and Billy Mills. My argument picks up during the progressive era and connects reform efforts, boarding schools, Wild West Shows, and famous athletes as central components of contested representations of Indianness that informed and, at times, reified the expectations of broader society. To be sure, like most social-cultural constructions, mascots are an extremely messy issue.

This messiness, however, is what’s often lost on the message board commenter. Commenters are rarely the target audience of scholars. Few, if any, would spend the time to sit down and read Team Spirits: The Native American Mascot Controversy, one of the best introductions and overviews of the issue, for example. Yet, it’s hard to truly convey just how offense Native American mascots without some of the big picture discussion. The best that most newspaper columnist can do is offer the parallel racial slurs used against African Americans, but even this doesn’t always resonate.

Because of this problem in conveying the messiness and the history these representations and term, I’m glad the Smithsonian held its event. The more we talk about these issues and the more pressure we put on teams, the more likely we are to build a cohesive base that can enact change. And change is happening.

In the last couple of years there have been some real wins in the fight against Native American mascots and sports imagery. In June, after decades of fighting, 68% of North Dakota voters decided to retire the University of North Dakota’s “Fighting Sioux” mascot in a primary election. This had long been one of the most contentious fights, one that saw a donor threaten to withdraw a $100 million donation if the mascot was changed. The same donor required the school to engrave the old mascot throughout athletic projects he funded to make it more difficult to change. At the same time, however, the Big Sky conference threatened to ban the University of North Dakota from its conference if they did not change their name. At the high school level, the states of Oregon and Wisconsin banned the use of Native American mascots in their schools in the past couple of years as well.

These successes indicate that change is possible, but requires relentless pressure and hard work. The Redskins are an important target. They’re not only one of the most offensive professional sports mascots, but they’re also out of the reach of politics and judicial review. All of the recent victories have come from state agencies and votes. Changing Washington’s team name will illustrate a real cultural shift and capstone decades of work. I hope Zirin is right. I hope the clock it ticking on the name change.